Shephali Patel - A Farmer Who Learns from the Forest

No single person or culture can fully understand the whole of life on its own.
We need everyone’s stories to piece together a larger picture of what life truly is.

█ Shephali Patel, Youth Climate Education Facilitator, Oregon State University


It’s difficult to describe what I do because I’ve had countless roles in this work, for a reason. From the outside, it looks like I co-steward spaces with people, plants, animals—with all living beings. These are places where we can practically explore how to sustain ourselves in the world, whatever that world looks like; where we can continue learning and passing knowledge along through education; and where we can dream and speak about the things we’re not allowed to talk about—to create futures we can’t yet imagine.

That’s what it looks like on the outside. But at its core, my work is about multi-species collaboration. I didn’t even know what that meant when I started.

Like Alex, I grew up in New York City—a very urban environment—as a child of immigrants in a difficult household, full of suffering. From a young age, my core question was: Is it possible for me to grow into something that transcends the conditions around me? Can I live according to my values? I didn’t know the answer, but I sensed that nature might hold it. So I set out to connect with nature—no formal study, just going out there.

▲ Shephali enjoys being in the company of nature; she sees the forest as her teacher, guiding her in the wisdom of life.

The Forest Is My Teacher

The tipping points have been many, and they continue even now—unglamorous compared to these amazing people. There have been endless teachers, but one I always return to is the forest.

Early on, knowing nothing, I just showed up. My work was on the ground—literally on my knees, close to the earth, every day. That posture closed the distance Daniel spoke about—the separation between myself and everything around me. Without realizing it, I was cultivating intimacy and humility. That was the first gateway: recognizing I know nothing, surrounded by elegant and sophisticated systems, being open to them, learning through the land by simply being present.


I Am Nature

I realized that my original questions—how can I transcend my conditions, what is my role as a human being—were not the right ones. The emerging truths were these:

1. I don’t need to “connect with nature”—I am nature.
At a biological level, we are holobionts: less than 50% of our cells are human. The rest are other species. We are living ecologies within an ecological system.

2. Every being in the forest already has a role. So I do too. The question isn’t what is my role but how does one become a human being in this world? How do I live with all these other beings?
The forest taught me that everything functions in relationship. A tree lives in multiple worlds—its roots in the soil, branches in the sky, communicating with fungi and countless beings. It showed me how to be open enough to listen, to allow experiences to flow through me, and to let them transform me—like an ecosystem.

A forest adapts constantly through communication; this is ecological succession. My work now focuses on understanding what that means for us humans as complex adaptive systems—how we can let the work and other cultures continue to inform us about the living cosmos. No single person or culture knows enough to understand life alone. We need everyone’s stories to form the larger picture of what life is.

The Key: Understanding Life

Ultimately, understanding life itself is the key to understanding the multifaceted nature of climate issues—and to finding solutions.

So as a blessing: I hope whatever you do, you have the space and courage to let it flow through you, to let it transform you, so you can keep engaging in ever more relevant and wondrous ways.

We live in a society conditioned to think there’s one solution, one person, one outcome. That’s never the truth. We need everyone, all perspectives, all solutions. Keep that as your anchor as you decide what kind of human being you want to be in creating a future we cannot yet imagine.

Profile

An agroecologist, educator, cultural worker, and artist. For the past 15 years, she has been dedicated to practicing multispecies collaboration, with the hope of nurturing a future grounded in equity, compassion, generosity, and joy.
As a land steward and farmer, she not only learns how to grow food to nourish both people and soil, but also comes to understand the deep connection between land ethics and social justice through cultivation.

As an educator, she invites a return to the “original 3Rs”—Regeneration, Reverence, and Remembering. Through the lens of “land as pedagogy,” she designs and leads innovative programs that train farmers, K–12 youth, and climate advocates, positioning ancestral wisdom as a vital foundation for building resilience and moving beyond human-centered thinking.

As an artist and as a human being, she works to attune her language as a blessing, bringing her actions back to a practice centered on love. In recent years, she has continued to engage in research and dialogue on black holes, water, and forest ecology—reflecting on how humanity might reposition itself between the cosmos and the Earth, so that the way we show up for one another and for the world becomes a form of refuge and healing.

▶ (Image source: Gregory’s Facebook)


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Alex Epstein - Urban Gardener Planting ‘Relationships’

Reem AlMealla - Bahrain’s First Female Oceanographer

Daniel Abreu Mejía - An Educator Empowering Climate Youth

Gregory Scott Pettys - A Scholar Preserving Seeds

Shephali Patel - A Farmer Who Learns from the Forest

Sow the seeds, transform yourself


Resource: Issue 512 of Humanity Magazine, Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation