Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jenny Kimmel. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Jenny thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I think that we are all artists in our own right, everyone is capable of creating beauty in a day, uplifting another, having a unique perspective, using their voice. It took me a long time to call myself an artist, it was a scary term for me, an embodied term, and I spent my youth learning to be courageous enough to claim it. My “regular job” as a Montessori gardening teacher was anything but “regular”, but I did earn a steady paycheck and was of the world in normal working hours, toiling with the rest of humanity. I have come to reflect on the world and work differently now that I am self employed and courageous enough to call myself an artist. For one, I don’t see work in terms of regular or irregular, but perhaps simply, what we can offer with the most balance and joy, and hopefully, what fits us best. I’m deeply grateful for the dentist, the insurance agent, the auto body mechanic, the grocery clerk – the endless workers who keep me sane and whole. I don’t think I’ll ever run out of gratitude for the everyday beauty and “art” I find in relating to these people. Simultaneously, at this moment, I want to remain a performing and visual artist. Though risky in many senses, it feeds me and makes me look into my fear, gradually teaching me to let it go and to trust that I can touch others with the warmth and sincerity of my songs and voice. It’s my way of saying thank you.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have two ventures at present. I’m both a landscape designer and permaculture teacher and a singer/ songwriter. Last year in 2022 I released a debut album entitled Peace in the Middle. Both are creative pursuits. I began writing songs when I was around 15 and in my 20’s was enveloped in poetry and writing and used these mediums along with songwriting to express my love for the land, for love itself (and my exploration of it), travel, ideas related to feminism, philosophy, activism, and more. I had been feeling in my innermost self the need to put these songs that had been slowly collecting out into the world and to set them free. When the pandemic hit and I was laid off, I took a big leap of faith and followed what my internal compass was telling me was true north. Though I had been singing and playing guitar all my life, it was a solitary art, and I shared it with the birds and bumble-bees, but rarely with humans. Instead of using my own name I decided on “Walking Medicine” which was the title of a poem I had written years ago. It was a reminder to me that we all have medicine for the world, simply by being unique to who we are. I think this awareness is dawning on us, I see it echoed in literature, song, and television, burgeoning in the collective consciousness. I’m deeply proud of the album and the incredible musicians who came together to help me bring my vision to life. If you listen you’ll know why and it feels critical for me to feel this swelling pride – to own that I am becoming the woman of my vision. Likewise, I am proud of this name, “walking medicine,” the message it carries, and the ways that I am learning to connect to audiences and to do this “being a musician thing” in my own way. I believe in peace and in our collective ability to powerfully relate, feel compassion, and evolve. I am proud of myself for feeling so deeply and being capable of sharing that with the world, even though at times it gives me what Brene Brown calls a vulnerability hangover. Simultaneously, I love life on the farm and my other career connects people back to nature and gives them tools to grow their own food, to regenerate land in their backyards, and live in reciprocity to the natural world. That feels deeply related to my musical career and another medium that expresses who I am at my core. Whatever I do will always be tied to love of land and protection of it, whether song or education.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Several. Adrienne Marie Brown author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism has been deeply inspiring to me. Singing is a form of pleasure activism for me. I agree with her that we cannot heal broken systems by complaining about those systems or through cancel culture. We must uplift, empower, connect, name, and most importantly imagine the new futures we are trying to build. I take this to heart as

Wendell Berry inspired one of my newest songs called “nurture & settle” (unrecorded.)
As I read “The Unsettling of America” this year I was struck deeply by his sentiments on settling into this nation and how we have yet to do so. He asserts that in order to be settled, that we have to nurture – place and each other – including the communities that were here prior to colonization. I have been carrying this message out with me when I perform, reminding others that we cannot hope for true prosperity in this nation if we don’t learn to nurture in everything we do. It has become a mission for me in “walking medicine” to spread this message and to attempt to live by it.

Finally, a friend taught me about the work of Simone Seol and Joyful Marketing. She teaches about marketing your own way, in a way that feels right and in alignment with who you are and that in reality that there is no right way, only to be yourself, and to not be afraid to put yourself out there. Marketing has felt daunting for me, especially as an introvert and I have appreciated this message.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I touched on this earlier, but, to be fully embodied. I am just learning about this in reality. I have always been an artist, but I was too shy to claim that title. I am learning how to shine brightly and to honor my medicine. I am lucky to learn about balance in the process. When I design landscapes, I sit in the quiet of my home in the country sipping tea and diving deeply into plant libraries and drawing and designing, trying to find the best way to connect my clients to their dreams and aspirations. This is the quiet work. When I have a show, I take deep breaths, put on my big girl boots, and walk out into the world to share my most authentic self. Internally, it brings me to my knees, but I do it anyway. When someone after a show holds my hand with tears in their eyes and tells me how I touched them, I know that the fear was worth it, and that in this jumbled thing we call humanity, that fear and love are one in the same. I am learning how to dive in, and maybe a little bit, learning how to swim.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.walking-medicine.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/walkingmedicine/ or @walkingmedicine
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/w.medicine
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWjrV8DRD44cUd7KCRKA2Jg
• Other: sowpermaculture.org (permaculture & landscape design)