Announcement: "Spiritual Agroecology:" Human Healing, Transformation & Spiritual Growth through Agroecology and Beyond, Maria Whittaker's New Initiative

 https://fssg.blogspot.com/2021/01/about-spiritual-agroecology-human_18.html

Announcement

"Spiritual Agroecology:" Human Healing, Transformation & Spiritual Growth 

through 

Agroecology

and

Beyond

 

"The deepest parts of every human being is the UltimateTruth. Agroecology, our urban gardens and farms, the family farm, and beyond take us to this "Ultimate Truth." All human healing, transformation & spiritual growth arise from that."

 

Maria C. Whittaker

About "Spiritual Agroecology" Short Explanation

fssg.blogspot.com/2021/01/about-spiritual-agroecology-human_18.html

 

La Agroecología Espiritual: Corto en Espanol

http://fssg.blogspot.com/2021/02/agroecologia-espiritual-sanacion-humana.html 

 

About "Spiritual Agroecology"long explanation 

http://fssg.blogspot.com/p/about-local-to-global-advocates-for.html

 

My Inspiration!

Urban Growers Collective in Chicago, Illinois. https://urbangrowerscollective.org/

 

Zen Master Vietnamese Monk Thich Nhat Hahn, global peace leader and founder of Plum VIllage and Mindfulness Practice Centers in the “Thich Nhat Tradition” all over the world.

Wisconsin family dairy farmer John Kinsman, founder of  the authentic, grassroots, dedicated, hard working and visionary Family Farm Defenders, www.familyfarmers.org

"This is about waging love; we love ourselves, we love our children, we love the earth, we love all of life. So this is not a protest, this is actually an act of waging love. The love we are talking about is the love of life not the love of death." 

Charity Mahouna Hicks

Kathryn Gilje, Executive Director of Ceres Trust, a private foundation that supports healthy and resilient farms, forests and communities; and the ecosystems upon which we all depend. Before joining Ceres Trust, Kat was co–director of Pesticide Action Network North America; co–founder and organizer with Centro Campesino; and senior associate at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. 

Dr. Humberto Rios Labrada and Cuba's farmers who saved Cuba duirng its food crises of the early 1900's. 

https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/humberto-rios-labrada/

(Copy and paste.)

My Great Great Grandparents, the J.J. Hawes Family, on thier farm in the late 1800's in Lincolnton, Georgia. J.J. and his wife and thier 14 children. 

 

This work asks questions like:

Is the Food Movement a Spiritual Movement? (English/Spanish/French)

Are Our African American Urban Gardens and Farms A Spiritual Practice? (English/Spanish/ French)

Are All Our Crises Human Spiritual Crises?

(Draft) Are Our Urban Gardens a Spiritual Practice? 

(Draft) Is the Family Farm a Spiritual Way of Life? and

(Draft) Is Agroecology a Spiritual Practice?

 

This work also includes: 

 

1. Mindfulness 4 Our Movements? Healing, Transforming and Spiritual Growth for the Activist?

 

A project sharing the profound individual and community mindfulness practice teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn, "Mindfulness Teacher 4 the World" and other spiritual teachers to the food and other social movements of our day. This work  shares Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn's profound teachings on  how to mindfully and consciously address human delusion, greed and hatred in the world beginning within ourselves but also in society from his work confronting the war in his country, Vietnam.

 

At that time Thich Nhat Hahn  founded what he called the School for Social work in which thousands of Vietnamese young people became monks and nuns and went to the countryside to help the peasants suffering from the war. They are most famous for their acts of self immolation to raise awareness of the suffering of their people and their commitment to nonviolence.

 

Finally, VIetnam exiled Thich Nhat Hahn because the government felt threatened by Thich Nhat Han's popularity with especially the young Vietnamese. Zen Master continued his work from Fance which offered him a home. France is VIetnam's former colonial ruler.

 

In France, the Zen Master founded Plum Village, a mindfulness retreat center in the south. Since then, the Zen Master's mindfulness practice communities have been founded in the USA (3), Thailand, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and beyond! All designed to stop, heal, transform  and grow we human beings as the root cause solution to our own human suffering, delusion, and greed which is the root cause of all our human crises from the environment to racism to our health crises et al.

 

2.) Visions of Food Sovereignty & Spiritual Agroecology from Cuba

 

My work lifting up  Cuba’s food sovereignty and "spiritual agroecology"  work that I started in about 2001, through a series of written "stories" called “Visions of Food Sovereignty & Spiritual Agroecology from Cuba.” I will continue to participate in and document Cuba’s food sovereignty and agroecological work, conferences and other events, and promote exchange between the US and Cuban food sovereignty and agroecology communities (and beyond). I also manage a 1500 member social media group of both American and Cuban (and beyond) food activists, farmers and scientists and more where we share about Food Sovereignty, including agroecology and other sustainable forms of farming! 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/CubanSustainableAgriculture

 

3. Written and Radio Stories of the beautiful and mindful everyday life of Cuba that I have come to love living and working there since  about 2003.

 

4. "Let Food be Thy Medicine & Medicine be Thy Food." (Hippocrates) A column inspired by my 85 year old, very educated, academic genius mother’s food, nutrition, health tips and beyond. My "gifted" mother was tragically kidnapped from her own young mother when she was only two days old by a great aunt, who was also brutal and unkind. Her mother before her lost her mother young, and my grandmother's step mother did not like her and mistreated her. She ran away from home at an early age and had my mother out of wedlock at 14.

One of her great aunts then took my mother, her baby from her, and went North to Ohio from Georgia where the family had  lived for generations. "Aunt Clara" was brutal and unkind to my mother, probably passing on the suffering that had been passed down to her as we humans do!!!!!

This family tragedy  was never rectified. My mother suffered profusely from this event as one might imagine, however, despite this she was able to eventually self actualize and share her academic and other gifts with me, my brother and the world which I am now sharing as well!

She obtained her Masters in Human Nutrition from Ohio State University later in life and then  decided to pursue a PhD in Spanish literature. She graduated with her PhD in Spanish literature from Ohio State University at 77 and received the highest score on her oral exam for her Doctorate in the history of the OSU Spanish Department!!!! She was also nominated for the best teacher of the year award when she subsequently taught Spanish to undergraduates. She shared with me that she never became a professor because she saw how hard they were working and how they were suffering, and she had no desire to suffer so herself!!!!!!  (WIsdom that unfortunately I had not acquired myself having become a tenure track professor during my first career as a lawyer!!!)

My mother taught Spanish to the age of 83 or 84, tutoring OSU students of color at the Ohio State University Hale Center. All her students got A's and the Dean of the Hale Center  nicknamed her "Brilliance!!!!!" Today, retired at 85, she still audits on zoom classes in human nutrition at Ohio State where she questions her professors intensely!!!!!!

 

My mother, Martina Whittaker, 77, after her graduation with her PhD from the Ohio State University Spanish Department!

 

My mother, brother and myself in about 2014 at my mother's Catholic church, the Newman Center on the Ohio State University campus.

                          My father and I at my college graduation in 1979.

5. Other stories about human healing, transformation and spiritual growth, food, health, agroecology and beyond from my own experience including from my practice at Plum Village, a global mindfulness community founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn and Hridaya Yoga. Other topics around food, health and human spiritual growth that strike my fancy!

  

6. My Autobiography

As well, I am writing my autobiography which is the story of my suffering and transcendence of suffering passed down through 4 generations of my family. This story begins with the premature and unexpected death of my great grandmother, Naomi Hawes,  the young girl in the bottom left hand corner of the picture below. The story then follows how the effects of her death rippled through my family beginning with my grandmother (her daughter who survived her) to my mother and then to me, and how I am and have healed it over a lifetime including through horticulture, agroecology, and beyond.

 

 

 

My great great grandparents around the late 1800's, the J.J. Hawes family, 14 children and two parents in smalltown, rural Lincolnton, GA. 

 

My great grandmother Naomi Hawes, the young girl in the lower right hand corner of my family photo  unexpectedly died early leaving  her daughter, my grandmother, motherless. When her father remarried, unfortunately her stepmother severely mistreated her causing her to run away from home at about 12, according to the family. She lived with various great aunts and other relatives. Not surprisingly she got pregnant at 16 by a man who then abandoned her.

One of her great aunts then actually kidnapped her two day old infant from her, my mother, and went north with her and her domestic partner who I later knew only as Grandpa. My grandmother and great great aunt then fought for years over my mother, but tragically my grandmother was never able to recover her child.

My mother herself although academically gifted was as one might easily imagine traumatized by all this. As well, her great Aunt who kidnapped her was a violent “mother” causing my mother to spend much of her childhood, hidden in a closet, doing science experiments!!!!!

 

My mother did pass all this suffering on to me, completely unconsciously of course. As well, however, she also passed her gifts including her gifts for academics and intelligence and dance to me. I was the first one in this tragic family history to become aware of all the suffering being passed on and to be able to make conscious efforts to heal, transform and grow myself, an ongoing work in progress. Consequently, my suffering and the suffering of my family have borne in me unexpected fruits as well, i.e., a profound understanding that suffering is passed from generation to generation in the family and how to heal it. As well another blessing is the knowledge and awareness of and the gifts that were also passed down by this same family that is making it possible for me to heal myself. These gifts included academic intelligence and skill, the ability to suffer on my own behalf, for my own good, typically known as discipline, ie, the ability to do hard things today for something good one wants tomorrow, humility, the lack of greed, and the desire and knowledge to help others heal, transform and grow from their own suffering as well. 

I am the one in my family who has been able to consciously become aware of both this story of suffering and healing, and heal myself, a work in progress.  One important insight I now have is that "my suffering" is no more than my enlightenment, my wisdom, my strengths, my profound understanding and something that grew me and made me stronger, more compassionate, understanding, wise and caring, and made me someone who is able to help others heal, transform and grow themselves as well as to reach their full potential and wholeness. I remain flawed and will continue to remain flawed, however now these flaws are the best part of me which give me compassion and understanding for all people as well: people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds, genders and nationalities, ages, political persuasions etc. We all suffer and much of it is passed down unconsciously from our own families to us. Understanding that I truly have no ill wishes to anyone including myself and am able to forgive and understand both myself and all. Its a practice. It takes work and it is the way, the profound path of life that I am privileged to be able to share.  

 

My suffering is no more than my enlightenment, wisdom. And my suffering took me to the "Ultimate Truth" within me: the eternal formless spirit within me in which no suffering of any kind is possible; pure joy, pure radiance, pure love, pure beeeeeeeeeeeeeing--eternal, awareness itself, pure consciousness, the divine itself!!!!! That which does not come and go, that which was never born nor dies. That which is the only truth. And that which cannot suffer in any way, shape or form, being the divine, the absolute truth, and the only reality!

 

 

My mother, brother and myself in about 2014 at my mother's Catholic church, the Newman Center on the Ohio State University campus.

                          My father and I at my college graduation in 1979.

 

For more information about "Spiritual Agroecology"  please click below  for the  long and more detailed "About" Essay Section of "Spiritual Agroecology: Human Healing, Transformation & Spiritual Growth through Agroecology and Beyond."

http://fssg.blogspot.com/2021/01/about-spiritual-agroecology-human.htm

 

Please click here for dedications and the poems/essays.

About Spiritual Agroecology: Human Healing, Transformation and Spiritual Growth  through Agroecology and Beyond  (Under Construction)

 

While I have support and input  from many, including food movement colleagues and leaders, human spiritual leaders, teachers and human psychologists, this work is primarily mine,  and it will be primarily me who will execute it. It includes my autobiography, a  website, writings, talks, conference workshops and presentations as well as a radio program  in the USA and beyond, all designed to awaken us to the human spiritual growth possible and needed through agroecology, urban and rural gardens, the family farm and beyond.  

In the radio program and my writings, I plan to interview and lift up people’s, families and communities’ stories of healing and spiritual growth through urban, suburban, and rural, individual and community gardens, traditional methods of farming, the family farm, agroecology and beyond in order to make people aware that we are also “growing ourselves spiritually'' when we grow a garden, a farm, and touch the earth, and to make people aware that humanity profoundly needs healing, transformation and spiritual growth.  I also plan to interview the world’s leading human healers from the spiritual to the psychological such as monks and nuns from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn’s local to global mindfulness practice centers, as well as the world's leading psychologists, social workers and therapists  at the Bowen Family Center in Washington D.C.,  the Menninger Institute in Texas, and beyond.

 

I myself live, work and practice these days in community with Plum Village in France, Magnolia Grove Monastery in Mississippi, Hridaya Yoga France, Black Food Sovereignty Council--Portland, Oregon, Family Farm Defenders, Cuba's Food Sovereignty Movement and the community of Yellow Springs, Ohio. I also spend time every year with my birth family in Columbus, Ohio.

 

Professional Bio Maria Whittaker

 Maria in Cuba, Summer 2017.

 

Maria practiced poverty and civil rights law and taught law to undergraduates before falling in love with agroecology and the "food" movement. 

 

Not finding answers to the world's most pressing problems in movement work, in 2014, Maria found Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn's work online and went to practice at his community  that same year on her first retreat at Plum Village in France. There she had a profound spiritual awakening which transformed her and her work. http://fssg.blogspot.com/2020/03/awakening-all-there-is-is-consciousness.html

 

She now practices mindfulness regularly in the Thich Nhat Hahn tradition at both Plum Village in France and Magnolia Grove Mindfullness Practice Center in Batesville, MS. She practices the real spiritual yoga at Hridaya Yoga France and Hirdaya Yoga Mexico. She completed a 3 month silent retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass.

 

She graduated from Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. She speaks English, French, Spanish, and some KiSwahili, Chinese, Farsi, and Arabic. She has participated in two global movements for food sovereignty: joining the La Via Campesina Caravan for Life and Environmental and Social justice in Mexico in 2010 as a representative of Family Farm Defenders and the TransAfrican Climate Caravan of Hope in 2011 also as a FFD representative. She was chosen for a Bold Food Fellowship in 2011 by Growing Power which included a visit to Urban Agriculture projects in Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala Uganda.

 

She has done 2  3 month retreats and two shorter retreats (1- 6 week and 1- 5 week)  in the Thich Nhat Hahn tradition since 2014. She has also done one 3 month silent retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and two six week retreats at Hridaya Yoga Retreat Center in Mazunte, Mexico and rural France. She practices with a lay Buddhist Meditation  in her home town. 

 

She also studied the Bowen Family System Theory at the world famed Meninger Institute which teaches how suffering is passed from generation to generation  through the family and beyond. She continues to participate in growing her understanding of this process and personal healing, transformation and spiritual growth  through involvement with the Bowen Center in Washington, D.C.

 

Thank you for your interest.  I would be happy to provide you any further information about my work you might like!!! You may contact me at foodsovereignty@yahoo.com. Please put "Spiritual Agroecology" in the topic!!!!

Sincerely,

Maria C. Whittaker

http://fssg.blogspot.com/p/about-local-to-global-advocates-for.html