In a world that often rushes, Roushanna Gray moves with the tide.
From her home on a fynbos-covered mountainside between two oceans, she teaches what it means to live in tune with seasons, with our surroundings, with the cycles of the natural world and the cycles within ourselves.
As the founder of Veld and Sea, her work is not only about food or foraging, it’s about remembering. About reconnecting to the knowledge passed down through women’s hands, the power of collective care, and the beauty of learning through the senses.
With the end of Women’s Month and the start of Spring, we sat down with Roushanna to discuss feminine energy, ecological kinship, and the profound joy of letting nature lead. What followed was a conversation about rhythm, resistance, and returning to what we’ve always known.
You’ve built a life so deeply rooted in the land and sea. How has living so close to the elements shaped your understanding of yourself as a woman?
I live and work on a fynbos mountainside situated on a little peninsula, surrounded by two oceans. Here, I am guided by the flavours of the seasons and cycles on land and sea, and by the times of the moon phases and tides in this very elemental space. There have been storms and fires and floods, and also the most serene and calm days you could ever dream about. I’ve learned from this environment how to be soft and strong at the same time, and have come to understand that care lies in the collective, through our human and more than human kin - our ecological community. Dancing with this balance is how I understand myself.
Foraging feels both ancient and radical. What has this practice taught you about resilience, patience, or trust?
Foraging slows you down. You have to wait for the right tides, become aware of the stories shared in the landscape that unlock and open up the shifting micro seasons of food, flavour and medicine. There are many lessons of resilience, observing how fynbos re-sprouts and germinates after a fire. Patience is the anticipation of a delicious return of a favourite wild flavour that doesn’t grow at any other time of the year. Trust, wonder and awe is knowing that we’re an interconnected part of a larger system - seaweeds, insects, people, coastlines, a starlit sky. We are not separate from nature or at the centre of it, we are a part of it all.
How have seasons, cycles, and tides shaped your work and life?
In the summer we head to the beach for seaweeds and shellfish in the intertidal rockpools and underwater kelp forests. In autumn after the first rains, the forests and fields are alive with wild mushrooms to forage and enjoy along with other forgotten foods like acorns and chestnuts. In winter the land is abundant with flavour in the Western Cape, and we find a plethora of edible weeds, indigenous veg, and aromatic fynbos. Springtime is a celebration of petals and pollinators and this is when we immerse in our edible flower experiences. At any time of the year there is something wildly delicious to experience, and it is a joy to host and share these workshops and nature-inspired experiences at Veld and Sea that are an overflow of lifestyle and love.
Your spaces, the Hoop House, the Glasshouse, feel alive. What role does beauty play, and how do you cultivate it?
When we work with nature, aesthetics are easy because art and nature are so deeply connected. The Glasshouse is filled with natural light, and handmade, found and thrifted things, plants, shells, crystals, baskets, dried flowers, collected moments of adventure and lots of plant and food books. We have designed the space so that when you walk in, your senses switch on and the learning lands softly. The Hoop House is an outdoor living classroom – a structure of growing tunnels filled with food gardens, a fire pit, a large wooden deck and chickens. Curiosity can flourish in safe, nurturing spaces - and it’s a deep space of learning where teaching is immersive and multi-sensory, and knowledge lasts. Guided by our outdoor classroom pedagogy, we aim to replicate this across all of our learning environments.
After Women’s Month in South Africa, how does your work fit into a wider story of women reconnecting to land, food, and each other?
Women are most often the knowledge holders for food, recipes, story and song, plant medicine that have been passed down through generations. It’s an everyday ritual work; picking, cooking, cleaning, processing, caring, seed saving, skills passed hand to hand and through oral stories and embodied knowledge. Food is one of the most fundamental relationships we have to nature and this is why it’s such a beautiful teaching tool to use when sharing knowledge, wonder and value about our green and blue spaces. Food and land are political - whether we are mothers, sisters, aunts, or grandmothers, we must ask - who gets invited? Who is paid fairly? Who has safe access to land, the coast, and nourishing, affordable food? Accountability itself is a form of care. And when we choose collaboration over competition, keeping the circle open and inclusive, we embody that care - allowing culture to shift in meaningful ways.
Who inspires you?
The mountain and kelp forests. My children. And the big circle of sisters I am lucky enough to dance through life with - women I learn from, play with, work, rise and rest alongside, cry and laugh with in community. They are all brave, generous, creative, and kind, and I am so grateful to call them friends and sisters.
Follow Roushanna via @roushannagray and @veldandsea.