Change is Part of Every Great Story
We’re reimagining the 6 1/2 acres of land here - to integrate growing, nature, and intention. Over the next few years, you’ll see this land change and transform. Read more to understand the lands dream.
This ancient land holds stories layered upon stories. Most recently, it has been a farm and we have been the farmers. It’s from our long-standing connection to this place that the seeds of a new story slowly emerged. A story told in gold thread and night song, and the feeling of life rushing around us. A story in which our whole community could become kin to the land, know it in each season and understand when it speaks the language of life.
In this new story, the Earth leads and we follow – not the other way around. It’s a devotional way of working and living that weaves us into closer partnership with this land than ever.
The hand-drawn map you see here is the glimmering seed of the Land’s Dream. We hold it in our heart, imagining a day decades from now when the roots of this dream are real, strong and thriving.
We’ve started work already, but the vision you see will take several years to sprout and even longer to come to fruition. And just as a plant’s growth is directed by water and sunlight, the final result might look quite different than the design on this map.
Like any seed tentatively sending out new roots, we’ll discover the way as we go. We hope you’ll join us for the adventure.
The Land Remembers itself
The Land’s Dream is an intention for alchemical transformation, based on decades of observation.
The Kinlands team was beginning to envision a space that was wild and enchanting when we happened upon Mary Reynolds’ book,The Garden Awakening: Designs To Nurture Our Land and Ourselves. The spirit of the Earth is strong in Mary, a mix of life-source energy and something akin to magic. She listened to Luke, Jen, and the land itself, then brought the Land’s Dream to life on paper.
Mary drew the map you see here, an earth-centered vision in which we’re not “working” the land but working with it. We started the initial planting and naturescaping phase in autumn 2022 and expect it to take six or seven years, after which the trees and gardens will continue to mature for decades to come in cycles of decay and renewal.
This is a journey led by the land itself, and the plan may grow in new directions as we listen to the earth beneath our feet, guided by its intentions and dreams.
Exploring the Map
The Forest Garden
Three interconnected spirals on the northeast end of the map will become the Forest Garden. Here, you’ll discover plants as they bloom and bear fruit, hear the low hum of bumblebees in search of pollen, admire glistening berries, and smell sage or rosemary on the breeze. Instead of walking between rows, you’ll circle the beds along the spiral path in this slightly wild foraging garden.
Reimagining Pastures & Runs
Delight in a glimpse of The Kinlands ducks roaming the orchard at the south end of the grounds, where apples, pears, and cherries will one day grow heavy on the branches. From a distance, attune to the sure-footed confidence of the goats or the majestic strength of the horses grazing in pastures woven across the land. Then listen. Can you hear the conversations of our resident turkeys and emus, or the call of a donkey?
The Nightingale Dream Spiral
On this journey, nightingales have aligned in our thoughts and dreams as a recurring symbol and inspiration. They fill us with wonder, these small beings who seek others in song, voices enchanting the forest air by night. And just as dark chases light across the moon, only for its shimmer to return anew, The Nightingale Dream Spiral is a place where old life can integrate, giving way to new ways of being. This constant, ongoing process of reinvention and renewal is the path walked by nature itself.
The Night Garden
Walk the Night Garden’s outer circle to meet what’s blooming. Caspia, sweet Annie, or wild roses, perhaps, depending on the season and which wild varieties we hear calling to live here. Venture a path straight to the garden’s heart, where you can greet the calm waters of the pond and speak a secret intention to the Wishing Tree. Reconnect with the night sky as you nestle into a Moon Pod to gaze at the stars. Meanwhile, swallows fly at dusk and crickets chirp in the dark, giving the term “night life” new meaning.
Memory Garden
Ancient and new. Light and dark. Male and female, old and young. Together and alone. Each of us contain seemingly-opposing elements that are, in fact, a greater whole. Walk the garden to remember your fullness and find balance in contrast.
The Berry Patch
Pick the sweet-tart berries glimmering like jewels in this bramble planted for curious visitors. Taste a few on your way into the old-world shoppe and again on your way out, or before exploring the gardens and grounds at The Kinlands.
Workshop and Performance Spaces
Revel in shared music during an intimate outdoor concert in the amphitheater, or get to know a wildflower in our outdoor workshop space before learning to craft a seasonal tincture. We can’t wait to help deepen wilderness connections by expanding offerings into the outdoors. While our greenhouse is a wonderful space, we're excited to extend these small group gatherings in rewilded nature!
Our Home
Jen and Luke’s home sits in the southwest corner of the grounds, surrounded by a rose pergola and native grasses in the front yard, and raised vegetable and herb beds around a small wildlife pond in the back. While this is one of few places on the map that are private, by walking into the Shoppe, through the berry patch, or visiting with the animals, you have indeed visited their home.
A Place for Wild Things
Along the east edge of the land, hear the rustle of leaves in the hedge and forest, part of a wildlife corridor created by an ephemeral stream bed. The stream that snakes down the south of the land here is among the only remaining wild spaces for animals to travel from the mountains to the river in the center of the valley.
We want to welcome wild creatures here to rest, to sit and visit with us like old friends, to know we remember them, love them, even as human development encroaches further into the wilderness. We’ve just started rewilding this edgeland, and already animals are burrowing underground, whispering through willows and fallen leaves, or nesting in the branches.
As we evolve, we’ll have more to connect the community than ever before. The chance to taste summer berries straight from the bramble outside the old-world shoppe. Walk the moon phases in Nightingale Dream Spiral. Explore the abundant gardens. Delight in a glimpse of the horses or ducks. Immerse yourself in each season with hands-on workshops. Nourish your body with regional produce grown in reciprocity with the Earth. Find thoughtfully crafted items for a simple-yet-sophisticated home that breathes and speaks of nature and the elements. In doing any of these, you’ll be supporting the remembrance of a culture that honors the spirit of the land and our greater connection to nature.
This dream requires community, and every role is necessary.
Those who plant the seeds. The sun and water that allow plants to thrive. Those who fill their baskets with fresh goods, haul a pumpkin home from the patch, or tie a woodland tree to the roof of their car. Collaboration and gratitude are essential to everything that happens here and, as The Kinlands grows and expands, more and more people are included in this vision of an abundant future woven by a community of many.
We hope The Kinlands becomes a place to rekindle your connection to the Earth, and find others seeking the same. Remembering we are not alone but in company with endless life, kindness and inspiration, companionship, wonder, and enchantment untold.
