In Community with Food
Thanks-Giving thoughts on the Common Ground Summit
Yes, I promised to return to the story of Kūkūilama and lessons I have learned from horses. And I will. But in the meantime I am doing a bit of a cheat…skipping Sunday in favor of Thursday in order to acknowledge that two years ago on Thanksgiving Day I pushed the “start writing” button at the end of another writerʻs Substack and created They Keep Telling Me I Should Write My Memoir. This is essay #103 since then.
Since most of you were not with me at the start, here is a link to my very first Substack essay. I think it has held up rather well: Reflection: Thanksgiving.
I confessed in that first essay that I dislike holidays and yet have a soft spot for Thanksgiving. The truth is, I love gathering diverse friends around a long table overflowing with yummy food, laughter, and love. And even though the story we repeat is so perverted from what the origin of the shared Thanksgiving meal actually would have been, I embrace reframing the holiday into simply a day that reminds us to be grateful for what we receive from others. Because none of us exists without the supporting labor of others. Because none of us can thrive without connection, belonging.
Fitting then, that for a second year I spent time just before Thanksgiving at a gathering, a conference of sorts on Kauai, that last year was mysteriously called “In Community With Food.” It could equally have been called “In Community With Crazy Good Conversations” or “In Community With Mud.” Iʻll come back to the mud.
Although I attend a lot of gatherings and conferences, I have very low expectations for them. My mother was the one to set the bar low. Her advice to me as a young adult headed to my first professional conference was that if I came away with one good idea or one new valuable connection, the conference had been a success. I think conferences in general must have improved since then. Most of my readers know that in my day job I am a real estate broker with Hawaiʻi Life. For years - until the pandemic - we put on innovative conferences we called Worthshop. 1 One speaker in 2018 took the microphone shaking his head. “I canʻt wait to tell my wife I gave my speech wearing flip flops, it is apparently ok to swear on stage, you raise your hand in the audience and they throw a roast beef sandwich at you, and one of the announced events is mud-wrestling with a company founder.”
Well last year at the Common Ground Summit there were many speakers on multiple stages in sandals and bare feet (and muddy rain boots), in one memorable session each panelist built on the number of f-words spoken by the prior speaker in an absolutely appropriate manner as there was no other way to adequately express the insanity of the transportation and economic chain under discussion, chefs vied to both collaborate and challenge one another to new heights with freshly harvested local ingredients, and although there was no mud wrestling, every attendee had the opportunity to get muddy volunteering at a loko ʻia (traditional Hawaiian fish pond) or loʻi kalo (taro patch).
As to my motherʻs minimalist criteria: from the first minutes of the gathering last year I began to make deeply felt, personal, non-transactional connections2, many of which got a booster dose this week; and my brain spun with fresh ideas and ways of furthering the work in which we were all, differently and similarly and passionately involved: building community, caring for land, and creating a healthy, equitable world for all.
I realize this sounds like a misty eyed love letter. At the end of a month (months?) in which my nervous system was assaulted again and again to the point of despair, I needed to share love, connection, community, and a sense of solidarity and hope. Needed it more than I knew until the first tears flowed.
Thanksgiving. Food. I want to come back around to the new or refreshed ideas around food spinning in my head. Although the In Community With theme this year shifted from “Food” to “Place” - we cultivated food, prepared food, savored food, discussed food, shared food.
One panel from the Summit was explicitly about Food. Two brilliant indigenous chefs shared the stage and the kitchen (with many hands and voices contributing): Chef Kealoha Domingo from this place, Hawaiʻi, and his good friend and collaborator Chef Sean Sherman - the Sioux Chef born and raised on Pine Ridge Reservation.3 On the panel they were joined by brilliant, loving, dedicated individuals whose work one way or another touches on food and culture and identity and equity and the way forward from the devastating effects of colonialism and income disparity and contemporary warfare.4
Something was said that I may not be quoting exactly, but the truth in it haunts me. Food is a major cause of death in the United States (because so much of what we eat contributes to disease rather than health) - and Food is a major cause of the environmental crisis facing the planet itself (because of how we grow and distribute it). I learned something that was obvious as soon as it was stated: we donʻt need to be advocating for equal access to food - we need to be advocating for access to nutrition - they are not the same thing. Nutritious food is hard to find - in poorer neighborhoods, in public schools, in prisons, on reservations, and on our supermarket shelves. How can folks think, create, aspire, thrive when their bodies are starving for essential nutrition? And regenerative and indigenous practices for growing and harvesting both plants and animals as food are a pathway to healthier bodies, healthier communities, and a healthier planet.
If I am not growing a whole bunch of food myself, at least I have the privilege of income that allows me to support local producers by choosing to eat nutritious, locally grown vegetables, fruits and meats. It is not enough. How can we create initiatives that broaden the market for those producers by bringing their food in environmentally sustainable ways to those who do not have equitable access to nutrition? On a broader scale, how do we crash systems that do not serve people and communities in health before those systems crash us?
This is what I am spending my time thinking about on Thanksgiving Day.
I want to write more about belonging, about herds, about finding your place of contribution in the herd. About how diversity is beneficial to natural systems. About how everything in a healthy ecosystem is interdependent. But I recognize that all of that probably sounds trite if you have not, like me, recently spent three days basking in the joy and hugs and tears of a vibrant community, nourished by rich conversations and mind blowing meals.
So I will leave you this week with my gratitude for nourishing me with your “listening” as I write here. I will leave you with my new anthem: The Highwomenʻs Crowded Table. (Please scroll down if you click the link to listen/watch the video).
Because I do want this for myself and wish this for you today:
I want a house with a crowded table / And a place by the fire for everyone / Let us take on the world while we’re young and able / And bring us back together when the day is done.
If you click that link you can sign up to be on the waiting list for Worthship 9, returning to Maui in November 2025.
My experience with most professional conferences is that interactions are transactional. Even the conference app used for this one has a section where you can note “prospects.”
My worlds again colliding. In this early essay I talked about my decades of being in relationship with Lakota/Dakota family.
This is helping. Thank you. Also thank you for the song.