What if you could immerse yourself in a captivating blend of personal stories, history, and introspective exploration, all while gaining powerful insights into racial equity, social justice, and their intricate relationship with land?
That's exactly what we're offering in today's episode as we talk about PACE Connect @ Foxfire Ranch, taking place from March 15-19, 2024 in Mississippi's Hill Country. Foxfire Ranch is black sovereignty and community gathering space in Waterford, Mississippi. PACE Connect will be led by our colleagues and friends, Dr. Jeanne Firth and Jabari Carmichael, who talk us through intersections of racial equity, social justice, and land justice . We further explore the importance of understanding our relationship with land and the histories intertwined with it in the context of outdoor education and leadership development.
Mississippi native Jabari illuminates the significance of hosting this workshop in his home state, delving into themes of community, relationships, and land sovereignty, work that he has done for nearly 13 years with Jeanne, who comes to the questions from a very different intersection of identities and family history. Anette Hollowell, whose family has owned Foxfire Ranch for over 100 years, speaks at the end about the history of the space and how it transformed into what it is today: a place for gathering, connection, and celebrating the tradition of hill country blues music.
The music you'll hear in this episode is a hill country blues track called "Foxfire," composed for the venue by musician Lightnin Malcolm (gratefully included with permission from the artist).
Curious to know more? Attend the PACE Connect @ Foxfire Ranch Info Session on December 13, 2023 (and register to receive a recording if you cannot make it!). If you missed the registration period, please email programs@visions-inc.org for more information.
See what's coming up at VISIONS!
About us
Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.
Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.
Whether it’s a book club, around the family dinner table, a school board meeting, or within your company, VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through sometimes complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.
Follow us!
Instagram: @visionsinc_org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VISIONS.Inc.1984/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/visions-inc.org/
Music credit: Tim Hall @tv_hall
...
What if you could immerse yourself in a captivating blend of personal stories, history, and introspective exploration, all while gaining powerful insights into racial equity, social justice, and their intricate relationship with land?
That's exactly what we're offering in today's episode as we talk about PACE Connect @ Foxfire Ranch, taking place from March 15-19, 2024 in Mississippi's Hill Country. Foxfire Ranch is black sovereignty and community gathering space in Waterford, Mississippi. PACE Connect will be led by our colleagues and friends, Dr. Jeanne Firth and Jabari Carmichael, who talk us through intersections of racial equity, social justice, and land justice . We further explore the importance of understanding our relationship with land and the histories intertwined with it in the context of outdoor education and leadership development.
Mississippi native Jabari illuminates the significance of hosting this workshop in his home state, delving into themes of community, relationships, and land sovereignty, work that he has done for nearly 13 years with Jeanne, who comes to the questions from a very different intersection of identities and family history. Anette Hollowell, whose family has owned Foxfire Ranch for over 100 years, speaks at the end about the history of the space and how it transformed into what it is today: a place for gathering, connection, and celebrating the tradition of hill country blues music.
The music you'll hear in this episode is a hill country blues track called "Foxfire," composed for the venue by musician Lightnin Malcolm (gratefully included with permission from the artist).
Curious to know more? Attend the PACE Connect @ Foxfire Ranch Info Session on December 13, 2023 (and register to receive a recording if you cannot make it!). If you missed the registration period, please email programs@visions-inc.org for more information.
See what's coming up at VISIONS!
About us
Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.
Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.
Whether it’s a book club, around the family dinner table, a school board meeting, or within your company, VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through sometimes complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.
Follow us!
Instagram: @visionsinc_org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VISIONS.Inc.1984/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/visions-inc.org/
Music credit: Tim Hall @tv_hall
...
Hello, you're listening to Intoliberation, a podcast about transformative change, equity and working against oppression I'm Leena Akhtar , Director of Programs with Visions Inc. Welcome. Hi, everyone. In this episode, I'm delighted to introduce you to two Visions consultants, Jeanne Firth and Jabari Carmichael, who will be facilitating a new workshop that Visions is offering, called Pace Connect, at Foxfire Ranch. Foxfire Ranch is a black sovereignty space located in Hill Country, Mississippi, which has been owned by the Hollowell family for the last 100 years. In this conversation, you'll get to know these two wonderful people, learn a little about Pace Connect and hear what holding this workshop outdoors, specifically in connection with land, means for them.
Leena Akhtar:If you're unfamiliar with Visions, you'll also learn a little about who we are and what we do. After that, you'll hear from Anette Hollowell of the Hollowell family about how Foxfire came to be the venue for gathering, connection and rest that it is now. In addition to being a gathering space, Foxfire has for many years had a tradition of hosting Sunday night Hill Country Blues concerts. The music you'll hear during the transitions in this episode is Hill Country Blues Track by musician Lightning Malcolm, and it's a track he actually wrote, inspired by the venue called Foxfire. Hi everybody, I am very excited to be here with my colleagues and friends Dr Jeannie Firth and Jabari Carmichael Brown. Jeannie and Jabari are actually in Waterford Mississippi right now, at the Foxfire Ranch, which is the site where they're going to be conducting a full-pace workshop out on the ranch, out on the land, in nature, which is something I'm very excited to talk to them both about. Would you introduce yourselves for folks who don't know?
Jabari Carmichael:you how y'all doing. I am Jabari Carmichael and whoever has a very great question. I'm still coming to understand that I'm going to be talking to them, as it says, now I'm going to explore and also one half of this team that's leading PACE Connect.
Jeanne Firth:Hi y'all. I'm Jeannie Firth and I'm a vision facilitator. Jabari and I met about a dozen years ago at Grotat Youth Farm, and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that later. I'm also an academic and a scholar. What I really love is thinking about place and connection, to place our relationships with each other and with the so-called natural world, and that is exactly what we're here to talk about, so I'm really excited.
Leena Akhtar:So before when we talked, I was surprised to know that you had known each other for about I'd say it's probably about 13 years now, and that's as long as you've been connected to visions or been in the vision's orbit. I'd love to hear a little bit about how you two met and where you two started collaborating.
Jabari Carmichael:Yeah, it'll be 13 years in January, but Jeannie doesn't feel that long ago and it's almost half of our lives, almost. So Jeannie and I initially met as founders on a team of four people in New Orleans and we were part of the team of launching Grotat Youth Farm in New Orleans, and Grotat Youth Farm is an organization that uses farming and agriculture to teach leadership skills to teenagers in New Orleans or to refine their leadership skills. We both moved to the city for that purpose. I would say that's the beginning of our career lifetime together and as staff. There we hired visions to come in and lead a training for our staff.
Jabari Carmichael:None of us was from the city of New Orleans. I was the closest away, you know, three and a half hours away from Mississippi. I was also the only person of color on staff, so we wanted to have something to help us navigate those differences and especially the difference of culture being from, you know, being in New Orleans, where you know culture is very rich. So we needed something to be able to help us connect with the teenagers and understand a different way of being that was different from all of us.
Jeanne Firth:I really think, jabari, for me so much of our origins of even doing this pace at Foxfire Ranch come from the merger at Grotat of doing outdoor education kind of broadly, broadly said, with the history of the land work that you were doing. So this was all new learning for me all. But when we started at Grotat we were at a space in City Park and Jabari was very committed to saying what happened here, what happened on this land before we took these few acres and tilled the soil and had young people working there and so creating this process really of an ongoing engagement to say what happened here and what does that mean, right, like not just to stop at the history but to really think about how that shows up in the present and what that means. You know all these years later to be in that space and so those sort of origins, right Actually.
Jeanne Firth:And then the merger of visions. So you've got outdoor education. Our visions training across difference and really thinking about oppression and histories of inequity, plus the history of the land and being on that space have come together both for our kind of you know, we've written together, we've done scholarly articles together, that kind of work, but then also doing it in this very practical and embedded way, and embodied way in what we're going to do together for this pace at Foxfire. So I do think that there's this deep thread about the things that we're interested in. And then it connects with all of our personal histories, right, and our interest in being outside and being in canoes and learning about birds all of these things that we love together.
Leena Akhtar:Beautiful. So Goddard was an urban farm in New Orleans and you two is it. Do I have it right that you two were there for its founding?
Jabari Carmichael:Yep, that's right, that's right. Two other people, leo Gorman and Johanna Gilligan, are two founding directors.
Leena Akhtar:Fantastic. And then you invited visions in to help you all relate to each other across difference better. I'm very curious about each of your early exposures to the visions model, what that was like and you know kind of connected to that, what made you stick around.
Jeanne Firth:I'm happy to take that first. So, for me, as a white person, I have always been really involved with, committed to social justice struggles. However, I just didn't know how to do that as a white person like a lack of skillfulness around that, and I'm not saying I have all the answers now, y'all. It's not like visions, waves and magic wand and it all just works. And, however, though, I think what visions taught me was really the idea that I could stay in the work and in the conversation, even when it got really difficult, so, even when I got incredibly scared or when I messed up and felt embarrassed and ashamed, any of that. The idea that I could stay in the, stay in the work and stay in the, rather than running away or freaking out or getting scared or threatened or defensive, which had been what I had done my entire early life as an activist and person who cares about justice in the world. And in that way, it's sort of building.
Jeanne Firth:I don't know what the word is. Y'all have a word for this. What is it Like? Is it resiliency? Is it building the stamina? Right, there's academic words for this too, but it's building capacity, capacity. Yeah, beautiful, yeah, capacity.
Jeanne Firth:And then I think that the model is so relational. It is too deep and meaningful for me to have the relationships that I have with people across gender, race, class, location. It's too meaningful for me to ever run away from right Like I'm going to stay in it and I'm going to struggle in it. And also this idea that that is transforming me, like really a reframe for me that justice work was for the benefit of other people, and realizing that like I get free from this too, that whiteness has cost me things Just as much as it's given me so many privileges. The harm to my soul and the wound to my soul of racism and my participation in it is so much clearer to me now. Right, so I'm going to stay in it and visions does that right. Like visions teaches the tools to like, build the capacity and stay, not run away. Jabari, how about?
Leena Akhtar:you.
Jabari Carmichael:I will say what made me stick around with visions and want to create that same like space and opportunity for other people is the change that I experienced in myself Because of this work. I've done a lot of healing personally and healing of relationships and that feels like really pivotal, because visions is all about relationship, right, Like oppression requires me to not see some people because of whatever, because of an identity they hold, and so this engagement or re-ignition of relationship was like ripe in my own life, both like personally and professionally, you know. And so ever since that moment I've wanted to create that same experience for every participant that sits in a session that I'm leading. Is that quest, that yearning for more and I mean that more to mean to share more of themselves, to be curious about more of other people? I didn't really have a firm grasp of what culture was. I was like you know I don't even know what that means. I don't have culture Like. This is just how we do things in Mississippi, where I'm from. You know we go to the church on Sunday, football on Friday night and we watch the car on Sunday. You know we do these state Bible class on Wednesday. We have these things that we do and that's what I call it. It's just what I do, and so, moving and understanding the tools and processes of visions, I've come to understand that that is my culture, that that is my way of doing things. I would have called that my norm and that word norm can be hard for because it assumes that Lena and Jeannie's norm is the same as my norm, and so this created space for multiple norms in my life, which has really created more ease, you know, Because in order for everybody that's known to be the same as mine, I have to have some control over the situation or it set more rules, and when I have more, as you said, Jeannie's spaciousness or capacity for difference, I don't need to be in control or to designate or to dictate the space. I can just show up and be there with myself, knowing that how it is that I am is enough and how it is that other people show up in the room is enough.
Jabari Carmichael:Sitting in this first vision session, I was like what is this Like? I was very like curious. I was like curious, but I was also like what is this Like? Because the church that I grew up in is the African Methodist Episcopal Design Church. We've named ourself the Freedom Church. This is the same church that Harriet Tubman was a member of, and so, because of her legacy, that's how we've come to be known, and so I was understanding, I understood the plight of black folks as a boy and a man growing up in Mississippi, black boy and man growing up in Mississippi, and that's about, I would say like that's kind of how I felt oppression and experienced oppression, and then come to understand that there is a sea of variables, a sea of identities that I hold or don't hold, that create this reality that I experienced. And so I feel very appreciative of both Greg Gale and Sparkle Timm's, who are the two people who first led our training session. Shout out to both of them.
Jeanne Firth:Yes, yes.
Jabari Carmichael:I'm not the same person anymore and the foundation of who I am still, it's core, while I've been able to change bias and concepts, you know, by being aware. So that information is very, very helpful and experiences.
Leena Akhtar:Great. So you two have been collaborating for a very long time and this offering that you're doing in March of 2024, Foxfire is a culmination of both of your deep commitments to racial equity and social justice work and your respective connections to, and understandings around, land. So this is a place where I think my life experience is very different and I'd be very curious to hear each of you talk about how you think about this kind of work racial equity, social justice, anti-oppression work in relation to land and in each of your histories.
Jeanne Firth:I think it's like one of the biggest questions, lena, I mean, particularly for me as a white person in the United States, and I feel I mean I'll speak to my own narrative that I feel this wellspring of meaning and beauty from my family's connections to the tall grass prairie in Kansas, riley County, kansas, so my Swedish immigrant family, who's now, I guess I'm, fourth generation, and the farmers that have been there and the stewards of that land it has just been one of the most meaningful parts of my life is, even though I didn't grow up on the farm, I found this interesting too, right Like I was mainly in Kansas City and yet this way in which, culturally, my family was country and they were farmers, so there's this connection to the place of where my family has been and the depth of the roots there and they're also just a few generations, and, as I've gotten older, this way in which understanding indigenous people all throughout that part of Kansas that were forcibly removed and long-term discrimination for those in the area. So it's this well, actually, can I just quote Wendell Berry here Please? So, wendell Berry, I am forever being crept up on and newly startled by the revelation that my people established themselves here by killing or driving out the original possessors, by the awareness that people were once bought and sold here by my people, by the sense of violence they have done to their own kind and to each other and to the earth, by their persistent failure to serve either the place or their own community in it. I am forced, against all my hopes and inclinations, to regard the history of my people here as the progress of the doom of what I value most in the world the life and health of the earth, the peacefulness of human communities and households. And so he talks about this way in which he is. When he is on his native hill in Kentucky, he is more divided amongst himself because of the importance of that relationship to land and also realizing that his being there and standing on that hill is holding and enacting in the present all of that violence that has been there. And so that is this process, of which I think is we're inviting this even in work together here at Foxfire, right. So, holding this place and learning the history of this place, we're gonna try to honor this space that we're in and this land, while also inviting this personal reflection around.
Jeanne Firth:What does it mean for the places that you've been and that's whether you moved constantly as a kid, right, it's whether you have a sense of being a nomad. What is our own relationship to place? And really, what do the histories mean today of how it shows up in the present? And it's not that that's like I think all the time people are like, well, what's the answer? And it's like, well, let's talk about the answers, let's talk about what reparations mean in your own life and community. Let's talk about what land return right Looks like it means in your own experience.
Jeanne Firth:So it's not just to keep these abstract but to really struggle through and come up with what that must mean going forward. And I'll just say, like, my sense is that it is so relational because, you know, Robin Wall-Kimmer has this idea that if we listen to the stories of the land and restory, restoration, restory with the land, that that holds the key to what the land needs to heal right. And in an era of climate change and with so much environmental degradation, this idea that we can actually learn how to heal ourselves. On another relationship with land, heal land through that process. So that's what I find like really, because it's not just to be this overwhelming impossible thing, it's like, wow, how generative and the potential and hope of that feels like such a source of. It's not just potential, it's like a source of liberation.
Leena Akhtar:Oh, thank you G.
Jabari Carmichael:I'm convinced that nothing just happens. And when I think about that reality, I imagine my teenage, middle school self and the words from my mother saying never to sail the land, and it makes me wonder what was so necessary that she drilled that into me. I must explore what has been the history of our people, as in our family and black folks and southerners and southern black folk. What made it so important that I know that Like in my bones, I know that, so I grew up with that being just like drilled into me and learning more stories about the land where I grew up than our community having been where it is for so long. The cornerstone of our church says it was founded seven years after the emancipation of enslaved people. And what's important there to me? I'm like okay, like that's a reality and I'm aware that we've been gathering since before it was in black and white or on paper, and so to understand it, to understand that history of place and the people and relationship amongst people and relationship of people to the place and the grass and the trees and the birds, just all that exists there. Like that's what my mother was saying, like this is what's important that you hang on to. They ain't making no more land, as she would say, and so we could buy a new house. You could build a new house, but there's no more land being produced, and so I got that really clearly. And then that makes me think, now that I have this tool kit and this presence of visions, like how does the layer become the foundation of how it is we relate?
Jabari Carmichael:I think it's really clear in many statistics that being outside and spending time in the sun is a part of not just our physical health.
Jabari Carmichael:It's also like it helps our mental health as well, and so being able to share space outside in tandem with the vision's model, there's some things we can't teach in a classroom. In a formal classroom, there are gonna be things that happen outside that is unpredictable and that's a part of the learning. Like life itself is unpredictable, and I feel like what I've come to understand is that in a classroom, we can structure so much to try to teach and create for people to engage outside of the classroom. So we're saying this let's just start the classroom outside, like not teach people in the room to prepare for outside. Let's be outside and share with one another. So this piece about visions really focuses on process and content and thinking about the tools that we're sharing and how it is we are together. I'm excited to see what's gonna come. I really am. I mean as much as we can prep and plan, jeannie, like some part of this is beyond our control, and that is what I'm excited about.
Jeanne Firth:Absolutely.
Jeanne Firth:Yeah, jabari.
Jeanne Firth:There's something that you said that I wanted to touch on too, like just this idea that I think both of us, working in outdoor education and also being outdoors adventure people ourselves I know that I've had the experience of being at so many camps, trainings literally like how do you do skills, like outdoor skills, in which I wish this conversation about oppression was present.
Jeanne Firth:I just wish that there was a lens around the importance of having these conversations with understanding that power dynamics are present, because so often I've been in those spaces and you know, traditionally they've been overwhelmingly white, often privileged, and then when there is difference presence around race or class, that the people holding the space are facilitating or leading the training like don't really know what to do. So I think that, thinking about anybody who's working in leadership development, outdoor education, outdoor skills camps, like all of it that, particularly if y'all are in those roles, like please come and let us support you, because this is something that we've been developing through all of our work with young people and adults. But I knew that I felt like so often those conversations just need more support, right, like people that are facilitating those kind of experiences need support. So I'm really hoping that we can offer that to anyone who's interested.
Leena Akhtar:Before we get to the specifics of people can expect at Foxfire, two quick things. Jabari, we have talked about this before and I would love it if you would, to the extent that you're willing, just give a little bit of context about where in Mississippi you grew up, because this is taking place at Foxfire, which is not exactly where you're from, and it touches on a lot of themes that, as I understand it, resonate for you and you're growing up in life experience and your family history as well.
Jabari Carmichael:Thank you. So I'm from a little town in Central Mississippi called Canton, and Canton is about two, two and a half hours from Waterford, where Foxfire ranches at Population of about 11,000 people, with black folks being in the majority. Mississippi is the blackest state in the union and Canton is majority of blacks, so I grew up in a place where the mayor was a black woman. When I was a child, my teachers were overwhelmingly black, maybe even 95 to 5% or 90% black, and many of my teachers graduated with my mom or my aunties and uncles. My mother and I had the same librarian, so thinking about community and relationship. Needless to say, in a small town there's a lot that can be known about individuals and I felt really cared for.
Jabari Carmichael:I was nurtured by who and what I saw and the positions of power that I saw, people who looked like me, and so I very much shaped my sense of self and I grew up outside of the city, in the country, surrounded by family, aunties and uncles and cousins, so very much was a village and I didn't appreciate that much when I was a kid and now, as I've gotten older, I'm like, wow, like not many people have access to that. I have friends growing up that were not family, and it wasn't until I went to college that I was able to develop and build these relationships. It's kind of difficult to explain what you share the experience of what it means to grow up in this manner and when I'm sometimes sharing with my friends I did this program at AmeriCorps and sharing with them, it was almost as if I grew up in a totally different generation. From my proximity to family and this way.
Jabari Carmichael:So yeah, that's cancerous.
Leena Akhtar:As you were speaking, it struck me that your mom teaching you not ever to sell the land it brought to mind what Annette, whose family owns Foxfire Ranch, has said about being Black Sovereignty space. So I'd love to hear you all talk a little bit about Foxfire Ranch, where you are now. You're envisioning for this pace in the outdoors, in nature. What people can expect Maybe we can start with is a little bit about what the pace workshop is for people who are completely unfamiliar with visions, who we are, what we do, and then a little bit about the significance of doing it where you are now.
Jeanne Firth:So pace stands for it's P-A-C-E and it's personal approach to change and equity and it is really a foundational exposure to the core vision toolkit. We could call it curriculum. I really like talking about it as tools, practical tools that you can apply to change at the personal, interpersonal, systemic and institutional and cultural levels. So we're thinking about making change in all those dimensions and how to equip people to do that. I like that we really root in the personal. So somebody asked me recently I've done a ton of racial justice work. Is this like a pretty basic? They were like I'm not trying to give myself too many props, but I've been in this work a long time. I've had this when we have people in a pace training that are in their 70s or 80s and they have literally been in struggles for their entire lives we hear from them, is the importance of this approach that really starts at the personal.
Jeanne Firth:That is an onion that we peel our entire lives. For example, I'll suddenly realize I just haven't done much peeling of the onion around my experience of somebody who has dyslexia. How has that shaped my life? What messages did I get? What was caught and taught about people that were neurodiverse? We didn't even have that word when I was I'm not that old and even as a kid there wasn't common knowledge around neurodiversity. What messaging was I receiving? That's a whole new realm. All of a sudden it's like, wow, that's a part of my personal lens, it's not just my story, it's literally my lens of how I understand the world. It's how I make meaning and make sense of it. It is where unconscious bias lives. It's where, internalized, my idea is that, oh, I'm less than have lived all of that In this way, understanding how we make meaning and understand ourselves.
Jeanne Firth:To Barry, even when we started today, you named this idea of like, who am I? That is a big question, right. This idea is of who am I? How am I named, how do I want to be named? That's a whole other realm, and so pace is a way to spend four days engaging with those questions at the personal and organizational levels, and so we really want this to come back into your world, right?
Jeanne Firth:So if you are a church pastor, if you own a business, if you are a person who does grassroots struggles for organizing, like whatever, whoever you are, if you're a retired person, right, if you're a teenager in high school, this idea that we come together, understand ourselves a little bit better in one another and then have all of these tools to continue pushing for change in our own context. And I think that's a cool thing about a training like this, too, is that we are. You know, we're intentionally trying to bring people across. You know different identities and lives, but also like different industries, like kind of change we need in the world needs us to be in every space, doing work in every level, and so we want that breadth of experience and breadth of organizations represented, so come.
Leena Akhtar:Beautiful. So my first exposure to a pace was back in the before times, when we were traveling to do them, and it happened in the auditorium of a school. And since the pandemic, we've pretty successfully I think very successfully actually adapted them to being online. So tell me a little bit about this venue where you're both at right now it is November 27th, the weekend or the week, the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2023. Tell me a little bit about where you are, what participants can expect and what the significance to you doing this work in that venue is.
Jabari Carmichael:Cool. So what I do is I'll just take you on a little ride with us, which is we Neanderth through the windy roads North Mississippi, down Highway 7, away from Highway 55, around a couple of roundabouts and past the river, and then we're greeted by a large sign saying Fox Fire Ranch. This way we now have Highway 7 for a few more minutes and then we are greeted by horses another sign saying welcome to Fox Fire Ranch. And as we enter the driveway there's a large brick house, red brick house, and this is the family house, and that's where I'm sitting right now, taking this call. And we continue on down the hill, so to say, to the pavilion, and this is an open air pavilion houses, a kitchen houses, a meeting room, and from there you can see multiple cabins, you can hear the birds and other wildlife here in Mississippi, you can see the stars. This is the physical space of Fox Fire Ranch. It's just a piece of who it is, that they are the people that inhabit and create this space like. That's what's special and that's what brings the meaning to Fox Fire Ranch. If you're fortunate enough to enter the family house, you will notice a lot of pictures Pictures of family, pictures of friends, and the immediate image that's sticking with me now is there's, I guess, a plaque that was awarded to Annette's parents from their larger family that says thanks for creating a place for people to gather.
Jabari Carmichael:Now I want to anchor there as Black folks in the South of having a place to call their own at any point in time, including today and especially for more than a century. That's saying a lot. That cost, you know, and I just I don't just mean financially, right, but it cost. And so that is the space that we're entering and the space that we're inviting you as Participants to, to imbibe in, to be overwhelmed by, to be immersed in, and there's just, there's just no replacing that. You know we, we can't bottle that up and send it home with you. I can't even articulate in a way that is palatable where you would get it, even in this podcast. It's, it's an experience that has to be had. Then you talk about, you're right. So, given you haven't had the experience yet is difficult to to share in the experience, and I will name that.
Jabari Carmichael:This is a gathering place of many different types of people and, for Jenny, I appreciate you naming who it is that we're inviting to this space. I think that if you are curious about knowing more about yourself, about other people, be curious to know more about Mississippi and the setting that we'll be at. And music Sorrentia is a music venue really Highlighting Hill Country Blues, which was formed here in Mississippi. We Mississippi, our states model is with a birthplace of America's music and I think we could expand beyond that because so much of what's been created here in Mississippi and then you know, via music, has gone beyond the borders we call the United States. So that's a little bit about Fox Fire Ranch and where it is that we are and the type of space that we're creating with pace, connect, connect, right Connect like that is what we're hoping people To do in the space that we created and that is that is a specialty of Fox Fire Ranch.
Jeanne Firth:I Will say that, even in my experience of being here, I feel so honored to be here and to be With the community that this family, the hollow wall family, has built. I slept better last night than I have slept in months. Y'all, there is something To all that you're saying to barry about being in place.
Leena Akhtar:Something in our bodies is different, so Jeannie, this is your first visit there, right?
Jeanne Firth:I've wanted to come for years, and so it feels almost like a Pilgrimage right of the heart. Yeah beautiful.
Leena Akhtar:You mentioned that Fox Fire Ranch is a venue where they're keeping the tradition of Hill Country Blues music going. As I understand it, there was a concert last night.
Jabari Carmichael:There was. There was. Well, let me tell y'all, it was cold in Mississippi last night and people came out to enjoy the blues. I think culturally there's a misunderstanding, like when the weather is bad, people don't travel, like, whether that be like, people don't drive in the rain, you know if it's cold or you know really cold and just inclement. People are not out, and people chose to overcome that and Come out and party and celebrate.
Jeanne Firth:People were there for their birthday last night, right, I mean there was yes.
Jeanne Firth:There was like just just the, the people that are drawn here, whether it was the extended hollow wall family, an elderly man celebrating his birthday who was so excited to have this amazing band playing. Young people there were several people there on dates, young people on dates. Like I just Felt that everybody had relationship to this place, somehow, like they are making a journey back or they hadn't been in a year and they've been missing it and this was the last one of the season, so they really wanted to be here for the show. But that sense of supporting each other and just having a good time if the food is amazing and Food's gonna be provided throughout this whole time to get together, just like to have to eat and drink and be joyful together and I just just to say that both the sense that the, the ranch, really emphasizes of connection and rest and joy, all as Necessary right that that that these are the ways in which we build new worlds Are through that, and that rest is part of it and kicking up your heels as part of it.
Jabari Carmichael:I was just tonight. Last night, keith Johnson in a big muddy band play and keep Johnson is the great nephew of muddy waters. That's, that's what we had last night. It was a great show. It was a great show.
Leena Akhtar:So that gets me to my final question, or the big question. Pace connected Fox fire ran just happening in March 2024, from the 15th to the 19th. So March 15th to March 19th, what can people expect over the course of the several nights that they're gonna be there?
Jabari Carmichael:What can people expect? People can expect to be cared for. People can expect to have an experience of a lifetime. People can expect to spend a lot of time in nature, one another, and while this is a pace training model off of you know the pace training that vision leads for organizations and individuals from around the world, the fusion of being outside in nature adds a different element. So a typical day for a pace is like 8 to 330. That's going to look different given the setting that we have here. So the agenda is going to look different.
Jabari Carmichael:How we spend time we're going to have a bonfire. We don't have that capacity to do that in the normal pace training. We're going to go on a large canoe ride at one of the lakes nearby. We don't have the capacity to do that in a typical training. So people can expect to have an experience that they learn from, not just learning that leads to an experience. That's what I'm excited about to engage, to invite people to question and to think. Even things that they've held is like true, that they live their life by. It's just to invite people to question.
Leena Akhtar:So folks are going to arrive, there's going to be that full pace curriculum and then there's going to be a number of activities. So, as I understand it, the things that you've mentioned are canoeing, there's hiking. I know that it's happening over a weekend. So there is going to be a Sunday Blues concert. We talked about I think it was an African dance class.
Jabari Carmichael:Horsespec variety. Folks are interested in that Stargazing. We're going to have some time to spend outside and just literally stare at the sky. What else, Jeannie?
Jeanne Firth:I was just thinking that for any naturalists, both for birding and plant identification Jabari's been doing a lot of work just to learn that. Look plants here and trees I saw so much to forage yesterday so I know that's something I'm really interested in is maybe helping bring some plant medicine and also just herbs into whatever we're eating, if people are interested, right. So there's a lot to explore on the land. And I would say too, if any of these things, if you're like oh, I'm not somebody who wants to like go on a hike, or if I'm not somebody who has ever been on a horse, y'all try on. Is one of our key guidelines. And just you decide, right. Like, come be here with us and as much as you feel like you can trust the experience, go for it.
Jeanne Firth:And as much as you know yourself, right, and you're like I have different mobility, we will meet you right where you're at the goal is really considerate of people's accessibility and desires, so just let us know like we're really happy to be in conversation about you getting what you need in physical sense and body nourishment, etc. Beautiful.
Leena Akhtar:So I understand that the accommodation arrangements are challenged by choice as well.
Jabari Carmichael:Yes, there is the camping.
Leena Akhtar:So there's the camping option, which is pretty much just priced into the workshop right. The camping accommodation is free if people want to just camp on the land. There is also the option of the true Hilton in is it Oxford, which we have a block room arrangement with. So people who want to come back and forth from the hotel morning and evenings have that option. And then, as I understand it, am I correct that if there is a group that would like to share a cabin, they can also do that through private arrangement with Fox Fire? There's some really big cabins.
Jeanne Firth:I visited them all yesterday. So those are, on option two, quite a few different ones and with different sizing. You know a group of four, a group of eight, so there's options.
Leena Akhtar:Fantastic, okay, great Great. We'll put information about that in the show notes and you know, if people have questions, we'll also put an email address where people can Ask Jeannie Jabari. Thank you so much for getting on the internet at seven o'clock in the morning where you are, and talking to me about this. It's always wonderful to talk to the two of you and I love how passionate you are and I just love the things you two come up with in your collaborations together. Is there anything else that you want to share about Fox Fire, your work, visions, just what's on your hearts and minds right now, before we log off, I think what I would say is I've really been exploring this idea of being a facilitant.
Jeanne Firth:So just as much as I'm a facilitator, I'm also a participant, and that is so true to my own experience, because I just constantly feel like I'm learning and being transformed by this, the people that I meet really in this work, and so I wouldn't write that spirit to for anyone coming to this.
Jeanne Firth:This is co-creating, right, like we have the visions curriculum, we have the tools that we're going to share and, jabbar, you named this like sort of magic of let's see what happens. And that is the fact that you know what we do will only exist because of the unique gifts and experiences of each person who shows up to do this together. And in that way it is really powerful to me to think about the potential of what we can create, even in four days. Well, I guess this is five, right. Five days, five days together, that is both a short period of time and a lifetime. What if we really allow ourselves to imagine that true transformation can happen in that period? So, just to invite that spirit of the potential of what can really happen when we come together and believe in a new future, what's possible, thank you Jane.
Jabari Carmichael:The answer is yes. This is an opportunity for you. If you're wondering, as you listen to this, if you have the time, if you can sacrifice your to do list and the other things going on in your life, the answer is yes. Like the time is now, this is an opportunity to say yes to and that your investment of your time and your resources, you will receive exponentially more by being present and by being participating. So one to no more, and you know, now is enough time to plan your sitters, your schedules around this experience that we're inviting you to. You'll not be let down, beautiful.
Leena Akhtar:All right, so I'm going to drop registration information in workshop. Registration includes the tuition, the activities, the food for all the time that people are there, and people can again, you know, pick their own accommodation. Jeanie Jabari, thank you so much. Thank you both. It is always wonderful to be in community with you. I appreciate and have so much respect for both of you and the work that you do, and I can't wait for this thing to roll out and be offered to the world.
Jeanne Firth:Same to you, Lena. What a pleasure to be in relationship with your brilliance. It's really amazing.
Jabari Carmichael:Yeah, thanks for all your support helping launch this and get us off the ground, yes, and Stella, who's not here, and all the other hands who've been a part of this process, and to our friends, yeah, who helped us like craft this over many, many years. Thank you, beautiful.
Leena Akhtar:Thank you so much. Next, I'm happy to introduce Annette Hollowell, who I caught up with separately when we arranged to host the event at Foxfire. Welcome to Annette. So, annette, my understanding is that your family owns this land.
Anette Hollowell:Yes, so Foxfire is located in Waterford, mississippi, which is in the foothills of the Appalachian Trace, the North Mississippi Hill Country, and this is land that's been with my family for over 100 years now. Just to give a little history in 1918, my grandfather, albert Hollowell, filed his written intention to purchase these 80 acres of land and in 1919, he purchased it. He was a woodworker and a farmer and kind of a country veterinarian, and by the time he married my grandmother, who was about 20 years younger than him, she was the real farmer and everything. So they had all of their children, my father and his five siblings, out there on that land via midwife and they lived out there and they grew everything that the family ate and needed and existed as farmers Until he passed and my father was about nine years old, and then after a couple of years my grandmother remarried, moved into neighboring town with another farmer and this land basically lay free for about 15 years. In the 90s my father and my mother decided to buy out shares that my aunts and uncles had in the property and to return home. My dad had a long career in the military and so in 2000, they returned home and they slowly started to reclaim areas on the property. So, you know, put in a road and build a small cabin and over time build the infrastructure. That's what we call Foxfire Ranch now.
Anette Hollowell:So we really got our start by rooting down in our Hill Country culture, which is our musical culture. It's a particular genre of blues that comes from our area called the North Mississippi Hill Country Blues. Hill Country just won its first Grammy award this past year with Cedric Burnside, which is exciting for all of us. And rooting down in our foodways. And so the area that we're from was known for these Hill Country Blues, juke joints, things like that. And as we started to build up the infrastructure there, we were hosting our own family reunions. We created a basic pavilion structure for that, and then it was like, what do we do next? And so we decided to return to that tradition of Sunday evening blues from our area and opened up the property to the community to come out and have opportunity to hear some good blues music, bring the family, eat a good meal and just have that kind of fellowship. And that's what really got us started. And so it's been 15 years.
Anette Hollowell:We started off by hosting Sunday Blues concerts for a decade every Sunday from March to Thanksgiving.
Anette Hollowell:The last five years we've started to slow that up some and do it second and fourth Sundays because we've grown as a gathering place for community.
Anette Hollowell:So we host a lot of kinsi-yeras, family reunions, weddings and festivals, a lot of different private events and increasingly we've been focusing on hosting more retreats. So part of my commitment and focus on the land is thinking about the next 100 years and how we make this a space that's available for community, for rest, deep learning, connection, celebration and healing, and so really excited to have visions out there because it feels like any subject, any kind of content that you want people to sit with. It integrates even deeper when you're out on the land, you know. And so there's a part of it that's facilitation and then there's, like I'd say, probably 60, 70% of it that's just the invitation for people to slow down, to reset their pace and connect with that red clay dirt out there and the tall trees and the wide open skies and whatever the lesson, the work the focus is for a group that needs to happen Usually is accelerated by that.
Leena Akhtar:So Beautiful. Well, I'm super excited. I know that we're scheduling it so that people can definitely attend one of those blues nights, right.
Anette Hollowell:We'll pick a good show for you guys. I love it.
Leena Akhtar:If you're curious to learn more about Pace Connect, jeanne Jibari and Annette are holding a live information session on December 13th at 6.30 PM Eastern Time. It will be recorded, so please register to receive the recording. If you're interested and can't make it. If you're listening to this after that date, you can email programs at visions-incorg. I've dropped that email as well as links to everything we talked about in this episode and more in the show notes. Next year will be Vision's 40th year of existence. In honor of this, we'll be featuring stories from elders in the Vision's community in upcoming episodes, so please look out for that. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.