Navigating (and Nourishing) a New Year

New year's arrived on a ridge in Tagaytay, the Philippines. It shifted into place somewhere between starlight, the smoke of fireworks, dark water, and poppers echoing into the night. My parents, sister and I were like children: we jumped up and down for luck, ran circles holding bags of clanging coins open to the sky, and filled bowls with round fruits. But if I ran extra fast, or jumped higher than usual, it was not with that exuberant feeling of years past. It was more like a big amen and to please bring in the new. 

Even with January firmly underway, I still feel the resonance of that year's passage. Through it all, there was so much to be grateful for. Here are some from 2012:

Filipino Farmers of the New Millenium

After months of emails, I finally met Gil Carandang, a Filipino organic agriculture advocate and fellow alumni of the Farm and Garden program. (We "just" missed each other by 10 years, and are possibly the only Filipinos in the program's 40-year-history!). I traveled to Gil's teaching farm in Laguna to join a 3-day workshop on beneficial indigenous micro-organisms. Gil breaks down any mystique around natural farming into practical and resonant terms, and provides technical assistance to cooperatives seeking organic certification. Nourishment: a glimpse of Filipino natural farming in the archipelago. 

A Season on the California Coast

Wishing to deepen my farming skills and work with youth, I spent my second season at Pie Ranch in Pescadero. While barely an hour outside of south San Francisco, it felt like another world. From sleeping in a yurt on a historic piece of land and chopping wood to burn for heat, feeling the chills of a coastal winter, to living by the rhythms of over 250 pasture-raised chickens, I grew in often unexpected ways. Nourishment: bridging with Bay Area youth and finding joy in their discoveries.

Building Networks 

2012 witnessed the growth of more collaborations that lift up the voices, stories, needs, and strengths of people of color in food and farming. From launching the Farm and Garden POC alumni network, joining across years of visionary food leaders, to organizing with AAPIs on the farm bill and Prop 37, this work is growing and will continue. Nourishment: the strength of relationships.

Telling Our Food Stories

Arts and culture are necessary agents to bring relationships with each and the earth into balance. While being back in an urban area can feel far from the beauty of living close to the land, I found my senses touched by storytelling, as writers use food as a community builder and a place of collective memory. I had the chance to interview young leaders, like Reyna Maldonado, and artists against Prop 37 like Angela Angel and Robin David. Nourishment: giving and receiving stories.

Cooking 

There is an inexplicable joy of cooking with others. Alone, I go into a flow and could almost cook day and night, lost in a ginger haze. In a group, it can be messy, unpredictable, and fun. 2012 brought new seasonal themes - Cooking with Coconut and Sweet Roots - and new faces to the Oakland Asian Cultural Center's Kitchen. And a first Yelp review - when my environmental justice organization FACES teamed up with The People's Kitchen, our vibrant crew threw down a specially crafted Filipino food menu and a program for nearly 150 guests. Nourishment: communal cooking for body and soul.

Weaving Connections

My friend Mylene says she was asked, "Where is the Filipino canoe?" That question planted a seed. Barely a year later, on a cold Sonoma County morning, I sat around a fire circle together with Mylene and a group of Native and Filipino/Americans at the launch of the Bangka Journey project. Envisioned by a core group of friends, the dream is to revitalize Filipino canoe traditions in California as a healing pathway. It wouldn't be possible alone. The the project is blessed to receive the gift of guidance and wood from First Nations in California and the Pacific Northwest who have already been reclaiming canoe traditions - carving paddle by paddle, connecting youth to elder, and getting bodies in sync. 

Projects like Bangka Journey are often not in the eye of the mainstream media - but they are all around us, agents of change happening with or without recognition, shifting at the individual and community level, reminding us of who we truly are and all that we can become. The sacredness of water, of family, and all our connections, is always there but sometimes feels difficult to see. But when they are held and nourished, bold transformation is not only possible but inevitable.

Nourishment: the hope of paddling (by literal paddle or otherwise) into balance