OUR PHILOSOPHY
and working ethics
PLANT MAGIC FOR HEALING JUSTICE...
Plant Magic: the power to create change by working with plants.
A form of Magic, often involving alchemy, ritual and deep relationships with plant communities.
Healing Justice: is both a term* and movement, that aims to address and respond to generational trauma
and systemic oppression by reviving ancestral healing practices and building new, more inclusive ones to sustain our emotional/physical/spiritual and environmental well being.
*term first coined by the Atlanta-based Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective in 2007.
We deeply believe in magic and the power of plants.
We are deeply committed to practices that contribute towards healing for all, justice for all and collective liberation
- as friend Nkem Ndefo says, "We get free together".
We recognise that any personal 'illness', whether mental, physical or spiritual, is not your fault and rather a reflection of greater systemic illness, which we are dedicated to healing together.
We give thanks to the work of Dr. Rupa Marya, from Deep Medicine Circle and author of 'Inflamed' for helping us to make the connection between how our own health is inextricably linked to the health of our environment and the systems that we live amongst... An understanding which also brings with it acknowledgement of the ongoing wounds of colonialism and vast inequities many face based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation + body ability.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT + REPARATIONS :::
Seed Medicine Garden is gratefully tended near Tarangga on Kaurna Country.
We pay respects to all Elders, past, present and emerging while acknowledging that sovereignty was never ceded and that we are on stolen land. We support the Uluru Statement from the Heart as well as the call for a Voice and/or treaty as a step in acknowledging the ongoing traditional custodians of these lands and as an embodiment of Aboriginal self-determination. Whatever it takes to provide a path to transfer of power and resources for First Peoples to control matters which impact their lives as well as recognise and celebrate the unique rights, cultures and histories of the First Peoples of this country.
Out of gratitude for farming on and profiting off stolen land Seed Medicine Garden pays the rent in regular donations to the following organisations (all Indigenous-led):
- Seed Mob: an Indigenous, youth, climate network who are actively healing Country through their campaigns.
- Dhadjowa Foundation: providing strategic, coordinated and culturally appropriate support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families whose loved ones have died in custody.
- Firesticks Alliance: providing Indigenous leadership, advocacy and action to protect Country through re-invigorating the use of cultural burning and cultural fire + land management practices.
We also actively support LANDBACK and seed rematriation movements here and around the world, send herbal parcels to Indigenous community and are taking time to build trust + connections within the Kaurna community so that we can learn how the farm can better support their healing + liberation.
MUTUAL AID + PAYING FORWARD :::
You may have noticed the Add Mutual Aid option in our store, with the drop down option to select "Just one for me please" or to "Pay Forward +1 or +2 products" to your order. If you add mutual aid options to pay forward these additional products, you will still receive the chosen amount of your product and the Pay Forward products will act as a mutual aid donation to get medicine to those without means who need them.
In the words of my friend Damiana Calvero of La Luneria: "Mutual aid is a way in which we collectively organize to satisfy the needs and wants of an individual or community. It’s a way in which individuals or community can reach out to the collective for help satisfying needs or wants. It’s a way to build reciprocal relationships."
So in our attempt to continue building reciprocal relationships and make plant medicines more accessible for all, Seed Medicine Garden sends regular free medicine donations to communities as needs arise. In the past this has included Indigenous activists, youth leaders and trans youth, as well as homeless single mothers, refugees and members of the Disabled community.
There seems to be an increasing call for plant support through these times and we are continually seeking pathways to those who need it most. Please contact us: connect@seedmedicine.garden if you or a community you know is without financial means but needing herbal goods.
PLANT RELATIONSHIPS :::
We are deeply committed to sharing, building + tending Plant Relationships.
We believe that tending reciprocal relationships with plants through their seeds, flowers, food and medicine holds a key that many of us have lost/forgotten/had taken from us -
to heal ourselves, to heal each other, to remember who we are and to remember where we've come from.
We believe that when we feel more connected to the Earth through plants we are more likely to be in a grounded place and state of ongoing healing and thus more able to do the work and offer our own unique and needed gifts to these times.
By being in deep relationship with Seeds we:
give thanks for the hope they offer from dark soil in dark times while promising to protect their biodiversity and share them through resilient networks.
By being in deep relationship with Flowers we:
give thanks for the joy they bring while wanting to share this life-giving and life-saving beauty with those who need the symbolic beauty of a bloom.
By being in deep relationship with Food plants we:
give thanks for the nutrient rich nourishment we receive while working towards more just, equitable, diverse and inclusive food systems.
By being in deep relationship with Medicinal Herbs we:
give thanks for these healing plant traditions passed down through millennia while being committed to sharing this knowledge and these medicines with communities in need of healing.