August ’24 Love Notes

There is no culture without agriculture.
Baba Tarik Oduno

Sweet Greetings Beloved Community

Can you hear the whispers of Autumn beginning to tickle your ears? The warm summer sun and vibrant blooms will soon make way for deep orange leaves and early violet sunsets. Though the land is beginning to invite us into a restful time of harvest, there are still so many electrifying opportunities for connection ahead.

We will join leading spiritual activists Krista Tippett, Tara Brach, Lyla June Johnston, Konda Mason, Jun Yasuda San, and Van Jones, among others – in facilitating a virtual pro-democracy and civic engagement event called When We LOVE We Win: Compassionate Activism for November and Beyond, on Sat, Sept 21 at 1 PM ET – get your free ticket here.

We also hope you’ll join us on the land for our next Spanish first skill share Cultivando Resiliencia con Microorganismos de Montaña y Cempasúchil on September 27th or bring your building projects to our next Shop Day on September 28th. We’ll also be gathering on the land for our annual celebration of the equinox, Equilibrium,on September 22nd.

Check out even more reviving and cherished offerings below.

May your breath be your anchor.

With love and solidarity,

Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Christina, Clara, Crysta, Danielle, Hana’, Hillary, Jonah, Leah, Maya, Naima, O’den, Ria, Shay, and Susuyu

Leah: I am honored to be a speaker at the upcoming When We LOVE We Win: Compassionate Activism for November and Beyond – a virtual pro-democracy event with our dear teacher Jun San and Krista Tippett, Tara Brach, Lyla June Johnston, Konda Mason, Van Jones, among others.

The event will support All Voting is Local’s efforts to protect the rights of voters, and aims to inspire compassionate civic engagement.

Clay soils get a bad rap for being chunky, soggy, and uncooperative, but if you take the time to get to know clay you can work out a harmonious relationship.

During our weeklong FIRE (Farming in Relationship with Earth) immersions, the farm team had the privilege of training rising generation farmers during Hands-on-the-Land every morning, sharing the wonders of our clay-heavy soils. Clay naturally holds nutrients and water in place – and through the addition of loads of organic matter, careful no-till practices, avoiding stepping on the beds, and the deft wielding of the broad fork, we get yields that defy the cynical extension agent’s predictions. Plus, there’s advanced mud pies, aka Indigenous Microorganisms – IMOs! We taught folks that mixing a little of our forest floor with some grain and molasses yields a fermented cocktail of microbial goodness that can inoculate the whole farm – bringing even more life to challenging soils.

Clay was the star of the natural building workshop during FIRE as well. Site team demonstrated how clay can be mixed with straw and sand to make adobe plaster, a durable, natural building material. Our first building here on the land (the “hive”) was built of straw bales and adobe, upcycling agricultural waste and taking advantage of the natural soils to make a self-regulating, low embodied energy, nontoxic building. Participants in the workshop mixed their own adobe and practiced modeling with it, generating ideas for how to integrate natural building into their farms back home.

So, next time you see that texture-by-feel soil ribbon come out over 2 inches, meaning your soil is clay-rich, don’t despair – build a house with it! Or add some compost and grow a garden.

Fire Immersion

“I feel honored to be creating a world where your wellbeing is intertwined with mine” – Kali, Immersion Facilitator

Pouring buckets of rainwater steeped with flowers over each other’s bodies, committing our lives to truth… Transplanting squash, harvesting collard greens and unearthing potatoes while getting inspired about each other’s land projects… Jumping up and down chanting the riff for Earth team’s fresh rhymes about soil science… Tasting the immaculate flavors of just-picked veggies transformed into meals that represent our Black and Indigenous heritages… Giving shout outs to our ancestor’s resistance throughout centuries with drums and tambourines… Bringing our voices together around the fire.

Is it possible that the FIRE Immersion keeps getting more magical?

We hosted 3 sessions of Farming In Relationship with Earth in July and August, welcoming beginning and seasoned BIPOC land-stewards to the farm to learn together in Beloved Community. The facilitation teams and participants brought tremendous care, authenticity and intention to the space and what we created together was truly transcendent. Our days were dripping with joy, creativity and connection as we shared tangible skills rooted in traditional ecological knowledge, built deep relationships with plants, celebrated our ancestors, and envisioned and embodied our boldest dreams for the future. Folks left equipped and ready to implement strategies for food and land sovereignty back home, and our beloved farm-ily has grown.

Community Work & Learns

Extending deep gratitude for all who came out for our Community Work and Learn Days in August. We brought our hands and hearts together to harvest for the CSA, manage pests, weed the greenhouse, process strawberries, harvest garlic and so much more.

Join us for a day-long on-farm opportunity to learn more about our growing practices and contribute to our purpose! We’re offering a weekend Work & Learn at the end of the month. Check out our website for more information. Click on the dates below to register.

September 3
September 17
September 28

Cultivando Resiliencia con
Microorganismos de Montaña y Cempasúchil

Con Ceci Pineda y Diana Arellano
27 de septiembre, 9:30AM – 3PM
En persona en Soul Fire Farm

Este taller se realizará en Español // This workshop will be in Spanish only
(English description here)

Mientras entramos en la temporada de otoño, que invita tanto a la tierra como a nuestres cuerpes a descansar, invocamos a las enseñanzas y la sabiduría de la tierra para nutrir los suelos que nos alimentan y a nuestres cuerpes. Este taller se enfocará en la brillantez de los microorganismos de montaña (MM) y queride cempasúchil (flor de muertos) para cultivar la resiliencia de nuestros suelos y para nuestra salud.

Juntes, a través de una mezcla de actividades prácticas grupales, aprenderemos los diversos beneficios de los MM y el cempasúchil para la tierra y nuestres cuerpes, cómo cultivar MM de nuestros bosques locales, diferentes aplicaciones agrícolas de los MM, y cómo hacer tinturas y aceites de cempasúchil.

Es necesario inscribirse. ¡Obtenga más información e inscríbase aquí!

Upcoming Workshops

Save the Date! Registration opens soon for our fall workshops.

October 4 – Mushrooms with Clara AgborTabi & Naima Penniman of Soul Fire Farm (in person)

October 30 – Soil Health with Yoko Takemura of Assawaga Farm (virtual)

When We LOVE We Win:
Compassionate Activism for November and Beyond

Saturday, September 21, 1:00-2:30 PM Eastern, VIRTUAL
REGISTER HERE

How can love and compassion bridge what divides us?

If this question is on your mind and heart, join us on September 21 for an inspiring deep dive into how we can move our divided country forward with love and compassion towards the true democracy we all know is possible — for this election, and beyond. Let’s put love at the center of our civic life — join us! Together, we’ll be lifting our spirits while raising crucial funds for All Voting Is Local, which works to protect the freedom to vote for all.

Speakers: Krista Tippett. Kazu Haga, Leah Penniman + Jun Yasuda San, Reggie Hubbard, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Konda Mason, Hannah Fried, Michael Yellow Bird, Valarie Kaur, sujatha baliga, Van Jones, Dr. Lyla June Johnston, and other invited guests!

Farm Tours

Come experience some of the plants, animals and humans that grow at Soul Fire Farm. We will guide you through the growing fields and agroforestry gardens, take you up close to the building projects, share whole-hearted stories, and answer your questions.

Our next tour will be September 27.

Building Skills Programming

We heard your feedback and are super excited to offer a second Hands on Intro to Carpentry Workshop and a weekend Shop Day. If you’re looking to develop carpentry skills, practice tool use, learn about natural building, and get inspired by Soul Fire Farm’s ecologically-sustainable campus design, these offerings are for you. Learn more here.

Shop Day
Shop Days are generative co-working spaces for builders to enhance their carpentry skills while working on personal woodworking projects in community. The Soul Fire team will not be facilitating a curriculum but will provide supervision to ensure safety, assistance with tool use, as well as consultation on project design and materials sourcing. Participants should bring their own materials, tools and building projects. Our next Shop Day is on September 28. Learn more and register here!

Hands on Intro to Carpentry
The next Hands on Introduction to Carpentry Workshop is scheduled for Friday, October 11th. This daylong deep dive will be an opportunity to learn safe hand and power tool use, layout, measuring, fastening, and some of the basics of working with wood through a beginner building project. Learn more and register here!

EQUILIBRIUM: Embodied Balance in Celebration of the Equinox

Join us for a day of movement that will invite us to reflect on and embody balance in our world, in our beings, in our reciprocity with the Earth and each other through Qigong, capoeira, African dancing and drumming, intuitive movement, yoga and nourishing farm to table meals. Saturday, September 21. Learn more and register here.

Deep gratitude to all the applicants we had this year!

We were introduced to about 320 phenomenal projects this year! Thank you for trusting us with your stories, ideas, and dreams.

We’re so thrilled to get to know & work with such an incredible group of farmers & land stewards— here’s a list of everyone’s names, projects, and IG accounts (if any).

Please help us welcome the 2024-25 Braiding Seeds Fellows:

Angela Brigmon, Brigmon Farms (@brigmonfarmsllc)
Cheyenne Najee, Kilunuk (@kilunuk.haki)
D’nae Henderson, Potlikker Provisions (@dnaegrowsgreens)
D’Real Graham, Moonstone Poultry and Spice Creek Farm (@moonstonepoultry, @spicecreekmd)
Kristen Weeks, Grow and Glow Urban Collective – Pay What You Can Markets and Farm (@growandglowurbancollective)
Lauren Peters, Corn Sister Circle
Mars Mwenja, Haven Honey Farms and Community Nursery (@farmars__)
Noah White, Amenta Gardens, Farm and Luxury Herbal Service (@amentagardens44)
Sienna Viette, Open fArms Retreat (@openfarmsretreat)
Xochitl Bervera, Water is Life Oysters/Near Futures Projects (@nearfuturesprojects)

We also want to shout out and send a huge congratulations to this year’s mini grant awardees. The following 12 applicants were runners up in the selection process. They will each receive a $2,500 mini grant in support of their beginning projects. We encourage you to connect with them and show encouragement as they continue to pursue this bold work:

– Sueann Swamp, Oak House Flowers @oakhouseflowers
– xel simone, Friends of the Forest: Black Land Stewards of Connecticut @xelsrealm
– Ami Truong VEGGI Farmers Cooperative @veggifarmcoop
– Michelle (Mickey) Maki, Gathered Waters
– Monique Verdin, Jardins Sauvages @moniqueverdin
– Christopher (Shawn) Harney, Sycamore Sun
– Justice Singleton, Sweet Love Farms @sweetlovefarmms
– Kandolo Makongo, Kandolo Family Farm
– Kendra Ragland, Practical Botanicals @practicalbotanicals
– Tracy Jonsson-Laboy, Wood Spoon Farms @tracyyaaayjonsson
– Tyeena (Ty) Carter, Cultivating Culture @cultivatingculture.s
– Jamillah McWhorter, Wyld Indigo @wyldindigoatl

WE ARE NOT “OVERHEAD!”

In this month’s Praxis we want to uplift the often invisible, but undeniably essential, labor of people who do administrative and maintenance work for our organization. The labor of bookkeeping, human resources, fundraising, communications, cleaning, fixing, and governance are core to supporting our purpose. We offer a debt of gratitude to our board of directors, to our operations team, including Christina, Cheryl, Crysta, and Hillary, and to everyone on the team who dedicates a portion of their time to admin. And a shout out to those who labor fixing machines, unclogging toilets, removing downed trees, and other site maintenance including O’den, Jonah, and our site contractors. The moment is overdue to value the foundational, structural, core work that glues together our collectives.

How do you value behind-the-scenes, often invisibilized labor on your team?

Check out this article for more on retiring the idea of “overhead.”

The Praxis series reflects on how our community can best put our values into action, sharing resources, ideas, and practice toward collective liberation. These will be shared each month in Love Notes and also on social media.

Herbalist Misty Cook, citizen of the Stockbridge Munsee Mohican Nation, will offer a Medicine Walk at the Future of Northeast Farming Conference on September 6-8 at Smokey House in Danby, Vermont.

Misty Cook is the author of Medicine Generations: Natural Native American Medicines Traditional to the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans Tribe. The conference was organized by a team including Soul Fire Farm’s board member, Tagan Engel. You may register here.

Soul Fire Farm is located on unceded territory of the Mohican Nation. We remain committed to working in solidarity with the Mohican people and other Indigenous communities in our region.

At Soul Fire Farm, we think it’s important that we pass the mic and leave space for other folks in this work to share their stories and expertise.

Application Deadline Extended

Join our team in creating educational video content for the Each One Teach One Video Series – This social media series offers culturally relevant, informative skill share reels from our beloved staff and broader community. Our intention is that members of the Speaker’s Collective will use this opportunity to create content around the work they hold further amplifying their stories.

Application Deadline: We will receive applications from July 30th, 2024 and close the application cycle on September 30, 2024.

USDA Discrimination Financial Assistance Program provides monetary compensation to land stewards who experienced loan discrimination.

$2B in financial assistance recently went out to farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners who reported discrimination in United States Department of Agriculture farm lending prior to 2021. According to our colleagues at The Black Belt Justice Center, Black farmers received $1.5B out of the $2.2B allocated in the Inflation Reduction Act for farmers who suffered from USDA loan discrimination.

This program is a direct result of some of the advocacy that Black farmers did in creating provisions for the Justice for Black Farmers Act, which made it into the Inflation Reduction Act. We uplift the decades-long organizing efforts of Black farmers, which has contributed heavily to this moment.

The USDA has a history of refusing to process loans for Black farmers, offer loans in smaller amounts than those offered to white farmers, and sometimes forced foreclosures for Black farmers. This discrimination has resulted in generations of land loss and prevented Black farmers from growing wealth for their families and communities. Though the recovery of these funds back to farmers of color doesn’t repair the harm that has and continues to occur within the USDA, it does provide some relief, and we are grateful for this step towards reparative justice.

More information can be found here

Elder Lydia Clemmons has become an ancestor.

She stewarded one of the oldest Black farms in the northeast and was a partner with Soul Fire Farm and NEFOC on projects throughout the years.

Statement of the Clemmons Family Farm Board of Directors on the Legacy of Lydia Monroe Clemmons, RN, CRNA, JD:

Mrs. Clemmons co-founded the 501c3 charitable nonprofit organization Clemmons Family Farm, Inc. with her oldest daughter and a group of family friends and advisers in 2019. The travels in Africa and the many initiatives she and her husband led over the decades on their family farm and throughout the country became foundational to the work of the nonprofit organization. After 61 years of never selling a single acre, at the age of 100, Mrs. Clemmons and her husband Jackson Clemmons sold their beloved farm in 2023 to the nonprofit organization named in their honor. Their farm thus remains intact and continues its legacy of being a place to learn about and celebrate African-American history; foster appreciation of the arts and cultural heritage of the African diaspora; encourage the love of the land through farming, conservation, and stewardship; and build a multicultural community.

Her deep pride in her cultural heritage, her love for her community, her joy in her family farm and the arts, her continuous learning, and her quiet and determined activism for a just society have all served as major inspirations for Clemmons Family Farm’s work and organizational mission today.

“When we see ourselves, we are not just ourselves. We are a composite, a part of all of the generations before us. If you just think about it, and reflect on it a little bit, you can feel the energy of those past generations– especially those past women, if you’re a woman– that influenced you. And so, our lives are just not our own doing. It’s because of some guiding spirit that helped us, and all of the influences of our mothers and grandmothers and aunts. We’re just not self-made, we’re a part of all of that. So we have a big responsibility to continue to give the best we can to the generation coming. We want to push them ahead so that they can be everything they want to be. And then they’ll be a happy person.”

– Mrs. Lydia M. Clemmons, 2016 family storytelling session with daughter Lydia Clemmons

Why The US Food System Needs Agroecology Eurasia Review
Momentum for agroecology in the USA Nature Food
The Herbalist Hour Podcast
Free the Land: How We Can Fight Poverty and Climate Chaos by Audrea Lim
Uprooting Racism & Seeding Sovereignty Herbal Radio by Mountain Rose Herbs
‘Common Ground’ documentary screening June 22 AgriNews
Celebrating Juneteenth and Black American Contributions to Agriculture USDA
Harnessing diversity for agricultural resilience Farms. Food. Future. Podcast by International Fund for Agricultural Development

The food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and people of color. Our ecosystem partners, Northeast Farmers of Color Network and National Black Food and Justice Alliance are claiming our sovereignty and calling for reparations of land and resources so that we can grow nourishing food and distribute it in our communities. The specific projects and resource needs of BIPOC land-based projects are listed on Northeast Farmers of Color Network and National Black Food and Justice Alliance’s respective maps linked above. We are so excited about these powerful opportunities for people to people solidarity.

CLOSING STAFF REFLECTIONS

Being Human by Naima Penniman

I wonder if the sun debates dawn
some mornings
not wanting to rise
out of bed
from under the down-feather horizon

if the sky grows tired
of being everywhere at once
adapting to the mood
swings of the weather

if clouds drift off
trying to hold themselves together
make deals with gravity
to loiter a little longer

I wonder if rain is scared
of falling
if it has trouble
letting go

if snow flakes get sick
of being perfect all the time
each one
trying to be one-of-a-kind

I wonder if stars wish
upon themselves before the die
if they need to teach their young
how to shine

I wonder if shadows long
to just-for-once feel the sun
if they get lost in the shuffle
not knowing where they’re from

I wonder if sunrise
and sunset
respect each other
even though they’ve never met

if volcanoes get stressed
if storms have regrets
if compost believes in life
after death

I wonder if breath ever thinks of suicide
if the wind just wants to sit
still sometimes
and watch the world pass by

if smoke was born
knowing how to rise
if rainbows get shy back stage
not sure if their colors match right

I wonder if lightning sets an alarm clock
to know when to crack
if rivers ever stop
and think of turning back

if streams meet the wrong sea
and their whole lives run off-track
I wonder if the snow
wants to be black

if the soil thinks she’s too dark
if butterflies want to cover up their marks
if rocks are self-conscious of their weight
if mountains are insecure of their strength

I wonder if waves get discouraged
crawling up the sand
only to be pulled back again
to where they began

if land feels stepped upon
if sand feels insignificant
if trees need to question their lovers
to know where they stand

if branches waver at the crossroads
unsure of which way to grow
if the leaves understand they’re replaceable
and still dance when the wind blows

I wonder
where the moon goes
when she is in hiding
I want to find her there

and watch the ocean
spin from a distance
listen to her
stir in her sleep

effort give way to existence

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