Beloved Friend,
As we approach the Equinox, we recommit to restoring balance in our world, equilibrium in our hearts, justice in our hands, steadiness in our breath, and equality in our sovereignty.
What immense times we are living through! We are sending prayers for peace and protection around you and your loved ones as we navigate multiple pandemics and unnatural disasters, and cultivate radical creativity and resilience within and between our communities.
So much about this year affirms why WILDSEED was called into being.
It’s been a while since we shared an update, so we wanted to let you know some of what’s been happening and on the horizon…!
We have each other’s backs
In this time that calls for interdependence, WILDSEED is deepening partnerships with mission-aligned groups to extend the resource of this land farther into our communities and actualize our visions through the power of collaboration.
We are partnering with NuLegacy to provide formerly incarcerated, system-involved and young urban BIPOC as well as LGBTQI+ community with hands-on farming & growing experience, camping trips, and Human Justice-informed healing circles. These efforts are being led by Chino Hardin, a transgender activist and member of the Blackfoot Indian Nation, who has studied nature-connected and holistic approaches to community grieving and restorative justice. Chino and his sons, Chino Jr and Krishna, are in residence in the Moon House for a year.
Kibilio Community and Farm, an intergenerational Black & Queer collective just concluded a three-month residency at WILDSEED. During their residency, Kibillio focused on developing a community land trust and engaged network focused on healing, spirituality, land sovereignty, food and ecological justice. Kibilio members Asher, DSL, David, baby Sankara hosted convenings with the larger membership to work on their community agreements and by-laws while closing on 96 acres of land in Western MA to seed their long-term vision.
Congratulations Kibilio!! We are rooting for you! Learn more and support at kibilio.org
We honor and uplift the work of Sweet Freedom Farm, our beautiful comrades (including WILDSEED co-founder Jalal Sabur & Rites of Passage co-coordinator Antonia Estela Perez) who are growing vegetables, grains, and herbs on WILDSEED land to distribute to communities with little to no access to fresh farm produce through Brooklyn Packers and the BRIDGE program, and to incarcerated folks and their families that are a part of the Victory Bus Project. Learn more and support their “Grow Food Not Prisons” campaign.
We give thanks and praise to Linke Fligl, the queer diasporist Jewish land and cultural organizing project we’ve been sharing soil with since the beginning! After 5 years of raising heritage breed chickens, tending a beautiful garden, cultivating community, gathering for ritual and song, organizing for reparations, and repairing relationships with the earth, this shmita year will be Linke Fligl’s final year and the project will close in the fall of 2022. Join us in celebrating what they have built and the new possibilities they have in the hearts and minds of hundreds of people. Read more about Linke Fligl’s journey here.
We Multiply Like Mycelium!
We are thrilled that since WILDSEED’s inception, so many brilliant BIPOC-led land projects have been sprouting all over the region!!!
We are cheering with love and solidarity for the Institute of Afrofuturist Ecology, Seeds & Soil, Mumbet’s Freedom Farm, the Braiding Seeds Fellows and so many more!
We are also deepening some juicy partnerships with Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, Media Sutra and Black Trans Media. Stay Tuned!
We are stronger together!!!
Visual stream of recent sweetness!
“Three eventful months into our residency, we’ve gotten into our daily and weekly routines for land care, household chores, hosting visitors, and volunteering. Not to mention taking dips in the newly rejuvenated pool, which was a project unto itself!
My sons and I have volunteered at Rock Steady Farm, where we’ve prepared food boxes shipped throughout New York, and learned about tracker maintenance.
We just wrapped up a three-day Center for NuLeadership on Human Justice and Healing staff retreat. We’re now planning Seeding the Land, Growing the Seed, a gathering at the farm to introduce youth, partners, funders and others in our ever-widening village to NuLegacy and our incredible WILDSEED adventure.
It has been such a liberating feeling being surrounded by earth that is so alive and vibrant. We are very grateful for the opportunity to be immersed in nature and share space and knowledge with our communities.”
~ Chino Hardin
We are filled with immense gratitude to this land and all the beings and spirits who dwell here, for the collaboration of our ancestors, for WILDSEED’s leadership past and present, for the many hands and hearts who have contributed to the building of this vision with labor, resources, and guidance.
With Love & Devotion,
WILDSEED Family