Read More »You make your way towards The Pond, noticing the cold air nipping at your neck where your hairline meets the wool collar of your peacoat. As you brush aside the drooping branches of the willow tree marking the entrance, the absence of Xiaolong’s warm welcome is alarming. “I wonder where everyone is,” you think, “I can’t have Pondmas without my friends! They’re like my family!”
This year, and every year, we hold Pondsgiving to share a meal and the found family we have built amongst the inhabitants. In our everyday lives, particularly the American voices in the book community, we need to strive to decolonize Thanksgiving. This article by M. Karlos Baca (Tewa/Dinè/Nuuciu), an Indigenous Foods Activist, founder of Taste of Native Cuisine, and a cofounder of the I-Collective, explores ways to decolonize Thanksgiving and revive Indigenous relationships with food. The Pond is full of myth, magic, and lore, and in these traditions, we eradicate the false narrative we have been told about glorifying pilgrimage in American history, and retell history in the ways that stories should have been initially told.
We are taking special care to decolonize our Thanksgiving dinner at the Pond, using methods and ideologies from this interview with Chef Nephi Craig, a Navajo member of the White Mountain Apache tribe of Whiteriver, Arizona, and founder of the Native American Culinary Association.
We welcome you to our Pondsgiving dinner. We hope you’ll stay awhile.
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It’s the last day of spooky season, friends! And that means… it’s finally Pond-O-Ween! Last year, the Pond friends celebrated Pond-O-Ween and dressed up in costumes handmade by our favourite toad, Varian. This year, the Pond friends are back with new costumes, and we are so excited for you to see them.
Seeing that it’s the last day of the month, we thought we would combine Pond-O-Ween with our Monthly Wrap-Up. We haven’t had a Story-Time post in awhile, and Joce wrote this year’s Pond-O-Ween post – and I know all of you are going to love it as much as I do.
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Read More »It’s been awhile since you’ve visited the Pond.
As you pass through the Pond’s magical boundary, you notice that things here look… different. Pickerel weeds, lavenders, and rosemary now adorn the Pond, and it looks like cattails and cardamine now grow by the Pond’s water. But, you realise, even though the Pond looks a little different, you can still feel the gentle and calm energy in the air – it’s still the Pond, after all.
“Friend!” calls a familiar voice. “Come over here!”
New to the Pondathon’s story?
Read this prologue first or read the previous chapter.
With the first morning light, its soft glow shining on the Pond, the forest begins to wake – and so does Sprout’s magic.
As the trees arouse from their rest and the flowers unfurl, Sprout can now feel the hum of the forest, the hum of life. Everything in this world is connected, Sprout knows. A young shoot and an old oak may weather different worlds, but they are still connected to one infinite well of the earth – the greatest and oldest magic of all.
For Sprout, magic isn’t summoning or harnessing raw elements into power. Rather, they intertwine their magic with that of the earth. For Sprout, magic is openness, feeling, connection. Sprout inhales, and with their deep and steady exhale (and a slight wobble of the sprout on their head), they branch out with their magic – intertwining their magic with the roots buried deep into the earth, feeling the flutter of a leaf in a distant tree, and the drop of morning dew fall onto the Pond.
