Episode 9: Collaboration Is the Soil

In Episode 9 of Of Seed and Soil: Unincorporated Voices of Food, Farming, and Freedom, we hear from Dara Monifa Cooper, a long-time food system advocate, connector, and visionary based in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

For decades, Dara has been a quiet force in the movement—uplifting farmers, sharing critical information, building bridges, and pushing for systems-level solutions that reflect the power and potential of Virgin Islanders. Whether through grassroots work or organizational partnerships, her leadership is grounded in collaboration, accountability, and collective liberation.

In this episode, Dara shares:
-----Why cross-sector relationship-building is essential to a thriving food system
-----How we can hold each other accountable while still moving forward in love and alignment
-----Her vision for how Virgin Islanders can create solutions from within that sustain both land and people

This is a thoughtful and energizing conversation with someone who has long been doing the behind-the-scenes work to keep our farming community informed, empowered, and connected. Dara reminds us that liberation isn’t a solo act—it’s a collective rhythm rooted in trust, transparency, and shared purpose.

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🎧 Subscribe for more stories that honor the people, land, and relationships shaping the future of food in the Virgin Islands.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome to Of Seed and Soil, Unincorporated Voices of Food, Farming, and Freedom. I am Summer Sibley Brown, your host. I hope this is not the first episode you are joining us on, but if it is, I want to say welcome. Um, this podcast is about telling and capturing the stories of farmers, fishers, healers, um, cultural bearers, and people who are in the food system. So that's everybody. Um, and today it's specifically about people who work to support um the people who are in the food system. And so I have with me the incomparable, um, Daryl Monifa Cooper. And I'm happy to have you on the show. Hello, Daryl.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Man, it's a big one.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Incomparable?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Break that down.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

I well, I can't compare nobody to you. Oh, you are you are you uniquely, so you are actually incomparable to anybody else I know because you bring your own, you bring your own magic to the table.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Thank you. How are you? Happy to be here, happy to be here. Grateful. I always start by saying grateful for what is and what is not could be that we don't want.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

So grateful for what is and what is not that but could be, because there are things that we don't want. Um thank you. That's like super powerful and very grounding for me in this moment because there is a lot that is, um, and there's a lot that could be, and there's a lot that we're just navigating. So when I see you, in many ways, um I see a mirror. Um, and in work ways in my professional life, like in my community, I see a mirror as a sister, somebody who is a Virgin Islander who loved the Virgin Islands. I see a professional mirror, somebody who has spent a great part of their life supporting food and farming and agriculture in the Virgin Islands. And I know you deeply, but I would like to give our listeners a chance just to like meet you. So if we could start with like, who is Dara? What are some of the things that she values, and what are some of the things that you've done? Um, I think that would be a great starting point.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Okay, thank you. Who is Dara? And let me start by saying that a lot of people know me as Dara Monifa. Um Jean Emmanuel was uh mentored to me, and he called me Dara Monifa more than anybody I knew, and it stuck. And um, I was born Dara Monifa, so it's not a name that I created myself. My father and mother, not sure who exactly, but somebody, somebody, one of them or both had a book of West African names and named my sister and myself. Uh, so Dara and Monifa are both from West Africa.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

And I start in describing myself by deciding which part of their definitions to share. So Dara means beautiful, and Monifa is a gift to the community. So I'm a beautiful gift to our community.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Ashay, I accept that because that is how I see you and um receive you and your energy, right? As a beautiful gift to the community. So, like, yeah, you that's you are your name. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, so I born and raised on St. Thomas, taking back, stepping back, sticking back. My mother's side maternally is Ga.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

What is Ga? And so I don't know, Ga?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Ghana, West Africa. So some people call it tribe, so we'll use that word for now. But Ga tribe, Ghana, West Africa. So that's where her maternal maternal will come from. And she was born on St. Kitts, her mother, Nevis. My father, same thing, St. Kitts, his father St. Kitts. So I have St. Kitts in my background, which means the whole Caribbean, right? And I was born on St. Thomas. I'm the only one in my family that was born on St. Thomas. I tell people I'm 50%, 50% Kittician and 100% Virgin Islander. Okay. United Virgin Islander, because we have the Coopers on Tortola as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Okay. Yes. Um, so it's funny because my mother is from St. Kitts. Um, and uh I've never been there, but like I am in her lineage, I am the first person born in St. Thomas, right? Because she came to the Virgin Islands when she was eight. And but on my father's side, you know, they've been there for a hundred plus years. So like it's so I I resonate with like, oh yeah, we sketch the tea, we sketch a chance together. But I don't know if they're gonna let me claim it because I never actually been there. So, right, you are you you can clearly articulate your African Ghanaian descent. You know that you are of the Caribbean because there's parts of you that directly come from St. Kitts and Nevis and have been nurtured and cared for and built in the Virgin Islands with that whole self, um, that beautiful gift to the community. What did you choose to do? Like, what is some of your professional exploits that you took on?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Well, what I was told, and I'll start there because some memories I don't have anymore right now, uh, but by the elders in my community that watched me grow from very young, they said that I was always walking around the neighborhood, knocking on doors, looking for news and sharing it with everyone. So I heard that I was born to be the official Millie Queen. That's what MC. Uh and I was born on the University of the Virgin Islands uh campus.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

For real?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

St. Thomas. Okay. Both parents are faculty at the university. So my father's been there for longer than I've been alive. Um I don't have my age, I'm 46. And my mother, too, was also there. So he's a linguist. My mother was into the maths and business, and so I have a combination of the math and the English and all of those things. And being born on the university campus, or at least, yeah, I was Nude Hansen, yeah, the hospital. But you know what I'm saying. Raised on the university campus from that young, what I truly appreciate from that experience, more than anything else, in terms of what helped to form me, is that on the other side, just yards away from where we lived, was Michael J. Crow and Terrace Projects. And so I literally had the projects on one side and the university and academia on the other side. And that explains a lot about who I am in many ways.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

I want you to go deeper. What does it explain? Because for our listeners, um, if you have never been to the Virgin Islands, you know, she's describing mostly the western, you know, you're talking about the western end of St. Thomas. And um really the beauty of being such a small place, right? There's not a lot of distance. So when you're talking about the University and Kerwin Terrace housing communities, right, they share the boundary. Yeah. They like it is a like fence, not even a not even a whole fence line, a fence line break between. Correct. Um, and then there's a golf course in the middle while the on the other side. Correct. So anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

So that means I was raised both in academia and in the projects at the same time. And always found myself merging the two in one way or the other. And in many ways, I'm not ashamed to say that I appreciated those in the projects more than on the campus, in many ways, and I respected them more. Um, and part of that is because you know, I was around it all the time, and so I didn't have a full appreciation of academia and the bureaucracy, and the way that they sometimes, some of them, tend to look down at the rest of the community. And also in reverse, the way that those in the projects tend to look up at academia. And so in my mind, I wish that was shifted from very young.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

And you had level vision, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

No, I had, but what felt right to me was that everybody treated each other respectfully and that everyone had something to offer. And that's always been the case. So in that neighborhood, I had elders like Roy Watlington who remembers me knocking on the doors and creating the newspaper for my news, um, along with other um members of the community, there are the children, my sister, and so on. So I've always been a conduit for information between people and between the community and the government or the community and academia. And I didn't always appreciate that. So I know that now. I'm an artist, first and foremost. I am an artist multimedia. Um, not everyone knows that. I'm a musician. Um I'm a graphic designer, but I'm also an illustrator and all of those things. But most people wouldn't know that. They might know I'm a poet, they might know I'm a this, they might know that. But those things never got fully exposed. And I keep them for myself, for my own therapy a lot of times. And so I don't share everything with everyone, but there's a lot that I have and that I do.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

I don't think anyone should share everything with everyone in business. So every, yeah, everything in everybody, business. That that much is true. So, my question then, right, because um I think what we're bringing to the forefront is that you still are a conduit for information. Um, my experience of you, and we're talking professionally, but even on a community level, again, um, a lot is sharing information, uplifting information, posting, resharing social media, teaching elders how to use technology. Um, how did you come to be in relationship with our farming and food community here in the Virgin Islands?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Jean Emmanuel, Raskanaya, Jean Emanuel, Raskanaya, Jean Emanuel, Raskanaya. So my father and my brother. And while, of course, Jean Emanuel is not my biological father, and Raskanaya is not my biological brother, they are. And those are the two that I remember most who connected me with our cultural community, our Rastafarian community, our Pan-African community. And while my parents also had a lot of Pan-Africanism that people wouldn't know within them, uh, because they shifted to protect the family. There's a lot that was learned nonverbally. There was a lot that was learned energetically. Um, Garveism is in my blood. And I won't get as much in detail with that right now. But my father's side especially, we're always people who are in the movement. We're always people who are assisting in some way, usually on the intellectual, hidden, invisible side. But it is who we are, it is who I am. I've always known that before knowing who Garvey was. And so the Garveyism, the Rastafarianism, the Pan-Africanism, the all of these things came to me through those who were in my community directly. And so again, though the names that I mentioned, my parents themselves, uh, and then just everyone who I ended up becoming connected with for both personal and professional reasons.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

So what I want to get into is what has your it's like if you were to create like a timeline or a compendium of your experience supporting and being a part of our food and farming community, like what would be like give me the top three or four milestone moments that you've been like, here, this this shaped me a little bit, this pulled me in, this pushed me out. This this is where I am now. Like, so we could like I want to get into that. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Sure. So I I'll I'll start from what's coming to me. School, Crowwin Terrace, Alida Cankrine, Charlotte Malley High School. We got a little stint in Al Saints Cathedral School, but I didn't want to wear a little cap, so they just said I weren't walking. So I went right back to Cohen public. Uh and one day in Antilles, which also didn't walk, so I went right back again. That and many experiences within there, the communication arts showcases, so doing public speaking from a very young age, writing poetry, doing t-shirt designs from elementary school, all those things led me around other artists and culture bearers. And so that set a foundation for the appreciation with that and documenting and archiving and communicating in those ways. Come out of high school or coming out of high school, we are a lot of us have a story of a hurricane that made us go away and come back. Yep. So Hurricane Marilyn was mine. I moved to Orlando for a little while, got more into graphic design and photography, um, wanted to go to art school, got a partial scholarship, and then I had a choice. And the choice was stay up here another year, away from home, and get the full scholarship to my dream art school, Savannah College of Art and Design. Or come home. And I came home. I came home. Um, I'm somebody that's always gonna feel like I want to be home and I want to help home, and I need home to help me. And you need home to help you. So that will never change. So I can think of that moment because that allowed me to come back home, and then I did early admission to UVI, so I actually did not stay with my classmates. All the rest of them leave me. More of them were supposed to come, but I was the only one that came that year. No shade on them for deciding to do what they wanted to do. I still did some of my 12th grade at Shaolin Mali and did a lot as a full-time student at university. That led me to some things that were happening in the journalism area at the university, but it also put me closer again to Gene Manual because he was then a professor there. So that's where I was comfortable. So I was always around him. At the time, he was the African Heritage Committee advisor. So I started doing that. And as my time shifted and he left, I then became that for while I was at UVI. The journalism came in because UVI didn't have an art program. And my father said, Well, you can design newspaper, you could take pictures, you could write, you could use all of your other talents. And so I said, okay, hesitantly. I didn't want to do journalism. I can't stand mass media. I can't stand the way that it's abused and abusing information to manipulate people in a way that's destructive. So that's not something that I personally wanted to do because at the time that was where I sighed, and I didn't know to myself that I didn't have to do it that way. So I failed many journalism classes because I refused to follow the rules. And eventually I got my degree, maybe 11 years later, uh after having two children and going and coming back and all those things. Living all the ways life happens. All of that, after spending too many days on Brewer's Beach instead of being in class and playing dominoes in a lounge. But you know, it all formed who I am. And in all that time, I was also connected to Raskanaya, who is then connected to the Bordeaux Farmers. We grew food, all of that. And so I was doing all of that in the middle of my my development. And like relationship building and just getting slowly and slowly more intertwined. Yes. Exactly. So those are moments that I could think of. Coming back home then and doing that, coming back home again in 2002 after living in Oklahoma for a couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Oklahoma?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

I got married, military. Yeah, that's where that's where he was. Had a child, you know. Okay. So went to go do that for a little while and then moved from there to Chicago and then came back home in 2002. About eight months pregnant with Majestic, my daughter, the only daughter, the one in between the boys. And that is where Raskanaya picked me up straight to Emancipation Garden. We were honoring Rastafari Queens. And he put me straight to work because he already knew. So, again, that's another very, very pivotal point because that's now where I was reintroduced to the community again in a way of service. Now I'm bouncing around the place with my belly, and two women saw me and they kind of cooped me for a little while. And at a certain point, they they left their place in the ceremony, and they just come and they sit me down. I said, You need to sit down. You need to sit down. Dr. Chenzira Kahina and Dr. Wendy Koram.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

So that's where now my connection to kemetic spirituality and a whole lot of other things that Wendy also helped me with came about. And so, again, another pivotal point for me. And so I've been doing what I was doing with We Grow Food and with the farmers before I even started working at the university through community. So advocating for them, like you said, teaching technology. Kanaya was doing some of that, and I would help to teach him to do certain things, start their social media, start their webpage. So Kanaya and I were working together to support WeGrow Food. He was learning things, doing way too much. Treasurer Secretary, whatever, whatever, whatever. And then whatever parts he couldn't or didn't know how to do yet, I would be tasked with by him. So that's where those connections came from. And then on my birthdays, sometime, I don't remember which year, I saw a flyer about being a graphic designer for the Cooperative Extension Service. And that's where my connection with professional work for farmers related to communication started.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

You know, I think I say, you know, and I like I step back and I think it's really important because the whole premise of this podcast is to like to unfold the textures underneath um farmers, fishers, food, and everything we see. Because like when we talk about food, the food system, it has been industrialized and commercialized and engineered, right? Um, to erase the humanity of it. And so it's like, where do we get to reintroduce our people? Because none of the things that we eat on our plate get to us without humans. Um and it's made it somehow, and this is like me, hopefully, no, this is me. It it's almost like, you know, like we've justified when you cannot see a thing, however it's treated or however it functions, you don't have to worry about it. Just worry about the quality of the end product, right? So in this storytelling, that's what I hope like our listeners are hearing, that there's a whole human story happening. And Mia, you are definitely going to talk about what that means for we grow food or what it means for farmers, or what it means for the work that you you do now. Um, but that's important for people to understand, like, oh, wait, they ain't off topic. No, you are the topic because the humans in the system, they really, really, really matter. And until we start acting like it and walking with that value in the consciousness of us, like we won't heal the food system and we won't heal the earth and we won't heal the environment. Like, none of the things that are up for a new uh a new version, right? None of the things that are being redesigned will be redesigned if we don't start with just like this. So thank you. Like, thank you for highlighting the whole journey and calling the names that you called, because what it also says is it's not me alone. There's an us vibe happening here, and there's different people who stewarded me in different ways, and they matter, and I remember them because I think we have a call to remember each other, um, regardless of what stage of relationship we're in with any human, right? Like we add value to each other. Something like, yeah, I just want to stop and be like, yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Thank you. I receive that. I receive that. I receive that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

So what I experience of you, right, is I experience this very powerful um voice who tells the truth, um, even when people don't want to. That's a business. Um I experience a community organizer, I experience a person who can manage lots of information and get it to the right places. And I wanna, so that's my experience of you. And I want to ask like, how have you used That one, do you feel like that's an accurate interpretation? Because that's what I'm interpreting of you. Um, and two, how have you used that in the past or in the near future to like continue to um move progress? Because I also see you as very like solution-oriented and progress-oriented, like you could name the problem, but you actually don't you always encourage people to move past it. That's something else I experienced. So, yeah, I don't know if that was actually a question, but it's a thing that I stated that I'm asking you to respond to.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Okay, actually, actually, it is what it is. Um, the interpretation is accurate because it is yours, and it is for me to also listen and learn from as a reflection of myself, uh, and where I can add value to your interpretation is that yes, I do see definitely solutions-oriented, sometimes to a fault, because some people are at a place where they need to stay in the problem a little bit longer, and there is value to that at times if we are not harming ourselves. If we are not harming ourselves, if we are not harming ourselves, all right, and so I'm very analytical, very heady, um, not the most emotional person at times, which I'm working on, and to find balance. You're not alone, yeah. Yeah, I know. You're not alone, I know, and so for me, that delves into the place of how we handle our traumas. And for those of us that are very heady, life is not lived in the same way as those who allow themselves to be emotional. We try to solve the problems without feeling the feels, and so that is the stage that I'm in now. So now I'm putting that out first to then go back to what you asked in terms of the ways that I have been.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

I've been in my head saying, is she preaching to me right now? Because I but anyway, we're gonna get back to the rest.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Right. Okay, so and I'm going to ask you to reiterate your question because what came to me while you were asking is that is not what I'm doing anymore, that is not what I'm doing anymore, that is not what I'm doing anymore. Um, and so I actually released a lot of it, but I want to respond to some of the ways and things that you were asking about because it's important and it is an important part of who I have been and what I have been doing.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

So I think that's beautiful to hear that's not what you've been anymore, because one, um, I'm I will restate what I said, and then I will be happy to witness and acknowledge and appreciate and receive the release because there's something you said that inspired a feeling and a thought in me. So, what I said is I experience you as, let me see if I could get it, someone who manages lots of information well and gets it to people, someone who uplifts and gets people's information to a lot of spaces, primarily via social media. I see you as um someone who is progressive and solution-oriented. And I see you as one other thing, uh a truth teller. Okay. I believe I said a truth teller.

unknown 25:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

I think I feel like I'm missing something, but like that was the gist of that's four.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

That's a lot we're gonna do. That was that was a lot. That's what it's about. Very good recall. Um, yes, truth teller, that is the most liberating thing for me right now. So, as much as people say that I've already been doing that, it's on another level right now.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Uh-oh. It's on another level.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

I mean, that's good, but uh uh. Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Well, well.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Well. Yeah, and and that's at all levels. So family will tell you, colleagues will tell you, community will tell you, yeah, she ain't holding her tongue. She never did, but she ain't holding it anymore. Because it's time to heal and it's time for us to re-strengthen ourselves. And sustainability starts with self. So we have to stop the abuse that we are doing to ourselves by allowing others, including ourselves, to manipulate and abuse us in a way that is not productive for the work that we need to be focused on right now. I share, I received that. Okay. Uh, in terms of managing multiple forms of information and using multiple channels to share it, that is part of my work. Even before the degrees, that is part of my work. And it is what I do, and I know it's what I'm here to do. Uh, so yes, in terms of what I have professional whatever with, my degrees are communication. You know, new media journalism. Uh uh, and that must that just means all of the things the photography, the videography, the audio-related things, the TV, the radio, the newspaper, all of the things. The little thing we used to make with a cup on the string, and yeah, whatever works, the smoke signals. The quiet communication that we still know how to do when we are quiet enough. All of those things. So I'm I'm a channel for communications from one thing or one place or one level to another. And I know that. And I know that. Uh, and so on the professional sense, that just means I can do the PR, I can do the this, I can do the that. Yes, the social media is just one platform right now, uh, the mobile to mobile and all of those things. And I find that I'm a strategist when it comes to communication. So everything I'll work for these people, I'm not gonna use it. But for the people that's going to use it and that it will be effective with, I will use it. So being able to manipulate multiple forms and using multiple types of mechanisms for that is something I'm very grateful for learning how to do. Very grateful because it's audience-based.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

You said two things, and I'm gonna take us back a little bit. Um so this is like maybe five beats back in the conversation, but I had a feeling and I had a reaction to it, so I want to bring it forward again. You said, and then I want to tie it to something that you just said. You said that there are people who like or need to, you said need to stay in the problem a little longer, and that that can be helpful as long as it's not causing harm. Yes. Um, my some days, not every day, but some days in my work, if I am transparent, I experience our farming community as people who are stuck in the problem. Yes, right? I've never seen it like true. I've been transparent. I've like, I don't know how to make it helpful, only to acknowledge that that is their true lived experience and that they carry a lot of pain, non-verb, like verbalized and non-verbalized pain, and that it has hindered our ability to trust each other, yes, and it has hindered our ability to believe that something else is possible. And then in our conditions, are you know, the government, government, government, government, the way we experience them. Um, and just like even natural climate reinforces, right? Like these um really hard failure times, which reinforces the problematic narrative. I tell I'll not ever walk, nobody don't ever help me. And I'm out here like, I'm helping you, I'm helping you, I'm helping you, or at least I'm trying, because the things that I'm trying to do don't feel like help to them because they're in the problem and the solutions that I'm trying to offer are impacted by government, and so they don't it don't translate to them accurately. And so I'd be like, why are we still in the problem? What you just said, which made me like pause and step back, that sometimes being in the problem could be helpful if they need to be there longer as long as it's not causing trauma. Um yeah, you think us being in the problem causing trauma?

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Mediation. Talk to me. Say to help me, mediation is your response. So I say that one word so that you understand an example of staying in the problem. So what's happening is the decoding that you're doing when I speak about staying in the problem is based in the dysfunction of not allowing yourself to see the entire problem as much as we can see. What we see part of the problem are the other parts outside of ourself. But if you focus on some of what is causing the problem within ourselves, with others who share this problem, we can break down some things. And then the problem will eventually become lesser and not be a problem, but be a challenge that we are collaboratively working to decode. So, mediation, I said that one word because it is an example, I'm repeating, of how we can stay in the problem, but now in a different way than how you heard it before, so that we can together figure out what this problem really is. Because a lot of times the problem isn't what we think. I agree, you know. So if we're working on our part of what's causing the problem, and the other person is also working on their part of what's causing the problem, which takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of humility, it takes a lot of people poking you and saying, You ain't see what you're doing. In the vaginal as we don't poke, we don't chuck you up one time. You're getting a chuck up. Yeah, so that's just one example. And mediation is one of my gifts, right? Um, yes, through some training, but more through the need, and I guess what the ancestor decided that I needed to be able to do. Journalism in the healthy way looks at multiple perspectives and helps to communicate multiple perspectives. Mediation does the same thing. And if you are an effective communicator, then you can communicate to multiple sides the bigger perspective or the other perspective that maybe we're not at a place where we can accept or see because we're stuck in maybe victim mode, we're stuck in this, and something needs to come out of you. So go right ahead.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

No, because this is like for me thinking, right? So when we think about mediation and we think about in our community, it's all of us. So accountability and responsibility to seeing myself, Summer, the organization Virgin Islands Good Food, as part of no matter how old or young you are, you are part and parcel of what the system experiences. So that means you're part of the solution, but you're also part of the problem. Yes. Right? So, how do we get people and organizations, specifically organizations, right? Because I I think people need it too, but I'm thinking about an organizational lens to kind of humanize the organization and allow it to be a full entity that has the ability to reflect wholly and be like, hmm, I need to be chuck up right now. Yes, and I need to take accountability and understand my responsibility for being part of the solution and part of the problem. Because, like, I'm gonna speak from good food. We need to do that, right? Because we're doing other than that, we're doing exactly what you said. We are othering the problem as though we are outside of it, which means we will never fix the whole, we'll never be able to address the challenge collaboratively because it's the finger pointing, look what it doing, not look what we are doing, or here's how I contribute to what people experience. And I just think that's super powerful. And I don't know how do we invite other organizations and how do I like ensure that my organization and the people whom inhabit it are authentically prepared to take ownership for our roles and come to the table where other organizations who serve have the same mindset. Like, how I look at me, sick genie in a bottle, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Okay, so oftentimes when I speak, I have no idea what's coming out of my mouth. And I mean, I love that remember after I've said it. I love that. I'm so grateful that this is being recorded because a lot of things have not been recorded and I need to get them back. But other people then say them back to me. So it is as it should be. I'm gonna use what you just shared and reflect that back to you. Um, and just summarizing quickly and reiterating what you said in a different and shorter way. How do we get? So there's people, there's the organization, right? And first of all, you can't separate them. Can't you cannot separate them. You want the, I mean, you said you want to focus on the organization, but there is no separation because organization is made of people.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

I was just about to say that.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Jinxies organizations are made of people. So we tend to separate them. We we tend to do that because me, the human being that's having this experience and the work that I do with others is two different things, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:06

No, no, but we've been trained and indoctrinated, right? Like in our compartmentalization of our human experience and our professional experience to be one thing at work and to be one thing at home, or at least to pretend to be. Many of us don't do that successfully. And in trying to integrate, like, I'll be transparent. VI Good Food is trying to be a whole human-centered organization. And many days we feel like we're failing because, like, to be proficient and efficient and effective, um, the way funders and partners and everybody needs you to be, and deal with the humanity of what is happening between across eight women between race, gender, class, personality, um, trauma all in one space, it's just be like, it's like, you know, sometimes you just want to go back to being like, should I just bring back in the colonizers' way, right? Because maybe we could attend to the work and easier. Um, that's a choice that we're never gonna make, but I will not say that it'll be like, oh my God, can I just cut, can we just cut through all of this and separate it for a minute so we can achieve the grant objectives. And that is something we are navigating all the time. So I I appreciate the fact that in our conversation this is being surfaced because I think it's part of the work that also is unseen. When you hear we grow food, Island Food Security, Virgin Islands Farmers Alliance, we have compartmentalized that these are organizations, and but organizations are built from people and real people in and living happening within them. And the system was, and we have never been taught how to run human-centered organizations, which I'm endeavoring to do, and it's really, really, really, really, really, really hard people like hard.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Organizations root word is organ.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Right?

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Okay, so three words that came to me while you were saying a la da. Be human publicly, be human publicly, meaning, yes, we were indoctrinated, we were dead. Dash with that, dash with that.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

So look, we on the podcast, on a podcast episode with Randall and Lindsay. I don't know if it's on camera, but definitely in our post-conversation, Randall, teach me about this. He said when he was small, he used to blow things off. So, yeah, dash with that dash with that blowing it off, dash it way.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

I'm happy to do that. We've been in doctrine, but I don't even want to focus on saying those things anymore. Let's not, because we know we know that that is the case, but we also know enough to reverse it, or at least as much as we can in our lifespan. We know as much as it can and be done publicly, those who are able to do it. We have we don't learn from who tell us what not to do. We don't do what we see being done from children and parents to adults and adults. So we have to be real publicly. And the fear in that that prevents some of that from happening is the palatrics that goes along with being public when you're not perfect, like anybody is perfect. And the fear of, oh, I need a job, so me want to let them know that I'm experiencing some mental health challenges. Me want to let people know this, me want to truth to it, it exists. Humans are doing some really ridiculous things to each other because of the fear of imperfection. And like you talk about surface, everything is the surface, we gotta be pretty big appeared to look on the camera and clips. We could we could do all of that too. We could do both, right? Because it's all us. Be human publicly. As an organism and an organization, there is a way to do that. And until we do that, we're gonna be in pretense, and that's not going to really help.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Let me, as we round this out, and like, because again, people is like, what's the name of this podcast? Um, Unincorporated Voices of Food, Farming and Freedom, I feel like we focused on freedom. Um, I feel like we focused on release. And my question to you, um, as we round it out, is what does any, in your perspective, in your wisdom, in your intuition, in your channeling, and all the ways information comes to you, what does any of this have to do with our farmers, with our food system, with our land stewardship, with our healing? What does our conversation that we just had actually mean? Or does it? It all does.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Food, farming, freedom. Everything is food. Everything is food is just different types. Everything is farming, is just different types. And everything is freedom that we are continuing to strive to get to, to create, to live, to fix, to come back. It's all related. It's none of it is separate because if we're human first, well, it might be spirit first, but if we're just in this context, human first, then we can't farm properly if we're not cultivating ourselves individually and collectively. Okay, and the food that we are consuming is the intentions of ourself individually and collectively. And the freedom that we are reaching for and striving for and stepping into every day, every moment, every breath, every thought, every anger burst out, every every all of it. That freedom can only be achieved collectively. Only, only, only. There's no way. Emancipation, liberation, freedom. They don't come without the steps. But some of the steps have to come from us being who we are as publicly as possible. Being human publicly.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Well, if you have just sat through and watched this episode, you know that we should be human publicly because Dara Monika says so.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Miss Cecil.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

She says so. But no, seriously, we want to invite you to like, subscribe, share, comment, and engage in conversations. This podcast is about the textures of our living, and it is about um releasing what doesn't serve and bringing in what will. And in this case, we're talking about food, farming, and freedom. And the challenge this week is I need you to go out into the world, go to a farmer's market, maybe, and be human publicly and engage in real conversations and empower yourself to release what you no longer need. Um, because that feeling that and doing that too is part of how we liberate ourselves on this journey. Thank you, and see you on the next episode.