By: Mia Ambroiggio ’26 MEM
A few days before Valentine’s Day, 1,000 people gathered online for “Earthly Love,” a conversation with authors Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil moderated by Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. Inspired by Earthly Love: Stories of Intimacy and Devotion from Orion Magazine, Volume 2 — an anthology from Orion magazine to which Ross and Aimee both contributed — the virtual gathering explored joy, wonder, grief, and sorrow, and how these emotions can each serve as affirmations of life. As the conversation unfolded, Mary Evelyn, Ross, and Aimee reflected on love, community, commitment, and relationships with our non-human kin, often grounding these ideas in stories from time spent in their gardens.
“Earthly Love” is the sixth collaboration between Yale and Orion magazine. The convergence of Yale and Orion is thanks in large part to Tucker, who sparked the initial working relationship in hopes of bringing a humanities and spiritual lens to discussions at The Forest School. Past collaborations have focused on old-growth forests and trees as elders, while this event — fitting for February — centered on love in all its facets. “These collaborations are all about human relationships with trees and forests, generally in a joyful way,” says Sara Santiago ’19 MF, assistant director of The Forest School.
The conversation between Mary Evelyn, Ross, and Aimee echoed many of the concepts we explore in the classroom at the Yale School of the Environment and in the field — a gentle reminder that everything mirrors and reflects everything else. In the anthology’s “Letters from Two Gardens,” Ross and Aimee exchange snail mail poems about their respective gardens. They capture the typical changing of the seasons alongside a shift in the timing of the intergenerational patterns we once recognized — winter frosts, spring melts, early blooms. In a changing climate, Mary Evelyn asked Ross and Aimee to reflect on this: the balance of resistance and acceptance. Understanding that while there are ways to get ahead of, or prevent, change, sometimes we need to let this newness wash over us and act accordingly.
Contextualizing large concepts such as a changing climate yet grounding them in the context of one’s backyard garden — a much more intimate scale — bridges a gap between the wicked problems we are addressing academically and professionally, and what we are experiencing alongside our community in real time. What is mitigation and adaptation if not a balance of resistance and acceptance? What is resilience and sustainability if not sharing seeds and vegetables with your neighbors?
The through line of the conversation is that so much of what we do is sharing what we love: sharing knowledge, care, and resources among humans, but also among and between our non-human kin. “We are the beneficiaries of love that goes as far back as you can imagine,” Ross reflects as he notes the many trees that have existed long before us and will see the world long after. Aimee also notes that “gardening is one of the myriad of ways we begin to practice care,” whether it be by exchanging growing techniques or dropping off your surplus of summer squash at your neighbor’s doorstep.
These conversations deviate from how we discuss the natural world in a classroom setting or in the field, but it does not mean that this connection between our respective work and gardens is not present, even if it is quiet. The specialness of putting this connection in writing — and this writing being shared and consumed, whether individually or in community — is what shapes the way we move through this work.
“Earthly Love” presents a larger conversation: reciprocity amongst fields, systems, each other. We all bring with us what we’ve seen and tended in our own gardens, so to speak: whether that be yards, green spaces, forests, classrooms. Each space has taught us something different: how to notice, how to wait, how to intervene, how to let go. When we bring these lessons together, the concept of caring expands. We learn how to show up and be in community with one another. Gardeners remind us to stay close, noticing at an intimate scale. Foresters urge us to zoom out, considering systems-scale resilience, and the unseen networks beneath the surface. Writers help us articulate what might otherwise remain felt but unspoken, giving shape to shared understanding. Together, we begin to fill one another’s gaps. This is all a lesson in reciprocity: no system or field thrives in isolation. As Ross suggests, sharing what we love binds us across our different worlds.
Yale Farm in bloom in early fall. Photo: Mia Ambroiggio
