Distributing
A tree goes through a complex and lengthy cycle to have fruit to bear. The sweetness of an apple is the manifestation of a healthy and supported life and the richness of hope for renewal. The act of harvesting and distributing must be done with a profound level of care and respect, to ensure that year long energy is able to savored. Each fruit carries the potential for a future, and is coated in a spiritual experience of indulgence, if you let it.
Being a Commissioner with the Cooperative Gardens Commission, I have closely navigated the nuances of distributing resources to create a more robust local food system. How do we, as a grassroots collective, work towards reparative work and facilitate equitable distribution of resources? If we are really trying to create local food networks, how can we set up a network that can thrive on its own without our active intervention? As we continue to do this work, how can we come together to build a foundation to which we distribute seeds and be an organization that can sustain itself?
The rapid abundance of when a fruit tree bears fruit is both exhilarating and terrifying. As the Orchard Co-Manager at Crowded Table Farm and Orchard, finding that soft spot of when a tree is ready to release its offspring, but without finding soft spots on the fruit, takes a lot of trust. Coordinating pick days, storage space, drying space for nuts, places to donate, how to distribute the fruit for donation, is an extension of this trusting process.
The planting and growing process creates a truly bountiful, sensitive and beautiful harvest. Being in a relationship with the plant to respect the fruit it creates is to be in conversation with the earth. While working at Camas Swale Farm, there was an immense intimacy in being trusted as a Food Distributer to bring the summer harvest to grocery stores, restaurants and hundreds of CSA members, to ensure an unimaginable number of folks can connect to the cycles of the earth through the intimacy of cooking and eating.