“Praying on Seeds: Solidarity for Puerto Rican Sovereignty”

~marian dalke

A Sunday morning of soft light is cast through deep wooden windows. The light swifts over and picks up the soft cotton of milkweed seeds, sailing over the heads of those gathered for Quaker Meeting for Worship at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. Meanwhile, Grace Gonglewski shares a message about “praying on seeds,” as she casts more milkweed seeds about her, stirring magic among those present.

Grace’s message connects with me as an urban farmer. “Praying on seeds” is very familiar to me. Every early March, I press each seeds’ small tiny shape into damp soil, anticipating a future harvest, a shared meal, a gift passed to a neighbor.

I’ve been working as the Urban Garden Manager at Norris Square Neighborhood Project (NSNP) since March 2015. NSNP has an incredible history and legacy and I am grateful to continue to steward six garden spaces started by Grupo Motivos, a grassroots group of Puerto Rican women. Gathering together since the 1980s, Grupo Motivos cultivated and curated over 12 cultural gardens from vacant, abandoned lots throughout the Norris Square community in West Kensington. Responding to the trauma of a drug raid that took over 60 community members to prison, Grupo Motivos sought to create sites of healing and unity, and opportunities for elders, youth, and visitors alike to celebrate Puerto Rican heritage and culture.

Many of the crops we grow in NSNP’s gardens are saved and propagated from Grupo Motivos’ original plants. Tropical plants, such as orange and avocado trees, hibiscus, lemongrass, oregano brujo and hoja de bruja, are each carefully tended to keep them flourishing year round. And now, coming to fall again, it’s time to gather seeds. Those tiny seeds from March have since germinated, flowered, and fruited, and are now bearing seeds of their own. Squishy tomato seeds in red, yellow, and purple need to ferment before drying and sprouting. Beans with tiger eyes and scarlet runners. Peppers in dozens of varieties I can never keep track of despite my precise labels. These plants tangle and twine together in the field, tomatoes climbing skyward up the grapevine, and beans twirling around the arching sunflowers.

Each plant contains dozens of seeds that within them contain multitudes--future generations that will reach down into soil and sprout forth. This brings me infinite hope and possibility to feed myself, my family, my community of people, butterflies, cats, chickens, honeybees.

And so, in the weeks after the devastation of Hurricane María in the Caribbean, a friend and organizer with Soil Generation reaches out to say, “we are going to Puerto Rico and we need seeds.” A gardener in Las Parcelas, our community garden, also tells me that her mom is going to Puerto Rico and wants to take seeds. “We need organic sugar and honey to feed the bees and keep them alive until the native flora comes back.” As many people were focused on immediate emergency response, waiting to hear from family members, there were those already planning and preparing for the island’s food sovereignty. Puerto Rico, so crippled and confined by its colonial status to the US, where it is chained by a fiscal debt crisis of over $73 billion dollars. Where the Jones Act prohibits aid from other countries to deliver to the island. Puerto Rico, which imports 80% of its food, home to a burgeoning local food movement aiming to source food from its fertile soil. Puerto Rico, with its fierce and consistent liberation movements, asks for seeds, a source of autonomy and sovereignty.

What an honor, what an excitement, what a calling – yes seeds! Of these seeds we’ve been keeping, many come from Puerto Rican neighbors who have taught us how to plant gandules, ajíces, and calabaza from seeds they brought from Puerto Rico. Seeds that have been pressed in envelopes, in bottles and luggage, in hands trusting that the flavors and sustenance of their homeland could be cultivated in the urban north.  Seeds they have been growing in these gardens created as refuge for Puerto Ricans coming to the mainland. Raised in North Philly lots for the past four decades, these generations of seeds are now returning, making the journey homeward, to bring nourishment to the people of Puerto Rico.

NSNP set a shipment of seeds with our gardener’s mother in early October, packed and sorted by Raíces de Cambio (Roots of Change) High School Youth Gardeners. Another shipment of alcolado (an herbal healing remedy), prepared by Raíces de Cambio youth and accompanied seeds from Grace and her husband’s farm were decorated by First Day School of CPMM. These were brought to Puerto Rico with a delegation of gardeners, educators and birth workers from Urban Creators and Wholistic Art on Thanksgiving Day. This is a small token of faith, yet still significant. May we continue to pray on seeds, cultivating a solidarity of food sovereignty.

Visit the sites below to support the relief work of grassroots groups and farmers in Puerto Rico:

Shared by the HEAL Alliance:

• Boricuá Organizaion for Ecologic Agriculture -  28-year old farmer-led organization dedicated to rebuilding the island’s food sovereignty and supporting farmers.

• Resiliency Fund of Puerto Rico

Prepared by Eddie Irizarry of Bread and Roses Community Foundation:

• www.mariafund.org - all funds go to grassroots orgs

• https://fondoderesilienciapuertorico.tumblr.com/ - food activism and efforts to re-plant Puerto Rico's crops

• http://www.defendpr.com/relief/ - support front line Puerto Rican communities in their recovery and rebuilding efforts

• https://www.ecokitpuertorico.org/ - offers itemized list and pre assembled kits.

• http://www.fundacionbuenavibra.org/ - focus on repairing roofs and healthy coexist

For more information about Norris Square Neighborhood Project:

• Website: www.myneighborhoodproject.org

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myneighborhoodproject/

• Twitter: #ilovensnp

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Sandra Andino and Anne Dalke for your comments and edits on this article.