WINTER SOW THE SUMMER NIGHTS OF BEINGS TO COME 

Winter Sow the Summer Nights of Beings to Come was a seed sowing workshop developed during the Winter 2021 pandemic lock down. At a time when many people were obliged to adopt a slower pace, and many species rested dormant for the winter, it felt fitting to work on a seed sowing strategy that begins with rest. The species sowed were selected for being beneficial to nocturnal pollinators, with the future prospect of warm flower-filled summer evenings hanging over the workshop and conversation.

Climate change, not unlike pandemic for many of us, has asked us to do less, to slow the movement of material and energy through our lives. This workshop is based on the idea that this is something that needs to be practiced, particularly after lives lived in precarious work conditions and in a culture that values productivity, which is always asking us to do more and more.

Not doing can be hard. It looks like nothing. It is often invisible. It is not easy to promote as an accomplishment. You can’t really be the author or hero of something not done. It can take time and repetition before not doing becomes apparent. And yet, not doing is a powerful and redemptive force.

The plants in this workshop were selected for their benefit for nocturnal pollinators: the beings we rarely see because they occupy such different sensory worlds to our own, moving in darkness, often completely unregistered by us. When light spills out of modern, electric human life, it disorients nocturnal beings whose darkness we take away, not an intentional harm but an impact nonetheless. Being in darkness is one way of doing less, an example of how in doing less we can slow our wakes and move a bit more gently through the world leaving more space for others.