We liken “To Repair Our Lives” to a share basket with a combination of virtual and tangible offering…These are seasonal creative explorations of healing and repair: on-line reflections and images, periodic podcasts, farm -grown wellness products, and occasional video recordings of art rising from this life of repair, growth, and sharing.

A story, Dear Friend…

It started long before I was born. I grew up nourished on the stories and songs of parents whose families grew their own food in Haiti, and in the cotton fields of South Carolina.

Now my hands and heart belong in the soil, in the garden, in the goat pen, in the hen yard, or helping someone plant their first garden seed. I love dancing or singing to newly planted seeds, to sky or lake. I like the feel and sound of pencil laying out long-hand questions and discoveries on a sheet of paper. Generally this means I have little time or patience for computer screens and keyboards.

So why “To Repair Our Lives,” a predominantly on-line form of expression and connection?

As a farmer who lives simply, I witness first-hand tiny bits of repair. Soil, souls, bodies, and community know touches of healing when food and medicines are grown and shared with care and gratitude. I stand here with the jagged knowledge that I - descendent of those forcibly removed from a homeland - now attempt to home myself into a land forcibly removed from another line of peoples. I step tentatively into relationships for possible repair of this web of injustice.

As a woman and mother with brown skin, my prayers for my sons and our world are fraught. There is an internalized embodied sense peculiar to those who know this world’s brokenness targets our babies and kin with a particular violence. To repair my heart and the lives of those I touch, I lay hands on the earth. The seeds falling from my palms are prayers that are transformed in the death and resurrection dance of soil, air, rain, sunlight, and Spirit.

The food, story-dances, essays, creative guidance that are seeded from my small dark-skinned life on the land, gain meaning in the sharing of them. Sharing and invitation seem to be at the core of my spiritual and cultural heritages - at the center of my current walk.

As dreams of nourishing and healing land and people take root, we, at Diaspora Gardens, are learning to root ourselves more deeply in a growing community.

For years we have engaged a small beautiful community that believes in growing food and connections so much that they share in our micro-farm life. They sustain us spiritually and financially. In return for their time in our hoop houses, their funding, and their joy at our efforts they receive carrots and kale, mushrooms and eggs, greens and potatoes, strawberries and herbs, and so much more. They also receive weekly stories of the farm’s life and teachings to deepen their share of, and connection to, this justice, healing, loving work which cannot happen without partners.

Now we expand the invitation, expand the sharing beyond the reach of our boxes of rainbow chard and sunshine tomatoes. This is an experiment in sharing with a broader community the questions, discoveries, heartbreaks, and celebrations of mundane redemptions and restorations on a micro-farm on the edge of Lake Superior. It’s also an experiment in inviting a greater web of companions and support. Support goes for the work of growing healthy food, healthy soil, and healing connections which touch our Island community and prioritize communities of color and other marginalized folks.

We liken “To Repair Our Lives” to a share basket with a combination of virtual and tangible offering…These are seasonal creative explorations of healing and repair: on-line reflections and images, periodic podcasts, farm -grown wellness products, and occasional video recordings of art rising from this life of repair, growth, and sharing.

If you’d like to be part of our sharing community, sign up to receive the discoveries and challenges inherent to repairing the life of the land and its inhabitants.

You may also contact us at regina@diasporaonmadeline.com for further information.