submitted by Victoria Pearson
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Seeds can last many years, dormant. The vision of SeedChange was born in 2003, in a West Philly third floor apartment, and promptly went underground. Not before purchasing a domain name and a lot of writing, but what was clear then was that this vision needed a lot of learning and growth before it could germinate fully. 

Within 5 years I had first experimented with building intentional community, bringing my skills to nonprofit organizations and activist community groups, farm apprenticeships, and educational farms. Within 10 years, I had experimented with committed relationship, institutional educational living and working, and moving 500 miles north to central Vermont. And in the last 5 years, I have deepened my skills in facilitation, training, and coaching, farming, and community building, and birthed a second baby. 

Now, it's time to build more SeedChange, in my life, in my community, in the world. This site is a platform for the work that we have been doing for the past five years at our community site in East Montpelier, Vermont, as well as a space for folks to learn more about the consulting work I do. And it's a place to name what the deep work of SeedChange can be.

This is the question: how do we Change the Seed-- a task we know is impossible, in an ecological systems framework? Instead let us ask: do we really know and understand the seed? The process of tapping into the deep work of liberation is one of uncovering the potential that is within the seed from the beginning. This is what SeedChange is: we change our understanding of the seed, we see the change possible, and we become part of the sea change building and flowing all around us. We can do this work. I know it. And I welcome you to explore this work in your life. 

Here is a poem I wrote while participating in powerful healing and liberation work with Beyond Diversity 101, at a BD101 Race workshop in November of 2016. My friend and colleague Niyonu Spann wrote about the seed, too, check it out. 

​THE SEED
I wriggle in expectation
I mesmerize myself.
I hold my feet out
feeling for fire
feeling for the moist kiss of the soil.

It's cool and quiet
in this in between place.
I hug myself tight
because there is no one else
yet.

I wonder what the
light will taste like
what my body will look like 
this time.

I remember past plants
I have been, like dreams
or hiccups of memory.
My little leaves, curled
next to the big love
of my parent's gifts
rest fitfully
almost hungry.

Never before have I known myself
this ready
for breaking open. 

I welcome the discovery and breaking open of this life. I welcome you on this journey, as you are ready and able.