I am writing this post on February 27, 2026 in the context of a proposed high-speed-rail corridor that, if built, would span approximately 1000km between Toronto, Ontario and Quebec City, Quebec with 7 planned stops along the route. Alto is the federal Crown corporation overseeing the proposed project (AltoTrain, n.d., a) and is requesting feedback from the public currently through to March, 2026 (AltoTrain, n.d., b).
Although the proposed Alto high-speed-rail is the current (and local) context, the concepts in this post apply to numerous other contexts as well. At the end of the post, you can find a list of links to all references cited throughout.
Each year, I plant a garden – keep one going – regardless of failure or success. Each year, I feel this undeniable longing – an impulse, an urge, a life force – to plant seeds. Each year, I plant seeds. I observe what happens. Some seeds are the literal seeds, the literal, visceral things that can sprout. Other seeds are essential support partners like water, compost, nutrients, pollinator habitat, shade and/or light, (and periods of dark nights). This year, for the first time, I’ve had zucchini to harvest. Cucumbers, on the other hand, still have not grown fruit. Last year, there were a small number of cucumbers and zero fruit of zucchini, though beautiful leaves for a period of time…. another first….. then powdery mildew, not a first.
Life includes (or can include) really hard things and awful things, in various places and at various times. Life also includes (or can include) things that are beautiful, often profoundly. One of the things I like about the photographs below is how they include a mix of both shadows, stormy tones, and also vibrancy and light—each apparently juxtaposed with the other.
I think a lot about plants. I think a lot about the interrelationships between things. Take for example, water. Take for example, the absolute necessity of swamps to support well being.1 Take for example, pollinators. Take for example, how, if you don’t have conditions that support the well-being of pollinators, you don’t have all manner of foods and wonderful and necessary things.2
Whatever you are experiencing in this particular moment, may you feel with you the good company of a kindness or loving energy, and/or the strengthening energy of an expansive sky.
“You expand and then you meet your own resistance. In the human body and experience, as in nature, there is a continuous play between these forces. We reach to expand and are held back by constriction.”
—Betsy Polatin, Humanual, from Chapter One, (c) 2020
