Imagining a just future together is the first step to building it together.
Thinking about the possibilities of an urban pastoral
In the English-language tradition, a pastoral is the fantasy that urban folk create about the “countryside” as it disappears, about nature as it is extracted, complete with shepherds singing simple songs and weaving wreathes of flowers as gifts for their lovers. It compensates for “sophisticated” capitalist and urban existence by imagining an other place—a green world—where proximity to nature gives us authenticity, at least temporarily unbinding norms and expectations, and frees our voice. It can also be the space of our becoming—first blooming or last ripening. A place where the continuing and vibrating life of the present moment enfolds and gives dwelling to our grief, unrequited love, or alienation. Where the moment becomes present, here and now, only because clocks exist and are ubiquitous. Where “nature” is what crosses borders and exceeds property lines, even though sheep are property; is not industry even though it feeds it; where thought is free because ideology is a hardscape.
“Nature,” in this tradition, is the other of urban existence. What has been lost, given over, extracted, enclosed, and exploited to create the modern city. By contrast, an urban pastoral is an invitation to play with the simultaneity of these two terms. An invitation to resist the nostalgia of traditional pastoral and reflect instead on the past, present, and future of the natural and built spaces of the city of Somerville. To imagine, not an other place, but the fullness and plenitude of this space, the space that is at hand for you, here and now.
An urban pastoral, being a contradiction in terms, cannot privilege the simple over the complex, the green blade over the red brick. It does not privilege a white-dominant fantasy of a good life in a pristine green world—one to which very few folks have had, or have wanted, access. An urban pastoral insists on the reciprocity of “built” and “natural” spaces (which always interact and assemble into something more specific) and of the human and the more-than-human worlds. It explores the conditions for the thriving of all individual beings, families, and communities.
An urban pastoral is a vehicle for engaging, reflecting on, and passing on the different systems of knowing and experiencing held by our diverse communities. For sustaining already existing webs of community knowledge and facilitating conversations across our diverse locations.
Common grass-leaved goldenrod (Euthamia graminifolia) and red amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus) (TK).
Our Partners
About the Somerville Community Growing Center
The Somerville Community Growing Center is a place for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to gather, learn, and celebrate in nature, together building a welcoming, accessible, and thriving community. Recognizing and celebrating the restorative power, beauty and awe of the natural world, we're always looking to find ways to build community, connecting across ecological, cultural, and justice issues.
The Center is a very small but vital piece of green space in an urban city, and it is a place where people can come and start to develop that relationship with both a place and the people who come there. It's those connections that can provoke us to ask questions such as, Why did I meet someone here that I might not have met somewhere else?, or, Why do I feel differently here?
We humbly acknowledge that we have much to learn and to do in order to reflect a lens of diversity, equity, justice and inclusion and we welcome new partners and perspectives in this on-going effort. What are ways that we can work together to think about this big, beautiful space that we share and how we might collectively care for it? Who is caring for it, and who is making programming decisions and exploring their roles, responsibilities and rights, because all those issues intersect?
The Growing Center is many things to many people, and we're honored to participate in the Urban Pastorals project.
About the Racial Justice Collaborative
The Racial Justice Collaborative (RJC) is proud to serve the Somerville community by creating spaces where people can talk openly about race. Through training, facilitation, and dialogue, we help neighbors, nonprofits, and city leaders understand how race shapes our lives and how honest conversation can bring us closer together. We focus on building community by building relationships—one dialogue at a time.
Established in Somerville in 2020, the RJC proudly acquired 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2024. The Collaborative grew out of Let’s Talk About Race, a grassroots initiative dedicated to making race a regular part of community conversation. Today, the RJC continues that mission by helping groups move beyond silence, listen deeply, and build connections strong enough to meet the challenges of our time.