Holding our Own

In permaculture they talk about patterns in nature that we want to pay attention to. This past week was all about holding  patterns:

Holding a space for peace and non-violence—Pancho  and Adelaja and a sister whom I don’t know were arrested for  meditating at Occupy Oakland. They weren’t actually part of the protest, but were holding open a public space that was likely to become a violent due to an impending raid by armed police. They were “holding their tongues” so to speak. They  were holding that space to be filled with peace and love. Later Pancho, wearing a red vest to signify he was the most dangerous prisoner and shackled,  had an “ICE hold” put up him, as he was waiting to be transferred to Immigration. He held the space there to for peace and love wile meditating in solitary confinement in Santa Rita Jail.

Holding our ground–the Occupy movement is holding it’s ground everywhere. People power is potent and the power of the people got Pancho out of jail and out of ICE’s hold on him, at least for now he is free!

Holding Fast—people are holding fast to their dreams and hopes for a better world

Holding Up—as the banks and the large corporations hold us up everyday,  the Occupy Movement is saying business as usual needs to be held up for now. Capitalism doesn’t “hold water” and is over rated in our view. Yet somehow we are all holding up during these difficult times for the planet.

Here is one of the best articles I have read that is up-to-date about the Occupy Movement written by Randall Amster who is a friend of Pancho’s and visited the Free farm a while back: Power to the Peaceful: Holding Space as OWS Camps Come Under Assault. And here is an article about how Occupy is a new societal model with ways to improve it http://shareable.net/blog/occupy-as-new-societal-model-ways-to-improve-it.

The Free Farm Stand was greeted with our first real rainy Sunday and we decided to dispense with the number system and do things more old style since we had the park to ourselves. I was thinking that we were lucky to finish the rain barrel installation at the Free Farm (see our blog http://thefreefarm.org/), though we actually got a minimal amount of rain.

Robert dropped by with 17lbs of sunchokes from his school garden in Berkeley. I brought  34 lbs of Yacón  or Bolivian suroot from the Free Farm,  a relative of sunflower and sunchoke.

                                 demonstrating Yacón harvest standing next to the plant at the Free Farm

 the yield!

samples on the table…you eat it raw in salads like jicama

 I continue to be amazed at our abundance here in California…we had quite a lot of produce left over from the farmer’s markets for a November. We also had no shortage of people coming for produce in spite of the rainand at the end of the day it was all given away.

Here is another less common vegetable that I like growing. A friend of mine from Santa Barbara brought me two white varieties of chayote that we planted in the garden next to the Free Farm Stand. I was so excited about trying a variety I haven’t seen in the markets here and also nervous about planting such a rare plant. We also gave away a lot of seedlings, including tree collards and Cuban oregano.

We will be closed next Sunday after Thanksgiving and we are also taking a two week break and will closed December 25th  Christmas and Sunday New Years day January 1st and will reopen Sunday January 8th, 2012.

 

 

Planting Ahimsa

Right now my heart goes out to our brothers and sisters at Occupy Oakland who have been arrested just this morning for non-violently exercising their first amendment rights to protest.  I have just been sent two emails with photos of our brothers and dear satyagrahis Pancho and Adalaja who help us a lot here in San Francisco both at the Free Farm and the Free Farm Stand. They teach us that we need to be a force and witness for truth and love and also to build the alternatives we want to see in our world.

Last night I was at OccupySF and talking with my friend Justin who was meeting with folks there about spreading the occupy movement into neighborhoods. Like going to the Bay View where people are occupying foreclosed houses and helping the people put in Occupy gardens there. I was thinking why not plant some fruit trees in between the palm trees at OccupySF?

The reason this movement is so important is that it does so many things including challenging  who can use public property and for what purpose. It is similar to what the Free Farm Stand recently faced. For example, what are public parks to be used for? We believe we have an emergency going on in our country and in our city, and that sharing locally grown organic produce with neighbors is a legitimate use of the park during these hard times. The same I would say for the Occupy movement, is that people need to camp out and express their frustration with the current system which is very broken.

here is our Free Farm Crew including Pancho after moving 20 cubic feet of compost at the Free Farm

as good gardeners/farmers we grow soil and as world citizens we grow the soil of peace, love, and harmony

The good weather continues and the Free Farm Stand gets more organized. Tape on the ground and signs of all kinds helping people get produce more easily. I did notice we seem to be slow giving out the produce, even though we have a lot less these day. I think it took us about an hour to give out produce to 90 people.

“Enter Here” sign

“Numbers” sign

two new volunteers…we love them!

Kimberly and Robert brought produce from the Secret Garden, including surplus sunchokes from Robert’s school garden. Jason dropped of 18 lbs of his chayote bounty from his Mission garden.

Claire picked a salad mix from Treat Commons

Last week I found out about an online article about us at a place Care2 make a difference (http://www.care2.com/causes/victory-for-san-franciscos-free-farm-stand.html#comment-2802264)…about our “Victory”. The article was fine though there was an incorrect part about a church buying the land the Stand is on. The article also mentions a petition they put out that got 6,821 signatures from all over the world. Isn’t that trippy?

Talk about neighbors sharing their surplus, as we were closing down the Stand a neighbor who lives across the street came by with a big roasted pig that was left over from a party at Paul Getty’s house. Claire accepted the roasted pig and then realized there was no place to take it. I half seriously suggested taking it to Occupy and so our two new volunteers and Cat drove it down there. I later found out it was devoured by the people there and I guess that is the 1% feeding the 99%. I do feel bad not only for the pig, but for the people consuming it. I decided to leave out the photo as I found it disturbingly gross.

We are the 100%

I am totally inspired by the Occupy movement going down.  It’s wild and free and beautiful. The General Assembly meetings are a fantastic experiment in democracy and decision making.  I think they are worth checking out. The other thing I love is that a group of people have seized the commons and are camping out on it, a sort of  Rainbow Gathering style with a political message.  Also, young and old have taken to the street to disrupt business as usual and are questioning the sacred cow of capitalism, especially those corporate institutions that are the most exploitative.

My hope is that these General Assemblies continue no matter what happens, that this exercise in communication needs constant practice like yoga and eventually it needs to be brought into our neighborhoods.  I also hope people will understand that the Occupy movement it is not really about us vs them which I think the phrase we are the 99% reinforces. We have to be careful with this kind of thinking and language which has the potential for growing hate and fear and can be polarizing.  Don’t get me wrong, if you check out my email address I have been on this 99 thing for a while before 99% became cool (iamtree99@gmail.com). It is the corporate takeover of our world that is one big  problem.

We are 100% connected with each other
We are 100% part of the big picture in it all together
We are 100% sharing the same carbon cycle
We are 100% sharing the same breath
We are 100% sharing our bodies with 90 trillion microbes
We are 100% living under the same stars and galaxies
We are 100% all needing love and compassion

Jason who helped us build our greenhouse at the Free Farm wrote some beautiful words about Occupy in the eastbaypermaculture yahoo group (you have to join the yahoo group to read this Laying the Foundations).   It really is in line with what I have been thinking. He says “One next step is to engage and develop local, community-based systems to provide for all of our basic human needs… The piece that we here in the Bay Area are perhaps best suited to take the lead on is Food Sovereignty. There is some energy and infrastructure for this already, although it would need to be increased if we want to develop true autonomy for local Occupations. Residential food producing landscapes, urban farms, and mass chicken coop construction for residential settings could be cooperatively developed and installed. In doing so, we would vastly increase our capacity for local self-sufficiency on a wider scale… As we transition away from our dependence on destructive distribution and processing systems to meet our basic needs, we can go beyond merely denouncing the current economic model and prove that WE DO NOT NEED their system. Another world is possible, and being actualized through the place-based autonomous zones now occupying many major cities. The more we can provide for the social services and basic human needs of those in the Occupied spaces without supporting or depending upon governments and mass distribution systems, the more we can accurately declare we are living a viable alternative”.

Here is something I have been doing when I have some time and my junk mail is piling up from credit card companies:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM

I also got an email from my friend Justin who with his friends are thinking the same thoughts here in San Francisco:  “Hey all, so the other night some of us were sitting around talking about the occupy movement and ways to make this radical movement/ community more relevant to everyday folks around our cities. We wanted spread the message of autonomy and community building outside of capitalism in a way that would work for people in their lives, thus spreading these radical ideas throughout our neighborhoods. One idea that we came up with was a garden project. We all recognize how gardens offer families and communities a degree of self-sufficiency, autonomy and a chance to transform our social relationships.” Their idea is 99 Gardens for the 99%. I like the way he ended the email “Lets Overgrow Capitalism!”

I liked this sign

Wondering where our friend Pancho is these days…a no show at the Free Stand (and the Free Farm)…we forgive him…

shutting down the bank and getting some receptive silence in too

The Free Farm Stand was not rained out and well occupied. We are there rain or shine by the way, though we will be closed the Sunday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 27). It was a beautiful day and thanks to our organizer extraordinaire, Cat, things are running pretty smooth. It has been remarkable to me how after our run in with Recreation and Park, so many new people showed up eager to help in some way, Besides Cat, another woman surfaced named Jill who is experienced in crowd management and she has been working with Cat to make the experience for people coming to the Stand to have a good experience as we grow larger in size. Our volunteer crew has been so great and I can’t say enough how grateful I am. There are several things I would like to manifest for the Free Farm Stand:

  • a Cantonese speaking person to help us translate fliers and ideally to volunteer with us to help talk to the Cantonese speaking shoppers who come by.
  • a photographer that would like to set up a photo booth at the FFS
  • a large homey free space to throw a big party in around December to celebrate a year of wonderful volunteers and good work…room for dancing and maybe someone who can lead a contra dance or square dance

We are still getting a lot of produce left over from the Farmer’s Markets and we did have some nice sunchokes from the Free Farm and  beautiful squash (I think the variety we grew was Musquee de Provence though I think we should have let it get orange on the outside). Stanford students from Stanford glean came again with pomegranates, pineapple  guavas, quince, and apples, such lovely fruit for November!

Cristina was back serving a while before her tango class. The African Blue basil flowers matched her outfit

My favorite twins with Clara their mom (I got a volunteer name tag part of our new order)

healthy happy baby sisters

Planting red clover

Billee Sharp, a regular supporter of the Free Farm Stand came by on Sunday and gave me a copy of a bookshe wrote called “fix it, make it, grow it, bake it”  that mentions the Free Farm Stand in it. She also wrote an interesting article in a blog by Matt Gonalez and others I didn’t know existed  “As it Ought to Be”
http://asitoughttobe.com/2010/06/29/confessions-of-a-bad-hippie-by-billee-sharp/. She gives a pretty good short history of the Sixties diggers who also reclaimed the commons and uprooted our system with revolutionary ideas (like the thought that things should be free and who circulated another 1% idea…1% Free).