HEADLINES : w/ Backyard Abundance

We had a great time with Backyard Abundance this weekend doing some Community Visioning.  Full report coming soon, but in the meantime, check out CBS's coverage of the event @ Iowa City: Edible Forest

 

  

"Be they large or small, the initial assemblies and the movement that seeks to foster them in civic elections remain the only real school for citizenship we have. There is no civic "curriculum" other than a living and creative political realm that can give rise to people who take management of public affairs seriously. What we must clearly do in an era of commodification, rivalry, anomie, and egoism is to consciously create a public sphere that will inculcate the values of humanism, cooperation, community, and public service in the everyday practice of civic life. Grassroots citizenship goes hand in hand with grassroots politics."

-Murray Bookchin: Libertarian Municipalism: The New Municipal Agenda

GROWING A PUBLIC PRACTICE: Community Visioning with Backyard Abundance

Hey SeedBroadcasters!

This is Carolyn in Ely, making my first post for SeedBroadcast IOWA & Exuberant Politics.

I'm pleased to announce our first organizational collaboration with Backyard Abundance this Sunday, February 23rd, from 2:00-4:00pm at The Iowa City Public Library.

Following up with their 40-person public brainstorm session on February 8th, local environmental educators and eco-viosionarys Backyard Abundance will be dropping their new design for a perennial-based agroforestry system for Iowa City's Wetherby Park and opening up the floor for public opinion and discussion.

We'll be joining in with a short presentation on upcoming opportunities to get involved with SWAP, recording audio Seed Stories, and collecting seeds to be shared through the Mobile SWAP Station (due to arrive from New Mexico next week).

Don't miss out on this visionary public assembly! Come share your localized seed wisdom and discuss the infinite possibilities that emerge when we take our agricultural practices from the realm of solitary production & commodification to a practice rooted in public assembly, listening & cooperation.

You ready Iowa?!
We'll see you Sunday.

SWAP

During 2014, SeedBroadcast will be implementing a project called SWAP, as a series of traveling Seed Story pollination pop-ups with multiple partners around the United States. These experimental “grow kits” will enable the cultivation of radical seed action where participating organizations and individuals are performative agents, growing and broadcasting seed stories in their local communities and through the SeedBroadcast media network.

We are pleased to announce our first partners in SWAP are The Exubernauts!

During their bi-city event called Exuberant Politics, in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, SWAP will be located in both cities for visitors to engage, exchanging seeds, posting local seed and food news, and sharing and listening to seed stories through an in-house audio feed.

And we would like to welcome Carolyn Scherf as an Iowa SeedBroadcaster! Carolyn is a farmer and creative worker cultivating a joyous flight from corporatized definitions of value and success in Iowa agriculture.

She will be mobilizing one of the SWAP kits and partnering up with local organizations, farmers, and gardeners to reach out to a broad network of seed resilience. Carolyn will be recording local seed stories and posting blogs from theses events here on the SeedBroadcast blogger.

Stop by and join in SWAP, bring seeds to share, take seeds home to plant, post events, activities, and how to’s on the SWAP bulletin board, and come by to listen to seed stories!

March 5 – April 6 2014
Legion Arts 1103 3rd St. SE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Public Space One 120 N. Dubuque St., Iowa City, Iowa

To follow SeedBroadcast IOWA and find local SWAP events: www.facebook.com/seedbroadcastIA

For more information about Exuberant Politics go to: http://exuberantpolitics.art.uiowa.edu

Seed Hymn

All Species Day Projects Circle of six disciplines of Replenish, Redesign and Remember

Chris Wells is an avid believer in how our natural word informs us as humans and has dedicated his life's work to remind us all to connect back to the earth and its magic.  He is the visionary behind All Species Day, allspeciesprojects.com , a founding member of the Bioregional movement and has been growing ancient varieties of corn, from the early sixties, when he was introduced to the power held in this plant by the Hopi.  His latest offering to us all is his Seed Hymn. He wanted to create a contemporary song to celebrate the essential beings of life and this idea grew out of a need to recognize the the real wealth of this world and to protect it. In a recent conversation he stated  "This is a basic praise and worship Sunday morning kind of song that I hope will travel to church choirs, religious rockers and perhaps confound the Friday night bar crowd."

Chris recorded his Seed Hymn on a recent visit to Santa Fe from his home in Oaxaca.

                                

                         Lets spread the praise for our ancient seeds

Seed Hymn

Seed of bright new day

Sun seed-the blessing way

Seeds of the forest of the sky

Seeds of the mountains high

Seed in the rolling sun

Seed of the heart that's spun

Breathing seed

Seed divine

Seed of the spiraling of the stars

Seed on the wind

Seed of the beginning 

and the beginning again

Seed in the motion

 Of the ocean

On the waves

Seeds of tomorrow

Seeds of yesterday

In these times

will you return to us

bring your flowers

And your fields

Hold tight these ancient ones

Health and flavor 

Prove the yield

Let our children

Learn to grow

We are not just here to fight

 The way the earth 

Provides for us

If we treat her right

Seed of the spiraling of the stars

Seed on the wind

Seed of the beginning 

And the beginning again

Seed in the motion

Of the ocean

On the waves

Seeds of tomrrow

Seeds of yesterday

Sprout of maple

Limb of oak

 Stone of peach

May our people bring you within reach

Grain of corn

Blossom of squash 

Ovum of bean

Sing them strong and pure

Standing ancient free

Sing them strong and pure

Standing ancient free......

This is an invite to all you seed-lovers and local food growers out there! Please consider contributing to the 2nd edition of the Seedbroadcast agri-Culture Journal. It could be a drawing, photograph, story, journal entries, poem, an essay, a manifesto, your favorite recipe using home grown food, with a relevance to seeds, seed saving and local food growing practices. Each of you holds a wisdom and it is this wisdom we hope to share.

This 2nd edition will be published in Spring 2014 and will be available in printed and web format.
Deadline for contributions is January 31st 2014.
Send to seedbroadcast@gmail.com.
Images should be 300 dpi and please include a couple of sentences about yourself, your collective, farm, family or organization.

Please take a look at our 1st edition. 
It is available to download  here:
http://www.seedbroadcast.org/SeedBroadcast/SeedBroadcast_agriCulture_Journal.html

 We look forward to hearing from you,
SeedBroadcasters.