Agraria_Journal_WINTER_2022

AGRARIA JOURNAL 2022 15 with my touch. Here is the familiar explosion of flavor — a memory of youth, of visits to the salty shores near Seattle, of my children’s tiny fingers foraging in the evening light, of pushing soil with my hands over blackberry roots, a hope for future foragers to find bounty. A blackbird calls in protest to my proximity, returning me to this moment and this place. I am reminded by my walk and the land, the importance of another sense, a sense of wonder, in all stages of life, but especially in childhood. I am reminded of these words from The Sense of Wonder by writer, environmentalist, and biologist Rachel Carson: A gift to each child should be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, and the alienation from the sources of our strength. A sense of wonder lingers, blackberry essence on my tongue, light stain on my fingertips. The path opens before me, past the blackberry brambles, and I walk forward into the next moment. Kat Christen is Agraria’s Education Director. LAURA HUTCHENS MAUREEN FELLINGER CELIA MONTEMURRI MAUREEN FELLINGER AMY HARPER A vibrant, homemade goldenrod crown created a stunning adornment for a child in Trekkers, an afterschool program for 6-12-year- olds. Tiny hands touch and dig in the soil to plant seeds in their shared garden during Ecogrowers, an afterschool program for 6-12-year-olds. Students in the Backyard Food Forest Class enjoyed the taste of sun-warmed fresh raspberries right off the plant in Agraria’s berry patch. A child in the Trekkers program experienced a moment of awe during a dragonfly spotting on Jacoby Creek. The scent of hand-ground corn lingered with fire smoke as participants in Forest Families cooked Stick Bread over the fire.