Now, more than ever, there is a collective yearning that courses through cities and suburbs across the country, a need to be disconnected from the “virtual” and reconnected to the rhythms of nature. Many of us are seeking to experience things more viscerally, the way our grandmothers did, either at the stove or outdoors, often hunched over, cooking, curing, weeding, burning or digging, even parking chicken coops in our driveways instead of cars. In an age of the information highway, social networks, entertainment junkies, and the blurry line between reality and virtual reality—all sedentary pastimes—my lifelong pursuit is to provide ways for people to access what is real and lasting and tangible, to access the DIY values and can-do, improvisational spirit of our grandparents’ generation, to extinguish the manic flicker of the computer screen and learn how to use our hands again. Through workshops and educational platforms I bring together people from all generations and all walks of life and teach them useful manual skills and self-sufficiency, leaving them feeling energized and emboldened.

It’s manual literacy that lets us achieve our greatest potential as human beings. We need to fill our hands with berries that we have picked ourselves. Only then do we feel truly full.