Terra Madre Gardens

07/03/2022

09/30/2021

We have grown...

May marked 18 years of our paths crossing and this month of September marks 16 years of us leaving the world we were raised in to find the one we would create together.

16 years ago, we decided to listen to voice coming from deep inside of us saying that there was another and better way. We left our careers, corporate jobs and societal goals and standards.

It was during the time of Libra that we decided to walk together and these times have always brought points of growth.

Growth is not always easy and growing pains are often felt but we have managed to see time and time again the gems of those times, challenges and changes and have always managed to bow down in understanding and gratitude... to life and one another.

Walking the red road together in sacred duality is a gift and an answered prayer for we know we are stepping into new terrains that lead to old ones and we know that the future can not survive if it is not linked to the past.

We have grown and realized we have our seats granted by creator as guardians of this place called Terra Madre, who we redundantly named it that in honor of the one that we all walk upon and very few look down to and acknowledge.

We have grown and understand that what our elders in the Tawantinsuyu asked us to do: “claim and protect your territory”, which is not about doing it with violence or greed, but to know that our bodies, homes and lands are the territories creator has given us to love, guard and protect and that it is our duty to treat them with love and respect knowing that they are the grounds for our learning and our play.

Our elders from the Anahuaca traditios remind us that being of service and reverence to the earth is our religion. It is a part of every aspect of the traditions being passed down to us.

And this weekend our new friend and teacher Leo Artese came to visit and remind us that it must all be done with a smile and a good laugh.

Abya Yala - the Eagle and the Condor united and forming alliances towards harmony between sacred brotherhood and sisterhood.

Gratitud, Gratitud, Gratitud.

08/08/2021

Happy Mew Moon in Leo
Familia,

Here in our Lions Den, the Leo season has us in constant celebration.

The sun is in its fullest power during the Leo Season and with the Moon at its beginning point on this sign too, we are gifted the opportunity to bring ourselves forth as we are. Our truest most authentic selves - that si the gift of the Sun, of the lion, of life... we are here to be all that we are a unapologetically but always in eternal service to the whole!

May the sun of this 8:8 portal find you in your full power and may the dark Moon remind you that we are on a constant cycle of growth and that every stage is perfect in its own way.

Sending love and blessings to all!

07/31/2021

When courting the land becomes your daily ritual, tending to her becomes your religion and sitting on a bed of earth becomes your temple....

Grateful to the Land which has held my hand through so much growth...
who has taught me how to live in love and in harmony with the ordinary things in life: finding God and Divinity in all that surrounds me.

Grateful to this territory Poyómkawichum who has embraced me in the subtle ways in which a land embraces that which is hers - through the hardest and most beautiful initiations, I feel a part of her as she feels mine - we are one and the same.

Grateful for having my steps guide me to a place in which I am able to be enthralled in rapture here on Earth, not waiting for a Heaven in the after life - knowing the assignment is to be an active part in the bridging of the inner and the outer; the above and the below; spirit and matter... NIKAN AXKAN - Here and Now!

Grateful to my partner, my family and my community for standing by and with me as I walk the road less traveled. I know the path is not easy, I know I am not the easiest but I also know my intention is true, my spirit pure and my heart full.

Grateful to the stars that look down upon me and witness my steps and my path... always willing to shine the light of guidance and the nudge towards forward and inner movement.

Grateful to Great Spirit for guiding my steps and keeping me steady on this path of communion with this earth and it’s manifested creations.

Grateful to the Great Mystery for its unconditional live. I recognize it in the smallest of its manifestations.

As I celebrate 41 Earth Strong Years,
I am humbled by all I receive...
As some gather today and tonight to celebrate Pachamama Day, Lughnasadh
I pray we keep sowing good seeds on this Earth planet we live on, May our harvest be bountiful of love, happiness and may the contrary serve to highlight and value what’s good, may it serve to learn from and to keep aligning our steps.

04/23/2021

Healing our relationship with the Earth mother is healing ourselves.

In my original culture, Earth mother had a different name for different aspects of her being.

In general her name is Toci: translated to “the mother of the Gods” or “Grandmother” but to us, Toci is the word we use to name the mother who is loved and deserves all reverence.

Tonantzin Tlalli: Our beloved Mother Earth Cuatlicue: She of the Serpent Skirt
Tlalli Iyollo: the Heart of the Earth

She is also Tlazohteotl: the one that gives love unmeasurably and Tlazolteotl: She who opens her arms to cleanse.

I have been fortunate to have developed a relationship with the mother that has given me direct experience with her in all of those aspects.

She opened her arms and has received me fully. In her most loving ways, she has been Tonantzin Tlalli Iyollo - the loving heart of the mother. Tlazohteotl, who has given me her love and taught me that in our symbiotic relationship we are whole.

She has also been Cuatlicue and shown me her serpent skirt: all that which is alive and we forget. The rocks, the earth, the trees, the flowers, the leaves, the grass who breath and live just like we do.

She has also opened her arms to receive that which I need to transmute. Holding me in her tenderness becoming the catalyst of love that softens my protective core allowing me to open and receive her love and nurture- enabling that transmutation.

This image shows the beginning of the process of double digging this bed, when her warmth invited me in to the comfort of her embrace.

The whole process was highly healing and transformative.

In the time I have been loving this land I can say that in process of weeding and planting, my fingers have touched every grain of earth on the surface of the gardens. Now, the relationship was become more profound: I have dug deep into her and wrapped and rooted myself with her - forming an unbreakable bond that carries me.

Tlazocamati Mother Earth

04/22/2021

Greetings Familia,

Today is Earth Day 2021 and though around here everyday is earth day, I will use this time and space to to tell you how it is that my life decisions brought and kept me here so close to earth as I have been and how my relationship with her has grown in love.

I will also introduce myself in order to bring a face to the words and a piece of my story to the context in which these words are drawn from.

My birth name is Jessica - she who has Foresight.

I began courting this land with love and tenderness from day one. My hands learned to caress her skin, to dig into her depths and sow the seeds that would rip the harvest of the life I began to create for myself. My interaction and relationship with the mother grew in ways I never knew were possible.

The first project I rooted down, was for the preservation of, “Madre Semilla en Resistencia”, heirloom blue Corn from the lowest, southeastern part of Mexico where the Zapatistastistas had (amongst many other projects) launched a world wide campaign to save the Mother Seed from GMO contamination. We, this land and those caring dormir, became a sanctuary for that seed, which we have been growing ever since.

At that time I would volunteer as much time as I could on the weekends. She became my sanctuary too. The time I spent with her became nurturing, inspiring and grounding and in her I found home and trust in the invisible forces of life.

Eventually, this land opened her arms and heart wide to take me, my children and my partner .o.l.o.m.o.n.o in and it became our home, our school, our “work” and our life.

Our relationship became so strong and secure that I quit my job, dropped out of school and fully dedicated to be in trust or our dear, loving and giving Mother who taught me where and what the real revolution is.

The revolution to learn to grow my own food, to educate my children, to sustain my family.

The revolution that lies in taking
our lives into our own hands.
...

📸: .o.l.o.m.o.n.o

04/05/2021

P A R T 2

Greetings Familia,

Here we are after the spring equinox, at the beginning of the astrological year and in the middle of Aries Season.

We covered cropped our beds and observed how winter took its course and changed the gardens with out us interfering with its organic flow.

Now the energies are on the spark of the new fire. We feel the call of the garden in our core and we are ready to go.

The time of inner work has brought up many realizations and one of the biggest ones is the responsibility to keep our soil healthy above all.

Many years we have been focused on “feeding people” and “growing farmers” (Barry Logan, La Milpa Organica’s goals), we also focused on providing a sanctuary for the community to be able to let go of the rat race and engage in courtship with the mother (Terra Madre Gardens).

Now, that we had to close our doors to stay in what feels like a forever quarantine (we happen to have loved what this time has brought for us, the garden and the dedication we can give to both under quarantine) our focus went to the inner workings... in the garden, it went to the earth and how we can work with her in better ways, how we can support her to stay strong as she continues to feed and support us.

We realized as farmers our focus outward towards sometimes ends us up in the same production/demand/exploitation of our earth and us as human resources.

The ancestors of these lands did not grow row crop food. That was something introduced to them by the invader. The ancestors of these lands would forage their food and as they would pick from the mother her edibles, they would give back by maintaining her and thus keeping a symbiotic relationship that promised the survival of both.

Now, we can marry both aspects. This winter even though we did not sow row crops, we realized the bounty the mother has to gift us this spring. As we prepare for summer/fall harvest we keep our promise to always put her first.

We are feeding/filling up our dug out beds with lots of green manure that came with the winter and rich soil amendments that ensures a good harvest to come and a replenishing continuum of the soil.