November ’25 Love Notes

All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.

Octavia E. Butler

Sweet Greetings Beloved Community,

By November, the land has settled fully into her autumn body—cool mornings, thinning leaves, and the quiet hush of a world preparing for rest. What needed to fall has fallen; what needed to ripen has ripened. The earth teaches us that there is a sacredness in letting go and a clarity that comes after the harvest.

This is the time when the soil draws energy back into its depths. There is no rush—only wisdom. The land reminds us that restoration is instruction, that dormancy is preparation. As we move with this slower season, we’re tending to spaces that nourish reflection, connection, and grounded learning. This month, join us December 2nd for Spirituality and Farming: Honoring the Sacred (Virtual 3D), a space to learn Indigenous land-honoring practices from Bugis, Mohican, and Afro-Indigenous cultures, and December 3rd for Fondos para Todes, exploring strategies to fund and sustain our agricultural visions. These gatherings are crafted to nourish your spirit, expand your knowledge, and remind us that even in quiet, we move together—rooted, intentional, and in community.

May your breath be your anchor.

With love and solidarity,

Briana, Cheryl, Christina, Clara, Crysta, Danielle, Hana’, Hillary, Jaz, Jey, Jonah, Leah, Maya, Naima, Neshima, O’den, Ria, Shay, Susuyu, and Winter  

This month we coaxed the 14,000th pound of produce from our small farm and distributed it to our friends at AME Zion Church, Oakwood Community Center, Free Food Fridge and the families and organizations
in our local Solidarity Share program.

Our joy at sharing winter squash and collards with our beloved community was tempered with rage and fear as the administration snatched up SNAP benefits and millions of families faced acute food insecurity. Weaponized hunger is an unconscionable violence and a violation of basic human rights. Our tax dollars are NOT for militarized violence, mass deportations, or tax breaks for billionaires – they are for a social safety net and protections for our natural world. Even with the government reopened, the SNAP program is reduced and we can’t let up the pressure. 

At Soul Fire Farm we continue to lend our voices to the SNAP4ALL campaign. We also mobilized an emergency “Food for the People” fund that has already distributed over $22,000 in groceries to local families and alumni of our farmer training programs. You can donate to that effort here. Y’all know that farmers this time of year are season-weary and tired, and yet we are so honored to be called to step up and help ensure no one in our communities goes hungry.

“I love to think of nature as unlimited broadcasting stations, through which God speaks to us every day, every hour…How do I talk to a little flower? Through it I talk to the Infinite. And what is the Infinite? It is that silent, small force…that still small voice.” ~Dr. George Washington Carver

Spirituality and Farming uplifts Indigenous land-honoring practices from three cultures – Bugis, Mohican, and Afro-Indigenous. Ria Ibrahim comes from a lineage of healers and farmers in Sulawesi, Indonesia and will share how spirituality is the foundation for her land work. Misty Cook, Mohican herbalist, will impart wisdom for engaging with plants from a place of gratitude and reverence. Leah Penniman, farmer and Awo, will demonstrate the art of Black Earth listening and the practice of reciprocity. Participants will be invited to explore their own ancestral lineages’ spiritual engagement with the land. A blend of the sacred and practical, this workshop will impart tangible next steps for deepening your connection to beyond-human kin. 

Learn more and register here.

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 podcast streaming platforms. Hosted by Clara AgborTabi and Crysta Bloom

Listen to our most recent episode, Sacred Stories, with Richie Reseda and LeeAnn C. Morrissette. In this episode, we reflect on the importance of creating liberatory art and media rooted in oral histories. We explore how to honor our experiences through storytelling that is honest, ethical, and complete in the pursuit of collective liberation and land sovereignty.

Listen to all the latest episodes here or watch previous IG Live shows @soulfirefarm

There were over 300 attendees at the 2025 Local Catch Network Seafood Summit, a “practitioner-centric gathering for all who are working to strengthen community-based seafood systems at the local, regional and national scales”. The Braiding Seeds Fellowship’s own, Xochitl Bervera, a current fellow, participated in the “Insights from the Gulf” panel discussion, bringing forward important issues impacting fisherfolk in the Southeast, an often underserved and underrepresented region and population. 

Xochitl and her partner Kung Li then graciously hosted a small group of attendees from the conference to a fulfilling day in beautiful Apalachicola, Florida. Attendees learned all about Xochitl and Kung Li’s projects “Water is Life Oysters” and “ The House of Revolutionary Spirits”, that serve the mind, body and spirits of all of the communities that they serve. 

The group was able to harvest oysters from the Apalachicola Bay, and learn about the oysters in all of their stages of life, visit the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Apalachiola History, Culture and Arts Museum, and visit the 13 Mile Seafood Market. But most importantly, attendees were invited to learn about the history of the land and sea by community knowledge and culture bearers from both Indigenous and African Diasporic elders; and share in a glorious seafood feast of fresh oysters, shrimp, and flounder with the community. The overall theme was hope, love, community and togetherness. Deep gratitude to Xochitl and Kung Li for inspiring us all with the love and care in which you move through both your community and the world.

Budgets are so boring and who can be bothered, right? We think otherwise. As Azuré Keahi, Soul Fire Farm’s former Business Manager explained, “Budgets are moral documents.” They demonstrate our priorities, values, and accountability structures. We have been refining our participatory budget making process at Soul Fire Farm over the years. Currently, everyone on the staff has a chance to give input at each stage. First, we look at how income and expenses played out in the current year and any areas where we experienced challenges. Then we refine our strategic goals for our programs, farm, buildings, and operations and estimate what resources will be needed to accomplish those goals. Lots of fun formulas and math come next to draft a budget. We have two more rounds of review in hopes that we end up with an elegant financial document that meets the needs of the whole team and the community to whom we are accountable, and that meets the board’s approval at their annual meeting. This participatory budgeting process is part of actualizing our values around transparency and collaboration. How does your organization or community think about budgets together?  

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. 

For thousands of years, Mohican people lived in the Muhheacannituck (Hudson River) Valley with Schodack Island as their central fire. The displacement of the Mohican community began in 1609 with the arrival of Henry Hudson up their namesake river, and the combined forces of land theft, religious supremacy, disease, and other forms of genocidal violence forced Mohicans onto fewer acres. The trail of tears of Mohican people westward began in 1780 with a move to Oneida territory, Western NY, and then to White River, Indiana in 1818, then to Wisconsin in 1822, with some fleeing further to Kansas and Oklahoma. Today, 1,500 members of Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation care for their 24,000 acre reservation, and have worked tirelessly to build a strong government, elder care, cultural and language preservation, and other social programs. We pledge our ongoing solidarity with the Mohican people and their efforts to restore their language and relationship with their homelands. 

Kamino del Sol is a Latine-led teaching farm in Craryville, NY on the ancestral homelands of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican people. We grow food, plant medicine, and skills. We tend five acres as a living classroom: restoring soil, cultivating culturally rooted foods and herbs, and teaching side-by-side with families. Through Semilla (our bipoc homeschool co-op), learners engage in learning around farming, culture, and justice.

As a child of public school teachers, education is in my family bloodline and working with young people is my vocation. Just as becoming a mother to my children was a calling, stepping into this work was a calling. It has been a courageous leap to bring this dream alive, but this work at Kamino del Sol and Semilla, our Bipoc Homeschool co-op, which we offer on the land, is me fully living the values of community care for my community. Deepening the commitment to this work is addressing a real need for the parents I support. Parents are fearful of the world our children are inheriting and have a need for their children, as a tool of survival, to understand how to steward land, how to feed themselves and how to use plant medicine wisdom to heal themselves. Parents want to trust that when we transition to an ancestral plane, we leave knowing we have done our very best to prepare our children for this harsh climate-impacted world they will be navigating. Kamino del Sol is about intergenerational learning and the seeds we plant in these young people on this land we know will grow for years to come!

Emails sent to love@soulfirefarm.org and programs@soulfirefarm.org between those dates will not be read nor responded to. Online store orders must be placed by December 15th for a final pack and send date of December 16th, or they will not be fulfilled until late January.

Soul Fire Farm is seeking a part-time, local Community Events Manager to support coordination and hosting for our on-farm programs, community events, and the annual SOULstice celebration. This hybrid role requires regular in-person work at the farm and blends administrative support, event planning, and community-facing engagement. Candidates must live within 30-45 minutes of Soul Fire Farm.

We will begin reviewing applications as they are received, with priority consideration for those submitted by December 7. The role remains open until filled; start date is flexible.

Apply here!

May our strength be strengthened as we continue to demand that our elected representatives “recognize that safeguarding programs like SNAP is not charity, it is justice, and it is the bare minimum for a nation that owes its people more than survival.”

 Please read and uplift this powerful statement, linked here.

Spirituality and Farming: Honoring the Sacred Virtual 3D | December 2, 2025  3:00 pm – 4:30 pm | Learn about Indigenous land-honoring practices from three cultures – Bugis, Mohican, and Afro-Indigenous. Register

Fondos para Todes December 3, 2025  6:00 pm – 7:30 pm | Estrategias para financiar nuestros negocios agrícolas. inscríbase aquí

• Birthing Sovereignty: Soul Fire Farm’s Model For Land-Based Liberation RAFI-USA
• From Punk To Plants: What The Next 20 Years Of AFROPUNK Wellness Could Look Like Afro Punk
• Murmurations: The Haitian Revolution Continues – Lessons for Today adrienne maree brown

BIPOC-led farming organizations are under threat. Please consider donating to these trusted and vetted movement partners who are in need in these times. With your support, we can make an impact on the Black food system.

Get Involved

• Agroecology Commons
• Alianza Nacional de Campesinas
• California Farmer Justice Collaborative
• Cihuapatli Collective
• Coalition of Immokalee Workers 
• Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim
• El Comite de Apoyo a Los Trabajadores Agricolas: CATA-The Farmworker Support Committee
• Farm School NYC
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund
• Kentucky Agriculture Development Advocacy (KADA) 
• Kentucky Black Farmers Association
• La Beca (housed at Tierra Viva Collective)
• Land & Liberation LLC (stewarding the “Safety Net” project)
• National Black Food & Justice Alliance (NBFJA) 
• Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA) 
• OurSpace World
• Persimmon Collective Fund
• Second Generation Seeds
• Southeastern African American Farmers’ Organic Network (SAAFON) 
• Southern Black Farmers Community-Led Fund (SBFCLF) 
• Southside Community Farm