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A Message to Virgilio from Your Enchanted Gardener
A Message to Virgilio from Your Enchanted Gardener
Date: 4/14/2010 2:36:27 PM ( 14 y ) ... viewed 1886 times
12:36 PM
April 14, 2010
Intro;
Virgilio Felix is one of the dedicated 2010 Cultivating
Food Justice Planning Committee Members who has been
giving long hours to bring home a marvelous experience
to all of us, April 24-25. As a youth in growing up in Mexico,
he survived through being a member of a gang. He went
to the University of Cal at Berkeley, site of the student
Free Speech movement of the 60's, and the campus
in the early 70's where students banded together
to take over Alcatraz island. I know this because
I was one of the token white people who visited
those students and slept overnight on the former
prison island. I can say too much and write too much.
Virgilio was leading the Planning meeting April 8.
I was talking too much and he dinged me a couple
times verbally. Last Saturday, we were at a party together.
We told each other more of our stories. I liked him
more with a couple beers under his belt. I see in him
great potential to be not only a member of the
Cultivating Food Justice Planning Committee, but
a great person who could be a Council Person
for our City in the years ahead.
I saw Virgilio on the Facebook site I am admin for
in part on Facebook for the Food Not Lawns Group.
This letter was inspired in that moment.
It is also inspired in part by other dings I felt
from well meaning other Planning Members who
who from their perspective may not see the
role that plants can play to bring community together
or how they might fit in some kind of public ceremony
work at our upcoming conference.
It is all a process. There is no right or wrong.
Merely a movement in the making toward
Cultivating Food Justice.
Everything works for the good in my world.
Thanks to all for inspiring this message.
A MESSAGE TO VIRGILIO
FROM YOUR ENCHANTED GARDENER
A Message to Virgilio from Your Enchanted Gardener
Hey brother, let us do great things together in this life.
"I see you!" as they say in Avatar,
the movie about life on a distant star
where indigenous and techno people go to war.
We all have different talents we bring to the table.
Right now we are in living in a distant star far away
from the essence and meaning of why we cultivate plants.
It is the loss of this essential meaning that
breeds Food Injustice. We have turned seeds
and seeds inside people into commodities.
We longer honor plants or see them
as sacred.
Sacred what does that mean?
It means seeing the whole as one, and the parts as
individual. We are interdependent (Spirit)
and Independent (Soul) and through our alliance with Soil.
Women have planted for eons in the womb of the Earth.
Soil is more than dirt. It is the place they women
have turned to have had a place to grow food intende
to bring the best out of their seedlings.
What are plants? Why are they so special?
They are Altars, sanctuaries for our deepest dreams.
Plant a Seed, and we can grow a whole new world.
As Thoreau once said, in his last work
"Though I do not believe that a plant
will spring up where no seed has been,
I have great faith in a seed.
Convince me that you have a seed there,
and I am prepared to expect wonders."
WHY DO WE NEED TO CULTIVATE FOOD JUSTICE AT ALL,
TODAY, VIRGILIO?
We need to cultivate and recultivate Food Justice today because
we have lost our connection to the Seed and the Soil, and therefore
to the Soul in all things.
How is it that One member of our World Community now owns
90% of all the seeds that inherently belong to all of us?
It is because we no longer have individual dreams,
or know that our dreams
can be rooted in the dark soil.
We have lost our common sense because we no longer
have herbs to breathe in to remind us.
On the University Campuses today, it is uncommon
knowledge that gardens and farmers markets are our
shared history that dignifies multi-cultural expression,
but this knowledge is being returned to us further
the very weekend of April 24-25 as we seize the moment
to Cultivate Food Justice at San Diego State University.
Eyes far away are watching us now, and Policy Makers
will come to be influenced by what we say and do here.
You asked me if I lived through the Free Speech movement
in the Berkeley of the 60's when when.
I told you on came on board
more in the 70's when students at Kent State had there
blood touch cement as they simply passed youth their
own age who were that day with loaded guns on campus.
The innocence that died that day may have been unaware
of the profound crisi of those times. Students
rose up to stop a war. Bonding together, they did this.
Today, students are bonding up to come together,
and they will come together at San DIego state, April 24-25
to cuminate Earth Week and a Green Fest.
We no longer need loud voices
to bring a Bright Green Future into the present.
We have the opportunity
to plant beet roots together and beet seeds
one way or another.
Out of our dreams, Virgilio. Out of our shared dreams
shall rise up plant Altars that create a Moment of Awakening.
Our local organic farmers already know there is no competition
between them. A nation right now struggles to
pass laws to protect Food Safety without even knowing
the meaning of Safe Food.
Our local organic farmers
they are all Beet Keepers growing in the same pot.
Beet Keepers, Return! My dear Virgiliio, my Council Member,
my Gang Leader. Be the leader of Our Gang for me.
Bring us through your youth and skills, Food Justice.
Never sell out. Find your dream today. Root it
in the Mother's soil. Never be afraid to honor plants
and the food they bring.
Do this, and all you desire will come to you.
I remain,
Your Enchanted Gardener
Leslie
12:51 AM-1:40 PM
The design of the two plenaries (one Saturday and one Sunday) as it has been
discussed to date, is to have a panel that addresses two large topics. The
first plenary, on Saturday, will address "What is food justice." The point
of this panel is explain perspectives on what food justice means.
It serves two purposes in my mind.
1. It sets the framework and context for what we're all here for and gives
the person who was interested enough to come to the event, but maybe is less
familiar with the concept of food justice, an idea of why we're all so
passionate about this movement.
2. It allows people to see the multiple perspectives of the food justice
issue. We're all hitting the many facets of food injustice from different
sides. Some of us are focused on education, others on distribution, still
others on policy change. All these aspect tie together to solve the problem
that is food injustice.
The plenary for Sunday is "Maintaining Momentum" and, roughly, talks about
how we can not just gather once a year to discuss these issues, but continue
to participate in our local communities to determine what specific problems
we have in that community and how we may address them. La Mesa's main focus
may be on making it easier to raise chickens, National City may be focusing
more on getting more permits for farmers' markets, etc. I think it's also
about acknowledging the different groups like PPP, FNL, Roots, etc. that
have work they do throughout the year and letting people know what programs
are out there that need their help (as volunteers).
Both plenaries, I think, should include a brief welcome with some
motivational words about how this is the third event and highlight some of
the successes we've had in the community (Dave's Food Justice class being
established on campus, City College's Seeds at City and anything else we can
hold up as wins).
We DO need to nail these details down though and designate moderators for
the plenaries (if we're doing the panel format). Those moderators can
double as the ones that serve this welcome message and
brief cheer-leading role =^) We should have time for that on Thursday to
hammer that out.
And finally, I do want to echo Mariah's and Anita's comments. I'm not a
spiritual person at all. I know many of you are and I respect that. But
spirituality at a plenary, or any activity where everyone is expected to
participate, makes me feel awkward and out of place. Maybe I'm weird like
that, but I think there are at least a few other people that feel the same
way. We ideally want all religions at this conference and to do anything
that appears (whether we intend it to or not) pagan or christian or anything
resembling any one religion at a plenary could be very off-putting to people
who don't celebrate that one particular religion.
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