Regenerative Food Cultures with the Ceremonial Chef, Sycamore Hess

So hello and welcome everybody to a metacar crisis initiative salon. I'm Jim Bendell. I'm an emeritus professor but now living in Bali and uh learning a bit about regenerative uh farming and also the founder of the metacar crisis initiative. And today I'm very pleased that we've got as our guest Sycamore who is a ceremonial chef. And so in a minute I'll say a little bit about how we met and what he's doing and why I'm invited him on uh well to participate in the salon also then to share this conversation through my YouTube channel. But first I just wanted to say a little bit about um this concept of regeneration or regenerativity. So, it's been around a long time, but it's become more popular, I've noticed, in the last few years as people have to admit that our efforts on towards sustainability or sustainable development have been failing. We may have progressed uh locally and be happy with some of the projects and things that we've been doing, but the trend lines on biodiversity, carbon emissions, climate change, toxification of the oceans, microplastics, pretty much everything is uh yeah, the trend lines are terrible. Um, and so many people have concluded what I've concluded, which is that we're in the early phase of a broad collapse of industrial civilization as we so basically life as we know it. Um so some people are using the term regeneration to say okay we got to admit some failure here and the environment and society are best looked at in terms of how we can contribute to regenerating, restoring, repairing um and for me the deep adaptation framework uh which originally was launched with uh three questions. What do we most value that we want to keep? What should we let go of or we might make matters worse? Um, and what can we bring back from the past that we don't have anymore which might help us through tough times ahead. Those first three were very much about just providing a way for people to get talking about something we found it almost taboo to talk about. Uh, that the future won't be one of uh advancement and progress. We're in for a really tough time. We don't know quite how bad it will be, how fast. Uh we don't really know what comes next. But the concept of collapse isn't about it being fast. It's about that the the ruptures, the breakdowns aren't things you then recover from to return to the way the systems were before. They're breaking down and staying broken down. And so what comes next will be different. We may all have different ideas about what can come next, different hopes, dreams, wishes. Um, and some of us have abandoned all of that alto together and just think well what does good and beautiful do in the moment. So my framework to begin with was for that. I felt that we we didn't need encouragement to talk about what's what should we have more of, what should we do better, what could be done that's newer than before. I was deliberately avoiding that kind of conversation. And then also I I added a fourth R of reconciliation because I realized that this view could instill panic. I had waves of panic and I realized that um there's something else that this outlook invites which is some kind of surrender to um the fact that we're not in charge, nature's in charge and that we don't quite know what's going to work and we have to find meaningful useful lives in that context. And it's also another aspect of it is that it's an existential issue. It brings the notion of death and dying into our consciousness. And therefore from that we can think about okay yeah I'm a mortal being. So is everyone else I love or fight with. With that in mind, how can I make peace with everything and everyone? [clears throat] So in my book uh breaking together I introduced a fifth R which I called reclamation which is um it was a little bit more yang. It was a little bit more reflecting on and inviting conversation about how can we reclaim some power economically, ideologically um in order to to have give ourselves a better chance to reduce suffering and give us a better chance and see what might come next. So uh what I'm doing now is and publishing I published an essay on it but also I'll also update the summary of the framework of deep adaptation. I'm offering a sixth R which I'm calling regeneration with the question what and whom can I nurture because of my love of life. The key word there is nurture. The notion that we are part of nature. Nature is within us and it's natural to nurture. That's how life is. That's how it exists. It's as as important as death and dying and passing and loss and collapse is the ongoing process of birth and the nurturing of life. So um I introduced that for a couple of reasons. One is a lot of people are inspired by their collapse awareness to cherish and nurture what still lives and what uh can can can live. There's this uh return to looking after bees, uh looking after pets, um looking after each other. Um there is a new sobriety about choices of bringing new human life into the world. doesn't mean we don't bring human life into the world but there's new sobriety about it and really thinking about oh wow what am I doing what does this mean if I actually think that the future is going to be turbulent and so it's like the conversations that and behaviors that are happening I wanted to capture that the other reason is I think quite a few people who use the deep adaptation framework are um maybe sometimes a little bit stuck a little bit sort of how Am I emotionally coping with my terrible insight into reality that many other people don't have? And it it kind of just if it's if we're just there for each other to emotionally cope, then maybe we're not exploring how we can be our best selves because of our awareness of this situation rather than just how do I get through the day? Now I'm not saying that though all that kind of emotional psychological support that people are offering each other because of the deep adaptation framework and communities that have grown around it is not good and essential. It is but I don't think it's sufficient. So now I think with the six Rs as I'm offering it I see it as a more complete framework and I'm going to stop coming up with ours. Other people can of course but that's it from me. That feels like a package. So thank you for listening. Also tomorrow I'll publish a very quick summary essay on on the new updated deep adaptation framework. Now I've said quite a lot and that is also blah blah in many ways and so what does this actually mean? And so for today's metacrisism, I thought it'd be brilliant to have with us someone who is not just thinking big picture about regeneration, but is finding something practical to do about it, which has the potential of massive ripple effects. And even if it doesn't, it can get good things done locally and is a hell of a lot of fun in the process. So that's why I invited Sycamore, a ceremonial chef, he calls himself, super title, um to join us today. And I hope some of you will have seen the essay uh he wrote which is on jenbandel.com my blog um which was quite fun because um it followed on from the idea of the film don't look up about you know the end of the world to actually say well let's cuz that's the end of that film where there's this dinner the final supper before the comet hits and kills everyone on earth. Um the idea was actually rather than being defeists, actually let's use dinner parties to start something really interesting. So let's look down look down at where we live and the soil under our feet and the the plants and animals in our in our neighborhood. So Sycamore, thank you very much for joining us. >> Yes, good day. Thank you for inviting me. >> And you're joining, I think, from New York today. Is that right? >> The Eastern time zone of the United States. Yes. specifically central Appalachia in this eastern Tennessee area. >> So you and I met in in Bali. We were introduced by our friend Khalia and um that was the first time we met and I was really pleased because um yeah, it was just perfect timing for me because I was thinking I was a bit fed up with how difficult it's been with my organic farm and farm school and what you were doing. thought, "Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense." But you, what I'd love to hear from you is, yeah, is a little bit your background and how you got into this. And and for me what leapt out at me what you mentioned was that I think you came across my work during a workshop hosted by Joanna Macy uh who died last year a very well-known um thinker teacher guru elder in sustainability who embraced the deep adaptation uh concept and framework and I think you said that you chef you cooked at her events as well in in Oakland. So I think as Joanna is an important p person for many of us um I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your experience of her working with her what you learned and what you learned about collapse awareness collapse acceptance and being awesome because of that. >> Okay, good day everyone. I'll do my best to keep this brief and look forward to your questions and engagement. Thanks Jim for this opportunity to share some of my story. Um my journey with collapse began as a teenager in college. Um I was studying the problems of the world wanting to at first become a lawyer um ready to like sue the bad guys. I grew up in the state of Kentucky which is in the central United States. There's mountain top removal, coal mining, um hydroofracking of natural gas. I thought that my calling was to sue the bad guys and use the legal system to our advantage. I would assume most of us know that the it's deeply corrupted and that me dressing up in a suit and arguing uh with the bastards who created the problem wasn't really my calling after a while. And so I shifted with that level of awareness um as I was studying runaway climate change and methane feedback loops. I was studying the work of Guy McFersonson, uh, Dimmitri Orlov, um, John Michael Greer, um, Carolyn Baker, and putting all of their work together in my senior thesis where I shifted my awareness into agriculture and, um, sociology and anthropology, like what is the future of our ecology and our communities if we do have runaway climate change and social breakdown? How will we keep feeding ourselves? Um our current agriculture systems are dependent on industrial monocultures which means like large machinery inputs, fertilizers, these kinds of things and and shipped around the world very complex global supply chains. So if those things break down, if nations have wars, if trading is disrupted, how will we feed ourselves? I mean it seemed like a pretty basic question to me. people were considering me quite extreme for talking about this and I said well I want to imagine or design um a food system that could be more resilient um to speak to your like what do we value and keep like what are the plants what are the ways of organizing our local environment that could actually sustain a community amidst social breakdown um and in that work I started apprenticing on organic farm to actually learn how to do this work physically. Um, I was born in the suburbs of a standard American city. Um, if anybody knows James Howard Kler's work, um, he has a book called The Geography of Nowhere. Um, really incredible, uh, text to just speaking to. You can exit a modern suburb most anywhere across the United States and come out and look at the corporations and businesses and you don't know where you are like ecologically. the geography of nowhere. Um it's we've created a monoculture of our of our culture, not just agriculture. And so that really impacted me. Um and I realized I was um a video game playing junk food eating um TV watching like nobody to some degree. Um I'll certainly put any of these resources later in the chat. Thank you for reminding me. But it's James Howard Kler, K U N S T L E R, The Geography of Nowhere, you know, and that was with, you know, um, Peak Everything, um, by Richard something, I forget his name. I was reading all of these texts and just thinking, how do I put this into practical application? Um, I need to do something with this information. and I'm 18, 19 years old getting born into a awareness that um that everything could die but in my lifetime like what an existential uh uh collapse, not just a physical ecological collapse that may come one day, but to be born into a lifetime where I'm researching and told through all of the science and the studies that um I'm I may not make it to some of your all's age. like how do I live with that awareness? For me, it meant becoming effective in tending myself and my community and my local environment through uh growing food. And so I apprenticed on organic farms. You know, there's much more to this story. I could give you, you know, a hundred other books. I could give you many other life points. And in this moment, what I'm wanting to fast forward to is just my time on organic farms as I'm learning permaculture techniques, uh, which is like how to diversify plants, how to use perennial plants, peak everything. Yes, the Postcarbon Institute. Thank you, Michael. That was the book. As I was raising all of this beautiful food on farms, tending animals in a beautiful way, raising medicinal herbs, I realized that our our journey with collapse could not be just a physical one either. Just practically preparing for it, just getting all of your prepper materials and all of your food and all of your orchards and all of your bunkers ready wasn't actually the thorough enough preparation. We needed to engage with this phenomenon from a spiritual dimension. We needed to actually encounter what it meant to be a part of a culture, a way of life, um, that was contributing to the destruction of the living world. How do I feel those kinds of emotions? How do I how do I engage with myself, my kin, um, from a less reactive or doomsday place, but still stay sober and aware about these kinds of things? And I found the work of, yeah, Gemini's shared teacher, Joanna Macy, um, a a Buddhist scholar that started a lot of her activism in the 70s and 80s, uh, with the anti-uclear movement in the United States. Um, she has quite a background. Um, I won't spend too much time describing her 97 98 years of life. Um, she's one of my deepest inspirations. And I signed up for one of her workshops once. I was I was living on a farm in Wisconsin at the time in the central United States managing um yeah uh almost 100 hectares of land of chestnut and apple trees. Um really beautiful largecale regenerative farm. And the man who was managing it was um let's just say a bit honorous, a bit difficult to get along with. And so even though he had an ecological paradise, he was miserable, drunk and and not really feeling um himself. And so I said, "Let me learn from an elder Buddhist scholar to really complement my work." Um, so I went to Joanna's workshop and I had, you know, had just flown out from my farm to California and, um, again, long story short, we had just completed one of her practices in her spiral. She has a four-part spiral um that starts with gratitude. Like, we have to begin in gratitude. We have to like I mean, how many of us woke up today? Um, I can't see everybody's screen, but it looks like everybody's breathing. Like, give thanks. Not everybody woke up today. Like, do you have clean water? You know, it looks like most of you have an able posture. Like, where what can you give thanks for? Like, let's start there. But let's not stop there. This isn't a spiritual bypassing group. Let's honor our pain for the world, you know? And that's her second part in the spiral. How do we honor our pain for the world? That means our fear, our anger, our grief, and our emptiness. What do we feel empty about? Oh my gosh, we can't stop the methane feedback loops in Siberia. You know, what do we fear? You know, the state of Yeah. politics, the world, etc. You know, I don't need to go through all of the emotions. But we were in that part of the spiral, which continues into seeing with new eyes, which is about moving through the pain and actually believing that there's a new dawn possible somewhat somewhere a little bit. Can you see with new eyes? And then step four is going forth. This is all in her book coming back to life. Um you know Joanna Macy J O N. Um I'll pause to put that in the chat just for a moment. Her her other um text is called Widening Circles which is her memoir. Um incredible story of her life. The the book that actually got me though was called Active Hope. I think the subtitle is something like how to face the mess we're in without going crazy is the subtitle of active hope. Um and so to be with her and to be in that grief ceremony to be in this like I'm in California for my first time as like a 22year-old young man studying with this Buddhist elder after having spent five or six years like deep in collapse awareness studies. This is 2016 and so just two years before deep adaptation and I broke down in that grief ceremony and and I was so moved by being in a community of fifth year 60 people on the west coast. You can imagine like a young person who was raised in the suburbs like starting to study this material especially coming from a family who did not um [laughter] understand what I was talking about. We'll say that I'm sure a lot of us have experiences of feeling estranged from our families or our kin when we come into the awareness of of collapse and and societal breakdown. And so in that workshop with Joanna, I'll get to the point of this merge, which is that there was chicken being served for lunch. And I asked them, where does the chicken come from? You know, I'm a farmer, just curious. And they said, it's a local farm. And I said, what's the name of the local farm? and they said it's a local Tyson factory. And for those who don't know about the corporate food system, Tyson is one of the largest poultry producers in the world. Um if not the largest. I mean, there's probably Chinese companies that I don't know the names of, but um that means it was a it was a local torture factory, a local um conventional slaughter house um that that yeah feeds genetically modified pesticide and herbicide soaked grain um to to tortured animals in tiny cages. And I thought, we're eating that right after grief ceremony. This is completely unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. Joanna, we need to have a meeting immediately with the director of the retreat center and the head chef. I will I refuse to allow this to be secretly served to people who are metabolizing grief for the world. We cannot be putting back somatically, physiologically, digestively grief into the bodies of our bodies from the bodies of animals who are who are tortured. And that started my journey um honestly with cheffing because I realized that um we needed to eat foods from the worlds we want to live in. And at the end of that event, uh Joanna um later that fall in 2016 said, "I'm going to do one more 10-day workshop um for my spiral of the work that reconnects before I retire." I think she was 91 at the time, ' 92. And so we planned it a little bit together. We picked um she picked a an eco village in Northern California and I was the head chef for 60 people for 10 days. And I'd never cooked for that many people, 60 people for 10 days. Um, but who could inspire, and I'm sure Jem can relate to this, uh, as I turn it back to you, who could inspire you to want to level up your work in the world than like a 92-year-old Buddhist elder um, who says, "Please, let's cook beautiful food for my final retreat." Um, and so I I got I scraped it together. I got all kinds of donations from local farms. I got all my friends to come out and volunteer and we we had an absolutely joyous and bountiful experience of nourishing that woman and and our participants at an eco village that started my chef path. Um and I've been a private chef for the last nine years um an adjunct professor at a culinary school and teaching about the intersection of of healing our food systems, healing our body and creating meaningful action amidst obviously a world in in deep deep crisis. So, it's a bit of my story. I appreciate you following along as as best you can to an arc of 10 years of 15 years of of making meaning and sense of of of the situation we're all in together. >> Yeah. Thank you, Simore. Now, I saw some people writing down a phrase and uh said you want to eat eat food from the world we want to live in. What was the phrase you used? Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And uh what I like is [clears throat] when we chatted before was also this sense of ideas are fantastic. Talking about them is fantastic. But also doing something about them practically such as thinking about our food and drink cannot just be a pain in the ass. it can be an inspiring journey and a celebration of what's possible. So that's what I I really because a lot of the times like oh dear we got to oh we got to find the right kind of food or it's this second thing. Um but actually the way you're approaching it is no this can be the whole process of putting um a meal together can bring people together can help people look at supply chains can build meaningful relationships with suppliers uh and the diners. So, um yeah, could you could you tell us about what this um uh supper club that you're working on? Now, for those those of you who haven't um for those among us who haven't actually read your your essay on this, just a a brief summary of what of what you're doing with these with these dinners. >> Certainly. H well, food systems I I realized was my entry point into collapse awareness uh from a very practical standpoint. Uh I am still of the spiritual vibration that I have to eat. Maybe there's some of you that have transcended that need, but as a human, I I I still need to eat. And the grocery stores um may not always have food in them. and where do I keep living if that's not the case? You know, that was just the basic foundation of my like entry into collapse in food. And I got into food in some ways um sadly from a a fear narrative of like I need to practically provide for myself. I need to be able to garden or slaughter animals or process wild game or something like that if if things break down. So as I developed into that work and um I realized that it's also the gateway into joy and to connection with the living world. And I started transforming my passion for food from a fear-based scarcity narrative into one that like loved tending 10 like 12 different types of heirloom tomatoes. Um or the joy of a fresh carrot coming out of the ground that you wipe the dirt off of and eat fresh from the soil and you're like, "Oh my gosh, those little orange uh sticks at the store are not carrots." Like, you know what I mean? I would hope that all of you have tasted the joy of something fresh from a garden compared to something from an industrial grocery. And so then I realized, wow, we could we could potentially be ecologically regenerating our local ecologies uh in an inspirational way. I mean, briefly with, you know, I'm a lecturer in food systems. So Jim, of course, feel free to inter interrupt me at any point, but agriculture is destroying the world. I don't know if anyone knows the the absolute scale of the industrial agriculture system. We're talking tens and tens of millions and millions of acres around the world that are absolutely annihilating the living earth, the earth's body, the earth's breast, like just the tractors that are just tilling, rotating, you know, mechanically agitating her body. And it it blowing into the wind, dump trucks, dump trucks worth of soil per hectare per year, washing into our waterways, into the ocean. soil that took hundreds of years per centimeter to form lost in an instant due to not only mechanical agitation but chemical destruction like destroying the living life in the soil. I mean it's it's absolutely atrocious to see how quickly humans are destroying the living world um to eat. And it doesn't have to be that way is my foundational premise. And that that is not radical. That's um historically accurate. We have lived on this earth for a long long time um without um destroying it in order to nourish ourselves. This can actually be a symbiotic cycle in the sense that the earth can grow more diverse and more beautiful with our tending which is one of potentially the most foundational things I can bring to this community and way of thinking is that in my experience at least I'll speak for myself I viewed myself as a cancer upon the earth as a member of a species that was inherently harmful and destructive and parasitic to the living And I found through regenerative agriculture and ecological restoration that I could be a keystone species, a crucial member of bringing life back to the earth. Of course, I still need clothes. I still need to manufacture and produce items to live. And could I be an integral agent in the earth's healing? Not yet, not just its destruction. And where is a place where I could not just symbolize but directly participate in that on a daily basis? What I put in my mouth every day. What I put in my mouth every day could be contributing to the active destruction of the earth and the corporations and systems that are enabling it, funding it, profiting from it. Or it could be from the local farmers, the local artisans, the local craftsman and butchers, medicine makers that are actively contributing to its regeneration. That's your choice in every morsel of the earth's blessed body that you put in your blessed body. So could we make meal times an opportunity to connect with the living world? They are, whether we realize it or not. and just bringing that awareness. You shift 1% of your diet. Could you have one ingredient that you directly connect with? Please don't fall into a spiral of overanalyzing your diet and realizing you've bought a bag of chips and oh no, you're contributing to the end of the world. Like there's, you know, discipline your mind first um and your breath, even your hydration. We could speak to where our waters come from. What is our watershed that we live in? But speaking directly to this supper club that Jem and I drafted this concept of, I mean, I was sitting in Bali talking with him. This was on a deep pilgrimage of mine just earlier this year in February and um coming to to a shift in my career in many ways. Um thank you Mandy for speaking to Braiding Sweetgrass and and uh Robin Walkeer's work. some of that type of foundational text um has inspired me on my path into food systems and I'm I'm acting in my food system from a place of a private chef um and I needed a little break from my trip or my job. So I went to Bali, found Gem and I spoke to you Jim about this concept from a a very nent prototype place. Um the ceremonial supper club is is in its earliest launchings. Um, it's an idea that I've had um for eight or 10 years and that I just prototyped last fall, which is a way of gathering people in community around food that is intentional, that is prayerful, that is ritualistic, and that directly connects them with their local farmers. And so my work on food is um not only as I've said as a lecturer at a culinary school or as a farmer, also as a private chef that actually cooks for people's events. I I teach people this this way of working with food in their homes. Um I inspire people to do this on a daily level. um like in how you shop and how you connect with your local food system, how you feed yourself, how you prepare your food, how you cook it in a beautiful way. But I wanted an event series that could kind of encapsulate all these principles in a real way in local communities that people could attend and then feel inspired by and then carry these practices into their life. because again the the work is about you living your daily life in a more inspired way that also directly connects to your local communities. And so I prototyped this supper last fall in Vermont. We speak to this in the article. Um and this this supper club is about meeting your local farmers. It's about understanding what's seasonally available in your community. It's about engaging with food in gratitude, in loving awareness, and nourishing your body really intentionally. So, I'll pause there and see where the conversation wants to continue and um I could go into more of the mechanics of the supper. I mean, I'm only still working this out. I'll be having a few more of these separate clubs throughout this year. It's just one of my um in in the work of Bill Plotkin who's a depth psychologist in the United States that works with rights of passage, he speaks to we needed to design delivery systems for our gifts. And for me, my gift is around relationship with food in the living world. And for me, one of my delivery systems is this dinner party. How do we gather together in a beautiful way aware of the societal breakdown and still create meaning, still create beauty and joy? I believe it's one of the most radical things we can do as you know my apologies for all of you that are outside of the United States for our so-called political leaders that we have in this country that are largely like um infantile little boys, you know, ranting on the internet. Like it's just so pathetic the the the state of modern maturity like and and the doomsday. How do we like create beauty amidst all of this breakdown? Maybe we could share a meal together. >> We could break bread together. >> Thank you, Sycamore. What I also liked is that community supported agriculture is a thing, but how do you get people to discover that idea? And so what I really liked about your ceremonial supper club uh is that yeah you you get started somehow in a very powerful memorable beautiful way and then people make agreements to keep buying from uh the producers, the traders, the farmers they meet in the process and cuz yeah it's everyone loves community, everyone uh like meaningful activities together and so that's that was helpful. I wondered if yeah I had never thought of doing something like that when we explored whether to create a community supported agricultural model for our farm and the key question was um yeah finding the right people with the right level of commitment and um and enough of them to make it work and and actually yeah maybe if I'd done your model a couple of years ago it may have got us somewhere. So yeah I I I like how it can fit with that effort. What I'm going to ask though, we are going to pause there because I'm going to um create small groups um because we're going to come back together and see what questions we have for um Sycamore. Um but yeah, I'm going to put you in groups where I ask you to what just for five, it'll be about three minutes actually and it'll be groups of three. just what how do you feel about what Sycamore has said and what he's doing and what he's inviting us to feel and think. How do you feel about it and what ideas come up for you? Just talk about that and then you may end up with the idea of a question that you would like to put to Sycamore. Um and we'll we'll come back in a few minutes. So you should get your invitations now and Sycamore you'll also get an invitation. You can join it as well if you want or not. Up to you. So um here they come. Um some of the groups will be four people, some of them will be three. So I'll uh give you a minute's warning in about 3 minutes and for coming back together. So what do I feel and think about what Sycamore has shared and what he's doing and um and any questions you might have therefore. So the invitation should be on your screen now. women. Um, >> meeting recorded. >> Yeah. And I can I can I feel like this is such a deep conversation. I'll just speak generally as a few questions come in, which is like food is universal. That's my favorite part about this conversation. Every person here, I presume, has a relationship to food. Um, you eat it. Um, you have a family background. Um, and some of you probably have some connection to the land, like your parents or your grandparents had some kind of connection. And so this is like this conversation can go so many places. Um, and I will do my best uh, as you can tell, I'm a lecturer. Jee and I have that in common. Uh, I I could each of these questions could take a half hour to answer. So I'll do my best to be brief. Jem, how should I go about this? just like in the order that they're received, offer a bit of a reflection on each one. >> While you've been chatting, I've been having a look and uh >> I'm going to go real nice and practical begin with and then we'll get a bit more metaphysical later. How about that? So, excellent. Please, >> Michael. Um you can unmute Michael as well to just to reflect back to Sycamore after he asks your question answers your question. >> But yeah, go well I'll I'll read it or you just say it over to you. Yeah, thanks Jim. I I'm uh I was just telling my group I'm in upstate New York and pretty isolated from others who are collapse aware, so it's very difficult to even get these conversations started without people thinking I'm from Mars. Um, but I I'm already a member of a local CSA and I've been for like a year or so and and and it's remarkable, uh, Sycamore that I in many ways, although I'm much older than you are, a lot of my journey really mirrors yours at just a different age and generation. Um, anyway, I'm very much interested in how to get the conversation started. I don't um there are some local agricultural resources that are I think progressive in the sense that they understand you know and they're anti-sort of corporate agra business. Um but I would love to I mean if you ever make a trip to New York I would love to introduce you to and have a conversation start but uh that's kind of where I'm looking to go is where where do I go with this? >> Thank you Michael. And I'll also just add as more questions come in I see this is yeah there's a few there. So, so Ian, you're asking something similar about the mechanics of engagement, an engagement model with farmers and producers. Uh Colin as well. Um, uh, how maybe local food co-ops can be engaged with and scaled. Um, yeah, there's a there's a few questions here about about the practicals. So, um, it almost seems like we we might need another meeting on the nuts and bolts, but anyway, some thoughts right now. Sure. Sure. Well, I guess on Michael's point, like what conversations, you know, and I I I want to be as practical and concise as possible. What conversations do you actually want to have? What's the purpose of them? I've personally found that I don't need as many conversations with certain people as I just like I support them. I just pay for their food. I don't need them to know all of the studies or science. What? And as you grow in your awareness of ecology, maybe like how um how are your plants doing with the extreme weather? Um if um if the late frost comes for your apples, um do you have other types of uh tree fruit? You know, like those kinds of questions are collapse. Like diversify your orchard is the is the answer to that. or plant different varieties of vegetables so that you're not dependent on one one kind, you know, rather than being like, "Have you heard how our whole food system could collapse? Like, do you know about that?" Like, that's not the way to inspire a local farmer to diversify their their seed supplies. Do you save your own seeds could be a fun question when we talk about openpollinated versus hybrid seeds which means that they can actually save their own seeds on their farm and not depend upon purchasing them every year. These are some of the principles of local or organic farming that can inspire the farmers to be more resilient in these times. Getting to know them, getting to know other farmers who are doing this work. I've been to the Hudson Valley many times. I I farmed there for many years in Vermont and uh northeast Pennsylvania for a few summers. And so I'm familiar with the you're in a beautiful part of the world to do this kind of work. And so um with that, the conversation around local co-ops and food hubs is a crucial one. Part of my work is about um creating some of my own culinary programs to inspire chefs to help start local food hubs because it's sometimes it's not just that we need good farmers or we need individual consumers to purchase from farmers. We actually need the the aggregation and consolidation facilities that can pull these farmers resources and crops together so that then they can go to a grocery or go to a restaurant. Um like if you can imagine being a local chef and trying to buy every ingredient from each farm, it would be maddening. It that's why it's impossible. That's why these large corporations and aggregators get so much business is they can actually put it onto one spreadsheet and deliver it on one truck. And so those processors take a lot of money from the farmers in their storage systems and then and then you know charge the restaurants accordingly. And so that was I believe Colin's question around like how do we which there's so much more to say. How do we actually scale those models of local food co-ops um and buying clubs? That's another one. Sometimes you can actually be the local co-op colin is to be the person buying a half of a cow, you know, and I'm happy to talk about plant-based diets. I saw Zo Cohen mentioned this, but I I I will I will say that, you know, buying whole animals is a way that if you're going to eat meat, you can support a farmer directly and then use the whole animal, organs, hide, even bones, and then share that meat with your friends. Get a get a large freezer, buy it in bulk. You're relating directly with the farmer. You're not paying as much to the processor and the packager. And so there's many different parts of the food system to be an active agent in, not just a single consumer and not just directly working with local farmers. You can be a part of the different um parts of the processing and aggregators throughout it. I'll I'll pause there. >> Yeah. So sycamore there is the a couple of other questions more about this issue of being a responsible diner eater. So Kathleen's asking about is is this issue of eating less um so I guess less extravagance and and so on this that that aspect which is a part of you know the whole idea of waste and reducing waste and uh and then of course yeah the the um this issue of of the ecological impacts of of meat eating therefore and so how do you relate to that issue? >> Yeah. Um, I mean, I would say that Kathleen's point about eating less is like I I eat simpler. I don't eat processed foods. I eat directly from the soil in the sense of like whole simple foods. Um, to me that reduces a lot of the greenhouse gases or transportation costs or packaging. Um, and so eating more simple whole foods is part of my eat less, you know, and I saw you put that in quotes. So, it really depends on what that means for you. I I I save all of my scraps as I prepare the food and I make vegetable broth with the onion skins, garlic skins, etc. So, like and then I compost all of my leftovers or I um people in urban areas might be able to uh donate those organic waste to a a local garden or something like that. Another thing for me is that gratitude um shifts digestion, which is a whole other, you know, side conversation is that being present with your food, you can actually potentially um receive more from it than being mindless and just shoveling it and vacuuming it into your face and not actually being present with it. So, there's many things there. I I do want to name with with Zo's question about plant-based eating is that um there are terrible terrible impacts to the modern industrial agriculture system particularly around animals. I mean how most animals are raised for food in the world is atrocious. I mean I was a vegan for 3 to four years vegetarian for seven. I've had a really uh potent journey with plant-based eating. I was I am a plant-based chef. I I support vegan retreats, cleanses. I So there's this is a large conversation and I would say that the essence of it is that um we need nuance here. We need local context. Um what what are you eating where you're living and how does that local ecosystem support it? Are you importing Australian beef into uh Europe? um you know are you um importing different fishes that are grown in industrial or harvested in industrial netting ways that destroy the bottom of the ocean. You know for me the the meats that I consume regenerate my local ecosystems and my local ecosystem needs animals to thrive. I will say that there is no ecosystem on the planet that is vegan. All ecosystems need animals in right relationship. Now, how many animals are raised that regenerate their local ecologies? I mean, 1%. You know, and so it's not very common. But could animal agriculture play a part in actually regenerating our local ecologies and our climate as a whole? That's a crucial conversation for the potential of carbon sequestration into our soils through grassland management, which is a deep conversation with the work of Allan Savory and the Savory Institute. Um, A L L A N S A V O R Y. I'll put that in the chat. Um, that's the basis here is that he has a great TED talk on this that I welcome you to look into, but George Mambiot from the Guardian has a whole rebuttal of it. I mean it's a huge conversation um that my premise is that if we do it in a good way um it can be a crucial part of of of the the future of our food system. >> Thank you Sycamore for that. And um what I also got when I uh published your essay on my blog was one response by email to me was questioning whether this was only something that would be a luxury for people who had time and money and uh the privilege of living in a in a place where they this could could happen. >> Yeah. >> Um that may be so it may still not be bad even that is so. But what is your response to to this that that that sense this is a a privileged person's response? >> Sure. Sure. Um this is a beautiful question and reflection and honestly I would love to take an hour with that person to open that dialogue up. Each of these questions is their own is their own world and so I just apologize both that I'm speaking so fast and also so briefly and maybe too much at different times on these realms. I will say with this privilege conversation that maybe the first dinner I did, there was no charge. It was a gift. You give back what you can. Some people gave $20, some people gave 50, some people gave $250. To each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs. A classic Karl Marx quote. What can you give back? Like I trusted in that and I was more than compensated for. money was equally distributed transparently to the farmers and the growers. You know, I had to buy certain things. So, I did invest certain money, but like this was not a ticketed high dollar event. That's the first thing is that practically I believe that we can shift into the gift culture um Charles Eisenstein's work around sacred economics, which is a whole conversation there. I would say second is that um uh you know beyond that they don't have to be expensive and that I'm experimenting with alternative models. The second is that the dinner is not the only thing. The dinner holds a body of teaching. And so you don't have to pay anyone anything to give thanks before your meal. You don't have to pay me to come to my dinner, my brand, in order for you to be in connection with your local food system. The the dinner is like a a movie or something. It's like a play. It's an act, but the content of it is hopefully as access free as possible. Like I'm not trying to create a trademark or a internationally renowned thing that you fly to or that you drive to come to. This model, and I've had people reach out to me since the article was published, like should be replicable in your community. It should be a way of you gathering your kin, your farmers in your local ecosystem to connect together. So this is and the the privileged conversation usually comes from this scarcity mindset of access and and certainly there may be things I host in the future that may be at a price point that certain people can't afford. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do it. Because I'll say the next thing about this privilege point is that I'm directly targeting people with wealth to Robin Hood their money, which means to capture it and put it back in the soil. This money, this blood money, this extractive oil-based money. I want it. I want wealthy people to give me as much of their money as possible so that I can give it to the local farmers. So, let's please take that wealth and privilege and let's please give it back. So, those are my brief reflections. >> Thank you. Thank you. So uh we normally break now but I'll continue just for five more minutes. So if you're wondering about breaking uh which we will break for 10 minutes that's coming in 5 minutes. So the final set of questions for you Sycamore uh I'll be it's Akasamati Louise and Kathleen they're all asking about the ceremonial and spiritual side of the experience of these ceremonial suppers. So could you say a little bit more like is there prayer, is there ritual, is there explicit conversation or invitation towards the spiritual and in what way? [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> Or silence. >> Or silence. Yes. You know Sami said, "How do you bring ritual and ceremony in? What is a typical separate event look like?" >> Um well, and I saw Kathleen's comments also say, "Please don't feel rushed by our questions. It's just engaged compassionate field bubbling and enthusiasm which makes me want to invite us like almost into a collective breath. >> Okay. Let's have ceremonial spiritual salon. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Sometimes I get caught in the narrative that more is the best. That more answer, more vocabulary, more speed, more answers is the way you'll get more information crammed into your head and you'll learn more. And so I have to deliver more content, more answers. And so, thank you, Kathleen, for the reminder to pause. And that's um that's part of the dinner. Um is breath is slowing down. Um that less is better most of the time. Michael Tracy just said, "So, we give thanks um for the life in the soil, for the light from above." Um that's the lines from one of the songs we may sing at the meal. Um if we choose, we we we gather uh our hands. Um part of this experience is about blessing the food as it comes to us. Um, in one of the courses from our prototype dinner last fall, we actually passed around a bowl of soil that came from the garden bed, um, we actually got to feel it and smell it and pass it around and give thanks to the soil. Then we place that back in the garden bed. Sometimes we'll harvest the vegetables directly from the garden as we do it. I one of the dinner events that inspired inspired me one time we we sat in the row of the garden bed that was planted with greens and we put our hands behind our back and ate the greens with our face. We didn't even you know we didn't even touch them with they weren't on a plate. They were still living. We bit the greens off of the soil. Like there's so many creative ways to like engage with the living world through a dinner event. The ceremonial aspect to me is about um just like food is universal. Just like my group that I spoke with earlier um Freya and Karen if I'm pronouncing that right right we spoke to our family backgrounds being universal. I believe that gratitude practice and ceremony and ritual is a universal thing of the of the human language. Everyone everywhere has ancestors that engaged in ritual. And ritual and ceremony are foundational elements of being human. And losing that is part of how the industrial religion economy started. They captured our ritual and ceremony, placed it in their Vatican, in their Meccas, in their Buddhist temples, and then captured our attention and our meaning making selves into their, I would say, energy harvesting structures. We can reclaim prayer, ceremony, and ritual with food. So, what is that for you? I'm sure that each of you have some remembrance of a dinner prayer or a gratitude practice or a short song that your grandmother taught you. Like let's let's bring those elements in. So the it's less important to me to describe the specific mechanics of my dinner events because it's different at everyone depending on which farmer wants to share which element. The essence is that we have some element of ceremony, ritual, and gratitude practice integrated into our meal systems. And that you make it personal and bring it back into your experience. So that that's a that's an element for you to connect with your food, thus with the living world, and then thus with your body. And that that's an int a practice of intention. and that it's yours to create with and yours to feel inspired by, but that it's less of like a, oh, yep, I gotta eat fast. I gotta go to the store. I got to do this. And it's like, maybe it's just one breath. Maybe it's just the words thank you. But do something to slow down and give thanks. >> So, it feels a bit Oh, well, only 10 minutes for the break now, folks. For water and water. um then we can finish on time. And Sycamore, thank you very much for Yeah, what a what a what a wonderful reply to that question. Thank you. Uh you've got me thinking not just about dinners then, but just about how do I reclaim some ceremony in my life or even invent ceremony in my life.