Munching and Meandering in Brisbane

Every day my journey continues, my gratitude deepens. Gratitude for being free and able to have such an unstructured time in my life, enabling me to follow my instincts; to awake not knowing what the day has in store, and to take up opportunities as they come along. Gratitude for the moments I share in peoples' lives, and the colourful glimpses that they give me of their passions, projects, homes and ways of being.

I'm also getting better at answering peoples' questions along the way. To 'Where are you from?' I now comfortably say that I am a nomad (although generally acknowledging my Bathurstian roots, I do not live there, nor is Sydney my home; sometimes people just want to know I'm Australian, asking the question on a different scale). To 'What made you want to do this?' rather than mumbling 'I dunno, I just did' (unable to pinpoint a reason, as what exactly makes us do anything but everything that has come before?) I am finding ways to speak of the joys of travelling slowly, of feeling, breathing and smelling the landscape, and of having an adventure, of course. And to the ever arising 'But what will you DO next?' which at first I resented- sometimes giving half hearted examples- I am finding ways of explaining that the point for me is not to know. The point is to be open to being transformed by this journey, this country, and to be truly present without a plan (goals, aims, and types of experiences I seek, yes, but not a rigid plan). To acknowledge the limitations of an environmental science education taken in lecture halls and laboratories and get out into this 'environment' they spoke of, and into the community and gather true wisdom and learnings. And learning opportunities were truly bountiful in the time I spent in Brisbane. Part of repaying my gratitude for that involves sharing it with others. So whether they are things you might like to connect with when up this way yourself, whether they spark ideas for your own life or community, or for sheer interests sake, I am going to share some snippets, and I hope at least a few people get something from them.

Food, Glorious Food has been a recurring theme for me in the past weeks, as is a pattern in my life.

• First and foremost was a community workshop and tour about Food Sovereignty put on by the amazing folk from Food Connect as a part of the first visit of delegates from La Via Campesina (LVC)to Australia. LVC is an international movement of peasant farmers (peasants literally meaning 'people of the land'), working among other things for food sovereignty, which they define as
  
  
  

  the RIGHT of peoples, countries, and state unions to define their
  agricultural and food policy without the “dumping” of agricultural commodities
  into foreign countries. Food sovereignty organizes food production and
  consumption according to the needs of local communities, giving priority to
  production for local consumption. Food sovereignty includes the right to protect
  and regulate the national agricultural and livestock production and to shield
  the domestic market from the dumping of agricultural surpluses and low-price
  imports from other countries. Landless people, peasants, and small farmers must
  get access to land, water, and seed as well as productive resources and adequate
  public services. Food sovereignty and sustainability are a higher priority than
  trade policies.

Food sovereignty moves beyond the idea of 'food security', which doesn't say anything about where the food comes from or how it is grown, bringing together a whole range of issues from ecology to justice, gender to health. The conference brought together farmers, food activists, researchers and interested citizens to discuss ideas of food sovereignty, relate them to the Australian context, and share stories. The 4 LVC visitors, from Japan, South Korea, East Timor and Indonesia, shared stories of LVC and issues that farmers face where they come from. It became clear that many issues faced by Australian farmers are occurring all over the world- the decline of rural communities, particularly the drain of youth to the cities, ecological decline, and loss of power and voice in the face of corporate interests. The second day of this event involved a bus tour, visiting an organic cereal farm, just about to harvest their first experimental crop of rice! (pictured at top)

• Food Connect themselves were one of the most shining examples of positive alternatives to the current food system, although many stories, dreams and plans emerged over the two days. Food Connect is a blossoming community supported agriculture scheme in Brisbane, bringing beautiful local organic produce to Brisbane residents and giving farmers a reliable and fair price for their work.


• I also enjoyed visiting Northey St City Farm, a fertile and diverse environmental education centre, community garden and public meeting place. Not only did I salivate over their fruit trees and lush market garden, admire their highly productive compost system and fondle a smorgasbord of seedlings in their community nursery, I also danced around a roaring bonfire at their winter solstice party and had a small-world experience at their Sunday organic markets (reuniting 7 individuals who had last been in one place in the tiny town of Cann River, Victoria- hosts, guests and guest of guests..)


• At the same markets you can now taste the delights produced by 'Culture Club', a group of people who get together regularly to skillshare on making fermented and cultured foods. The night I went they were making cheese, tempeh, beer, kimchi, sauerkraut and some other thing I forget the name of. Hooray! The only shame was that I couldn't learn it all in one night, but the door to that world has now been opened, and I can't wait to learn more.


• Culture Club was hosted at Turnstyle, one house of several in the Brisbane suburb of Highgate Hill that has opened it's garden and space to the community. I helped shift a load of horse poo the other day to get some of the neighbours' gardens going. Turnstyle also boasts a community bike workshop, woodfired pizza oven, impressive library, and events such as film screenings, life drawing and 'stitch-n-bitch's. All from the initiative of a few creative individuals who decided they wanted to interact with their community in a meaningful way.
• Speaking of food (in case you hadn't noticed) I went to see Food Inc, highly recommended.

Other Stuff!

I've spent so long writing about food that I think I'm running out of capacity to coherently describe much more, so I'll resort to a brief list of some stuff left over.

• Open-mic nights, poetry nights, busking and street art- bountiful opportunities for people to creatively express themselves and be supported in doing so


• Exit Through The Gift Shop- proclaiming itself to be 'the world's first street art disaster movie'. Yay.


• Bangarra Dance Theatre- beautiful. Inspiring me to move my body in more expressive, creative and playful ways (a necessary antidote to the round and round and round that my days involve..)


• The Dreaming Festival. I was going to write a whole entry on this but don't even know where to begin. Go! I left feeling so in love with the world.

Thankyou to all the lovely and generous souls I met in Brisbane, for opening up your worlds to me. I'm thinking of doing more posts like this (sharing my learnings) so feedback is appreciated.