A Community of Urban Farmers and The Gratitude Circle

it's GCETP classtime

As an atheist I often miss the social and spiritual community that religious people share. Atheists are like cats, as the notorious Richard Dawkins has mused, due to their stubborn independence and skepticism of authority. My best guess is that most atheists haven’t yet found a spiritual community to safely call home, effectively preventing us from banding together to build resilience.

But I think I may have found my perfect community: urban agriculture. As a non-believer, my spirituality comes from my connection to nature and humanity. You don’t need to be religious to experience a divine connection to nature and the universe. The urban agriculture community contains a diverse, compassionate, intelligent, and outspoken group of people who are at the forefront of community change. With them I share a connection to nature and an intuitive understanding of the interconnectedness of all living things.

My journey to the discovery of this resilient community begins with my beloved garden educator class, GCETP (fondly called GetUp!). On the first day, our teachers told us they had taken this class, and it changed their lives. My classmates were skeptical: “You said this is life-changing! That sets the bar high.” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to believe them.

Over the three months of weekly classes and field trips, a special connection began to form: we were all starting to develop a rich and complex relationship with the earth. We began to get intimate with compost – a living demonstration of nature’s circular forces at work, an integration of death, life, and nourishment in one pile – all of this happened, gently, admist a serene, sustainably landscaped garden.

The latter third of the class was devoted to field trips. Who doesn’t love a field trip? These trips were not about learning anything in particular, they were about inspiration. Inspiration, I learned, is one of the best ways to engage new students and foster a love for the subject. Carpooling trips are also some of the best ways to get to know your fellow classmates on a whole other level. I had one of my best in-person conversations on one of those car trips. Thank you, Bliss.

Our field trips were either to warehouses for recycled and reclaimed materials, or urban organic farms of all kinds:

• Green Faerie Farm is an urban homestead with a few goats and rabbits
• Little City Gardens is an experiment to create a for-profit urban garden that also seeks to benefit the poor
• Building Resources is a recycled materials warehouse
• Merritt College has a Landscape Horticulture program, where you can learn permaculture design, mushroom cultivation, and organic horticulture, among many other classes. They have a beautiful permaculture garden overlooking the Bay [google maps!].
• Recology is the waste management company serving San Francisco, with an interest in helping the city drastically reduce its waste. Waste Zero is their motto.

Recology

Who Are You?

All along the way, we were introduced to a world of people who truly cared and sincerely wanted to do a little good for the earth. It was a little intimidating at first, but they were all incredibly down to earth and motivational. One of the best talks was reserved for our last class, and was lead by permaculture instructor Kevin Bayuk. His teaching style was different: he started off the class by asking each of us to voice our questions about organic gardening for him, and he would try his best to answer all of them after his prepared talk.

Interestingly, my classmate Zoe asked, “Who are you?”

He wrote that down too.

In his talk, he essentially handed us the exact strategy and tools necessary to design your very own urban garden. He told us how we could see the solar pattern and shadowing over different time periods using Google Earth, to assess how much sunlight a certain area would receive. He told us about the different types of maps, design software, and environmental factors to consider. It was an empowering talk, so much that now I feel like I’m ready to go build my own garden.

He saved that interesting question for the very last moment of our classtime:

Who are you?

“Who am I? I took this class a number of years ago, and now I teach permaculture at the Permaculture Design Institute. You can e-mail me here if you have any more questions, I’m always open to talking with you.

Who am I? I am you. I was in your very same position so many years ago, and I think you are all amazing for self-selecting to be here today. You are part of a great wave on the frontier of decentralizing mass production, and bringing it back to the local economy. So thank you and good night!”

******

for love & compost

The Lesson

At graduation, everyone stood to speak about their experiences, and each was happy to do their duty: we bared our souls because we were comfortable, we had shared our lives for the past three months, collectively developing an relationship to each other and with the earth.

At graduation, everything fell in place: We were composed of some of the most excellent people any of us had ever met. “I want to give everyone a big star for being so amazing and talented,” Maria said.

Art noted, “No one was ever mean-spirited, negative, or critical. Everyone was always happy to be there. They were supportive, fun, intelligent, spirited, open-minded, and accepting.” I remember our teacher Suzi telling us we were one of the smartest GCETP classes – I couldn’t agree more.

“I think our collective intuition has really developed,” said Susan.

The biggest lesson each and every one of us learned, after sharing our collective wisdom, was that it’s all about people, love, and teaching through inspiration. We were given love for the earth, for each other, and for sharing the sacred knowledge that is organic gardening (and everything else important and interesting in life).

Beyond giving us the knowledge and skills to start our own organic gardens, GCETP introduced us to the pulsating heart of San Francisco’s urban agriculture movement. After GCETP, is where the real work begins. Each of us will now go on to complete an internship at a local community garden, where we can physically apply the skills we learned, while continuing to nurture our newly formed relationships.

Everyone we’ve met so far has been incredibly generous with their time and knowledge. They’ve infected me with their passion and love.

I couldn’t imagine spending my time any other way – this is the community we’ve been looking for.

******

The Gratitude Circle

The Free Farm is where I have chosen to apply my newfound knowledge. It’s a beautiful, sunny garden dedicated to sharing its produce freely with its community.

One really special part of my volunteer workday was the gratitude circle, a secular prayer before sharing lunch together. We all stood in a circle, holding hands.

It went something like this,

Thank you to Christina, who prepared this delicious meal we are about to enjoy. Thank you to the volunteers who are here today. Thank you to the seeds, sun, water, and insects, for all lending a hand in producing this meal.

This simple act of standing in a circle, holding hands, and giving collective thanks made me feel immeasurably connected to a greater, nobler, more beautiful power.

As humans, we are indebted to nature for food and shelter. It only seems right to thank her for her bountiful gifts.

Are you a non-believer, or simply radically inclusive? Consider the gratitude circle before a special meal. It made me truly happy.

Also, consider checking out a community garden, you never know what kind of interesting and compassionate people you’ll meet. Perhaps you too might stumble on your destined community.

weekly potluck crafted by 5 chefs

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