How It Started
The Lemon Alchemist was born under the premise of tricking a large system. Last summer I was trying to sneak into a restaurant supply store to get bulk supplies for the PDX free fridges and they asked me for a business name. Not My Lemons was my answer and I went about my way, goods secured. After thinking about it awhile, I realized the name meant something to me and started dreaming of a more formal business structure to the goods I create. So, I purchased a website domain for NML knowing that I'd build something for myself. Fast forward a year, add in the mix of too many ideas and creations bubbling around in my noggin, and cue an actual business structure taking form. I wanted to end this year with a bang- launching on my birthday. I completely forgot that I had purchased a domain and couldn't quite figure out how to get it back. After sitting with that for a few days (Mercury Rx was definitely doing me dirty),The Lemon Alchemist was born.
That's how it goes. Life gives you lemons, and through a variety of transformations, reconstructions, and metamorphises, you create a different truth for yourself. You get to alchemize your life with magic.
the alchemist:
I'm Ronnie, just a pretty plant witch out here doing pretty plant things. When I'm not mixing up plants or talking to flowers you can catch me reading (give me your favorite book recs!) or studying whatever has caught my attention. Right now it's food apartheids and the effects of systemic racism on access to food.
Acknowledgement
The Lemon Alchemist was built from the plants and lands tended by the Multnomah and Cowlitz people on unceeded Chinook territory. Many Indigenous peoples are still here, alive and thriving.
The reach of colonization and gentrification in Portland has historically been violent and traumatizing, and still continues to this day. A few valuable lessons when it comes to taking action:
- Educate yourself on what’s happening.
- Listen to the voices of those being harmed.
- Amplify the voices of those being harmed.
- Contribute to their efforts monetarily or with your time.
Learn about LANDBACK and support them HERE.
To interactively learn about whose land you live on, click HERE.