EP 05: Interdependence, Food Sovereignty, and Body Sovereignty With Queer Herbalist and Farmer Serpentina

Welcome to Episode 5 of Supersede! 

This Earth Month, Seeding Sovereignty is amplifying and educating around food sovereignty. In this episode,  Madeleine is joined by Serpentina, who highlights their work with Seeding Sovereignty’s mutual aid farm in New Mexico alongside their work running Seeding Sovereignty's Abortion Doula Trainings. Rooting in their commitment to reproductive justice and access to plant-based skills like farming and herbal medicine, Serpentina focuses on deep connection to the earth and to community throughout their work. 

Serpentina reminds us that food sovereignty and body sovereignty are profoundly and intimately intertwined. This reminder is particularly important as we consider what it means to live under the colonial U.S. empire. How do we resist empire’s attempts to control our food, our bodies, our lives? How do we build sustainable communities that practice interdependence and care? 

Serpentina (IG @flora.pacha) is a Queer Herbalist + Farmer, Gender Non Conforming, South American Migrant, zine maker, writer, full spectrum companion, seed-saver, and gardener. They are also a podcaster at Wild Weeds Podcast (IG @wildweedspodcast) and the co-founder of Bloom + Change a Queer Land Project in so-called New Mexico. You can find Serpentina online, in their farm or traveling around facilitating workshops in community groups and universities!

Transcript

Madeleine:
Okay, hello, welcome, Ser Ventina 2 Super Seed.

Serpentina:
Yay, thank you! Thank you so much for having me.

Madeleine:
Thank you so much for being on and talking about yourself and you're just sharing some wisdom that you have and your expertise. In this month, it's so fitting to have you on as we're doing a whole series on food sovereignty and food justice community farming, etc, etc. I will also just give a little. Or actually, you know what? You can give your intro. your role at seating and talk a little bit about yourself, your path, maybe some background in your upbringing, and the work that you do, and the things that motivate you. That's a lot

Serpentina:
I'm

Madeleine:
of stuff,

Serpentina:
sorry.

Madeleine:
but just take it, take it. Just talk a little bit about yourself, please. So, I'm gonna go ahead and do a little bit of this. I'm gonna go ahead and do a little bit of this.

Serpentina:
Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. So my name is Serpentina,

Madeleine:
Thank you. Bye.

Serpentina:
or Serpa Short. I previously known as Lova. My pronouns are they and Serpentina, my name. I'm originally from Southern Coastal Peru, this area, like the city called Arequipa. And I migrated into Chile when I was four years old to Santiago. my boo specifically and then when I was around 19 I moved to California and now I'm 33 and I live in so-called New Mexico right outside of Albuquerque in a rural area where I have a little mutual aid farm. I have been, I do a lot of things. I content create about topics that interest me through my previously known as La Lovaloca. I've changed lots of names throughout my entire life, slash

Madeleine:
Thank you. Bye.

Serpentina:
career. And yeah, I do work around reproductive justice, abortion, doula work, seed saving, farming, herbalism. And I think that my role in city and sovereignty has been pretty sweet. I've had a good time. doing the work that I've been doing in the past for free, but be able to like be resourced and doing that work. So that's what really interested me about joining City and Silver and teachers being able to like, oh, we can do abortion, do that training so we can have them, you know, we can have the presenters be paid and we can have, you know, meetups for folks to meet each other and to talk about abortion and to get information and access around, you know, like abortion topics and censoring BIPOC and censoring queer and transgender forming BIPOC that are interested in doing reproductive justice work. So I kind of like entered sitting in sovereignty doing the self-care Sunday, um, self-care Sunday series last year. And then I stayed. Um, and now I am the program director for, um, community care. And it's basically like, uh, it has two roles. One of them is the mutual infirm. Um, And the other one is like reproductive justice. And right now, and here in New Mexico, this, the growing season starts in about a month. So I'm in the process of hopefully getting two of my friends to come and help me for the growing areas, just to clear them up. There's like a lot of work that needs to be done. If you live in New Mexico, especially like in the central New Mexico area, the weeds are intense. Yeah. when the monsoons come in the summer, it's like beautiful, but it's also like, my God, the weeds of the grass. So it's just a lot of upkeep. So that's kind of my, what I'm doing right now. I'm figuring that out, trying to plan out growing Ceci and trying to like figure out where to get seedlings, picking the seeds I want and organizing our little work studio that it's taking me longer than I thought, because I want to make sure that we have like a little work studio where we can so that we can work from there and like, you know, just have it ready for seed saving, for drying stuff, or just kind of like prepping the food and the seeds that I'm hoping we get growing and we're able to give away. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So

Madeleine:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Sarah. How did you get involved in your work? Or is that a question that is slightly difficult to answer because you've been doing it your whole life? Or what were the factors that have formed your path in this work?

Serpentina:
I think that, I think it honestly started with like abortion work. I grew up in Chile and Chile was one of the countries where abortion was very highly criminalized. So growing up, I remember just, you know, there's just a lot of politics around it too, because there was kind of like a vacío legal or like a legal emptiness or like, no, before dictatorship that was put in power through a very bloody coup by the US government, of course, most of the coups around the world. So before that, there was some kind of like legality around abortion. There's a lot of politics, but basically one of the main things that happens in like Chilean history in this past decade was the dictatorship and you know, Pinochet was a, of course, like right wing capitalists, you know, just same thing, right? Like most dictators are like extremely, you know, like extremely religious, you know, just very violent, very much like figuring out how to move things around for the US government. So one of the last things that he did was to make any kind of abortion illegal in Chile. So Chile had a pretty intense patch of like where abortions were illegal. I mean, even up to now, there is very recently, there is some, some laws were passed to make abortion kind of legal in specific cases in Chile, which, you know, it's still not enough. Right. But just growing up, like in that political time, and just like understanding, growing up that like people didn't have the right to have an abortion, I think really impacted me and I ended up going to UC Berkeley and I was super excited because I really thought that I was gonna learn so many things and then I went to college and I was like this is just such a scam like these people don't know anything you know what I mean I was just like this professors are like so rude and just don't know anything and it's just all just so horrible so luckily like one of the things that I had to do to graduate was to write a thesis and I was just like okay well I'm gonna do this and do this thesis about something that really interested me, which was like, it's always been like reproductive justice and just reproduction and who gets to choose, you know, like how bodies are treated, how bodies are kind of, you know, just how the system has such a, like such a huge part of like how we manage our, our bodies or fertility, like who, you know, like this like physical realm, right. So I did my thesis on this. of Peruvian Ketchup women, which was also done during the Fuhimori dictatorship, which is also linked to the US, of course. Like most of the history around the world and coups and all that. So that, you know, just writing that and just realizing the ways in which like the Western medical system had just really left communities, like specifically indigenous communities, like rural indigenous communities. in such a dangerous space, right? Because there's history, you know, there's a lot of history throughout the world and even here in the United States of forced realizations, right? The people that get forced to sterilized are always people that are poor, black folks, indigenous folks, Latinx folks, immigrant folks. The U.S. empire has done a lot of horrible things in Puerto Rico, right? So there's just, of life force sterilization and to me that is also very much linked to colonialism but also just to the ways that we have been kind of like taken away from our traditional medicine. So what I did after graduating was going back to Peru and then just asking my grandma and my aunts about ways that they took care of themselves. They took care of their like reproductive lives working with plants. So that's when I got really interested in plant medicine and this like basically started, you know, gardening. And in my backyard in LA, I lived in this garage and there was this like patch of land that the cats were just peeing and pooping. And then me and my ex at that time, we just made a garden just using tires and like repurposed materials. And at that time I was also volunteering at this native garden that used to be known as the LA Historic Park. And I feel like that really just, yeah, that's when I was like, OK, this is what I have to be doing. And my family, they've been farmers. Like my family, like, I think like every generation, including me, my parents, like my grandparents, and like everybody before, we have always grown corn. Like it's just, you know, there's always been like a growing history in my family, like including my, like my both sides of my family, like my grandma. my paternal grandma has a garden, my maternal grandma had a garden, like there was still some farming happening with my great, with my grandpa. So like the, like farming history has always been there. So I, well, I think I'm probably like the only one in my, you know, in this generation that is doing this. But it's always just being something that's been part of like what we do and like our you know, I got interested in food and seeds and herbs. It was like through reproductive justice. So that's also why I really like the work that I'm doing with seating sovereignty because it's basically the same thing, right? That I've been already doing. So yeah.

Madeleine:
I love that so much because it really is all connected. And I loved the way that you like told that story because it's just shows like how when you're thinking about like, you know, combating social injustice or climate injustice, like nothing exists in a bubble. And it's like this winding journey and you found plant medicine through reproductive justice work, and it's all connected. And I just think that's really beautiful. And I think in that same vein, it would be like interesting at this particular point in time, with everything going on with just the fight for trans rights to talk a little bit deeper into like, kind of maybe where you see that issue going. And like how it ties into reproductive justice and maybe even like how it ties into plant medicine.

Serpentina:
Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I mean, honestly, I just, I mean, we, I think most states are in a way dictatorships. And I think like, especially in the US, we're in a literal empire, built on blood and violence. So it makes sense that there is this attack against trans people and like trans kids, right, especially after kind of like a growing visibility. Um, like, you know, I think like historically, make sense. Like, you know, there has been just such huge advances that like trans people have done. Like, I don't want to, you know, and I also don't think that visibility equals like safety or I don't think visibility. That's a whole bunch, honestly, at the end of the day. But, um, you know, even just seeing like kids and like children now more than more than ever feeling, oh, maybe, you know, more than ever. of the United States, feeling comfortable sharing their gender. You know what I mean? There are so many kids now that are just like trans and queer and out. And there's just more acceptance, right? Just I think that there has been a lot of work that has been done by queer and trans people and general confirming people in the past that have allowed for that to happen. Lots of, you know, like even like legal advances that trans and GNC people have pushed for that have allowed for like, you know, kids to just feel safer in their bodies. And that's not to say that it's like a new thing. I don't think that, you know, people just realize that their trends at a higher rate, not at all, like trans people or like, you know, gender and other people have been like, we've been here since like the beginning of time. But, you know, through colonization, like, and through the like, like the binary gender system, there's been just like a lot of violence that has been imposed against whoever doesn't like fit that or doesn't fit heterosexuality. But yeah, I think it's horrible. And I think that the ways that it kind of, there is like such an important connection between like reproductive justice and trans rights because it's really about like body autonomy and body sovereignty. And honestly, besides this body sovereignty and body autonomy, it's also about just people being happy. You know what I mean? Like there is this, there's this one time I was walking in Santiago, Chile where there's a lot of like beautiful, like autonomous community-based, abortion practices. And there was this poster that said abortion is love. And I was like, that's so cheesy. And then I was thinking about it. And I was like, but it is though, like, you know what I mean? Like people that are choosing to have abortions, they do it for many different reasons. But it could be like, because they really just really with themselves, you know what I mean? Like they really just want to spend time with themselves. They don't want to have

Madeleine:
Mm.

Serpentina:
kids because they feel good being with themselves by themselves. They don't want to have, you know, a kid to take care of. And like that to me, it's also just such a beautiful decision for like self-love, like you know, self-realization without having like enforced, you know, childbearing. I think it's beautiful, but I'm also thinking like, you know, people that maybe choose not to have kids or even if they want to have kids, they can't because they can't afford it, right? And they might have already five other kids. So for them, not choosing to have that kid means being able to feed this other five kids, right? So that means also love, like so so much of and like the, like gaining body sovereignty, I think is also just, honestly, like it's a way to just bring people down and make people feel horrible. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's nothing more beautiful than folks being able to like celebrate their gender and the way that they feel comfortable and the way that feels affirming to them. But it's also, I don't know, I get really happy when I hear people having abortions and being able to have such abortions because I feel like it's very simple It's like people really being like, this is my body. Like I might not be able to choose a lot of things that are happening around me, but this is like the territory that I can have some, I don't want to use the word control, but some sovereignty over and being able to like, just live their lives in like whatever, gender they decide to or in whatever ways they decide to manage their fertility. Like, yeah, to me it's like very much interconnected. And I also think that that's why some of the work we've been doing with City of Silver and Tea is like centering queer and trans BIPOC people in the abortion movement. When I started doing ab- uh, doula work, because I used to be a middle-aged student at some point, and I used to do full-spectacular doulas, I used to do more birth work. Um, one of the things was that, you know, like, a lot of like cisgender women, like, specifically cisgender heterosexual women, don't really see the connections between, you between trans queerness and reproductive justice, but it's so intermixed. And that's also why a lot of folks doing this work around abortion doula, around reproductive justice, our people are queer, there are trans, gender nonconforming, not only in the US, but also in Latin America, a lot of the folks doing beautiful community-based abortion work are lesbians. They're queer, they're trans. And it makes sense because I think that it's like, we know how it feels to feel happy in your own body and how important that basic human need is to feel that way. So it makes sense for folks to be also highly involved in abortion and access. So it's very much to me intermixed politically, but also just spiritually too. Just the happiness and the extreme intense emotions that I feel when I think about kids being able to live. and the clothes and the gender presentation and just like that they feel comfortable and makes me like super happy. When I think about people having abortions, it's like super happy to me. So it's just like to me like so much of that, it's also just like very much like a spiritual, like a spiritual experience for folks to be able to experience that level. So like body, self or empty.

Madeleine:
Thank you. That was like, I feel like we could have a whole deeper conversation about this. And I, again, I just want to acknowledge like that what you're saying is so critical. Like, it's so important that people understand this, especially now. And it's making me also think about your role with seating as the New Mexico community care coordinator, you know, the farm working on the basically food justice as well and how it's all connected. And like, your identity as a non binary farmer farmer. Like, how what are your thoughts on like how we can collect. Okay, because like I feel like the industrial agriculture complex in the United States and everywhere else

Serpentina:
Thank you. Thank you.

Madeleine:
is a very like, like every, you know, system like very much feeding white leadership and destroying earth and our resources. And so, like, in regards to all of what you just said, what are your thoughts on how we can like, sort of build community around that or resist this complex that just builds more for other people

Serpentina:
Yeah.

Madeleine:
in power. there's colonialism.

Serpentina:
I mean, yeah, it is wild because it's also like who, you know, there's studies of like who owns land, right? And even just like farming land, it's like, I mean, historically, right? There has been like a huge push towards like white ownership in general, like historically, like why people have been giving so much access to be able to purchase, to be able to steal, to be able to like legally steal land. But even just talking about like, you know, currently in the US, like who has like the most like farm land ownership power. It's white people. And I feel like there is just now there's like bet like a bit more conversation around that. And I feel like there's more like queer farmers, specifically like queer BIPOC farmers are coming out and trying to, you know, make their way in there. I, you know, I, I farm in my house. So I don't necessarily have farmland, but because it's such a big space, I'm able to farm here. But that's kind of the way that I have gone into it. And then when I lived in Los Angeles, I was farming in my backyards. And the front lawns of apartment buildings, I was just asking the landlord, and then I was just making these huge gardens. So I think that, yeah, I think it's complicated, because I also. having this conversation with other farmers too, like young, like non-binary BIPOC farmers, like I don't really think agriculture can never be actually truly sustainable. I don't see agriculture being sustainable. Like it's just not. Even when it comes to like organic agriculture. there's just so much in there that I just don't really see that being sustainable. So to me, what I was telling my friend, it's like, what makes sense is like everybody being able to access a piece of land or a plot of land and you don't need that much to like grow what you need and trade. Like I don't, I think that's the only sustainable way to think about growing. It's like, you know, people being able to like do that. And that's also, you know, and I mean, all of that. but also just also thinking about like land back and living without like colonizer rule. I feel like that would be, you know, maybe we could see farming in a different way if we weren't living under, you know, like, you know, like a settler colonial rule. But ultimately right now, like in this moment, if somebody was to ask me like, what do you think is the solution to, you food and all that, I would say, I think people should just have plots of land where they grow. And yeah, most people, you know what I mean? And also having some kind of care of practice where folks can't do that level of labor because it is very labor intensive, especially growing food in a way that makes sense for the health of the earth. You're tilling a good idea, right? Like doing this massive watering systems, not a good idea. So a lot of times the practice of like, you know, you know, just kind of like low-impact food growing requires a lot of manual labor. So also like, okay, so if people, you know, like not everybody's able body, not everybody's young, right? So it just brings up so many levels of like how the culture that we live in right now, it's just so deeply not okay, right? Because when you're thinking about like people having access to food, people having access to plots of land to grow in, that you're also thinking like, oh, but what about the 90 year old elder down the street? He can do that, she can do that, they can do that, right? What about this person that has like 10 kids? Like how are they gonna be able to even have like enough time to like put into like growing food? You know what I mean? Like, so even just like thinking about like, you know, this, just like ways of growing regenerative, I can't even say that word. I think I said it. But it's also thinking

Madeleine:
Yeah,

Serpentina:
about like

Madeleine:
you said it, you said it.

Serpentina:
how society will have to like fully change. Like completely shift the way that we relate to each other. Like completely, you know, just thinking about like...

Madeleine:
Yeah, and I feel like

Serpentina:
and I'm going to be back.

Madeleine:
Hmm. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Serpentina:
Go.

Madeleine:
I'm just thinking about where I feel like that starts with food in so many ways, and it starts with community around food. And so it's this big lofty interlocking complex issue. But for me and for a lot of other people and for you, and oftentimes it comes back to community around food. And when you were talking about growing, and having a plot of land, I'm also thinking like, you know, I live in Brooklyn, like I don't, like a lot of people in cities and stuff don't have access to like plots of land, but there's so many great like community spaces and also just like your windowsill honestly or like, you know, anywhere you can is really, is really awesome to just like educate yourself and learn about how to like grow whatever it is, you know.

Serpentina:
Yeah, or even...

Madeleine:
And I'm also thinking about people.

Serpentina:
I was gonna say even mushrooms.

Madeleine:
go.

Serpentina:
Yeah, I was just gonna say that even mushrooms. So I have this online class that I did called, forget the name, but something about creating gardens in the apocalypse or something. And then so I was thinking like, you know, what can people do when they're living in apartments? And like, and they can't even, you know, touch the grass that it's like, which is also another issue, right? Just to see all of these patches of land are being unoccupied, grass, you know, straight up, plans should not even be there growing when they when we could have a whole orchard right? That's the other issue to in big cities. Just useless, horrible, like, planning because nobody's thinking about food security, right? Nobody's thinking about food security because the rich people don't care about food security because they have all the security they can't have. So mushrooms, like growing mushrooms in your apartment, you know, and then like sharing like mushrooms are So if you're growing mushrooms in your apartment, you can trade that for food. And they require like, you know, like human, kind of like not super sunny spaces. Just, just wanted to throw that out there.

Madeleine:
love that. How I guess this is kind of like, we kind of already talked about this, or you already kind of talked about this, but I'm thinking of like, the person listening, who's super pumped about getting involved with like a community garden or a farm or trying to grow their own food, like, I guess my question is kind of like, you can attack it from two ways. Like, my question is like, how does that person get involved or how does that person begin? But I'm also curious as to how you gained the knowledge yourself and like, was it generational? Like, was it from your family? Like, how did you, when you started and you were, you know, using tires and random things to like, build your garden, did you just have that knowledge already? Or like, how did you get involved?

Serpentina:
I mean, I didn't and I did. I think it's both. I didn't in the sense that I think I was like, when I first was like, I used to live in Oakland and I would see all of this lots. And I was like, I need to make that into gardens. So I started calling people. And I remember calling people and being like, hey, you're a lot, it's unavailable. I mean, it's empty and it's right next to my house. Can I make a garden? And they would not say, they wouldn't say, they'd be like, oh, no. is not here. You know what I mean? And then the next week, the fans would be reinforced. So I think that I wasn't able to like grow something until I was like 21. But I've been just like very interested, right? And then when I was 21, I started volunteering at this garden. And then my ex and I started just kind of like collecting random stuff to like make this like scared of failure. And I think that also gardening just teaches you so much about yourself. Because I was very scared of failure. I was just like, Oh my God, what if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't work? And then I was like, Okay, what if it doesn't? So just started planting things. I was just like, I'm going to just start plant like, why am I scared of planting? Right? And then I was also volunteering at a garden

Madeleine:
Thank you.

Serpentina:
at the same time. But then I think it's both. I think it's like, it was that, but I think also it was just me doing it, like honestly, just me planting random and being like, oh, that's so interesting how this plant didn't do that well, but this plant did really well. So I'm going to plant more of that. Or like, that's so interesting how this plant just seeded and you just start seeing all of this, you know, like arugula growing everywhere. So you're just like, okay, this plant is growing really well for me. So I think it was a combination of like, volunteering at a garden, actually doing it. And I'm talking about really, you know, just like, garden with like random stuff. We had no money at that time. We were using just like the soil from the ground. And then I think like the third part was also just growing up with my family that would talk

Madeleine:
Thank

Serpentina:
about plants.

Madeleine:
you.

Serpentina:
So like

Madeleine:
Bye.

Serpentina:
my grandmas would always like travel to Chile, and then just like save all of the plant like if they saw an apple that they like they would save that seed. And they would take it back to Peru, like they would hide it and like, you know, they would just like save all of the plant like if they saw an apple that they like they would save that seed. And they would take it back to Peru, like they would hide it and like, you know, they would just like save all of the plant like if they saw an apple that they like they would save that seed. And they would take it back to Peru, like they would hide it and like, you know, they would just like save all of the plant like if they saw an apple that they like they would save that seed. And they would take it back to Peru always be talking about plans, it would always be like, oh my god, look at that geranium, like let's mix it with this other geranium. Like I think it's just even just even if growing up I didn't necessarily do any growing, just hearing those stories of people being like, oh this person has this specific hand that makes this specific plan grow really well. So even just that idea of like plan connection really helped me because that's what, you know, I started plant doesn't grow that well for me. So I'm going to just grow this other plant. And I know that's going to grow. So now,

Madeleine:
Um

Serpentina:
I'm like, OK, I know that corn grows really well for me. I know that pumpkin grows really well for me. I've already done one season here. And those plants that I'm already getting, like, information, like, for some reason, this plant does really well here. For some reason, the quinoa that I planted, the first season I planted here does really well. So let me save those seeds and keep planting that, right? So I think it's like a combination, but also just like growing up culturally And that environment of people talking about plants, like there are more than just inanimate objects, just like kind of like plants choose you, like you will, you know, like you have a good hand or people talking about like, you know, the ways in which like even just like your hand and how you plan things and kind of like intentions around planting, like have so much to do with, with like how they grow. And then, you know, I think that I've also just done some more digging into like what? culture is for folks in the Andean region. And even just, I'm not trying to be like, I'm not trying to be like the Inca Empire was great because I think there's also a lot of horrible things that happen in the Inca Empire, like any empire. But the Inca Empire, like a lot of the celebrations were around agriculture. So like agriculture has been huge for people in the Andes. Like huge, right? To the point that, you know, you have people saying that, well, not saying I do believe in that, Machu Picchu, which is one of the wonders of the world, was actually a place in which it was a place where people would experiment different planting techniques. That's how important it is to grow food and to grow plants in the Andean region. I think that connection and the falling in love with the plants and falling in love with the foods and then being like, wow, I can grow corn, I can grow traditional foods from my side of the world here and just kind of like that home connection even as a migrant really kind of like shaped how I learned about plants. I think it's like all of those three. But I would say that people are trying to get into farming or gardening, just do it. Don't be scared or failure, just do it. See if you can volunteer at local gardens. Ask people, you know, because I think that one of the things too that I would see the sidewalk. There's still elderberries that have planted, some native trees that are growing on the sidewalk. Just plant. Don't ask people for permission. Just plant some native plants in the sidewalk. They might make it. You know what I mean? Plants like elderberry, in New York, I think it would also grow in New York. But native elderberries, too, you can cut them down and they keep growing. So there's plants like that that you can identify and then just like, start growing. feeling ever so good little spot in your city or even asking friends you know maybe you don't have access to a yard but your friends have a huge yard so you can tell them hey can I plant things in there you know like kind of resource sharing in that way yeah I think that that's that would be my my recommendation

Madeleine:
That's the best recommendation ever. Just do it.

Serpentina:
Let's

Madeleine:
Just

Serpentina:
do it.

Madeleine:
do

Serpentina:
Let's

Madeleine:
it.

Serpentina:
do

Madeleine:
It's

Serpentina:
it. Yeah.

Madeleine:
like, just do it.

Serpentina:
And they're so,

Madeleine:
Oh,

Serpentina:
so

Madeleine:
thank

Serpentina:
like...

Madeleine:
you so much, Sarah. This is

Serpentina:
No, it's

Madeleine:
There's an echo. There's an

Serpentina:
Wendy.

Madeleine:
echo.

Serpentina:
Sorry.

Madeleine:
There's a delay.

Serpentina:
Because I was also thinking that, yeah, that works. And then also, there is classes online. There's a lot of herbalists and farmers that do classes online. Like I have classes online and people still take them and I recorded them like three, four years ago. And just like finding people that you connect with, that you're like, oh, I really like how this person, because a lot of herbalists also do growing classes. because there's a lot of connection between like you know herbalists and gardeners and people that like grow their own herbs. So you can probably find a lot of folks out there that have like online recorded classes or like how to grow plants. So if you don't want to go to a garden and like you know learn directly or you don't have access to that you can also just take online class.

Madeleine:
of it. Thank you so much for all this wisdom. I feel so motivated now. I'm so excited. And I hope whoever's listening feels the same way. Is there anything else that you feel like you didn't

Serpentina:
Thank

Madeleine:
get

Serpentina:
you.

Madeleine:
to talk about that you wanna talk about? I think I'm gonna go back to the beginning. I think I'm gonna go back to the beginning. I think I'm gonna go back to the beginning. I think I'm gonna go back to the beginning. I think I'm gonna go back to the beginning.

Serpentina:
I think so. Yeah.

Madeleine:
Okay, great.

Serpentina:
Yeah.

Madeleine:
Just just giving that option,

Serpentina:
Thank you.

Madeleine:
you know.

Serpentina:
Thank you.

Madeleine:
This is so so juicy. I'm gonna end the recording. Wait, I'll just end it by saying thank you so much for all of this. Yeah, it was so juicy and I hope that the listener is like excited and just feels like an expansion of and that this is multiple interlocking fights. And sometimes it starts with growing your own food and helping others in your community who don't have access or can't do it. And so that's how we're going to get to the point where we're going to be able to do that. And that's where we're going to be able to do that. And that's where we're going to be able to do that. And that's where we're going to be able to do that. And that's where we're going to be able to do that. And that's where we're going to be able to do that.

Serpentina:
Yay, thank you.

Madeleine:
Yay! Okay. Okay, I'm gonna end the recording now.