We should have a land / Of trees, / Of tall thick trees, / Bowed down with chattering parrots … Ah, we should have a land / Of love and joy and wine and song…
Langston Hughes
Sweet Greetings Beloved Community,
February arrived carrying this longing for a land of tall thick trees, joy, and song.
Not just for a landscape lush with green, but for a place shaped by our tending — a place where joy is woven into daily life, where song rises simply because we are alive. In the quiet stretch between winter’s stillness and spring’s first stirring, we are invited to imagine again what kind of land we are growing beneath our feet.
This month, we plant seeds in the form of commitments — to safety that is material, to shared abundance that is measurable, to spaces where love and joy are built into how we gather, distribute resources, and make decisions. We ask ourselves what it would take to cultivate a land worthy of song, and how we might begin right where we are.
If January was a container for grief, February is an opening for possibility. The kind that understands seasons. The kind that knows growth isn’t linear and still worth the effort. The land we long for does not arrive all at once. It is grown — tended by many hands, shaped by memory, sustained by care and accountability.
This kind of land — abundant, resilient, and rooted in care — is grown through practice as much as imagination. Our Immersions offer land-based skills to reclaim leadership as farmers and food justice organizers, heal relationships with the earth, and imagine bolder futures. Our 2026 immersion applications are open through Friday, March 6th at 5 PM EST, and on March 19th we’ll host Maíz: Origin Story and Rituals in the Nahua Culture, a virtual workshop exploring corn’s origin story, growth cycle, and sacred rituals with Nahuatl-speaking facilitators, offered in Spanish with simultaneous English interpretation. We invite you to join us in this work, tending the land and our communities, and helping the vision of a place worthy of song take root.
Ah, we should have a land. And together, through practice and persistence, we are making it.
May your breath be your anchor.
With love and solidarity,
Briana, Ceci, Cheryl, Christina, Clara, Crysta, Danielle, Hana’, Hillary, Jaz, Jonah, Leah, Maya, O’den, Ren, Ria, Shay, Susuyu, Taina, and Winter
We’re entering this season with deep gratitude and fresh energy as we welcome three new teammates into the circle at Soul Fire Farm.
Each brings powerful experience, lived wisdom, and a shared commitment to land, liberation, and community care.
Ceci Pineda (they/elle), Farm & Language Justice Assistant Manager, is a queer, non-binary musician and land caretaker whose climate justice work centers ancestral crops, land regeneration, and reciprocal healing in BIPOC communities. Ren Martin (they/them), Community Events Manager, is a Black and queer agriculturalist, writer, and national climate justice leader devoted to cultivating beloved community at the intersections of food, faith, art, and environmental justice. Taína Spicer (all pronouns), Farm & Kitchen Assistant Manager, is an artist, teacher, farmer, and chef committed to reclaiming ancestral foodways and reimagining how cooking, cultivation, and community can flourish together.
We are thrilled to have their brilliance woven into our daily work and can’t wait for you to meet them in the seasons ahead.
The Lodge is getting a makeover in preparation for the 2026 program season!
The Lodge (formerly the Hive) is the hand-built dwelling that the VP family and friends constructed twenty years ago – hewing timbers, mixing adobe plaster, stacking straw bales, and wiring sockets. For over a decade it was the watering hole for all of our programs, a place to sleep, eat, and learn, all while serving as a (not-so-private) family home. The Lodge is now exclusively our community guest house where participants can experience safe, comfortable overnight accommodations. As the frigid temperatures danced below zero for weeks on end, our site team was hard at work installing new walls, oiling timbers, and upgrading the plumbing. In Yoruba tradition, home is not just a building, but an Orisa unto itself – Ile. We bow to the divine spirit of this home and intend to continue to honor it as a place of peace, learning, and collective care.
2026 Immersion Application is Open!
Our immersions provide hands-on, land-based training through which participants reclaim leadership as farmers and food justice organizers, repair and strengthen their relationship with the earth, and imagine bolder, more just futures for their communities and the land they steward.
The application for our 2026 immersion programs is live. The deadline to apply is Friday, March 6th at 5pm EST. Check out the detailed descriptions linked below to learn more.
Farming in Relationship to Earth (FIRE) Immersion
Life on Land Farming Immersion
Farm to Table Immersion
Uprooting Racism in the Food System
We all have a significant and intrinsic role to play in uprooting racism in the food system, and the good news is that there are many right answers to the questions, “What can I do to help?” We’ve been deep diving into this question and sharing solidarity strategies far and wide. Save the date for our upcoming workshops. We have both individual and group registration available.
March 5th, 2026 (12-3PM EST)
November 12th, 2026 (6-9PM EST) ** peep the new training time
November 16th, 2026 (12-3PM EST)
You can also check out our Actions Steps to uproot racism in the food system here.
Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land
In this podcast, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, we explore what it means to be sovereign. With Black land at the center, this series brings together prominent activists, artists, weavers and the rising generation of Black land stewards. Crafting inspiring conversations that honor the past and create blueprints for the future.
Monthly IG Live series @soulfirefarm with audio later shared on all podcast streaming platforms. Hosted by Clara AgborTabi and Crysta Bloom
Listen to all the episodes from season 1 here or watch previous IG Live shows @soulfirefarm
Maíz: Origin Story and Rituals in the Nahua Culture
Conoce la cosmovisión Nahua del maíz y los rituales en torno al ciclo agrícola del maíz que siguen vivos hoy día. 19 de Marzo | 6 – 7:30 PM EST | inscríbase aquí
Únete a les facilitadores Jehú Bautista Martínez y Petra Martínez Serrano, dos Nahua-hablantes de México, para un taller especial del maíz en la cultura Nahua. Jéhu y Petra compartirán el origen del maíz y las variedades de colores existentes de manera cosmogónica, las etapas del maíz y las ritualidades de cada etapa, y finalmente el ritual Chikomexochitl para la deidad del sagrado maíz. Este taller es el primero en nuestra serie bilingüe (ESP/ENG) Maíz Mi Raíz. Este taller se dará en español, con interpretación simultánea al inglés.
Maíz: Origin Story and Rituals in the Nahua Culture
Learn about the Nahua cosmovision of corn and the rituals still alive today connected to corn’s growing cycle. March 19 | 6 – 7:30PM | register here
Join facilitators Jehú Bautista Martínez and Petra Martínez Serrano, two Nahuatl-speakers from México, for a special workshop on corn in the Nahua culture. Jéhu and Petra will share the origin story of corn and why different colors exist, the stages of corn growth and rituals associated with each stage, and finally, the ritual Chikomexochitl for the deity of sacred corn. This workshop is the first in our Maíz Mi Raíz bilingual (ESP/ENG) series. It will be offered in Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation to English available.
Into to Irrigation: Water Building (In- Person 3D)
April 10th, 2026 | 10:30 AM – 3:30 PM EST| Get tickets here!
Join us at Soul Fire Farm with D from Rock Steady Farm and Hana’ Maaiah from Soul Fire Farm for an Introduction to Irrigation Workshop: Water Bending Workshop! This irrigation workshop is tailored to urban, sub-urban and rural growers.
- Introduce a brief history of traditional irrigation systems, and water justice.
- Explore different forms of irrigation and when they are used (like sprinklers, driptape, overhead)
- Consider different irrigation needs depending on the scale and style of growing
- Demonstrate hands on irrigation installation and repairs
- Learn how to put your irrigation system to bed
We are excited to welcome our beloved community back to the land for Community Work & Learn Days!
Join us to learn about some of our farming practices while supporting our food sovereignty work and getting your hands on the land.
The first W&L is April 7th. Registration begins on March 4th.
Group registration will be offered on select days to groups with participants 16 years and older and can be requested using this form.
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We all have that plant or seed story.
The one that feels like yours. Maybe it’s your grandma’s lima beans that you shell together on hot summer evenings, or the ancestral corn your family fought to bring back from the brink.
At the start of the pandemic, co-director Angie Comeaux, stumbled on a listing on Etsy: ancestral squash seeds for $2 a piece. She managed to buy ten. She tended them, saved their seeds, and then did something joyful — shared them. With one promise: don’t sell them.
Now those seeds have sprouted into “grand-pumpkins” all up and down the Eastern seaboard from New York and Rhode Island to Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. Every pumpkin out there carries a kinship story.
With this spirit in mind, we invited Cohort 5 fellows to bring their own treasured plant, seed, rooted cutting, tuber, bulb, or rhizome to our next in person gathering and the story behind it as part of our new Cultural Seeds and Food Exchange. We asked fellows to think about what makes the plant meaningful to them, their families, or their culture. The new project, as part of our internal programming, helps honor these living memories, swap and cherish them, and steward each other’s stories and plants with care and celebration in effort of deepening relationships with this new community.
FARMERS AGAINST ICE
We stand in solidarity with our beloved community in Minneapolis and across the country who are standing up for their neighbors in the face of state violence.
ICE is an agent of terror – harassing, kidnapping, and killing human beings in violation of constitutional, civil, and universal human rights. People of color, farmworkers, and laborers are especially targeted. We at Soul Fire Farm have joined in local efforts to protect people from ICE, including supplying food and logistical support. We encourage everyone to get involved:
- Join the Capital District Sanctuary Coalition @518crsc or your local immigrant support group
- Tell your congressperson to defund ICE. Info at 5calls.org/
- Join an action with For the Many NY forthemany.org
The Praxis series reflects on how our community can best put our values into action, sharing resources, ideas, and practice toward collective liberation. These will be shared each month in Love Notes and also on social media.
As we transition from crop planning to the greenhouse seeding season, it’s a good time to review the planting instructions given to us by Warren Mihtukswun and our friends in the Mohican community.
They showed us how to plant maize, beans, squash, and sunflowers together in mounds, the way that they have done for millenia. They entrusted us at Soul Fire Farm to steward two traditional maize varieties and bring them back to their homelands here in the Taconic mountains.
The three sisters and the fourth forgotten sister work together in mutual interdependence and provide complete nutrition in combination. The bean plants fix atmospheric nitrogen and help reduce damage caused by the corn earworm pest (Helicoverpa sea.) Squash plants inhibit weed growth with their dense network of thick, broad leaves and retain soil humidity. Natural chemicals (cucurbitacins) washed from the leaf surface of the squash act as a mild natural herbicide and pesticide. Sunflowers attract beneficial birds and insects. You can learn from about planting this polyculture in Warren’s video here.
Alumni Spotlight: Erin Preston – Johnson, FIRE 2021
This photo captures me double-fisting collard green samples at the 2025 Detroit Is Different Collard Green Cookoff—where the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund provides all of the locally grown, Black-grown greens for the competition!
I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to be involved in the sacred work of stewarding land. Soul Fire Farm has impacted my life in immeasurable ways and ultimately led me to work with “Plant the Seed”. I still remember watching their documentary and knowing that this dream would one day become my reality. It beautifully wove together the divinity of nature, our ancestral music and ritual, the role of the parent-educator, the land as our greatest classroom, and the power of our culture within the movement. In it, I saw both myself and the person I had worked so hard to become.
Through FIRE Immersion, Farming While Black, and ongoing virtual offerings, I’ve learned to follow this intuition, leading from a place that understands land and food sovereignty as deeply spiritual work. This path is not separate from my spiritual grounding—it is its essence. Committing to land stewardship and sovereignty feels like answering our ancestors’ call to care for home.
For the example Soul Fire Farm sets—and for the inspiration and belonging in work that can often feel solitary—I am profoundly grateful and honored.
SFF was heartened to gather with fellow New York producers, educators, aggregators, architects, interpreters, and cooperatives in Poughkeepsie for the 2026 NY Foodways gathering!
Organized by Rock Steady Farm, Tierra Viva Collective, Food for the Spirit, and Brooklyn Supported Agriculture, our time together was deeply connecting and inspiring. This accessible, multi-lingual event brought together folks from across NY State to cultivate relationships, deepen existing connections, and learn about the cooperative work taking place in our region.
We heard from Growing Homes, an organization concerned with advocating for and securing safe, affordable and consistent housing for farmers. We also heard from cooperatives such as BlackRoots—a burgeoning producer cooperative organizing small to mid scale farmers in NY and the Northeast. BQE (Black, Queer, Expressway) shared their aggregation and distribution work, connecting produce grown upstate to values-aligned customers in New York City. Food for the Spirit, a Buffalo based organization uplifted the work of the Buffalo Bypass Network, an initiative that “aims to co-create food value chains that provides high-quality, local food from QTBIPOC growers to residents of Buffalo’s east side; center[ing] people and relationships in reimagining what food justice looks like in practice; and foster[ing] collaboration and community-led food systems change.”
The NY Foodway Gathering was a generative cross-sectoral space encouraging connection, collaboration, and celebration of our ongoing efforts and long-term strategy for building a liberated and resilient food system and economy here in New York State.
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Soul Fire Farm was pleased to join comrades in the SNAP4ALL Coalition for an Anti-Hunger Advocacy Day hosted by Hunger Solutions New York. On January 28th, Anti-Hunger advocates from across the state gathered to request that our policymakers use tax payer dollars on a state and federal level to invest in Nutrition Assistance and Hunger Intervention programs such as SNAP, HPNAP, Nourish NY, WIC, and Double Up Food Bucks. We gathered with dozens of advocacy organizations, food pantries, and food banks, uplifting these FY27 budget priorities and highlighting the role that farmers and land stewards can play in ensuring that folks in our communities experiencing hunger can access these social safety net programs with ample support and dignity, while strengthening our local food economies. You can learn more about the SNAP4ALL coalition and our collective work here.
 Uprooting Racism in the Food System: March 5th, 2026 @12:00 pm – 3:00 pm | A virtual theory and action training for farming and food justice leaders to uproot systemic racism in our organizations and society. Register |
 Ujamaa Seed Conference in DC (Leah on panel, SFF exhibiting) On March 6-7, 2026 the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance (UCFA) will host its 2026 conference “SEEDS & CULTURE: Rural and Urban Agriculture United” at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC)—in partnership with 2020 Farmers Co-op. Register |
 El Maíz: Origen y Ritualidades en la Cultura Nahua | March 19, 2026 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm | Conoce la cosmovisión Nahua del maíz y los rituales en torno al ciclo agrícola del maíz que siguen vivos hoy día. Register |
 Bioneers Keynote w/ Leah Penniman March 26, 2026 – March 28, 2026 | For 37 years, the Bioneers Conference has been a gathering place for those working to defend the web of life and build a more just, life-honoring world. The challenges we face are immense and ongoing, but every step forward matters, especially in difficult times. This March in Berkeley, connect with visionary thinkers and doers — activists, scientists, artists, educators, Indigenous leaders, community organizers, and more — who are shaping solutions to address the most critical issues of our time. Register |
- Mohican News
- Fresh Food for Everyone Sierra Club
- Episode 4.12: Hope as Practice Ecopolitics Podcast
- Exploring Traditional Native Uses of New York Plants Scenic Hudson | Hudson Valley Viewfinder
In this week’s meditation, Willow Defebaugh explores what nature can teach us about sacrifice, purpose, and creative instinct.
From emperor penguins fasting for months to protect a single egg, to worker honeybees laboring for a future they’ll never see, to octopus mothers who give their lives for their young, the natural world is filled with acts of devotion that complicate our human ideas about “meaningful work.” Even the satin bowerbird—meticulously building ornate bowers from shells, petals, and glass—reveals that creativity and purpose can coexist in unexpected ways.
Perhaps purpose isn’t confined to a job title. Perhaps it lives in what we nurture, what we protect, and what we give back. Read the full reflection, Labor of Love: Lessons from Nature on Sacrifice, to explore how reframing work, devotion, and creativity might help us rethink what truly makes a life meaningful.