Throughout my life, I've recognized a strong need for community and shared dreaming. And as my father did for me, he put me in a position to actualize those dreams and slowly understand that a wish is a vision. Our visions are so precious. Sharing that wish with others and fighting for the love our life is worth is a lifetime journey that shows up in many ways. In this way, our wish garden teaches resilience. It stands to honor our dreams and the people who root us in the world. Our wish garden reflects the ways we have consistently shown up as a community to nurture the collective vision of one another. Through hardship, conflict, and tough days our intentions remain watered by one another. We have honored change and impermanence so gracefully in this space. Each moment that does not return becomes a flower, and our minds will continuously remain in full blossom as we experience the beauty of flux and grow toward it. Most importantly our garden gives us hope. I hope to give our students an experience of community that shows up for them wherever they stand and gives back to them as much as they pour into the world. It has been an honor to facilitate this project and connect our students with curiosity, joy, community, consistency, and mentors of wisdom and legacy. I would like to share what has guided me here today and continue to lead me in hope that it accompanies our students through their various walks of life and brings them back to this special place." —Rachel Aquino
"Enchanted Earth Guardians" is a community-focused zine created by Rachel Aquino that documents an arts, nature, and herbalism-based youth garden program designed to foster healing, social-emotional connection, and collective dreaming. Designed as both a keepsake and a creative resource, it compiles original poetry, essays, and Polaroid documentation from educators alongside hands-on herbal recipes, lesson summaries, cyanotype prints, and collective artwork created by elementary students.
Take a look at select pages of our community garden zine documenting my year-long service project crafted with care and holistic approach amongst the student body of Winn Elementary School and Herbal Action Project. Each page tells a story of creativity, collaboration, and the world we wish to create.
Our world needs your wish, so don’t clutch it too tightly, Share it loudly and often, and make time for rest, make time to dream, Please ask for help when you need it, Tell me about that cool bug you found because we need surprise and delight and because we need each other,
Give your wish space and time and care to grow,
get curious,
during difficulty,
get connected with others,
Because wishing is hard work and because doing is hard work and because our world needs your wish, and our world needs you
—Poem from Site Coordinator, Nora Borre
I stand tall in the middle of a meadow
I stand open and protect the animals I stand firm and send my roots deeper
Who am i?
I am the one they call the wise
I am the one they call the strong
I am the one they call the Arbol
—Poem from Holistic Garden Designer, Jesus Garcia
During one early lesson in the garden, Jesus from Herbal Action Project noticed an artichoke plant from the year before that had gone to seed. Artichoke seeds come in the form of a giant ball of fluff, made up of many many many individual seeds (like a giant, dense dandelion). Jesus explained to the students that all these seeds are wishes, and invited them to take a few and plant wishes throughout the garden.
About a month later, I was talking with a student about our garden, and asked them, “what are some things we might find in our garden?” I was thinking: plants, bugs, seeds, grass, soil, tools. The student paused, looked at me and said— “A wish?”
Isn’t that what a garden is? We tend the soil and amend it, we plant seeds and we water and care for our plants, but we never know... We start with a wish, we nurture our wishes, we open to surprise and delight in the process, and together we make our wishes a reality.
This garden has grown beyond my wildest dreams. Now in the Spring, after a year of care and labor and love we have bright flowers and green vegetables and crawling caterpillars and fluttering butterflies and singing birds. We have all this life blooming and growing and singing and thriving, and it all came from our collective wishes and the work we did together. In the garden, I’ve seen students problem-solve with one another and cooperate towards a shared vision. I’ve seen students set down conflicts, connect with the soil and with the plants and with each other.
When we make wishes together, we are powerful. When we make wishes together, we can transform the planet and our ways of relating to one another. When we make wishes together, we create a world with more beauty and more abundance. In short, when we make wishes together, we make a world where more life is possible.