All flourishing is mutual.
Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer
Warm Greetings Beloved Community,
March arrives in quiet gestures — softened winds, thawing ground, the return of birdsong. We find ourselves at a threshold, no longer held in winter’s stillness, not yet in full bloom. This is a season of becoming.
March shifts our attention from imagining to noticing. The ground is changing, even when it looks the same at first glance — small movements, subtle openings, the first signs of life returning where there was once stillness. We are invited to meet this moment with care: to honor what is stirring, to give space for what is not yet ready, and to remember that growth often begins quietly, out of view. Spring reminds us that growth is relational and unfolds in its own time, calling us to stay close — to nurture what is tender, remain accountable to one another, and honor the pace that true transformation requires.
As the season opens, we invite you to step onto the land with us. Our Community Work & Learn days on April 7 and April 21 offer a chance to get your hands in the soil, learn alongside us, and support the rhythms of the farm through shared labor and care, and for those curious about the structures that hold this work, join us on April 10 for an Infrastructure Tour — an opportunity to witness the intention behind our design, materials, and building practices, and to gather inspiration for what we can create in right relationship with land and community.
May we meet this season with patience and trust in what is growing — within us and between us.
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, Taína, and Winter
 Community Work & LearnApril 7, 2026 10:00 am – 3:30 pm | April 21, 2026 10:00 am – 3:30 pm | Each One, Teach One. Many Hands Make Light Work. Register |
 Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods (w/ Leah Penniman) April 9, 2026 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm | Bowers Auditorium 205 Prospect St, New Haven, CT, United States | Join us for an evening of storytelling and community to celebrate the new book, Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods. We will be joined by both of the book’s co-editors, Liz Carlisle and Aubrey Streit Krug, and two of the book’s contributors, Leah Penniman and Piyush Labhsetwar. Register |
 Intro to Irrigation: Water Bending April 10, 2026 10:30 am – 3:00 pm | 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! Register |
 Infrastructure Tour April 10, 2026 3:30 pm – 6:00 pm | Feel inspired by design, materials, and construction at Soul Fire Farm. Register |
We just wrapped up the pruning season and moved into the greenhouse seeding season!
While the trees, bushes, and brambles are dormant, we remove select branches to support their healthy growth. Pruning allows light to reach the plant, reduces disease pressure, and encourages fruiting. It’s also a powerful metaphor for life. It can be tempting to leave all of the tangled branches in place, and we sometimes hesitate to remove the excess. Over time, the reluctance to prune leads to plants that are weak, sick, and prone to break under their own weight. Both humans and plants need to shed in order to thrive.
Here are a few pruning tips for you to try in your home orchard. Check out the linked each-one-teach-one reels for details:
Raspberries: All canes that fruited last year can be cut to the ground. Thin the remaining canes so they are at least 6 inches apart, favoring the thicker canes.
Blueberries: Remove dead and diseased branches. On well-established bushes, you can remove about ⅓ of branches down to the ground, taking out the oldest to favor new growth.
Fruit trees: Remove branches that are crossing or rubbing. Encourage lateral branching, balanced on all sides of the tree.
Tools: Sharpen your pruning shears and saw. Disinfect between plants so you don’t spread disease.
What are you “pruning” in your life? What are you shedding in order to thrive?
Community Work & Learns
April 7, 2026 – Register here
April 21, 2026 – Register here
May 5, 2026 – Register here
We’re excited to welcome our beloved community back to the farm. We have 16 Community Work and Learns scheduled from April to November. Join us to learn about our farming practices while supporting our work and getting your hands on the land
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
Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land
Welcome to Season TWO beloved community!
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.
This season, we keep asking: What does it truly mean to be sovereign? Not just in theory — but in land, lineage, labor, and love.
This episode is a compilation of voices from Season One — a mosaic of visions imagining Afrofuturist communities thriving in creativity, spiritual practice, and sacred care for the Earth.
We asked each guest to paint a picture of the next world, and now we return to those visions — and listening, you’ll notice new connections, the spark of ideas taking root, and a sense that the future is something we can shape together.
Listen to all the episodes from season 1 here or watch previous IG Live shows @soulfirefarm
Monthly IG Live series @soulfirefarm with audio later shared on all podcast streaming platforms. Hosted by Clara AgborTabi and Crysta Bloom
Infrastructure Tour (In-Person)
April 10, 2026 | 3:30 PM – 6:00 PM EST | Register here
Our buildings are intentionally designed with a desire to integrate visual connection with the land outside. Every detail, from wood species selection to the countertop height, speaks to our values around accessibility, ecological care, and BIPOC dignity. In this tour you’ll see natural building techniques such as timber framing, straw bale walls, and passive cooling systems that we hope will inspire your own personal projects.
Hands on Intro to Carpentry (In-Person)
May 14, 2026 | 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM EST | Register here
Join us for a daylong deep dive into learning safe hand and power tool use, layout, measuring, fastening, and some of the basics of working with wood through a beginner building project. Don’t worry if you can’t make it in May, we’ll have another workshop in October.
SAVE THE DATE! Cultivating Resistance | SEPT 4-6, 2026
Registration opens in late spring. Event details can be found: here!
A weekend of capoeira, farming and music on the land.
Join us to co-create this land-rooted community of collective resistance – Quilombo – healing, celebration, and living into liberation. This farm-based collaboration between Quilombo do Acupe and Soul Fire Farm will be a weekend abundant with workshops in capoeira, farming, herbalism, wilderness play, foraging, swimming, music, and movement. In these times, our communities and movements need to fortify our bodies and imaginations in creative collaboration, joy and inquiry. Get your hands on the land with the Soul Fire farmers! Be in spiritual connection! Eat amazing food! Deepen and build community! Play on the beautiful and sacred Soul Fire land. No capoeira background necessary, just a love for land and community. Everyone is welcome!
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We recently enjoyed our New Roots Convening which is our in-person gathering celebration for the newest cohort of fellows.
It was a few days spent in Georgia rooted in laughter, storytelling, legacy foods, and moments of intentional stillness. Being together in person created space not only to reconnect with the purpose of the fellowship, but also to build the kind of relationships that sustain the work long after the convening ends.
The convening brought fellows into conversation with organizations and leaders who have been shaping food and land justice work for generations. One highlight was an urban farm site visit at Oyun Botanical Gardens where we spent time with one of our key partner organizations, Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. We also had the joy of reconnecting with alumni, including Noah White of Amenta Gardens. Hearing reflections from alumni grounded the experience in continuity—reminding fellows that they are stepping into a growing network of leaders nurturing land, food systems, and community.
A particularly meaningful component of the convening was the launch of our new Experiential Learning Lab for fellows, facilitated by M. Carmen Lane. Co-Director, Angie Comeaux, aided Carmen through leading learning at the Ocmulgee Indigenous Mounds, a heritage site of her ancestors. Angie also blessed us with a sacred opportunity to experience traditional pre-colonial Mvskoke food. Through hands-on learning and reflection, fellows explored Afro-Indigenous knowledge systems, honoring the agricultural, cultural, and spiritual traditions that continue to shape how we relate to land and food today.
THEORY OF CHANGE
Soul Fire Farm’s niche in the movement ecosystem is as SOWERS OF SEEDS – sharing knowledge and resources to inspire, equip, and mobilize the community toward food and land sovereignty.
Our theory of change recognizes:
- The unique, essential role of each collective in our movement. No one actor or strategy can complete the work alone.
- The ethical and strategic importance of abolition and nonviolent social change.
- The value of emulating the forest by working at a relational scale, limiting growth, embodying humility, and redistributing resources.
- The power of joining with Indigenous farmers across the globe toward a shared food sovereignty vision.
- The necessity of rooting our work in the Sacred, practicing reverence for Ancestors and the Earth.
- The centrality of Black cultural survival as a tool for liberation of the Land and her People.
- The belief that proliferation of self-determined land-based community projects will shift culture, heal people and the earth, and help build the necessary political power to actualize food and land sovereignty.
Rooted in this theory of change, we regularly uplift and redistribute resources to other farmer collectives in our movement, this month directing attention to Grow Where You Are in Georgia. We also sign on to campaigns for nonviolent human rights and earth defense including the Freedom Flotilla to break the siege in Gaza.
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.
Listen to Somos Medicina, the debut album from Chispa
A Queer and Trans Latin Fusion Ensemble led by Alumni Julia Rocha-Nava (FIRE 2023)
Hello Soul Fire community! I write to you with much love and extend an invitation to listen to my debut album, Somos Medicina. The album features ten original compositions that dream of composting systems of oppression, reconnecting with the land, and channeling the power of queer love. If you are looking for some bangers about compost, seed saving, plant medicine and the power of friendship to add to your playlists this season, I got you!! The album is also accompanied by a coloring book that features an illustration for each song on the album, as well as the lyrics and english translation for every track. As someone making music about the lessons I’ve learned from the land, it means the world to be able to share it with this community of people doing such empowering and healing work. I hope you enjoy the music, and share it with your community!
Listen to Somos Medicina
Follow Chispa on Instagram
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BLACC is a statewide gathering designed to bring together farmers, food system leaders, policymakers, entrepreneurs, youth, and ecosystem partners to strengthen small-scale agriculture and build more resilient local food systems.
The conference will feature dynamic workshops, hands-on skill shares, farm tours, policy conversations, and networking opportunities centered on land access, business development, sustainability, and community wealth-building.
Last year, despite unexpected federal funding challenges, our community showed incredible resilience and we are proud to launch this inaugural event with renewed energy and purpose. BLACC is more than a conference; it is a space to connect, collaborate, and chart a bold path forward for agriculture in New York State.
Black Farmers United-NYS would love for you to join us and to share this invitation with your networks. Together, we can continue bridging land, agriculture, and communities across our state.
Registration and additional details can be found here: https://whova.com/portal/registration/RRh52t7Z1yAoaYsdqi7Y/
We are thrilled to announce that Madame Gandhi will be the featured headliner for this year’s SOULstice celebration!
This powerful artist’s work lies at the intersection of music, activism, and global consciousness. Her revolutionary musical works are referred to by NPR as “odes to feminism, fluidity and freedom …[that] mash together fragments of electro-pop, trap, Afrobeat and R&B, carried off with endless swagger”
With hit albums such as Voice, Visions, Vibrations, and Let Me Be Water, Madame Gandhi honors the global fight for our land, health, and collective liberation.
“This is about realizing that we are nature.” – Madame Gandhi
- Exploring Traditional Native Uses of New York Plants Scenic Hudson | Hudson Valley Viewfinder
- Episode 4.12: Hope as Practice Ecopolitics Podcast
- Fresh Food for Everyone Sierra Club
- Mohican News