ROOTS & RESILIENCE - BIPOC FARMERS & IC GATHERING share back
Building nodes of safety and refuge all over Turtle Island and beyond
In a region where generations of ancestors have been praying for the racial healing of this Monacan land, we experienced watching those prayers manifest through the Roots & Resilience: BIPOC Farmers & Intentional Community gathering.
What does it mean for 70+ Black and Brown earth-working stewards of the land to gather at a rural Virginia, Black-led intentional community in this time? What does it mean for babies of color to gather around movement elder Mama Ira Wallace and receive transmissions from the legacy of oppressed peoples’ lineages dedicated to preserving seed sovereignty? We are remembering how to gather, how to activate ancestral memory to convivir. We are sharing strategies of mobilizing resources to fund and sustain BIPOC-led intentional communities, farms, and other land-based efforts.
We heard presentations from Rev Dele from @indigenousmothersclandtrust on culturally relevant ways of holding land title with Rematriation deeds. We learned about Building Community with @edibleforest, Land Access 101 with @nairobi.natural, Successful Farm Finance with @theinfinitylorde, and the very popular theme of moving through conflict in community with @langstonkahn
Photo credit: @malekhinnawi
Finding balance with the heady, legal, technical, and financial components, we wove in body, emotions, culture, and spirit with morning yoga breathwork @azharkhan_, techniques for grounding in intense times @langstonkahn, herbal infusions offerings @mysticpinefarm, practical oragami for storing seeds with Anthony, evening dance parties, land dreaming fire prayer circles @ministryofmagik @anah_sahar, and weaving @land.dreams_ reflections through Cosechas del Día/Harvests of the day exercises, inspired by teachings borrowed from @llamadocolombia Putumayo region of Colombia.
Big thank you to @acorncommunity for hosting us!!, for offering daily tours and sharing insight on how the pairing of your residential intentional community and community business functions.
Photo credit: @malekhinnawi
One of the most impactful pieces for me was sharing space with Black leaders who have been building connections with this territory for a long time, tuning in to their emotional witnessing of the number of Black and Brown bodies who have finally come together in this way. I could sense their bodies easing into rest, feeling proximity to safety, releasing tension through life-work affirming tears. We are exhausted from the harmful culture of white-led farm and intentional community spaces; (similar formation stories of the event organizer entities, Acorn Community and the BIPOC Intentional Community Council,) that’s why we created a BIPOC self-determined space.
In a time of unchecked abductions, escalating policing and militarized violences on Indigenous land roaring for protection,
in rural regions mixed with white smiles, yet also white silence, white weapons and neighboring Trump flags,
in urban regions with Black cop mayors, stolen Palestinian land auctions, and anti-immigrant narratives even immigrants can adopt for their own survival,
it is critical to build nodes of safety and refuge all over Turtle Island and beyond.
Networks like @bipoc.ic.community are organizing BIPOC-led intentional communities and land projects that meet the needs of their respective communities. The fruition of these land sites offers pathways for peoples into ways of life that are, not secluded and cut off utopias, but rather, more connected and resilient altogether. We call for increased capacity in the organizing of this network, whether through the BIPOC Intentional Community Council’s emerging Fundraising, Membership, Healing, Conflict Resolution work groups, or other creative approaches.
Photo credit: @malekhinnawi
We gather as east coast folks and beyond to explore the synchronicities within our building of solutions. We gather to explore compatibilities within each other and who we want to do this work with. We resist the destructive design of the white mans world and co-design our world building rooted with ancestral guidance.
We gather to alchemize anxiety, fear, and chaos, and to strategically situate ourselves within the webs of resilient hubs nestling us in solidarity. While we spread our efforts to resist the oppressive systems attempting to shut us down, we’re motivated more than ever to keep going.