June ’24 Love Notes

It is not enough to tell us that one was a brilliant poet, scientist, educator, or rebel. Whom did he love? It makes a difference.

Essex Hemphil

Blessed Pride Month Family!

June is an especially joyful and sacred month for our community because we celebrate Pride, Juneteenth, and the summer solstice. This month embodies so many multidimensional layers of our identities. We see reflections of ourselves in vibrant rainbow colors, warm sun drenched strawberries, and in stories of resistance. In June we are reminded of our connection to land, spirit, and each other, not because of what we do, but because of who we are – pure magic.

Take a moment to learn about upcoming offerings and to relive some of the sweet moments we’ve shared together this month- we’re still floating on air from SOULstice!

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

Not so this year. From the opening week of the CSA, the land was overflowing with an abundant harvest. The families who receive our weekly doorstep delivery of no-cost produce enjoyed strawberries, rhubarb, lettuce, scallions, broccoli, snow peas, collards, chard, pea shoots, herbs, spinach, eggs, kohlrabi, and more! We collaborated with Sweet Freedom Farm to bring fresh greens to Sing Sing prison on Father’s Day, in addition to serving our regular community distribution partners – Free Food Fridge, FOCUS Churches, Fish Market Project, and South End Market. During our first CSA pack, an incredible cloud rainbow formed overhead, which we interpreted as “Happy Pride Farmers! Keep up the good work of feeding our folks!”

We reached a major milestone in the campus build process. During our SOULstice gathering, we inaugurated the Program Center with a ribbon cutting and traditional IFA house blessing ceremony. While some of the exterior work, punch list, and furnishings are still underway, the Program Center is functional and in use. Our teaching kitchen, dining commons, learning library, and root cellar support our community’s food and land sovereignty work. Our youngest teammates splashed some magic into the PC by installing a trapeze rig and constructing a music study. We are excited for the integration of performing arts into our food and land justice programs. 

Do you have a woodworking project you’ve been meaning to finish? Are you looking for a shop space to work on your project with other builders? If so, register for our upcoming 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 provide supervision to ensure safety, assistance with tool use, as well as consultation on project design and materials sourcing.

July 12
September 4

Big thanks to everyone who came out for our Community Work and Learn Days in June. We brought our hands and hearts together to harvest for the CSA, weed blueberries and the greenhouse, woodchip mulch trees and bushes, stack firewood, and garble herbs.

Join us for a day-long on-farm opportunity to learn more about our growing practices and contribute to our mission! We’re offering group registration for most Work and Learn days. Check out our website for more information. Click on the dates below to register.

July 2
July 16
July 30
August 13

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 tours will be July 5 (Group registration available) and August 2.
Learn more and register here

Our site team has worked really hard to bring to life the campus vision. Join us for a building tour on August 1st led by our Site Director, Jonah Vitale-Wolff. You’ll learn about the design, materials, and construction of our ecologically-sustainable campus design.

Learn more and register here.

This month we gathered for our final springtime 3D skill share to learn about bees and beekeeping with facilitators Olka Forster and Hana’ Maaiah. We got grounded in bee history and biology lessons before learning the anatomy of a hive and the basics of installing one of our own. We waggle danced to the East Field where we spent time with our bee friends and listened to Olka and Hana’ each share about their first time catching a swarm. We closed by listening to the medicinal vibrations of bees buzzing at different frequencies. 

Thank you to facilitators Olka, Hana’, Leah, Jonah, and Sarah for their beautiful offerings this season, and to everyone who attended virtually and in person. Stay tuned to Love Notes for our fall series announcement. As always, you can view past virtual workshops on our website here. 

The SOULstice party was overflowing with love and beautiful energy! We gathered in reverence and revelry with live music by Reyna Tropical and R&B soul sensation Cheryl Whilby, aerial trapeze and poetry by Neshima and Naima, food vendors, sacred play, camp fire, and the most starLIT dance party of the year with DJ Tru-master & Jamel Mosley!

Warm and grateful shout out to our generous sponsors – East Hollow Cider, CDPHP, Honest Weight Food Co-op, 8th House, and Women in Ranching

Our Alumni Reunion, which preceded the SOULstice party, was an intimate and gorgeous celebration. Our alumni community rejoined the land, and past Immersion cohorts, for shared meals under moonlight, songs and poetry by campfire, playful dips in the pond, and skill sharing workshops. We recommitted to our reverence and care for our human and non-human kin as we deepened into our collective work as stewards of the land.

Many friends, separated by space and time, hadn’t seen one another for years. The nostalgia of times spent on the land were heard in whispers between pitched tents long into the night. 

Season 5 of our Instagram Live is LIVE! Every month, experienced Black farmers and food systems experts share their knowledge about agriculture, land tenure, markets, food policy, coops, cultural foods, and more. At the end of the show we have a GIVEAWAY to the person who wins our quiz. To free ourselves we must feed ourselves!

Your hosts are Leah Penniman and Clara AgborTabi of Soul Fire Farm. 

Check out the latest episodes with the brilliant Jazz Kerr and Frances Perez-Rodriguez of Farm School NYC here. See all past episodes at www.soulfirefarm.org/fwb-instalive/

Next up:
Black Ag Ecosystem (BAE) Northwest – Jamese Kwele, Shantae Johnson, and shiny flanary
July 11, 2024  4:00 pm – 4:45 pm

Find our live on instagram @soulfirefarm

We had a lovely work-and-learn space in Madison at Zel Hutcherson’s newly bought farm, Kinfolk Land Collective. We then went up to Keysville to spend time with Tianna Neal, founder of Starlit Roots. She showed us her shared plot at Boggs Rural Life Center where she works with other farmers under the mentorship and support of Adderson’s Fresh Produce and SAAFON. We learned a lot from the Adderson family and their legacy. Ayo Ngozi, founder of Brickyard Gardens, brought her Savannah stewardship to us as she facilitated an herb preservation workshop during our visit. Additionally, we were grateful to be joined by Tandelyn Daniels from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, one of our founding partner organizations, and Keisha Cameron of High Hog Farm who is a mentor and collaborator to a couple of our fellows.

Standing up for LGBTQIA+ rights and dignity is ongoing, sacred, and necessary work. Everyone in our community deserves safety, visibility, and liberation – yet queer folks are nine times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than cis-het folks, and nearly half of queer folks have experienced workplace discrimination. This is not okay and must stop! To learn how we can do better organizationally, from 2016-2018 SFFI worked closely with external facilitators on gender justice training for all staff and collaborated with trans and queer alumni to improve our practices. We now have a gender justice orientation for all staff and immersion participants, trans caucus spaces, trans-centered curricular materials, trans priority in application processes, and more visible trans leadership, among other initiatives. Currently 25% of Soul Fire Farm staff are nonbinary/trans and 55% of the staff, board, and senior leadership are queer. We also cherish our collaborations with queer led sibling projects like Rock Steady Farm and Rise and Root Farm. Even with these efforts, we have much to learn about dismantling cis-het privilege in ourselves and our work. How does your community work on queer liberation and gender justice? 

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. 

Although violent regimes, capitalist tycoons and settler colonial structures attempt to harm people and land, we remain united and steadfast for sovereignty and justice for all people. From Our communities across Turtle Island to Palestine / Congo / Sudan, we take action for Land Back, Abolition, Freedom, Permanent Safety and Ceasefire. In solidarity, we mobilize and organize. This year there is a strengthened flame to collaborate and manifest more ways to raise funds and strengthen our liberatory efforts.

I recently accepted a position as an agricultural educator at an alternative school – bringing my experience as agricultural, environmental and culinary educator to teach youth, families, people of all ages and abilities to garden, farm, cook and engage in deeper cultural exchanges in ways that indigenize our foodways, address food apartheid, strengthen access to land / fresh whole foods, and celebrate cultural food contributions across the world.

This year, I received a grant to teach Youth herbalism at the acre urban farm I manage. I also cooperatively own an apothecary rooted in QTBIPOC resilience, and our work is a testament to the transformative potential of reclaiming our ancestral ties to the land. On occupied Dakhota land, we stand as stewards of healing, activism, and cultural revitalization / reclamation. Our mission is to cultivate a radical vision of healing that transcends all borders, binaries, and barriers. To read more about our work, visit Nexus’ 2021-2022 cohort – Sweetleaf Healing (we’re in the slow of building a cooperative): Nexus North Star – Black Cooperative Fellows.

Additionally, I’m excited to utilize a food safe certification to expand food processing creations and donate all proceeds beyond some overhead costs to the people around me on Turtle Island and the thousands of Palestinian families I am helping collectively in hopes that we can heal egregious human rights violations that the US and other active settler states enable. If you would like to support these efforts, please be in touch: katyawesely@gmail.com.

Let’s continue to weave the threads of resilience, resistance, and collective liberation as we nourish the seeds of change that lie within each of us.

-katya/katie-rose

Affectionately known as Mama Gail to so many of us, she poured radiating joy and generous wisdom to all the places she touched. We’re deeply grateful for the seeds she sowed on this sacred land.

Rest in power Gail. Your presence was a gift that we’ll forever hold close to our hearts.

For those seeking a change of place or community, or a deeper understanding of sustainable agriculture practices around the world, consider a long-term volunteer stay at the Asian Rural Institute in Japan.   

ARI is a multicultural community rooted in Japanese organic farming traditions, which welcomes rural leaders and lifelong learners to live together–to grow, harvest, cook, and eat together–in peace and security. For volunteers, ARI offers a relatively affordable way to explore life abroad–US citizens can stay in Japan for 90 days without a work visa, and ARI asks only for a small donation ($250-300 per month) to cover meal expenses. Housing is provided. At ARI, you can find time to reflect and deepen your own growth process, build connections with grassroots leaders from southeast Asia, Africa, and South America. For questions, or more information, you can contact 2023 volunteer Megan Ruppel at meganhruppel@gmail.com. To apply, write to ecu@ari.ac.jp for an application.

Community Work & Learn July 2, 2024  10:00 am – 3:30 pm | Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138 | Registration is required. Register  Community Work & Learn | July 16, 2024  10:00 am – 3:30 pm | Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138 | Registration is required. Register  Community Work & Learn | July 30, 2024  10:00 am – 3:30 pm | Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138 | Registration is required. Register  Volunteer at Soul Fire Farm to learn about some of our farming practices while supporting our work and getting your hands on the land.

Farm Tour July 5, 2024  3:30 pm – 5:00 pm | Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138, USA | Visit Soul Fire Farm for our monthly seasonal farm tour! You’ll get to experience some of the plants, animals and humans that grow here. Registration is required Register

Farming While Black Instagram Live – Black Ag Ecosystem (BAE) Northwest – Jamese Kwele, Shantae Johnson, and shiny flanary | July 11, 2024  4:00 pm – 4:45 pm | Tune in via Instagram @soulfirefarm | Every month, experienced Black farmers and food systems experts share their knowledge about agriculture, land tenure, markets, food policy, coops, cultural foods, and more.

Shop Day (Building Skills Series) July 12, 2024  9:00 am – 3:00 pm | Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138, USA | Shop days are generative co-working spaces for builders to enhance their carpentry skills while working on personal woodworking projects in community. Registration is required. Register.

• The Green Green Book, The Traveler’s Guide to: Black-Owned Homesteads, Farms, Orchards, Vineyards, Foraging Forests, Apiaries, Ranches, and Markets
• The Soul of Black Land Museum of the African Diaspora MoAD
• Free the Land: How We Can Fight Poverty and Climate Chaos by Audrea Lim

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.

In the spirit of the Beekeeping Workshop that Hana’ and Olka facilitated, here is one of my favorite Bee Blessings that I would say before tending to my hives in Michigan…

“Winged Spirit of sweetness, I call on you. 

Teach me the ways of transformation and fertilization, the path from pollen to sweetest honey. Teach me to taste the essence of each place I alight. To continue creations cycle. 

Teach me the ways of hope, reminding me that what seems impossible may yet be achieved. 

Flitting tears of the Goddess, Draw me ever closer to wisdom, Hidden within beauty. 

Give me flight and sunlight, passion and productivity, Cooperation with those around me and sharpened strength to defend my home. 

May I ever spiral out from my heart, searching for what I need, and return there once again to turn those lessons into nourishment. Bee Goddess, I call to You.” – Author unknown.

Asé – Christina Mpilo