Ripple Project

Our 5th annual Blue Bonsai Show was a spooktacular magical experience for all the ghouls, ghosts, spirits, and freaks who came out! We raised over $1k for charities!! Thanks to everyone who donated, supported, and performed!!! See ya’ll next year!!!! 🎃👻🕷️👽

A few weeks ago, the ripple hosted an event called ‘Sow Harmony’ at @fly_ranch , with the goal to spread native seeds from a fire restoration blend collected around Pyramid Lake, Nevada. 🌱 🧍A longstanding mentor of the ripple team, Ed ‘Seedman’ Kleiner of @comstockseed , not only harvested the seed with his team, but led the workshop to educate people about responsible native seed collection, storage, and dissemination. 🗺️ Participants that live in the region were able to take home seeds with them to plant. The mix is able to be planted throughout the whole Great Basin, but is ideally suited for Northern Nevada. 🍃 The species in the blend were: Wyoming Big Sagebrush, Indian Ricegrass, Sandberg Bluegrass, Great Basin Wildrye, Squirreltail Bottlebrush, Spiny Hopsage, and Fourwing Saltbush. 🪴 Native seed dissemination in core to ripple’s work- it’s actually where the name comes from. As humans help plant natives, those plants will grow up to spread their seed by water, wind and by other organisms. In turn, a ripple effect of native plant propagation ensues in ecosystems that are increasingly facing species loss as a result of desertification and competition from invasive plants and cattle. By supporting natives, we humans can help ensure all native organisms prosper - from the microbes in the soil to the higher plants and animals. ✊ We will be hosting more events like this in the future. Please do reach out if you are in to this kind of thing & want to participate or help organize! 🏜️ Here is a photo of the seed dissemination event and some fun shots of the campout out in the Black Rock Desert. 🔥

Last week at @fly_ranch campout, the ripple team led ~40 volunteers to plant 120 plants native to northern NV. The event was called ‘Sow Harmony.’ (Fly Ranch is ~2.5hrs north of Reno and is owned by @burningman .) This was a beautiful collaboration among many organizers and volunteers. In ripple fashion, a circular garden install wraps around a sunken food forest built by @seed_flyranch . Thank you to the Seed team and lead garden steward, Big Chris! 🌱💚 This campout was Fly Ranch’s largest gathering to date (minus the ‘97 burn), and their mission to take land stewardship seriously is being fulfilled each season. 🙌 This garden features plants traditionally used in many ways and hosts many of the same plants as the Pyramid Lake museum’s Medicine Garden. Educating the local and regional public is a major goal of this installation. To make that happen, educational Signage sign 🪧 will be installed soon for Fly Ranch’s nature-walks. Endless love to @ccgreenhouseproject and @christin_cohee for growing out the installed plants: Serviceberry, Mormon Tea, Blue Flax, Narrowleaf Milkweed, Yarrow, Evening Primrose, Palmer’s Penstemon, Rocky Mountain Penstemon. 💚 We will be posting next about this month’s progress at the museum, and about the seed sharing Workshop at Fly Ranch! 🌀🪴 #ripple #sowharmony #communaleffort #participation #volunteers #educationalgarden #nativeplants #ecosystem #restoration #biodiversity #soilbuilding #pollinators🐝 #ecologicaldesign #traditionalecologicalknowledge #ethnobotany #medicinalplants #nevada #blackrockdesert #flyranch #burningman

We’re stoked about co-sponsoring the @bluecrabbonsai benefit show! 🌲 Free to attend & asking donations for organizations aiding our local & international communities. ⛑️🍽️ DM for details!! Later!!! :)

PART FOUR of our Kanee Build at the @pyramid_lake Museum & Visitors Center in Nixon, NV! ~~~ Come along with us for another workday as we make cattail panels for the Kanee (Paiute housing shelter) structure, and finish the irrigation system for the Museum’s Medicinal Garden started on this site in 2021. ~~~ The Kanee is a living time capsule—a shelter built entirely from plants that speaks volumes about ancient eco-tech. It’s wild to see how its roots mirror today’s “high-tech” green solutions. No matter how advanced we get, at our core we’re still driven by the same needs as before: food, water, energy, shelter, and waste management. 💭 Stay tuned ~~ more reels of the build process and our time at @fly_ranch are dropping soon. #ripple #northernpaiute #culturalheritage #volunteer #pyramidlake #numu #educationalgarden #pyramidlakemuseum #culture #preserving #history #ecologicaldesign #traditionalecologicalknowledge #TEK #ethnobotanical #sustainabilitytips #sustainabilityinstyle #organic #ecoliving #plasticpollution

PART THREE of our Kanee Build at the @pyramid_lake Museum & Visitors Center in Nixon, NV! ~~~ Come along with us as we had a full workday under that gorgeous desert sun, building out the Kanee (Paiute housing shelter) structure and tending to the Museum’s Medicinal Garden started on this site in 2021. ~~~ The Kanee is a snapshot in time, as it is an example of a very old eco-technology made of plants; a shelter. It’s fun to draw comparisons to modern eco-technologies…At the end of the day, regardless of how high tech we now are, our species is still managing the same human needs today that we did long ago: food, water, energy, shelter & waste. 💭 We’re going to post a few more reels of the build process so come 🔙🔙 #ripple #northernpaiute #culturalheritage #volunteer #pyramidlake #numu #educationalgarden #pyramidlakemuseum #culture #preserving #history #ecologicaldesign #traditionalecologicalknowledge #TEK #ethnobotany #ethnobotanicalgarden #burners

PART TWO of our Kanee Build at the @pyramid_lake Museum & Visitors Center in Nixon, NV! 👷We set the foundation for our Kanee. And after a long day in the sun, we took a nice nap on the museum floor. 😂 What is a kanee, you ask? 🛖 A kanee is a traditional Numu (Northern Paiute) shelter, built seasonally to protect people from the elements. They were made from Tule (Schoenoplectus acutus), Cattail (Typha latifolia), or whatever plants were available. 🪧 This Kanee is part of the outdoor exhibit alongside the medicine garden and Haba shade structure. 🏜️ PS. If you are going to Burning Man this year be sure to check out the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Museum on your way & show support for the tribe! We’re going to post the rest of the build process here as reels so come back. :) #ripple #northernpaiute #culturalheritage #volunteer #pyramidlake #numu #educationalgarden #pyramidlakemuseum #culture is worth #preserving #history #ecologicaldesign #traditionalecologicalknowledge #TEK #ethnobotany #ethnobotanicalgarden

Part one of our Kanee Build at the @pyramid_lake Museum & Visitors Center in Nixon, NV! This installation showcases this traditional Numu housing method, which complements the medicine garden and the Haba (Numu shade structure) built in 2023. Signage for the Kanee will come next year! So what is a kanee? A kanee is a traditional Numu (Northern Paiute) Cattail house (Typha latifolia). The Numu also build grass Kanees using Tule (Schoenoplectus acutus), or whatever plants they have available on hand. Traditionally they would be rebuilt seasonally as housing to shelter from the elements and the cold. You can see great photos and read how they were used in the incredible book ‘Sand in a Whirlwind’, and also learn more about them in the museum itself. The Numu’s ability to handle the extreme weather in the blackrock desert is truly incredible. It’s a harsh place to visit, let alone live. In this video we: ✔️ harvest 2” diameter and 1” diameter Willows from Carson City, NV ✔️ harvest cattails from an overgrown irrigation canal in Carson City ✔️ load up the trucks to get ready to build! Thank you goes to Ripple mentors Pat Fox & Gary (nativeplantfarm.org) for letting us sustainably harvest these (overgrown) native plants from their property! They went to a good use. We’re going to post the rest of the build process here as reels so come back! #ripple #northernpaiute #culturalheritage #volunteer #pyramidlake #numu #educationalgarden #pyramidlakemuseum #culture is worth #preserving #history #ecologicaldesign #traditionalecologicalknowledge #TEK #ethnobotany #ethnobotanicalgarden

Hi all! Major 2025 update! 🌀 🌱 The ripple team mobilized and accomplished so much this month at the @pyramid_lake Museum’s Medicine Garden in Nixon, NV! Check out how big the native plants have gotten since 2022! For the next several weeks we will be posting reels of this work, and related ripple programming @burningman ’s @fly_ranch . Our accomplishments for the medicine garden: 🛖 Built a kanee, a traditional Northern Paiute (Numu) cattail home. 💧 Dug up, repaired & reburied irrigation ~8” deep. 🌱 Planted 200+ new native plants grown from seed by @ccgreenhouseproject 🙏 ✂️ Pruned all the existing plants. 🪨 Redesigned the rock pathways. ☀️ Resealed signage. 🌾 Fly Ranch cattail harvesting and kanee panel building workshop (photos coming soon). 🏖️Relaxing camping at Pyramid Lake after long days in the sun! Check back to our page each week to see more close ups & reels! It’s been an honor to work alongside the museum staff & some other tribal members to preserve one aspect of the Numu culture; the native species they cared for so deeply & the language associated with them. Thank you💚 🌀🌿🍃🌼🍂 #ripple #rippleproject #numu #medicineplants #medicinegarden #impactwork #communitywork #volunteer #traditionalecologicalknowledge #northernpaiute #nevada #nativeplants #educationalgarden #plantsigns #culturalheritage #culturalpreservation #languagepreservation #anticolonialism #indigenousland

It was an honor to present at the U.S. Botanic Gardens Lunch & Learn series on April 4th! We spoke about developments on the Medicine Garden at Pyramid Lake Museum & the ripple base at @fly_ranch . 🍃 Stay tuned for an email blast update! You can sign up at flyripple.org. 🌀

Hey friends! Recently some of our work was presented at Harvard Divinity School’s Psychedelic Intersections: Betwixt & Between Chaplaincy, Plant Medicine, and Aesthetics conference by keynote speaker Marian Goodell, CEO of @burningman To watch the presentation click on our linktree!

We had so much fun this weekend at the @flyripple x @bluecrabbonsai bonsai music festival that I forgot to post about the Weeping Willow bonsai that was created! The tree belongs to Andy and I shipped down from MA the @brokenbranchpottery pot ahead of the event and repotted it about an hour after my flight to MD landed in preparation for the live demo. Andy gave a general talk on bonsai while I was working on stage and also during some of the live music events. Special thanks to @goldeneyebonsai Isaiah and David NGO (both bonsai artists living the in MD/DC area) for finishing wiring out the tree so I could let loose a bit and party! This is what bonsai is all about - collaboration! I truly believe that bonsai is not a solo artist endeavor like some other arts are and this event and tree support that claim! Izzy @elpueblosubterraneo thanks for all your hard work, as well as Andy/Sandy and all of the other artists and vendors the performed and played as well as the old skool homie @danatarr for making the trip down to DC with me. Super exciting times for American Bonsai on the East Coast/Northeast and so honored to be a part of it! #bonsai #friends #art #southcoastbonsai #backhousebonsai [ @backhousegroup | @backhousebonsai | @kforward ]