Recently the generous gardens were host to a group of kids who were touring around with the Oak and Orca Bioregional School. They learned about aphids, harvested peas and strawberries, and played in the watering hose to cool off! It was a lot of fun.
We have also begun to harvest to donate the food to various advocacy and solidarity groups in town. We have given to AVI, VIRCS, and PEERS so far, with more donations to come.
In the spirit of feminist author bell hooks, I like to think of this project as redirecting flows of resources and foods from the centre of society to the margins. hooks wrote a very influential text called Feminist Theory: From Margin to Centre. In it, she cautions against reproducing oppression in our struggle against oppression. To do so, we must shift our thought, attention, and care towards the margins of society, for this is where places and bodies deeply need our solidarity. These bodies can be both ecological and social – and often the suffering at the margins is purposefully rendered invisible through practices or ideas that also justify the suffering.
An example of this rampant bullshit, off the top of my head, is the stigma attached to sex workers, which leads to attitudes of dismissal with regards to their wellbeing, health and safety. Rae-Lynn Dicks, testifying at Missing Women’s Commission of Inquiry, ”said she was repeatedly told by her sergeants they weren’t going to spend “valuable time and money” looking for prostitutes when she worked for the Vancouver Police Department’s call centre.”
Wherever we are, perhaps a decent goal could be to focus some of our energy to generating abundance and sharing, directing it away from the magnetic pull of centres of power and towards the margins - and turn this ethic into a life practice, which is flexible and capable of operating in any locale! A unwavering critique/mistrust of the police would be good as well…
On another note (and slightly lighter), our pea trellis fell down because we had too much growth! We gave peas a chance, and they destroyed themselves! Maybe there is a lesson in there somewhere…
Please contact us if you’d like to help harvest for donations!
