MEDITATIONS ON SUSTENANCE

 

Sustenance is our birthright

We are nourished by the elements

Nourished by one another

The hands that till the soil

The hands that reap the harvest

 

We craft this project

Our food justice newsletter

Remembering ancient wisdom

Innovating new practices

Imagining revolution and liberation

 

Our roots go deep

We draw energetic water from subterranean oases

Reservoirs preserved by the Piscataway people

Sustaining a vision of sustainability

 

We live in a toxic system

We live amidst food deserts

Food is a commodity

Not acknowledged as a right

 

Yet another vehicle for profiteering

Denying our fundamental relationship

Our sacred compact with mother earth

 

Like a vulture

Capitalism feeds on our labor

LIke a parasite

Our system propels us towards destruction

 

Yet we must sustain hope

Urban farmers restore our relationship to the elements

We see co-ops advancing food justice

We see food vendors invested in mutual aid

A radical reinvention of what it means to be in deep relationship

 

We reintegrate trauma

Our violent separation from the earth

The crushing of sovereignty

The legacies of slavery and indigenous displacement

 

We must conjure a new world

Imagining the architecture of evolution

Listening to the elements

Harmonizing with the earth

 

We must move like mycelium

Brewing subterranean magic

Inspired by fungi nurturing the crops that feed us

 

We taste the unexpected

Embracing biodiversity

Reimagining cooking and sharing food

Viewing all of these as spiritual rites of passage

 

We must craft a sacred covenant

Committing ourselves to the practice of solidarity

Integrating new webs of holistic practice

 

Sustenance is indeed our birthright

Let us build and transform

Manifesting our sacred mission

Amplifying food justice

Gestating and transforming

 

Imagining a system where we are not parasites

A system that honors the planet

A world that restores indigenous wisdom

A new interweaving that can sustain us all

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Image by Skye Ellis

–BYPO PHOENIX c)2024

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