Our story…

It all started in late winter of 2022 when my friend, who was going through a divorce at the time, told me they were only going to plant flowers come spring. I didn’t really give much thought to those words at the time, but they planted something in me as I began to experience an ending in my own life.

I haven’t been a flower farmer for long. Prior to 2023, I was a pastor. Ordained as a teaching elder in the PC(USA) denomination, my expertise with flowers was arranging floral bouquets on the communion table Sunday mornings. However, as my life began to shift and my values started to collide with an institution that proclaims a God of abundance while clenching their purse strings and handing out only scraps, I began to dream of something else.

So virtually overnight I found 20 acres and planted all my remaining seeds in the fertile grounds of rural Western New York and in the spring of 2023 the first blooms of Bread & Dahlias began to emerge.

There’s a lot more I could write here but for now I just leave you with a blessing:

A Blessing for the Flowers 

my friend said they were only going to plant flowers this spring

and honestly i can’t think of anything better to do

so naturally

this is a blessing for those who would dare to only plant calendula 

in the wake of worlds ending, kingdoms crumbling, earth’s dying under weighted breaths

to look at the landscape ahead and choose flowers instead

there’s a running joke among millennials 

that our retirement plan is societal collapse

which might sound despairing or nihilistic at best

but everyone i’ve ever heard utter those words (depression aside)

are the most hopeful people i’ve ever known

this is a blessing for them: the ones

who would dare to stand in the ruins of their own lives and choose

beauty again and again

who would look at disaster and choose to tend the seeds of only the most impossible, impractical dreams

who would risk it all to nurture worlds unseen into being

who would take their entire life’s savings and invest in the only stock that matters

because you don’t need a 401k if you keep the soup coming

and the community fed

this is a blessing for those who aren’t afraid to try something new

who know we don’t always have to do the same old, same old

who would meet their metas for coffee,

even if they are nervous too

who know seeds won’t grow unless you plant them

and theory isn’t the same as praxis

who trust love is a renewable resource

so why choose to have less people in your corner

when you could be sharing all the leftovers

who would deconstruct a lifetime of faith 

and build nothing in its place

exchanging their god for trusting their own bodies

and planting only flowers

who believe in the kindness of strangers

and who know the body is the only temple you need

and institutionalized religion is a tool of empire

and empires always fall

but mutual aid is survival for all

my friend said they were only planting flowers this spring

and honestly i can’t think of anything better to do

may this be a blessing

for all those who would dare to dream 

who would dare to believe 

that the end of some things is not the end of all things

who would  look at the dumpster fires burning

and plant only flower seeds