Make every space a creative space.

A hot spot after the 2024 Bridge Fire. These trees and this structure survived.

The knobcone is a small pine tree, 10 to 30 feet tall, with yellow-green needles in groups of threes. It grows in the poorest of soils, up to 7,000 feet elevation, and reseeds only after a fire.

Knobcone bark and needles are tough and fibrous and hard to digest, and its cones are hard to access, staying tightly closed until they reach a temperature of about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point the sap in the cones begins to loosen and they release their stored seeds.

Harvesting seeds from a knobcone takes more knowledge and skill than from any other pine tree, especially if you have no tools to work with. You won’t be able to extract them without extreme heat.

Before we moved to the mountain, when I was very small, a man who didn’t call himself a teacher spent his afternoons with a ragtag group of kids who needed supervision. He called himself a mentor, something he explained to us in a way we understood to mean we could talk about whatever we wanted and ask questions about anything. He wore shorts and moved around a lot and encouraged us to move around, so it felt more like PE than book learning and most of the kids took to calling him Coach. I didn’t, because I was used to coaches who yell at you and tell you what to do.

Sometimes he took us on field trips, which were basically walks around the empty grounds, and he asked us what we noticed along the way.

One day we worked on mapmaking. We started with a map of the school, drawing the buildings and the classrooms and the grass and the walkways, but he also asked us to draw the things we noticed that other people might not, like where the kids play when teachers aren’t looking, or other places the community was centered. He showed us maps of our city and state and country and world, and told us whatever was in the center is what the community thinks is important.

Some of the kids drew monkey bars, some basketball or hopscotch courts, and some the cafeteria or vending machines. I drew flowers and weeds. Our mentor asked me about this, and when I told him I thought they were a part of the community, he asked me more questions and he listened to what I said. He helped each of us construct a map of our homes, even though he’d never seen them and we didn’t bring in pictures.

He said we could find what’s important inside of us and put that at the center.

Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction.

Pablo Picasso

Foraging for connection

So many of us in modern society are deeply hungry, starving for something we don’t know how to find. We hunger for community, for touch, for a relationship with the natural world, for something we can put at our center.

I often share tips on foraging, which isn’t as practical as getting food from a market, but feeds more than our nutritional needs, and can be a vital part of a healthy relationship to our bodies as a natural system.

And a writing practice is that, too. A way to root and dig and connect and integrate. A way to start finding your center.

What does that look like for you?

Creativity as connection

Ron Howard said that when you have an emotional reaction to an idea, it will turn into fascination and curiosity. As you follow this curiosity, you will notice something organic you can bring to a story.

What are you genuinely interested and excited about? What are you willing to lose sleep for? Forget to eat for?

Do what you love and you'll work super fucking hard all the time with no separation or any boundaries and also take everything extremely personally.

Adam J Kurtz

What’s at your center?

Adam J Kurtz says that when you identify as a creative, you are part of a tribe of people who care deeply about communication. He says it’s ok to keep circling around what you’re good at, saying the same thing over and over until you find a way to say it that resonates with an audience.

The goal is to feel something and then create work that will evoke that emotion in others.

Ask yourself what measures of success are meaningful to you. Write them down. Take criticism and learn from it. Choose a mentor who will be hard on you. Be disciplined. Schedule inspiration. Consume content to spark lightbulbs in your brain.

Don’t ever give up on what you’re passionate about. It matters. It’s your north star. You don’t need anyone’s permission to create exactly what you want.

Start with your center.

Fire can destroy or purify, strengthen or weaken, all depending on the nature of the material being burned. Pain has the same effects on the human soul, and for the same reasons.

―Lance Conrad

When I wrote Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult, I circled around the shame of victimization, and the intimate relationship between predator and prey. Part memoir, part survival guide, it’s a story about grieving my mother, uncovering the gifts of an unconventional past, and taking the reader on a pilgrimage back to nature, which is a pilgrimage back to our most authentic self.

I’m deeply grateful to find a space here to share my center, and to get to know yours.

Hiking near the tiny cottage with Sage.

Storyscapes: A Nature-Inspired Writing Retreat

Sunday, January 5th - 9:30am-4pm

Welcome the new year by grounding yourself in creativity with a nature-inspired writing retreat. Join a small, supportive group of writers in a private, idyllic historical setting surrounded by gardens, natural light, and a rich artistic atmosphere. This retreat offers a day of reflection, exploration, and connection with your inner voice through nature and creativity; all spaces will be reserved and available exclusively for workshop guests.

Enjoy a colorful, nourishing plant-based lunch prepared with care by Enlightened Omnivore.

Email Michelle@michelledowd.org with any questions. Click here to register.

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Thank you for reading Forager Fridays — your support allows me to keep doing this work. If you’re a paid subscriber and would like a Zoom link to this month’s co-writing workshop on Saturday, November 23 at 1:00 PT/4:00 ET, please rsvp by responding to this email and I will email you the link and prepare for your presence.

Look at the color!!!! Working on the ceiling and walls. Will unveil the interior soon.

Opportunity for paid subscribers (or anyone who upgrades to an annual subscription by December 5, 2024 - including gift subscriptions).

The tiny, tiny, tiny cottage in the middle of the forest is rising and will be finished early this winter, and I’d like to invite one of you to spend a night here, in the forest.

All annual subscribers will be included in a drawing for a free night in the cottage. Founding members will also be offered a hosted dinner in a nearby cabin (with me!). Drawing will take place on December 5, and the winning subscriber will be contacted via email. You will be able to choose/schedule your own date any time in 2025, and will receive concrete details and directions (the cottage is in southern California, about 90 minutes northeast of Los Angeles, not accessible by Google maps). If you decline, or only want to come for dinner, I will offer the cottage to another subscriber. With the winner’s permission, I’ll announce their name in an email to all annual subscribers. I will also offer the winner the opportunity to guest post, showcasing what they learned from their night in the forest.

Thank you for reading Forager Fridays — your support allows me to keep doing this work.

What can I bring to your table?

Thank you for being on this journey with me. I am grateful for the gift of your presence. Walking this path, knowing so many of you are walking it too, gives me hope. May we recognize our interbeing, with one another and the anima mundi, supporting each other in growth and recovery, like a mycelial network.