CP NEW MOON NEWSLETTER - September 2025
- Jennifer Jewell
- Sep 20
- 7 min read
In our CP Communing on Sept 16, Ben Futa shared his floating floral arrangement practice, which encourages him to slow down and notice peak bloom across the seasons of the year, and then in photographing each new composition, he marks the progression of the garden as well as a journal practice.
New Moon of September - Sunday the 21st
(because the new moon is a great time to plant seeds whose energy grows up and out....)
“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece
of [The Divine] that is inside each of us.”
— Mary Oliver
The story of Cultivating Place has always been the story of the tree of life, and how and where we as humans fit into it most beautifully.
And the story of the tree of life has always been about the cycles of germination, growth, fruiting, senescence, decline, and decomposition, and germination again. Of planting and unplanting; of construction and deconstruction. Inherent in the unmaking of anything is the making of the next thing. Summer deconstructs into Autumn...
In my conversation with Margaux and Walter Kent of Peg & Awl recently, Margaux shared a story of how her first beloved journal was so loved and used that it came undone, and ultimately as it fell apart, she could see how the journal was made. Through witnessing and paying attention to its deconstruction, she could see the basis of its construction, and from there she taught herself to make her own journals better. She has been binding books for herself and others ever since. This is the basis of creativity - which is the pulsing heart of being a Gardener, growing something new out of what already exists.
It is late September and daily temperatures will feel like summer for a little while longer here in Northern California, but the light lifting close to 7 am, and falling close to 7 pm, tells us all in the Northern Hemisphere that without question we are returning to equilibrium from our season of long days. With the Autumnal Equinox tomorrow Monday the 22nd, we are, seasonally speaking, deconstructing summer and making way for Fall and all the following seasons.
The quality of light, colors, sounds, flowers, foliage and life are shifting towards the Fall and its very own creativity in the cycles.
Creativity and what we as Gardeners make with and of it is the theme this month. When we re-activate and apply our creativity, we grow beauty, we grow solutions, we regenerate our agency to be proactive rather than just reactive, and we collectively and communally germinate the world we want to live in.
Jennifer & The CP Team
PS: For more on how the creativity theme plays out this month, scroll down for more information and registration links to our upcoming ART OF CP online art auction AND our upcoming #cp100dayproject. Join us for both!
CP PODCAST:
Creativity is a through-line in every podcast conversation this month. Creativity of thought, action, and cultivating broadly and beautifully for best reach and impact. From growing more empowered Garden and Hort professionals, growing rooftop garden solutions, preserving a great diversity of heritage mums in the US, crafting an engaged creative and adventurous life, and deeply researching a lead to get to a fuller story and picture, each CP conversation this past month encourages us to look closely and from different angles with curiosity for the best creative response and cultivation of people, plants, and place.
Catch up on your listening now!
Because, everything we do as Gardeners who cultivate with care and intention is not only an opportunity to transform the world more intelligently, intentionally, but also imaginatively - activating our individual and collective creativity.
Enjoy these good growing listens by clicking each image....
CULTIVATING PLACE, THE POWER OF GARDENERS film:
Ok my friends, we are now at 9 out of 10! From September 11 - 14th, the CP team gathered in Cincinnati, Ohio to conduct our 9th CP LIVE with the Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati. It was a tremendously expanding four days visiting CGC's many garden programs across their 65 community-garden network, their many school gardens, native plant and place restoration sites, as well as all that they are propagating and tending at their main location: the Hauck Botanical Garden in downtown Cincinnati.
We also had the opportunity to meet up with more than 120 regional gardening and cultivating humans at the gorgeous Cincinnati Public Radio headquarters. Thanks to everyone who came out and especially to Rose Henry Mullarkey of Green City Resources, to the Delhi Township Parks & Recreation Department and Floral Paradise Gardens and gardeners for their amazing floral bouquet gifted to me at the event. Such a gift of presence and plant love.
Coming up next: our 10th and final CP LIVE of 2024/2025 with Kristyn Leach of Second Generation Seeds and Gohyang Fields Seed Campus in Sebastapol, CA.
From there, the cultivatingplacefilm will begin its next instar in post-production.
Look forward to updates as we gear up for the next steps.....we'd love you to partner with us, check out the website for more....cultivatingplacefilm.
Listen, see, and grow, for yourself....
Join us in completing this important film project
I
AND FINALLY......
As we look forward, we are creatively gearing up for ARTOBER on CP:
All of our October CP episodes will focus on artists beautifully and meaningfully cultivating their places, and we will finish up this theme with a two part flourish:
The Inaugural ART OF CP online ART Auction
This year featuring the work of 17 cultivating and place-based artists (think: Frances Palmer, Christin Geal, Rebecca Allan, Ngoc Minh Ngo, Candy Matthews, Lorene Edwards Forkner, Julia Lucey, and many more painters, jewelers, weavers!). Each artist's work is inspired by their place, and in turn illuminates their relationship to plants and place so powerfully. We are truly excited to introduce you to each and every one of these artists and their stories throughout the month as we build up to the auction going live on October 23rd.
Through the profound generosity of these artful humans, ALL proceeds from the auction will support CP in all its facets: podcast, film, advocacy, and events.
We are building out the ART OF CP auction website as I write and you read, but early registration is now open! REGISTER HERE
CP Garden Based Autumnal 100-Day Project
Join us for a special CP garden-nature-based-Autumnal 100 Day Project starting on the liminal date of All Hallows Eve October 31st and culminating on February 7th, 2026 - the 10th Birthday of the Cultivating Place program! REGISTER HERE to PARTICIPATE
The focus for your 100 day project can be anything you want it to be: a daily observation, sketch, painting, collage, arrangement, needle craft, daily poem or paragraph, daily learning a new native plant or insect of your region, daily place-based photo, daily work time on a larger project of any kind....or all of the above....any daily commitment that intersects with and deepens your cultivation of place with intention and care. Any daily practice that somehow will grow you and your place counts. And as you share it forward, of course, your creativity will grow us all.
As with all 100-Day projects, we will be one another's accountability partners and garden allies, asking for a daily check in somewhere we can all see it and support you: on Instagram, Substack, Facebook, by email, etc. using the tag #CP100DayProject2025.
Margaux Kent of Peg & Awl and I will be hosting a Substack event on October 29th (once you're registered, look for an invite and link coming toward mid-month) to learn how to make your own notebook for keeping track of your project days. We will also host a grand finale virtual gathering on Saturday February 7th to share our completed results - physical and metaphysical - with each other and toast CP a happy 10th birthday! 🎂
For the first 30 registrants who would like them, we will send you your very own Peg & Awl crafted, CP logo-ed Orra black bound notebook. Many thanks to Peg & Awl for their collaboration. 💚
Anyone can participate in #CP100DayProject, but only registered participants will receive the invites and links to the virtual gatherings and check ins.
Looking forward to this communal cultivation and creativity!
Jennifer & The CP Team
You made it to the end - Huzzah - I will leave you with this from a supporter and listener this month:
"Thank you so much for the deep and inspiring conversations you do on Cultivating Place! As someone who had "plant blindness" just 5-6 years ago .....[now] here I am voraciously seeking all the information I can about the plant world and plant people :) Thank you again for creating such a unique place to bring them all together. Much appreciation, Rose Callahan"
We could not agree more, Rose - Thank you for being here and growing along with us.
CP EVENTS:
UPCOMING:
Sept 22 - 25: FINAL CP LIVE of 2024/2025 with Second Generation Seeds/Gohyang Fields, Sebastapol, CA
October 1: Artober kicks off on CP
Oct 23 - 27 - THE ART OF CP - online place-based art auction to benefit CP
October 31 - February 7: #CP100DayProject
November 20: Speaker, Oregon Native Plant Society, Ashland Chapter
December 6 & 7: Wonderful Winter Wreathing Weekend with Gateway Science Museum & Friends of the Ahart Herbarium, Chico, CA (more info coming)
December 16, 3 pm Pacific/6 pm Eastern pre-Winter Solstice CP COMMUNING (registration coming late November)
All events here: CP EVENTS
CULTIVATING PLACE FOUNDATION
Email not displaying correctly?