Be Long Here
A digital version of the sticker that Nina designed for EcoGather, with the exhortation
"Be Long Here" in yellow type surrounded by foliage, flowers, and butterflies.
Although EcoGather exists and operates primarily in virtual spaces and relies upon digital community to connect across cultures, geographies, and lifeways, we often long to presence ourselves more in the spaces that we inhabit. We hold gratitude for the ability to connect through computers with a craving for tangible presence. To better balance this, we've been emphasizing art as a means of manifestation. A way of communicating in a less lexical manner, a way of getting to the emotional undercurrents of our work together, a way of bringing our collective imaginings and aspirations to a shared visual field.
In this spirit, EcoGather asked Nina Montenegro of The Far Woods to design an alluring piece of art to represent who we are and the work we do. After spending some time getting to know EcoGather and participating in an EcoGather, Nina conjured a scene that captures our wildest and smallest aspiration: being and be-long-ing as part of the living world. She felt moved to depict people gathering on and around a huge mother tree and casually suggested that the tree might be a Red Oak.
When Nina suggested this we gasped a little. You see, at present, EcoGather is based in the Northern most reaches of the Red Oak's geographical range. There aren't many red oaks here and the ones that are here aren't as old and grand as the ones you might find farther south. But researchers project that the Red Oak is likely to dominate Vermont's forests in a warmer future. This potentiality is not entirely welcome in these parts, where maple is beloved and beginning to struggle. But when Nina offered us a vision of humans in relationship with a Red Oak -- and a mother tree, no less - we were instantly transported to a future of human survival some thousand years hence. A changed but still vital, vibrant community of life in this place that we love. We recognized our longing, our belonging, and our aim of being long here all at once.
We gather to figure out how to support conditions that might allow this vision to manifest long after the length of our lives. And we hope that this vision will entice others to join us in that endeavor. To that end, EcoGather has printed this piece into posters to remind us of what we are reaching toward and to entice folks to join us.
If you would like to help us distribute these posters, reach out to Nissa at ncoit@sterlingcollege.edu, and we will send you some copies to put up where you live!
A scene of humans of varied ages and identities in and around a mother tree against a warmly lit sky, gathered there with squirrels, birds, and butterflies. Lush foliage frames the image, which says "be long here" in yellow hand-lettering along the bottom.
Just before we released this piece of art, Nicole interviewed Nina to discuss her relationship to art, the role of art in building new worlds in the shell of the old, and her inspiration for this piece. We share the record of their dialogue here.
Nicole: Nina, let’s start with you and situate your work within your family and history. You come from a long line of artists and creatives — and you work with your sister at The Far Woods. This leads me to believe that art is both a calling and a lineal practice that connects you to your web of relations, ancestral, present, and future. Am I on to something? If so, would you share a bit about what it is like to create in the middle of that stream?
Nina: Yes! Reaching back at least three generations, my ancestors were painters, writers, storytellers, and musicians. When I am in a moment of creative block, I often ask them for help. For instance, I’m writing a book right now and when I can’t find the words for something I’m trying to convey, I turn to my Chilean great-grandfather who was a storyteller and my Swedish grandfather who, as a minister, wrote sermons weekly. While drawing, I sometimes listen to recordings of my grandmother playing Chopin on piano. I feel these ancestors with me all the time.
The household I grew up in lived and breathed art. My mom is a children’s book writer/illustrator and my dad is a theater director and puppeteer. They really modeled for my sister and I the expansive possibilities of engaging with the world as an artist: the artist has license to mine the depths of the human psyche, to investigate anything and everything, to seek truth. To ask vital questions about why things are the way they are in our society and reimagine how they might be different.
My relatives’ commitment to art as a beautiful way to live life was infused in my upbringing and I hope my two daughters are absorbing this now from me as well. But I don’t take any credit for their creativity- I have seen the way that they, from day one, have been naturally inclined to express themselves creatively. And I think maybe we all come into this world with that same sacred force that is creativity. For so many of us it is not encouraged, or worse, stamped out. But I think that for everyone it’s inside, waiting to be rekindled when the conditions are right. But yeah, generally the overculture doesn’t value or support the arts, so it’s a special thing to be part of a lineage committed to this sacred force generation after generation.
Nicole: We were drawn to collaborate with you because your art always reminds us of interconnection and interdependence — it renders absurd any kind of posturing about humans existing outside the web of life or being other than of the natural world. And we felt this before reading the way you and your sister, Sonya, communicate the purpose of The Far Woods on your website, which says:
“The things we make reflect our deepest desires about the world. We seek to contribute to a great Culture Shift in which there is a land ethic, reverence for nature, rejection of the dominant throw-away mentality, and direct connection to where our food and the things we use come from. Many of our artworks serve as educational tools and inspiration for deepening relationship to nature, food, and community. Our practice crosses disciplines to work toward an ecologically-viable and socially-just future."
Can you say more about your deepest desires about the world, for those alive today, for those to come? What do you allow yourself to desire in an era of collapse?
Nina: Articulating my deepest desires about the world would probably take a really long time! While it can feel indulgent or pollyanna-ish to allow our imaginations to wander about what could be, I think it’s actually our responsibility to do so, especially in this era of collapse. Change begins with a dream that seems improbable or impossible. So we have to allow ourselves the space and grace to dream up entirely new (and ancient) ways of being and relating. And to share these visions with others, because we inspire each other. There’s no map for these times, but there are seeds inside each of us that hint at the next steps. We have to water these seeds so that we can keep sensing the path forward.
What if we don’t feel like we have these seeds or know how to recognize them? One way to recognize them is to pay close attention to grief. My grief points toward my deepest desires for the world, and I consider it my wisest, truest guide. I have this really potent kind of grief, this longing for something I’ve never really even tasted but I sense through ancestral bodily memory. I have grief for the village. For truly living in community, alongside loved ones– sharing long dinners by the fire, sharing in child and elder care, sharing in meals and in providing for one another. This grief really came into focus for me when I had children and felt so isolated living away from my original family, trying to parent on my own. It feels deeply unnatural. According to Francis Weller, one of the five “gates” of grief is “What we expected and did not receive.” I think that when we are born, there is some expectation that we’ll enter into a really functional, beautiful culture that honors us and our gifts, a culture that encourages us to live a meaningful life. A culture of mutual respect, reverence…. a living, thriving culture with spirituality and connection. And then we come to see the stark contrast between what we expected and the actual culture we’re born into: one that largely considers us to be consumers, a culture where the end goal is the accumulation of wealth, a culture of destruction and waste, violence and war, a culture of exploitation. And it creates a lot of sorrow and disillusionment to have to settle for this.
The grief for what might’ve been can be the road map for what still can be. We can still move toward health, peace, abundance, meaning, and repair. It might take generations. I may only ever experience glimpses of it in this lifetime. But I believe it’s my life purpose to move us toward it, if even by inching.
Nicole: How do you move toward the manifestation of these desires when you are not making art — or at least not in the ways most people would recognize as making art?
Nina: When I became a parent I became aware of how much my children were watching my every move, how I react in every situation- how I talk to the grocery clerk, what I do first thing in the morning, what I say when they’re upset, how I engage with the world. It was almost frightening realizing this, because I started to see how most everything I do and say is information they are gathering on how to be a human being. But actually, it’s not just the parent/child relationship- we’re all watching each other, all the time, and modeling for one another how to be mature human beings. And so I think I’ve become much more aware of the small ways I’m engaging with the world, and how these little actions can have a ripple effect on the world around me. Like mending a sweater on the subway instead of zoning out on my phone, for example, which always invites conversation and connection. Dropping off a meal for a friend strengthens the community. Giving someone my full attention when they are telling me a story is radical at a time where distraction is the norm. These little actions are prayers for the world I want to see.
Day to day, I’m trying to unlearn and unravel the dominant capitalist mindset. I’m trying to build community by meeting up with other parents regularly to share dinners and rides, by growing a garden full of food and giving it to neighbors. I’m trying to be outside more, to have a sit spot in the woods behind my house, to pay more attention. I’m trying to slow down, to lengthen my patience, to resist grind culture. I’m trying to parent with presence and compassion. I’m trying to hand make the gifts I give.
Nicole: Let’s talk a little about this gorgeous piece you designed for EcoGather: Be Long Here. What if anything would you like to share with our community about the inspiration for and the process of bringing this piece into being? It is a very lush piece with lots of detail that brings us into a scene I certainly desire. Are there any parts or vignettes from it that really call to you?
Nina: I think the piece was subconsciously inspired by my daughters who are constantly climbing trees. I so appreciate this urge they have and the intimacy with the natural world that it invites. I recently watched my 72-year-old dad climb up into a tree with my girls! Climbing a tree is such a timeless form of play. And at the same time, I think there is a definite spiritual experience there– we rarely get to enjoy such a direct feeling of “being held” in nature. I like the way some people in this illustration are contemplative, others playful, and others are in conversation. I like that the people are in community with each other and with other beings– plants and animals and insects. I like the way the foreground plants make the viewer feel like maybe they’ve just encountered this scene when walking in the woods, and now they’re being invited into it.
Nicole: “What does “be long here” or "belong here” (as you prefer) mean to you?
Nina: “Be long here” and “belong here” have such layered meaning in relationship to the imagery in the piece. The first thing I think of is the way “be long here” evokes spaciousness, a sense of being in the moment together, lingering, losing track of time in a hurried world. There’s these sacred moments at sunset, the golden hour, depicted in this illustration, which seem to stretch on. These are moments in our day when many of us are inside or in traffic. So “be long here” is an invitation to linger, together, to relish in the beauty and preciousness of our world. But it’s also an invitation for humanity to continue to live long here on this Earth, to figure out how we can mutually flourish with the other beings we share it with.
I also think about how my friend who is a college professor says that he often observes in his students a deep guilt for being human. There’s an overall sense that humans are a blight on this planet. I want my daughters to know that humans are children of Mother Earth like all other beings, and we were part of a healthy reciprocal relationship for many thousands of years. We do belong. And I love the sentiment “belong here” for this reason.
Nicole: Finally, at EcoGather, we like to say that we gather in the space between modernity and the worlds our hearts know to be possible but our minds might not yet be able to conjure. But as a visual artist, you have an exceptional imagination and ability to do just that — to conjure. Do you have a vision of the worlds you hope your children can help build for their descendants? What do those worlds feature, what have the abandoned, what might surprise us most about them?
Nina: I don’t claim to be a visionary but I do give myself permission to imagine, and I love asking the question “what if?” Everything in our civilization– all the laws, the borders, the money, the debt, the taxes, the wars, land ownership– it’s all been imagined and then agreed upon. It’s actually just a series of agreements! If we made all of this up in the first place, then we can re-imagine it. This is an empowering realization. My generation, and my children’s, and maybe several after that, will be made up of bridge people, straddling worlds, transitioning from an exhausted way of being into a new (and ancient) healthy, reciprocal one. These bridge times will have to be driven by healing and repair if we are to survive them. What is the vision then for the other side of the bridge? Certainly not a world built on exploitation and plunder, war and greed. All of that will be shed as we mature into profound recognition of our interbeing. Gratitude. Connection. Humility. Dignity. Equality. Empathy. Feet on the soft grass. Bird song. Eye contact. Drinking directly from cool rivers. Living in close knit familial groups. Growing fruit trees together. Healing the waters, replenishing the soils. Enlivenment is on the other side of the bridge.
The artist, Nina Montenegro, in black & white standing in a meadow.
