Lately I have been thinking about solarpunk, guerrilla gardening, and the idea of the commons, and how all three of them seem to circle the same quiet conviction that the future does not have to be sterile, extractive, and lonely.
Solarpunk gets described as an aesthetic, which always feels a little flattening. Yes, there are beautiful illustrations of cities wrapped in vines and solar panels glinting on rooftops. Yes, there are rooftop gardens and clean transit systems and buildings softened with green. It insists that technology and ecology do not have to be enemies, and that infrastructure can be designed around regeneration instead of exhaustion.
Guerrilla gardening feels like the practical cousin of that vision. It is what happens when someone stops waiting for permission and starts planting. Sunflowers in a vacant lot. Native flowers along a fence. Fruit trees where there used to be broken glass and trash. When a space is technically owned but functionally abandoned, it raises an uncomfortable question about what land is actually for. If it feeds no one, shelters nothing, and brings no beauty into the world, what purpose is it serving?
Planting something there is a small declaration that it could serve life instead.
Historically, the commons referred to land shared by a community for grazing, gathering, and growing. It was collective stewardship, land that was available to everyone to use. Over time, so much of that shared land was fenced off and privatized that the idea of shared responsibility began to feel unrealistic.
And yet the commons still exists in fragments. Public parks. Libraries. Community gardens. Even sidewalks are a kind of commons. They only function because we agree to use them together and not destroy them. The commons requires trust. It requires the belief that people are capable of tending something collectively without immediately stripping it bare.
Lately, I keep coming back to seeds.
Seeds are potential. Seeds are adventure.
A seed is a future that fits in your palm. It is a wager against entropy. When you plant one, you are acting as though there will be seasons ahead worth preparing for.
This year I am starting a small perennial nursery. On paper, it is practical. In my head, it feels slightly insurgent. (Black locust. Korean pine. Paw paw. Trifoliate orange. Apple. Peach. Chestnut. Hazelnut. Mulberry.)
Trees that fix nitrogen. Trees that drop fat nuts in autumn. Trees that fruit decades from now. Trees that could quietly anchor a landscape and feed people long after I am done fussing over them.
Some of them will stay here. Some might get shared. And maybe, just maybe, a few will find their way into places that need them. A neglected edge. A forgotten strip of land. A bit of guerrilla fun that becomes long-term canopy.
There is something about planting perennials that feels especially aligned with the commons. You are not planting for a single season. You are planting for continuity. For shade you may not personally sit under. For fruit someone else might pick. It is an act of faith in shared time.
When I think about growing calorie-dense winter squash instead of decorative annuals, or building soil that will feed us next February instead of chasing aesthetic perfection, it feels connected to this same thread. Growing food that carries us through winter is a small act of resilience. Starting trees that will outlive me is an even longer one. Both push back against the logic that everything must be immediate, monetized, and optimized.
Solarpunk imagines a regenerative future. Guerrilla gardening practices regeneration in miniature. The commons provides the philosophy that makes both coherent. They all challenge the idea that every square foot of land must produce profit in order to justify its existence. They suggest that shade, pollinators, nuts, fruit, and shared beauty are forms of wealth too.
There is something quietly radical about showing up with compost and seedlings and acting as if a neglected space matters. It implies that the future is not abandoned. It suggests that we are still here, and that we are willing to take responsibility for what is in front of us.
I do not think the future arrives all at once. I suspect it arrives gradually, through saplings in milk crates, through neighbors swapping cuttings, through solar panels bolted onto old roofs, through someone tucking a chestnut into the soil and walking away.
Seeds are small, but they are not minor. They are compressed forests. They are food security in embryo. They are possibility waiting for rain.
Maybe the most subversive thing we can do is plant as if shared flourishing is ordinary. To treat land not as a commodity alone, but as a commons in the making. To press a seed into the ground and mean it.
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