Foraging calendar

By Janna Janzen

This drawing is a representation of a form of synesthesia that I have. In my mind I have always visualized the year spatially, in a circle with fall on the right and spring on the left. Most of the “landmarks” on my mental map of the year include plant harvest times. The biggest challenge of this piece was not having enough room to fit in all of my favourite berries (the earth is just too generous), but sometimes simplicity is best.

I did this piece on the winter solstice of 2018, the longest night of the year. I sacrificed some much needed rest, to sit with an even greater need; to remind myself of the eternal cycle of birth, growth, harvest and death and the love the earth freely gives in each of these cycles. I have found that focusing on the life cycle can be a great antidote to the despair of processing the mass extinctions, famines, and conflicts that climate change is fuelling. Death is the prerequisite to resurrection. Death needs to happen before new life can flourish.

Perhaps modern global capitalist society has been seeking this death, so that new life can spring up. Perhaps the intuition that death is needed is what fuelled my generation’s attraction to apocalyptic narratives. I suspect we have been seeking a catastrophe to break this broken system beyond repair, so we can create something better. Well it seems we have found one. Climate change is inviting us to see differently, to adjust our paradigms and shift our systems. We are a part of nature and nature will adapt, expand, and renew, as always.

Kʷukʷscémxʷ,
Janna Janzen