With-nessing: What We Bear Together

As September wanes and our season of remembering nears its close, we find ourselves turning toward the harvest moon; a full moon providing extra twilight for farmers to reap what has ripened from seeds earlier sown.

In much the same way, Coralus is entering a time of illumination and harvest.

During our anchor Remembering Gathering at Saunders Farm, we shared the first version of a Field Guide to Creating New Futures, containing nine practices we have continuously returned to throughout twelve years of experimenting together.

There was something fitting about gathering at Saunders Farm, which began as a pick-your-own strawberry field.

People had come to this land before us to gather what had ripened. Decades later, we arrived to notice what had been ripening between us.

With-nessing at Saunders Farm

It rained, poured, drizzled, and poured some more. We were in the flow, quite literally. And from the moment we entered the grounds, or perhaps long before we actually arrived, we were with-nessing.

Unlike witnessing, which suggests a degree of passive observation, with-nessing is an active practice. It’s the practice of being fully present with one another, being in relationship, participating, and allowing ourselves to be changed by what happens between us.

At Saunders Farm, these practices did not remain on the page. We were honing them together as a field, in real life and in real time.

They became visible in the moments that emerged between us.

The Trees That Outlive Us

During a practice called Gratitudes from the Future, Jennifer Brandel invited us to imagine the future we wanted the youngest person in our life to inhabit as an elder. Then we wrote letters of gratitude from that future back to the present.

In Stacey Mareroa-Robert’s future, the peach tree from her childhood was still growing on the land, still bearing and offering its fruits for the youngest to savour. 

Her story called forward Frankie Edward’s memory of a beloved blueberry patch in Newfoundland and the responsibility they felt to care for it so its fruit could be enjoyed by future generations.

One memory made room for another to ripen and other stories joined a generational wall of gratitude.

A Mniku (Island) Bearing Fruit and Feeding Communities

Timmy Smith, Emily Bland and Shannon Courtney came together to ‘Unlock the Wealth Within Food’ during an Open Space session. Three people, from three small islands – Waiheke Island, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island.  

As they explored why islanders might be especially interested in building resilient food systems, they kept returning to the closely woven fabric of their communities and a desire to ensure everyone is fed.

Emily described her work pairing indoor food production with data centres. The smaller-scale initiative was called ‘Project Mini’, but she confessed she didn’t like the name and wanted to find another. 

Timmy wondered aloud what ‘mini’ might mean in an Indigenous language. Soon after, Emily quietly revealed that she had Mi’kmaq ancestry that she hadn’t been aware of growing up. 

Shannon searched what ‘mini’ meant in Mi’kmaw, and the magic revealed itself: 

• minig, to bear fruit, 
• minit, it bears fruit, 
• minijig, berry, fruit, or nut; and
• mniku, island

Timmy reflected back what she saw. Emily’s smaller food-production centres could become islands themselves: feeding communities and bearing fruit. 

Perhaps Project Mini did not have the wrong name. Emily brought forward a name she was ready to release. The circle returned it to her carrying a deeper meaning and a glimpse of the future it might hold for community food security. 

There were tears in everyone’s eyes.

What We Bear Together 

All weekend, fruit kept appearing. In the history of the land beneath us. In a peach tree imagined to outlive us. In a blueberry patch being tended for generations still to come. In Mi’kmaw words for berries and bearing fruit.

But bearing fruit isn’t only about what grows. It’s also about what we carry: a name, a possibility, a memory, a responsibility to those who will come after us.

This is what a field of practice can make possible. What one person carries can ripen between us. Someone sees what another cannot yet see. One memory awakens another. The future becomes something we hold in relationship. 

This is with-nessing. This is how we create one another.

Begin Where You Are

As our Season of Remembering comes to a close, we invite you to lean toward what feels alive. Watch for the futures waiting in the wings. Notice what is already beginning to ripen between us.