I am a folklore master's student at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, the traditional homeland of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation.

My master’s fieldwork centers herbalists, gardeners, and farmers across northern Utah and the relationships they hold with the land and with the more-than-human world around them. I’ve spoken with regenerative farmers practicing reciprocal relationships, permaculturists wrestling with what it means to be an environmental refugee, and herbalists receiving guidance from the plants they harvest and tend to. What started with a curiosity about plant tending and more-than-human relationships led to discussions about ecological grief, the slow reckoning with a landscape in flux, the 42,000 acre Stratos water-draining and resource-intensive data center 30-miles west of where we live, and what it means to be called to witness the death of The Great Salt Lake.

I am honored to present early insights from my fieldwork this fall at Harvard Divinity School (September 21-26) and the American Folklore Society’s Annual Conference (October 27-31).