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Opening and Closing Ceremony ideas for 2010 Food Justice Conference
Opening and CLosing Ceremony ideas Food Justice
Date: 4/14/2010 2:38:49 AM ( 14 y ) ... viewed 4821 times
PROPOSED DESIGN ELEMENTS TO BE SCRIPTED INTO
OPENING AND CLOSING CEREMONY WORK
FOR THE 2010 CULTIVATING FOOD JUSTICE CONFERENCE
PREMISE
The name of our conference is
Cultivating Food Justice.
"Cultivating" something here,
planting something literally, goes with the terrain
of our conference, as I see it.
WHAT INTENTONS WILL WE PLANT HERE?
HERE IS THE BEGINNING OF A LIST
One Beet. Many Pulses.
WHAT ARE MORE INTENTIONS
WE ARE CULTIVATING AT OUR CONFERENCE?
Submit to Leslie, Admin
for one of many 2010 Cultivating Food Justice Facebook
sites. Sign in now to build momentum for
our ongoing movement: One Beet. Many Pulses.
Cultivating Food Justice in San Diego:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=435552440541
YOU ARE INVITED TO ADD YOUR
INTENTIONS HERE THAT MAY BE VERBALLY
SPOKEN IN THE PLENARY and/or Opening
and Closing Ceremony work at
the 2010 Cultivating Food Justice Conference
Add your Collective and/or individual comments
in comments windows on the
2010 Cultivating Food Justice Facebook
at this Comment Link.
Here is something that comes through now.
This might be appropriate for an opening, a closing, and words
in the printed program, or a start.
SUGGESTION OF OPENING CEREMONY WORDS
TO BE INCLUDING AS PART OF THE ONE HOUR PLENARY
DRAFT #1:
SCRIPT:
"You have before you four beets planted in one pot, each representing three different local organic farmers with good feelings toward each other, and one beet grown by a backyard farmer.
We are here today to cultivate a movement toward
Food Justice.
We are here because we each recognize we cannot stand separate as individuals without a sense of responsibiity to the whole.
We are here now to recognize, and send forth a message,
that all people are growing in the same pot on our one
planet, as much as these four beets are growing in the same pot.
We are as they one separate beets growing from separate seeds
grown by different farmers with different pulses, and we are one
beat.
We live in a world, where we imagine there are enemies. Perhaps there are no enemies, merely people living in tiny worlds that now ask to grow in the same pot.
We are hear to acknowledge that we are now growing together.
( NOTE;
a version of the following was used in the
first Earth Fair in Balboa Park
read in a circle of more than 60 drummers.
Give me a beat. Give me a heart beat.
Clap your hands together. Be the beat. Raise up the beet.
Raise up all beets, and all food.
Raise up all people and peoples here today.
May all be fed here and forever.
Be the beat. Be one with the beet.
Feel the pulse of our movement.
Answer the national call of our
president who has said:
"Show me the movement."
Let us now become the movement
we want him to see.
I create an opening here in soil
for a beet to be planted.
The opening speaks it
says.
"I am the crack.
I am the crack between people.
I am the crack between those
who have enough to eat tonight
and those who have nothing to eat tonight.
I am the crack.
Can you handle a little good news?
I say, can you handle a little good news?
I say, can you handle a little good news?
I am not all I am cracked up to be.
I was born to disappear.
Be something beautiful in the crack.
Plant something beautiful that will grow
in the crack.
Make a holy sound to the crack.
Make a holy sound in the crack.
Dance in the crack.
Dance the crack and I disappear.
May the crack crack wide open.
May the crack disappear.
May the last crack on earth dissappear.
May I be the last crack on earth.
(Excerpt from "Song of the Homeless") 1987
"SHOW ME THE MOVEMENT!" --BARACK OBAMA*
“Show me the movement. Make me do it.”
Today we begin being the movement
he has asked for.
One beet. Many pulses.
SUPPORTING MATERIAL
*
Aaron French’s commentary on the Civil Eat’s blog raises this issue of how prepared the sustainable food movement is to take its seat at the table in Washington. An important question given the receptivity the current administration has shown of late. It seems some more organizing is necessary. Case-in-point: a statement from Obama, as quoted by Michael Pollan at the Georgia Organics conference (where I was on Saturday), in reference to taking action on sustainable food:
ANOTHER PERSON CAN READ
THIS
ANOTHER CONCEPT (add or delete words)
:
THE DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE
I declare the earth my home and I the stewart
and friend of the earth and all its offspring in every race,
culture, and consciousness.
Let every living thing know me as a refuge, a space of safety,
an open portal welcoming new visions and human possibilities,
a protector of the sacred child in everyone,
an advocate for all people who have an inherent
birthright to be fed clean and wholesome food.
Let everyone know from this moment my declaration
of interdependence to you, to my city, to my country,
to my planet, to my universe; to my committment to experience
unity through biodiversity, and personal and world transformation.
Today we root our dreams. We are one beet. Many pulses.
We are the earth and its fullness thereof.
EDITS AND OTHER SUGGESTIONS
WELCOME
edits welcome.
PROPOSALS
FOR THE PLENARY scriipt
What is your intention for our conference:
Here are some our Conference Planning Committee
intentions collected from our facebook site.
WHY ARE YOU COMING TO OUR CONFERENCE?
WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS?
I asked on the facebook site.
These are some of the intentions
that were expressed.
POSSIBLE WAY TO DO THIS
Have some of the leaders read these,
as their organization is introduced.
"Let us all infuse our growing beets with these intentions,
Welcome to our conference. Together may we cultivate
food justice."
FOR THE OPENING CEREMONY
TO BE PART OF PLENARY
(PROPOSAL)
12:38 PM
April 13, 2010
Other ideas..
what is spirituality for us?
when you step on the tail of a cat you can hear the scream.
Em, and Mariah, thank you for your long hours of work in
our behalf of our CFJ Planning Committee. I too have been
putting in full time hours for a number of weeks and I want
my full say on the issue of the appropriateness of having Opening
and Closing Ceremony as well as Plant Altar at the 2010 Cultivating
Food Justice conference, April 24-25 at SDSU.
Last week at the meeting, Em you showed us a a draft of the printed program.
The program included opening and closing ceremony as I submitted it.
I have been saying that opening and closing ceremony work was essential to a conference like ours since I first committed to be a part of this numbers
of months ago.
I will
explain my reasoning, coming from the point of view of being a ceremonialist who has been involved in the creation of social movements
since the age of 17. I am now 62.
It is humblng and a honor to have played some role in the direction of community in our own city of San Diego since the early 70's. For many years as well, I have been called upon to do either opening and/or closing ceremony for the in many professional conference venues, including the Pacific Symposium that draws the world's leading
professional integrative medicine specialists--M.D.'s--as well as Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners from around the world. By the time
I leave this earth, I sense I will do similar ceremony in Washington, or at the
White House organic garden itself.
I could be the father and grandfather to some of you. Being an Elder, in our consensus-based community, or of an another ethic and perhaps ethnic pulse, I want to acknowledge that at our upcoming 2010 Cultivating Food Justice Conference, we wll have numbers of people from different ethics and
ethnic, and gender orientations. This will call forth the need for--potentially-inspired words that fit the appropriateness of this venue.
Our planning group is unique in the sense that we are desiring to
all be heard, and run as much by a consensus model that necessitates
discussion beyond what is done within a corporate model, or a sole proprietory model of business.
In our consensus, we are here to do our best to hear each other. We are here to build a groundswell of support, a community, a movement that
will be stronger than the prevailing movement that now places us in
a state of international, national, and potential local food emergency.
We are here to right something, food injustice. How we handle our own
conference--and here each other now--will inform, from my point of view--attendance.
From my point of view, we are in food injustice
now globally because we have no inherent spirituality that understands
that when you step on the tail of a cat, it is the other end of the animal
the screams, or that when you plant as seed, it is the entire universe
that is listening and participating. We have no inherent connection
that recognizes that when you install one system of ag, there are people
in distant places who are either helped or harmed. I know, Raj Patel
will likely touch on the nature of this global crisis.
WHAT AN M.C. DOES
A Master of Ceremony for a group hears the spirit of the group and the soul
of why he/or she is alive. They can adjust. They can shift the world
in 15 seconds if called, when the person in the role of being in charge,
or the organizer, or faciliator says, you have 15 minutes or 15 seconds.
Do it.
As someone who has been on many stages since the early 70's in our city
in the role of M.C.--a Master of Ceremony--I am that, a master of ceremony.
Take a look at the VIdeo of Heartspace, the equivalent of the other
entertainment groups we have here at our conference. This was a band
used to create community here in San Diego and coalese a city.
I functioned in an M.C., role with this musical group, as well as at
the reunion of 2002.
The intro, or opening words before the music are less that two minutes, yet
Many found them powerful. For our conference, the spirit of what would be done would be conference specific, and the energy appropriate to the need.
We are going to be a conference of One Beet. Many Pulses, and in future years, all coming from many ethnic origins, and speaking many languages,
yet hopefully understanding a common language, the language of the plant
and of our shared nature.
Em:
I asked to see the files of the draft of content that you had for the program.
I still want to see this. Inspired words here may dictate what becomes the opening as well as a closing ceremony. I still want to see this asap.
Please post.
Mariah:
I respect your opinion and point of view that you state below.
I want to hear more points of view.
I do not see bringing up whether we have an opening and closing,
any more a distraction that any discussion about food, or entertainment,'
or words for the workshops. This is part of our process.
TO BE CONSIDERED
Agriculture, when lived on the earth has always had its cultural aspects
and ceremony and ritual have forever been a part of this whenever
indigenous people of the earth are involved, or people who aspire
to be connected with plants.
Working with intention in some inclusive way, creates meaning
and a movement. This is essential activism.
We will discover our rituals that work for us. Granted we are
new as a group, and as a coalesing Food Movement.
REGARDING INCLUSION OF
AN OPENING OR CLOSING AT OUR CONFERENCE
I never heard the idea of an opening or closing dropped out or off
our program or am I sure it was.
It was on the printed program as drafted on the site.
If it was left out, I want to know who consciously made that choice.
This has not yet been a group decision one way or another.
If consensus as an ideal is our way or attempt,
this is one more area of of programming to refine.
Our conference format includes music, dance, art, and puppets
Plants belong here as well, addressed and utilized in ways
that may be new to some, used as carrying forth intention.
Plants have been included and honored
for thousands of years in a sacred way.
Being that this seems odd, is indicative
of the problem that has gotten us into the condition where we treat
food as a commodity, and people as things rather than souls.
We would not have food injustice today, if plants and seeds,
all seeds--included those below our belts--were honored as sacred
and having intention--to develop and bring out the best in human beings.
The word Sacred sound like a loaded word, but it is no less Sacred
the the idea of building up Soil, or any other inherent principle of
composting.
Soil in not dirt, though we some of us use the term.
Agriculture will not find its destiny returned without ritual.
That is my take, nor acknowledging that in has cultural aspects
that where bio-diverse food choices inherently influence full
self expression.
Mariah:
Thank you for your sensitivity about gender
in regard to our opening and closing ceremony work.
in nature, there is male and female in each of us,
as much as there is male and female aspect to an orange flower.
This is not to say, that having one man or one woman
watering a seed is the way to go here. Perhaps a group of women
would do this. In indigenous culture, it has been the women
who did the planting.
WHAT IS RITUAL AND HOW
DOES IT FIT HERE AT OUR CONFERENCE?
Ritual as I have known it, is the core of community.
Words can express the essence when carefully expressing
why people gather. Inspired words
are the reason we now have a president
who was elected on a message of hope. He knew the words
that created a movement, and an election.
THE TASK BEFORE US
We have a task on our hands and inherit a world
deeply in need of dreams rekindled,
and dreams rooted with seeds.
We need metaphors such as dreams being
planted that grow as beets grow.
We are in a process of finding out how
to be in community, and again come into
community with plants.
WHAT ARE OUR INTENTIONS
FOR THE CONFERENCE?
I hear so far a couple of intentions
for our conference, and I, as an M.C. in than authentic sense
of the meaning of the word, would hold space for intentions
to be heard.
WHAT IS THE WILL OF OUR GROUP
RE: OPENING AND CLOSING?
WHAT WILL THE HOUR OF OUR PLENARY
ENTAIL?
WHO IS IN CHARGE?
I do not know yet that having no opening ceremony
is the will of our group as a whole,
nor have I heard the design
on what the opening plenary will be
or can be.
i want to hear the design.
I want to give my input on that.
I want to see each moment add to fulfilling our intentions
for why we are all putting on this conference
and investing so much of our precious energy.
I want to come out of this conference with a movement
that has solidified, and/or is on its way to solidifying
through the time we are taking to bring ourselves
and our organizations into community.
I personally have been working night toward this
for weeks full time. I want to see as many people
here as possible, who are drawn here.
I believe this can be 1000 perhaps,
based on what we each do in the coming days.
Mariah,
I hear your point of view thus far, and I hear what you are saying
as much as I want to be heard.
BIO NOTE ON LESLIE GOLDMAN
FOR 2010 CULTIVATING FOOD JUSTICE CONFERENCE
On Apr 13, 2010, at 11:09 PM, wrote:
I only hear one person really pushing for the opening planting ceremony/ closing ceremony with the entire conference.
While it's a nice idea on some levels it doesn't seem to represent the intention of the planning group as a whole
I think it was dropped, as were other ideas that did not receive group approval, because it doesn't really fit with our mission: education, networking and activism.
There is definitely a time and place for this type of spiritual/quasi religious ceremony, but an inclusive conference plenary is not the time.
Our conference is different from a Winter Solstice Rain Dance. An "alter" is not necessarily an inclusive idea. Similarly the one man one woman part of the proposed ceremony seems to privilege gender based cultural frames some of us find highly offensive. I don't mean for this to be personal at all, but I do see how this could be somewhat of a turn off to some folks who are there expecting a conference format.
Given the workshop schedule, which is set, I see more room for a planting to be integrated into a closing ceremony to be integrated on Sunday when it would not demand the participation of the entire conference and allow people to opt out. I encourage the group to maintain our focus on the important education and activism work and not let this issue sideline us. The spotlight of the Saturday plenary should be on the organization introductions and a lead into the sessions.
Mariah
RELATED LINKS AND BLOGS
WHY GROW A BEET IN A POT?
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1604924
LESLIE GOLDMAN @ The 2010 CULTIVATING FOOD JUSTICE CONFERENCE
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1598722
BLOG INDEX FOR ALL PLANT YOUR DREAM BLOGS
RELATED TO THE 2010 CULTIVATING FOOD JUSTICE
CONFERENCE
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1604193
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