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CP NEW MOON NEWSLETTER - August 2025

  • Jennifer Jewell
  • 2 hours ago
  • 6 min read

Valley Oaks in the Canyon.

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A California native plant seed bouquet - a generous and generative offering to the world...

common cow parsnip, Lyall's Angelica, Eriogonum species, and Bigelow's Sneezeweed among them.


New Moon of August - Saturday the 23rd

(because the new moon is a great time to plant seeds whose energy grows up and out....)


"The ecosystem is more complex than you think; the ecosystem is more complex than you can think. "

Eriko Kojima, Somme Prairie Grove Nature Reserve


This month has truly brought their Augustness,


The ten perfect little dappled-white eggs laid by a mama quail this past spring (which all successfully hatched in late June after her vigilant weeks of daily sitting) are now just as determinedly decomposing their shell matter back into the soil around the crown of the mountain mint mama quail chose as her nursery. A nicely scented (and therefore insect-pest free?) place to sit and to hatch...


Last week we started to notice August leaf and acorn drop from the Blue and Valley Oaks here in our place, and this dropping-down encourages our eyes to look up: we appreciate the crop of acorns on the tree with their durable and fascinating caps; the crazy-cool wands holding out lacewing eggs; we appreciate the diversity of oak galls now coloring up on the oaks' stems and leaves, very much looking like flying saucers, or birthday hats, or cotton balls. Or apples.


We are always in a process of becoming and unbecoming aren’t we? Completing one thing, even as we are preparing to transform/metamorphose into to the next thing. As Gardeners I think we have particularly exquisite first row seats to this amazing aspect of life going on all around us, even within us. How lucky are we?


I love the quote above by Eriko Kojima from CP's interview this past month with her and Stephen Packard of the Somme Prairie Grove Nature Preserve for precisely this reason. It reminds me and us of the incredible complexity–of everything.


As complex as our brains are, as complex as the ecosystems of our individual bodies are, it’s nice to know there’s so much more. That any given ecosystem is more perfectly integrated, interdependent, and complicated than we will ever know. It invites us to sit solidly on that swaying line between what we understand as Fact and and what we understand as Faith.


With the eventual arrival of autumn very clearly starting to color the edges of our peripheral vision, with what were tidy little rows of seeds, and then seedlings of spring now having transformed into the late summer tangle and a tumult of overripe, sometimes crispy, cheerful chaos in our vegetable beds or flower borders or hedgerows. Even now, we’re starting again with tidy little seeds and seedlings enticing us back into our role as doulas, partners, stewards, students and friends to our places.


Everything we do as Gardeners is transformational at some level, and the more we ask ourselves to really appreciate what it was and what we are transforming it into in our selecting, our seeding, our watering and weeding and harvesting and simply enjoying, the more intentional and intelligent our transformings will be.


Thank you for being here, for being the Transformational big-G Gardeners you are; when we do it right, we seed, shelter, supply, and support well all the complex lives around ours.


Jennifer & The CP Team


PS: Did you know that California is home to upwards of 7,000 taxa of native plants? And they each have their own seed form and strategy unique at some level to just themselves. California is also home to at least 22 species of oaks, who collectively host more than 200 species of cynipid gall wasps, whose young are nurtured in what we call oak galls. The Blue oaks (Quercus douglasii) alone host associated 42 species of these gall wasps and their crazy-cool gall formations. What a deliciously, beautiful complexity. If you love oak gall diveristy, definitely follow expert Ron Russo for more about them.)







CP PODCAST:


I feel as though the theme of TRANSFORMING carries over into our podcast interviews over the past month and all that they have and will share with us, inspire in us, model to us.


If you have not had a chance to listen in - we started off with a revisit to the truly transformational mind-set and energy of Benjamin Vogt, and his work under the name of Monarch Gardens. We moved onto the illumination artistry of the annual GLEAM event at the Olbrich Botanic Gardens, and on to the decades in the stewarding of reclaiming native extant prairie as a source of complex life and learning in Illinois, and then to the generosity of orchards as sources of community, environmental, and food security wherever they are. We end out the month next week with Abra in conversation with Jazmin Albarran of Seed Your Future, a group transforming the awareness and access to horticulture and the green fields as professions.



everything we do as Gardeners is an opportunity to transform the world more intelligently, intentionally, and take better care of each other in the process....


Enjoy this good growing listening....




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CP LIVE transforms into CULTIVATING PLACE, THE POWER OF GARDENERS film:


BIG NEWS: In the coming weeks we will be filming our final two CP LIVE's for 2024/2025. CP LIVE in Cincinnati, OH with the Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati, and CP LIVE in Sebastapol, CA with Kristyn Leach of Gohyang Fields and Second Generation Seeds. If you are a CP supporter/donor, you should have received an invitation to be our guest in Cincinnati! Hoping to see you there!


The full suite of ten live recorded CP LIVE events are the stories we are exploring in our new documentary film in production, which now has a name.....drum roll.....


CULTIVATING PLACE:

THE POWER OF GARDENERS

when Gardeners thrive,

so does the world around them


And a website of its own: cultivatingplacefilm.


Look forward to updates as we continue through post-production and gear up for the next steps.....we'd love you to partner with us! check out the website for more....cultivatingplacefilm.


Join us to listen, see, and grow, yourself.

 

 

Join us in completing this important film project! Invest in this Garden-based world view


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AND FINALLY......


Art is all about transforming one thing into another isn't it? And without question, Cultivating Place is an art - perhaps the oldest art form known, and famously/humorously described as the slowest moving of the performing arts ;)


In the coming months, we are doubling down on all things to do with the ART OF CP, starting in September with my September 10th keynote presentation with the Wild Wonder Foundation's annual online Nature Journaling Conference, focused on the art of garden-based nature journaling. This will be a fun, more-personal presentation highlighting the nature of journaling in Jennifer and CP's life. I would love to see you there, you can register here for the full four-day conference! REGISTER

Also on September 10th, I will be live in Cincinnati for an afternoon with Cultivating Place at the gorgeous new Cincinnati Public Radio site in downtown to meet and chat more with listeners there. It is free, but registration is required. If you are in the greater Cinci area, come out and say hi! If you have friends or family tell them about it!  REGISTER


And on September 16th, we have our next CP COMMUNING in which we will continue our exploration of art and our gardens from last time starting off with a presentation on The ART OF CP, helping to prepare our garden hearts and minds for the Autumnal Equinox on Monday September 22. Bring your art or art intentions to share and look forward to being inspired by others in the CP communing community. Free but space is limited, so please register and Zoom link to join will go out a few days before.  REGISTER


This is all artfully gearing up for the month of October which will be celebrated on CP as ARTOBER. All of our October CP episodes will focus on artists beautifully and meaningfully cultivating their places, and we will culminate the artistry with an online ART AUCTION (think: virtual open CP studio tour!) featuring the work of 16 artists from around the country, many of whom have been guests on CP over the years, with all proceeds going to support the work of CP in all its facets. WIn-Win-Win! Registration will open to bid on art in the Auction on September 16th with the CP COMMUNING gathering.....:)

 

See all our upcoming events below.


You made it to the end - Huzzah - I will leave you with this from a supporter and listener this month:


"The work you are doing is uplifting and entertaining, but it's much more than that. Cultivating Place is meaningful and important."


We could not agree more - Thank you for being here and growing along with us.

 


CP EVENTS:

 

UPCOMING:

Sept 12-14 - CP LIVE Cincinnati, OH with Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati

Sept 22 - 25 - CP LIVE Second Generation Seeds/Gohyang Fields, Sebastapol, CA

October 1: Artober kicks off on CP

Oct 23 - 27 - THE ART OF CP - online art auction to benefit the Cultivating Place Foundation (registration to bid opening Sept 16.....)

 

More events here: CP EVENTS

 


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CULTIVATING PLACE FOUNDATION

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