Farewell to Eden Reframed

Learning another lesson in impermanence

Eden Reframed in the summer of 2021, waiting for new stakeholders to regenerate her energy as “Lil’ Detroit Community Garden” - sadly this vision did not move forward.

You might want to listen to this music while you read this post. It’ll put you in the right mood.

It’s become more obvious to me in these elder years that aging is about learning to say good-bye, over and over again. For people who don’t like to say “good-bye” (you know those folks who slink off so that they don’t have to encounter anyone in those final minutes before departure) this practice must be really difficult. Somedays I feel more skilled at it, and others, well, it’s like learning a new depth to this essential part of living. It’s fucking hard. Loss is hard, but it’s inherent to being human, to being connected to the ecosystem, and all that life offers in the landscape of grief. Calling grief a landscape seems a bit disassociated, like I’m aestheticizing something that rips at your bones and pierces the walls of your cells, but I’ve discovered that grief is a space, a terrain that keeps tripping you up with unexpected sink holes and thorny hedges. Grief teaches you to be in your body as best you can, so that you don’t get flayed by the unexpected, incoming missiles of another loss.

Dr. Bob Spivey leaving Eden Reframed for the last time before the aggressive melanoma derailed him, 2021.

So as I experiment with the feelings stirred by losing the community eco-art project, Eden Reframed, I’m forcing myself to do an inventory of losses. Not out of self-pity, but truly to gird my loins, as if such a feat was possible, for the losses to come.

In the 17 months since Bob’s death, I’ve lost a whole bunch of friends - they didn’t die, they just disappeared. As some would say, I’ve been ghosted, and to be fair, I’ve also become more discerning with my limited bandwidth, so I’m not reaching out as much. Some of these people were people who were closer to Bob than to me, and others, well, I thought that they were friends for life, but it didn’t work out that way, sadly. In my grieving time, these losses sometimes felt mystifying, but I also recognize that some people come into our lives just for a certain period of time, and this is part of larger process of letting go.

In the same way, I’m letting Eden Reframed go and I’m doing my best to let go of the artist’s ego that conceived of this project. This project was inspired by the work that Bob was doing with his non-profit, SEEDS (Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School). SEEDS generated many projects on Vashon, including the Vashon Green Map (see below), the Vision for Vashon town hall meeting, an international colloquium on Social Ecology, and several soil remediation projects, and among the latter was Eden Reframed, although the vision behind ER was more expansive than solely demonstrating how contaminated soil could be healed by mushrooms and plants.

The Vashon Green Map, 2009, created by Bob Spivey, Annie Brulé, and many others.

With support from the Royalty Research Foundation’s grant money, I was able to develop this unique ecoart project designed with the principles of permaculture and hire the talent and purchase the resources to make her successful. Bob and I both took a permaculture design course in which he became certified, and we hired some of the course facilitators to give us more in-depth consultations. Eden Reframed featured a food forest that offered snacks like berries and kale to the folks who came to the Skate park to play, walk their dogs, or wander through the disc golf course. The food forest was often referred to as nature’s vending machine.

Samples oof the harvest during visits in 2012 & 2013.

Of course, the project had a soil remediation bed. For the latter, we hired an environmental studies grad student, Shannon Clay, who was working with Paul Stamets (of Fantastic Fungi fame) to do soil testing. She brought with her mushrooms and plants that have the special talent of removing toxins from the soil, like arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

Initially, our project was supposed to be sited at the former Beall Greenhouses, one of the most contaminated parts of the island, due to the pesticide use and fossil fuels dumped there, on top of the smelter particulate. A couple of progressive women who were renting the site welcomed the project and were trying to bring many ecological experiments to the land. But the very day that the funding arrived, those same women were given notice to leave the property so that the owners could return. We tried to convince the owners that the project would benefit the community, and be healing for their land, but they did not want their soil tested for contaminants. They wanted to sell the place and were worried that more knowledge about what the soil contained would scare away buyers. Both the owners’ refusal to host the project and their lack of ethics steered us elsewhere. We eventually found a home for Eden Reframed at the Vashon Skate Park (Burton Area Recreation Center) run by the Island’s Park District. They were very welcoming and did not interfere with our process. Because the soil in the park had already been replaced by soil from elsewhere, the area did not have any contamination of heavy metals. So the goal of the project shifted - it was a demonstration without proof that it worked.

We gathered materials and the generous labor from volunteers from our community. People really responded beautifully and came out for several events to generate good will for this liberating public space. They understood that the remediation of soil, the providing of natural snacks, and the gathering of stories about seeds would be a benefit for the community. For photos of people working at the site and more stories about the creation of the project, please go here. Eden Reframed broke ground in the spring and opened to the public in early September 2011. We had a wonderful opening ceremony hosted by a local tribal elder who blessed the project, with two eagles circling directly above us as the ritual concluded.

Of this crew of friends celebrating the opening of Eden Reframed, only one, Kyle Britz, on the far right, still lives on the island. L to R: Anna Maria, Johnnie, Michele, me, Barbie Danielle, Michael, Storme, and Kyle.

Unfortunately, we unexpectedly had to move off-Island the very same week that the project opened to the public, but we returned frequently to bring people together for various seasonal gatherings. At a summer solstice gathering, Chris Graham, an island resident who had volunteered on several occasions to make the project happen, announced to those present that Eden Reframed was a true omphalos, not only a hub, but also a navel that allowed us to have a deeper connection with the Earth Mother. I loved that image of the project, as well as the feedback that Eden Reframed had liberated a piece of the public space to be used for conversation, meditation, and learning about food justice, permaculture design, and the miracle of seeds. She created a slower energy, a way to sink into the healing aspects of nature, in contrast to the faster pace recreations (skateboarding, etc.) found at the site.

This Google Earth shot of Eden Reframed, highlighted in orange.

Over the years many volunteers have generously offered up their muscles, sweat, and laughter to help the project thrive, even friends coming from far away places like Southern California and Europe, but despite many good intentions and the hard work of several stakeholders, the project could not sustain herself without leadership on the Island to prioritize her wellbeing. When we first built the garden beds for Eden Reframed, we created trenches filled with branches and lined with clay (brush drains) and layered them with soil, leaves, grass, and compost (hugelkultur beds) that gave the plantings sufficient hydration during the dry months. Over the years those beds needed refreshing, but it was too big a project for me to manage off-island.

When we lived in Seattle and eventually moved to Tacoma, I would occasionally take the ferry to visit her, take photos, harvest some fruits, clean up the story hive and the grounds, and bring new plantings. When my former student, Ricky Greene, died of COVID in 2020, we came to the island with a lilac bush to honor him in the garden. Bob and I met a man who was walking his dog while he saw us planting the bush and putting up a memorial to Ricky’s legacy and life. After we shared a bit of Ricky’s story, he volunteered to care for the bush by watering it during the heat of the summer. I was deeply touched by the immense kindness show by this stranger. It felt like Eden Reframed had the ability to yield a special tenderness.

Thalia and Bernie Criscenzo, octogenerian friends visiting from outside San Diego, came to add their gardening skills to ER. Bernie passed on this year, and Thalia, now 91, is about to moved into an assisted living community in New Jersey. Letting go…

Volunteers from L to R: Margot Boyer, Chris Graham, Amy Wolff, and Patty Campbell, circa 2013. Margot still lives on the Island, not sure about Chris, Amy moves back and forth between the Island and Cape Cod, and Patty lives in Seattle, I believe.

Decorating the hive with Deborah Perpetua and friend during the summer solstice celebration, 2013.

Decorations on the fence before the opening ceremony 2011.

In September 2023, I came to the Island for the first time since Bob’s death (4/28/2023), and brought some of the composted soil that his body made to leave at Eden Reframed. The project looked forlorn and abandoned. Everything had degraded. The story hive was falling apart, as were the gates, the fences, and despite all of the human lack of effort, the berries were still waiting to nourish someone, the trees still held some fruit, Ricky’s lilac had not withered, and birds and insects seemed content with the garden’s neglected status. I quickly said a blessing to the sacred space and Bob’s legacy within it, and got back in the car to the ferry with many emotions moving through me.

I had heard from the Parks District around that time that the Vashon Garden Club might be interested in taking on the project, but I had no expectation one way or another. Stakeholders had come and gone, and although a part of me wanted this project to be sustainable over time and for the community to really value this treasure, I knew that with our presence long gone from the Island, it was not a likely outcome. Our connections to the Island had weakened over time, and although our 8 years there were very rich with community involvement, we could not stay in touch given our responsibilities to our work off-Island and our son’s needs. Also in this continuing pandemic time (it hasn’t ended, has it?), people are much more overwhelmed and have less capacity for things that seem “extra.” I get it.

So in this last season of Eden Reframed, I must say good-bye to her and what she’s meant to me. She has taught me a lot about the cycles of nature, the cycles of communities, and the cycles of life. Over the years of her lifetime, I have gratefully grown more securely into what seems to be syncretic mixture of spiritual practices that have aspects of animism, earth-based traditions, rituals via my coven, my former dream circle, my dance community, and the Plum Village approach to meditation. They all give me strength and grounding in the midst of profound loss.

As a few friends from my coven, one former member of SEEDS who sometimes lives on Vashon, and I do our good-bye rituals at the site in the next few weeks, I am grateful to say that Eden Reframed offered me and others many gifts, seen and unseen. Through my spiritual practices, I know that nothing in nature is truly lost. She will continue, just like the clouds become my tea (thank you, Thich Nhat Hanh, for offering that way of thinking).

In stark contrast to the project’s intention to offer a more intimate, healing, and nourishing relationship to place, land, and the community, the Park District’s director has shared that they plan to turn this little piece of the park into pickle ball courts or something similar that is recreational. I am not against such games, but the shift in energy will likely be very noticeable. I am hoping that there will be some remnant of Eden Reframed to remind visitors that all that surrounds them is sacred land, embodied in the soil, the air, the water, the sunshine, and all the critters, human & non-human who visit. Eden Reframed will no be longer a visible omphalos, but one that may still continue to manifest in the minds of those who knew her. I am excited for this letting go, and for knowing that my creative and collaborative work made a difference that helped me grow in the best ways. And there will be new projects….

The Story Hive over the years (the Paper Wasp nest is the latest photo, taken last week, but not by me - thank you, Stephen)

This photo from 2011 documents one of the many seed packets that I made and placed in the story hive and attached to the fence. The hive became a seed exchange in its early years.