ON TIME AND HARVEST

Reflecting on previous work Ozhigimin Bima’ookiin.

One might hold out a hand to a sparrow, hoping he will perch on a finger—one might have a hand full of seeds, small and familiar, spilling out through the fingers. It is likely that the seeds dropped would not be picked up again; they may seem insignificant. But these are material bodies with memories and potential. Nestled into the crook of a palm, some seeds feel the heat of the skin against their dry shells. Through this touch is a minuscule transfer of energy, a sharing of space and spirit. This transfer continues with the touch of soil—hands, too, hold memory. Indeed, one uses tendons and muscles, signaled by an electric brain, to articulate the position in which the soil holds the seed—but this is not merely planting. It is an entrance into a process that does not belong to the individual, but to which one belongs.

It is only here that the breathing land beneath becomes perceptible—the energy ascending through the feet and settling in the hand. An individual drops seeds into a dip in the soil and waits for a response. Tentative at first, they explore and situate themselves in the damp black earth, before asking for light, water, space, and attention. Attention for the small shifts: the way a stem leans, the brittle edges of dead leaves, the bulbs and blooms, the reaching of arms grasping toward sunlight. Negotiation and attention bring about authorship of response—a response that does not fix or answer, but invites the conversation to continue. This is the magic uncertainty that comes with releasing control: where one may share authorship through presence alone, allowing the voices of these invisible magics to take part in sculpture.

That is the whole point. The individual has little say—no more than the chickadee who takes the seed from its mound. Releasing control means accepting and acknowledging the conversation that takes place, one in which the human participant should be a listener. The magic at stake—the invisible energies and spirited forces that constitute the growth of a bean—is of the singular, not the mass. The distinction presents itself when a person can no longer share dialogue with the growing thing. The miles of magic and spirited speaking in agricultural fields fall on deaf ears, silenced and cast aside from human perception. Therefore, one must speak of the singular magical being that grows.

These fruits may manifest as nourishment or material, or the presence of home and memory of loved ones. Yet these fruits are not separate from the mechanism by which they exist. They are not the final product of a human-plant relationship. If left to their own devices, they will spoil and fall, rotting and returning to the earth—at no detriment to the relationship. But one might choose to receive the fruit and eat it, allowing it to digest and become part of the self, as the self becomes part of it. There is no final point to this relationship—it only deepens. Touch, time, and attention: what is built together is not entirely one’s, and not entirely hers. It is the product of shared conditions—of weather, chance, patience, and proximity.

To call this a gift is not sentimental. It is accurate. And so there’s an obligation: to take it seriously. To receive it with care. To resist waste—not just of material, but of meaning.

The placement of the seed in soil—the depth at which it is pressed down, the space between plantings—is not a final gesture. Rather, it is an ongoing negotiation between the invisible forces that govern bodies and minds. One cannot picture the plant before it grows, nor the fruit before blossoms. A person has limitations that prevent them from claiming authorship of growth; one might only be its steward. Thus, it is folly to believe, as a designer, that one may determine what should be and how it should remain in the real world, disparate from these governing forces.

The limitation of the architect is dictated by the intention of control; in the straight horizontal line that represents the ground plane, the architect begins with greed. It is ignorant of the real, where footfall on loose soil creates chasms in the straight line, buckling under human weight. The ground shifts. The drawing shifts. The intentions of the architect—the human—shift too. Planting seeds teaches one to be responsive to conditions that cannot be predicted.

To consider architecture in this analogy, it must be said that it does not grow in this same way; it is neither a singular nor a mass. It shares as little with a single yarrow plant as it does with a field of corn, because architecture is a product of destructive forces. Arguments of environmental damage and embodied carbon may be deferred, only to speak of methodology. That is—despite its difference from flora—the process of architectural design can adopt the silent magics of growth and the natural release of authorship and control. The slow accumulation of gestures builds up an idea; the tending and pruning are equally part of it. Architecture, as it is now, has a short future. It must learn from the littler—from the willingness to stay with a project after its form has taken shape, where there is no single author or claim of finality. Treating making as maintenance means seeing each material, site, and growing body as an individual with the capacity to speak back. That is: to receive their speech and offer a response is the mechanism by which one may bloom and bear fruit, which, in turn, allows others to live on. The efforts are returned with evidence of life.