I was born in the 70s in the southern Lebanon, but the birth was in Naba, in western or north. After the Lebanese Civil War, we moved to western Beirut. In 1977, my mother placed me and my brother at an orphanage. It was a small building, the orphans were like a few tens, not more than that. After that phase, I moved to a private school. And from that point, I started springing. Because in 1983 there was a joint contest. I took the first prize that traveled to France. When I came back, this matter stayed in my head and became even more encouraged. After my graduation from the secondary phase, I had been a vocational artist. I entered the Art Institute and graduated in 1995. This is the academic vocational phase, but a matter of drawing, as you know, after the painter graduates from college, he has to start developing and establishing himself. So I consider this period of time that I spent at the Art Institute is an experimental stage. And in order to develop my skills, I stayed alone at an atelier and engendered my own style. And I put much effort in order to become this new drawing, the criteria. And I started the Civil War in Lebanon. For some people, it might have been a negative impact. For example, a person who has lived as an orphan and spent his life as an orphanage. Considering also the financial situation that was bit on the edge. This can cause despair for a person, but I had a goal. I wanted to become a parent and a painter. In order to become a painter, you have to learn. This is why I didn't say fatherlessness and frustration. And vice versa, I used to stay if I wanted to get there. And I have to stay optimistic and I have to stay very happy. I did not have an obstacle because the target was there. Besides, when a person misses his goals in front of his eyes, he does not ask about obstacles or difficulties. Today, when I rewind those issues, I find them hard. I ask myself, I did that, but yes, thanks God. God has attained me what I wanted. I have been mostly on the color. I prefer the feature, the color, the most in my tone. And on the other hand, I consider the calipro field at another phase. And I started by just drawing lines to inking, such as Chinese inking. Perhaps changing a name with inking. I found that it started to receive acknowledgement and had some audience. I moved from this to the brush. I transferred from the pencil to the brush on the board. I enlarged that. I do admire drawing and calligraphy. But when I started with calligraphy in 2002, I used to draw abstractively. The handwriting was abstract for a certain type of people. But at the end, not all people are able to handle Quranic material. When you say Quranic material and you want to place it in a casual house such as for Muslims, they will read what I have written from the Quran. Sometimes you meet, for example, a secular person, a secular poet. He might prefer Arabic handwriting or an Islamic one. But he does not desire to be read. Yet he might take it. However, a person who reads Quran wants something artistic, drawn and read. For the past two years, until now I have started to prevail words written by calligraphy in general. When it comes to drawing, I started with surrealism. A little part of it was abstract. And today I draw expressive drawing. Expressive drawing is a bit close to impressionism. Nothing more, nothing less. But then you stare at the painting in all of its styles and diversities. You can still tell who is drawing this. Its name or drawing has become known without a signature. Self-development depends on the person himself. He is the one who is supposed to have the adequate reading of the environment he is presented in. And this person is usually called one of these people. But the wills will be like them. Some people raised their arrow. How do they do that? The one who leads all the society and its origin as well, he knows what's after this arrow. So for a person to develop himself, develop his era, he must treat you as an environment, a society around him, and must also have a reading outside those two. He must read outside himself as well. He must not be close. So we must take what is there in other's experiences in order to benefit from it. That's not wrong to develop from other's experiences or the sake of your self-development. However, I decided to isolate myself and say, I draw or nobody does or that this drawing that I drew or this art is only art present. I won't develop. I did an artistic piece that I want to present in a piazza. They will be astonished. For example, for a singer, an Islamic artist who has reached his goals, he reached his goals. This means that any person is able to get there, even if it were from another perspective, another gateway. But he keeps his Islamic identity. He must not conceive them. The Islamic art, what is the Islamic art? Is it Muhammadi art? There are several namings. Is it Muhammadi art, Arabic art? What is it then? There is still no definite identity that defines the Islamic art. They haven't given us yet the unified naming for the Islamic art. Besides, who invented the Islamic art? That's the question. Who has stated the name or the texture for the Islamic art? These theories made me review again and search again for something that housed me. Give people the main idea of this theme. This is when I wrote a book called Art and Its Influence in the Islamic Society. I took art, definition of art, how art affected the society, and what did we take from art? So I preferred to give the candid picture of our Islamic society's movement in the field of art. Who invented the Islamic art? What did this field influence in the Islamic society? I stayed in the field of drawing and calligraphy. This book, if God wills, when I'm through with it, but I'm waiting for the right conditions for me to finish it. Our beauty, no matter what happens, is to display the authentic art. If it is not wrong, we do not have a real school of art that is specially for us Muslims. But this Islamic art is absent. Islamic school of art is absent. We do not have it. Like the classical international school, we do not have art, but we take this identity from the social norm of Arab and product that is in an aesthetic way and we present it. But we do not imitate the Westerners and what it wants. No, we make benefit of Westerns in the areas that we want. The smart Westerners in the past took from the Arabs. We were left behind and they have reached what they have reached. They took from the Arab sciences, medicines, and so on. It had been all for Arabs. Today, we learn how to take from the Western art. That's not wrong, but we should establish our own identity. This is a painting for a Lebanese person, a Muslim, do you see? A Muslim, and then we take the rest. It is not wrong to say a Lebanese Eastern. This painting or this book, he did not conceive his identity. If I did not preserve my Arabic or Islamic identity, no, I shall fail. You might be able to sell pictures. I'm not refusing that and sometimes at very high rates. But how long does this last? It is by how a human being survives and how long he does. This is it. If this is not present, a human being is the man. Imam Ali is the prince of speech. When you speak about Imam Ali, he is the teacher of all Ahmadis upon them. All of the emma, he is their teacher. But why? What's this characteristic? You could see how he lived his life, how he dealt with people, how his attitude when dealing with his enemies was even with his beloved ones. Imam Ali, peace be upon him, even for those who loved him, what did he repeat on them? My issues and yours are not one for that I want you for God and you want me for yourselves. Why didn't Imam Ali conceive his identity? For his relationship with God had been very strong. And when this condition was present, he did not consider creatures. How did he conceive all those people? By knowing there is Allah. When you see Allah, you do not look at all of these people. Whether they clapped or not, whether they followed you or not, whether they have supported you or not, you just look at God.  He was brave and even when it comes to the Hajj Al-Balaqa in the field or the one who gathered Imam Singh, which is Sharif Al-Radi, are these enough?  Sharif Al-Radi was only able to aggregate the speeches of eloquence and place them in a book. But there are quotes for the Imam in regard of ideology, sciences, life and many other aspects that still have not reached us. All of these treasures are present and the parts left have not been received. Can you imagine the situation if they have all been handed to us? This is the characteristic of Imam Ali that really influences us. Imam Ali has a beautiful quote in which he says, I knew that the sustenance is within Allah's hand, so I have left off my hand of people and I knew that life and death is within Allah's hands. So I repose and I knew that heaven and hell is within Allah's hands, so I rested. Those are the most important things in life. If those are in Allah's hands, then what's their left fear? And one self who trusts in Allah and then Allah is his computant, then let's trust in Allah. Imam Ali mentioned how Prophet Muhammad had taught him a thousand doors of knowledge. Each door opens for me another thousand doors. This is what made Imam Ali overcome all of his peers and companions at that time, all the scientists of that time. His modesty is not found within any other person. He is known between people for his modesty, his wisdom, his stories with his brothers as the manager of the House of Funds for the Muslims. He used to distribute the money for all Muslims when his brother is well known for that story. When he asked him for more money since he was his brother, Imam Ali replied, do you moan from a fire heated by its owner and you do not moan from a fire inflamed by its creator? This is also a constitution for our society. Sometimes the other party would tell you, what is life? We live, we perish, but that's it. But Imam Ali, do you figure that you are a small mass and within you the greater world has been involved? So how would a person not love Imam Ali? On what foundations? No, after all the poet, the Buddhist Salami recites, all the sky, witness and all the earth confess and reveal, I have mentioned Ali. This is a Christian poet. And many other incidents that we mention from as Dirar with Muawiyah when he asked Dirar to describe for him the Prince of Believers and Dirar replied, do you guarantee my neck would not be cut off? So Muawiyah granted him that. He said, I do not copy the story literally, but the selections from it are as it goes. Yes, by the name of Allah, he had been long and for seeking, very strong, but justness speaks knowledge. He was amongst us, like one of us, and in this meaning he continues to reach.  And he cries as he says, O Dunya, temptate someone else. I have divorced you three times. No return from them for your living is despicable and your term is short. Oh, from the adversity and prop, the length of traveling and the farness of the course. So this is Imam Ali, the people who really knew Imam Ali, who really knew the Prince of Believers, who would ever look at someone other. So of course I'm really influenced by Imam Ali and let me tell you the reason. The Israelis have occupied southern Lebanon during the 80s. I was not able to leave the house. But by that time there had been something called the Iron Fist. I used to sleep at my brother's house and during the summer there had been no television. We can't get outside the house. So my brother and I used to compete who would memorize Imam Ali's speeches of eloquence. Each speech on its own. Imagine that. He and I would fight who has memorized more. And within three months of summer we have memorized a whole bunch of it. So we lived in that atmosphere and we have seen Imam Ali. Later on I expanded in his course. We are now present. He found richer quotes, way richer quotes. So I asked, where is Imam Ali's inside all of this? So I hope we are on the steps of the Prince of Believers. We invite all the U.S. to be creative. And the one who owns creativity shall not despair. If you do not love the subject you are living or dealing with, you cannot be creative. There is no creativity. Anything that you want to work at, develop by it or be creative at, if you haven't loved it, you won't be able to give any. So because I love drawing, whether I sell my paintings or not, I want to draw. I had a fair I hadn't. I want to draw. There's a war or not, I want to draw. Because I love drawing. I have granted it much time. Until I was able to reach a state that allows me not to freeze. Sometimes the human being enters a field that makes him freeze after he leaves university or dies. You find him drawing in the same rhythm, the same style and movement. I do not. I have a fair. The following year the fair is completely different. The drawings are of a different attitude from their predecessors. There is nothing so called as stagnancy. When you are stagnant, you perish. You have to always learn and always say, I still don't know anything. As you increase your knowledge, you say, I still haven't known anything. This is recited by Al-Mutanabbi. He says that if you want to be a poet, you have to memorize a thousand lines of poetry. Then you have to forget them all. After you do that, you start all over again. We must draw a thousand drawings. I want to consider that I haven't drawn any painting and start over again. A thousand, two, three, and maybe ten thousand as well. I will still repeat. I do not know anything. Just as I say, I'm a painter and ego hits me. The painter is terminated. Adding to that, there is a speech by the messenger, PSP, upon him. That is religious, but we are able to expand it to all our movements. The social, the practical, economic, and political. He was passing in a desert. The sun was very hot. The area was desolated. He asked his peers to gather for him firewood. His friend wondered where to get the wood from in a desert. He asked them to wander, and since they were hundreds, each handed a small piece of wood. And when they were gathered, they had an ample mountain. He told them that little sins are gathered to become great. This is a model. Today, in our society, if every youngster helped by a coin or two, maybe three or four, they would expand until they are able to open a project. Eventually, the artistic work is for the sake of approaching Allah. If Allah has a sake in selling these paintings, they will be sold. If Allah has a sake in selling these paintings, they will be sold. If he has no sake, it might be placed in charities for the orphanage. Nothing is wasted. Maybe in your life, you might not be paid. But maybe at this age, people are not going to accept. Maybe after a few generations, people are able to accept that there is this painter. So we must not be frustrated. We must trust in God and work and be creative at our work. There is a difference at this point. We must trust in God. If we weren't so, we won't be able to reach any of our goals. I really do hope from the young people who are really competing, that they should compete in artistic sciences. They must do it at their knowledge and at their universities. Compete and help each other. For Imam Ali says, make the favour for those who are worthy of it and for those who are not. If you do it, then you are worthy of it. The favour does not require individuality.  No. This is what I wish for all the youth, if God wills. We should benefit from our leaders. They must benefit from them as an experience, a story and a moral life. We should always look at God. We should stay ahead of us. We should stay humble. And if God wills, we will reach our targets and attain the most beautiful creativity in the world.


feeling inspired and hopeful. So this event is a lot about inspiration, which is great. This is our first one without any slides, so I hope you enjoy that. We like to mix it up a little bit. Slides can be great. We'll go back to those next week when we do building soil from the ground up, and that'll feature myself, Juan Alves, and Jess Rubin. Jess Rubin works for, she runs Myco Evolve and the Vermont Myco Nodes. She's a mushroom geek. I'm a soil geek, and Juan is also a soil geek with a PhD. So you'll get lots of geekiness next week. So I started the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition. We have little brochures on the table. We welcome everyone to join us. It does not cost any money, but it may cost some sanity in your email if you choose to sign up for our email list, which is really, really active. If you would like to get the notes from this event and stay connected with the outcomes of this event, please sign up on the list over here on the yellow paper. If you're already on the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition listserv, you will get everything there, so you do not need to do any more than that. I highly recommend that you get the notes. Lauren is here taking really great notes. And so what we do is we're keeping track of events over on the table to this side of the wall.  We also want to know about any events that are coming up, and we have three pages of printed out events that we have collected just in the last two events. So there are a lot of really great ways for all of us to be able to connect to existing opportunities in our communities and throughout our state, and that's part of what we want to do at Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition in building the social mycelium to hold our communities together. It is in staying connected and using soil as our model. We have some of these on the table, so take some and tell your friends about it. We're on Facebook. We have a raffle going. If you have not gotten a raffle ticket, please get one. Everyone gets one just for attending. You don't have to give any money. If you give us more than $5, you get extra tickets for every $5 you give us, and you win seven books potentially. Somebody wins seven books on April 24th. Those seven books are donated by our four women author speakers for this series from Vermont in New Hampshire. I think that is all except that I want to say behind me here, we have our sponsors. We have 23 total sponsors plus the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, which have made this event possible. So when you're out in the world, please thank all of those sponsors. I know right in this room right now we have Soil for Climate, Karl Teeterman from Soil for Climate. Soil for Climate is one of our sponsors. And Maddie from NOFA, Vermont. Maddie is also one of our sponsors. Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition and my business Grow More Waste Less are sponsors just because I've given so much of my time in this event. And Vale also, did I miss anybody in the room representing any of the Upper Valley Food Co-op? There's another one of our sponsors. So thanks so much. And I want to introduce Maddie Monti from Maddie Kempner. Maddie Kempner from NOFA, Vermont. Maddie and I have had the pleasure of working together over the years and I love every opportunity I get. And Catherine Oaks, who's a professor over at VLS. And so I'm going to turn it over to you guys. Oh, I'm going to start. You're going to start with a story. Okay. We've rehearsed all of this. So I'm all about story. In fact, one of the things that Vale has done in recent years is made a film, which actually, in two sessions, we'll do a little, we're going to do a little short segment from, which is a nice little story that relates to the program we're having. I think it's a great attempt. Resilience. So, this is a quote from David Corten. Some of you may know him. He's a writer. And he says, is it possible that the human future depends upon a new, sacred story, a story that gives us reason to care? Could it be a story already embraced by a majority? Although it has never has neither institutional support nor a place in the public conversation. For people generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and the value. The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of the present situation. We live at such a moment. Humanity's current behavior threatens Earth's capacity to support life and relegate more than a billion people to lives of destitution. This self-destructive behavior and our seeming inability to change have deep roots in the stories by which we understand the nature and the meaning of our existence. The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge. A story to guide us to mature relationships with one another and a living Earth. How is the volume in the room? Beth, are you able to hear? I want to invite you to come sit here right next to the speaker. Is anybody having trouble hearing or does it sound muffled at all? It does sound muffled. It does sound muffled. So I think that the key to using this microphone is to hold it about as far as I am right here. So you're not right up next to it, but you're like, see how it changes. I don't really need a microphone, but I'm going to use it anyway. I'd like to switch it over to Maddie and Catherine. I do want to let you know that we had two other women that were going to join us for tonight's event, and their names are Shaan Foulier and Cheryl Herrick. Catherine and Maddie and Shaan and Cheryl and I have had a few meetings. We do these Zoom meetings I've been doing with every panel so that we can talk about what we're going to talk about at these events. These four women have been amazing. It's been really incredible to work with them. Unfortunately, Shaan and Cheryl were not able to attend, but they seriously shaped not just this event, but the whole series with our conversations. They sent me with an offering that I'm going to read to you a little bit later. Bear with me while I dial in the microphone. Can you introduce me a little bit? I'll just tell you again, my name is Maddie Kempner. I work for NOFA Vermont, which is the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. My role at NOFA is two-fold. I am half-time membership coordinator. Trying to get people to join NOFA, I don't know if anybody here is a NOFA member. I think probably a few people are, but if you're not, please check us out and hope you'll consider joining us. My other role is policy. My role is policy advisor, so I do a large portion of our policy and advocacy work at NOFA. When Kat invited me to be part of this panel, I was a little unsure because I don't necessarily feel like I'm an expert in the area of storytelling or the stories in general in this context. But as we had these calls to plan for tonight with this group of women that Kat talked about, I came to realize and sort of was reminded that everyone has a story. My story and my contribution is as valuable as anyone's.  I'm really excited to be here to share what I can and also to listen to everyone else who's here tonight and I'm really excited we're going to have an opportunity to all hear from each other about how stories impact our lives and this really important work that we're all committing to together. And I also wanted to point out something that Cheryl actually mentioned on one of our calls, which I've been thinking about ever since, which is that I want to point out how we listen differently when we're being told a story. When we're preparing to hear a story we tend to open up, we lean in, we settle in. And I don't know if anyone else noticed themselves doing that as Chris started to share his quote from David Corden, but I certainly did.  So I think that was a really great way to start us and thank you for that. And yeah, I just think that's really very telling about the power of stories. So I'll pass it to Catherine next. When also just so you know Catherine and I are going to just go back and forth a little bit before we open it up to the rest of the room. Yeah, so my name is Catherine Oaks. I'm a research fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. In that role I'm coordinating the Healthy Soils law project. And as part of that we're working to identify ways that different members of our communities can work together to inform policy and create change that helps everybody. As part of that we're interested in learning the stories of farmers and different members of society, government agencies, nonprofits, community members, consumers, anybody who has anything to say about our food system and its connection to climate change. So with that introduction, Maddie and I are just going to bounce back and forth with some themes. And I'll start by saying, I guess I should say my background is in criminal defense. So in that role I found storytelling absolutely critical to the pursuit of justice. The problem with facts, which we like to adhere to and which we are so loyal to when we talk about certainty and justice and truth. The problem with facts is that they are devoid of perspective.  This is a classic example of two facts strung together, yet we know nothing about the story. Why was the baby crying?   You know, these are all between the facts exists meaning. And that is what stories allow us to access, is that meaning? So in addition to that, stories are not something that exists within each of us individually alone. Stories exist between us. So when I tell a story or when I listen to a story, the story exists between myself and the other person. Okay, so if somebody sees the story differently than I do, their interpretation is their own story. So the compiling and contending of narratives and stories together is not only critical to the pursuit of justice as I've experienced it in the law, but also in the way that we come to decisions as a community and creating that dialogue of stories and combining all of our perspectives together in conversation allows us to identify our shared story and in so doing pursue policy that is meaningful and successful. Yeah, so I think one of the things that I, what came to mind when Kat invited me to be a part of this tonight is how critical I think stories are to making policy change. And, you know, as Katherine said about facts and data, they're important. They're really important and they're really useful, but they only get us so far. And I've experienced this time and again while sitting in committee rooms in the legislature advocating on behalf of a particular bill. There are always a number of different people in the room testifying on any given bill. Some people come with a lot of facts and data and studies and I'll give you an example. So recently several of us in the room actually have been working on a bill in the legislature around pesticide use and taking really pollinator damaging pesticides called neonicotinoids out of the hands of homeowners. And when I was in the committee room testifying and waiting to testify on that bill, there was a huge variety of people in the room, a lot of beekeepers. There were environmental advocates. There were farmer advocates like myself. And this one woman, Judy, who has been a very steadfast pollinator defender and comes to every committee meeting where they're discussing pesticide regulation. Judy is amazing. She always comes with a literature review of the most recent studies on neonicotinoids and how they impact pollinators negatively. And that is one part of the story or one part of the approach that's so critical. And then the other part of the story that I think is really critical are the stories of beekeepers who come and share their direct experience with how many hives they've lost in the past year and how they've seen that change over time with the introduction of these more potent chemicals and how they feel like these chemicals being used on nearby farms are impacting their bees and therefore their livelihood. And so that's just one example and I could give you examples all day of how people's individual stories in the context of something as seemingly cut and dry as a piece of legislation really are what I think change the minds of legislators. Data informs legislators and that's also incredibly important but I think stories are really what change people's minds. And this is true stories also Catherine and I were talking about stories also in the context sounds really boring but in the context of kind of government and regulation. It's also really critical. We often think of government as this distant thing that impacts our lives but that doesn't really receive from us information about how it impacts us. And I thought about this a lot in the context and I don't know if folks are aware this is my policy alongside coming up but the required agricultural practices are a set of rules that were passed that impact a lot of farmers across the state and the goal of these RAPs supposedly is to help clean up our waterways which of course is something that everyone wants but for the agency of agriculture to write a regulation that can apply across the diversity and appropriately apply across the diversity and the different scales and locations and practices in Vermont with this singular goal is frankly I think maybe impossible to do really well. So while you know I was participating in that process advocating for rules that made sense for farmers and somewhat being frustrated by the kind of one size fits all approach that regulation often has to take I also really sympathize with these regulators who are trying to make these rules without the full context and so that's where people's participation and people's stories as part of that democratic process of making a rule or regulation is so critical because without that these people really don't have the context or the full perspective that they need to do their work effectively and in a way that really benefits all of us. This is really we're talking about feedback loops here. So feedback loops are the exchange of stories cyclically not linearly. So as Maddie mentioned government agencies are made up of people yes they're institutions and perhaps institutions hold power beyond some of the individual parts but regardless the person working on developing a rule or enforcing regulations is a human being. So this leads into another big point I'd like to make which is that stories can allow us to shorten the distance between us and come to understand one another's perspectives where despite the fact that we may have seemingly nothing in common so there's two points here. One is that when I can understand when I can consider the person who may be causing me harm or who I perceive to be causing me harm or somebody who's a government employee for example when I perceive them as an enemy and just an entity and somebody who doesn't care is incapable of compassion and isn't going to listen to me even if I try that limits my ability to advocate for my cause because part of the way that we can get people to care is by accessing the stories that most people have that we can relate to so human beings all experience joy, sorrow, pain, grief, loss love, relationships there's a lot of creative space to work to connect those divides that's the first point that seeing the humanity in another person can enable me to advocate for my cause the cause of my client for the environment but also it enables that person by not alienating them they're going to listen hopefully to my story as well but that is far more likely that we can have a conversation as though we have a conversation that acknowledges the humanity in both of us so the next point I have been thinking a lot about with storytelling is language so moments ago said that stories can shorten the distance between us likewise they can create greater divides and that's because the language that we use in the stories that we tell about ourselves, about other people and about our land impacts the way that we treat each other and the land some examples include if we're talking about human beings if I refer to people as perpetrators, suspects subjects, assets threats to be neutralized individuals even that that creates a distance between me and that person because it means that I'm not seeing them as really as human and it allows me to treat them as such with the environment a great example I think is with mountain top removal coal mining the permitting process there's great there's language that refers to everything above the resource or the strip of coal as the overburden so we're talking about deeply rich biodiverse old hardwood forests with great life above and below the ground that we refer to as overburden because it's in the way of the coal that language if I am talking to somebody who hasn't seen a mountain top removal site and I say overburden that is not going to communicate to them what I'm talking about at all which is good if that's the word I want to use because I've allowed them to say okay yeah this is where we're going to move the overburden to so that we can you know go on with our project that is the power of language and that is the power of stories okay conversely you know and it goes both ways so I love stories and I love storytelling but I will not sit here and tell you that storytelling in and of itself is good it can be good or bad but it's a wonderful tool for realizing democracy and for realizing our shared humanity yeah so the language that we use affects the way that we behave I guess in terms of stories' ability to reduce distance between people this is something I've been thinking a lot about sort of again in the context not just of policy and advocacy but in the context of this kind of greater work around mitigating and reversing climate change and improving soil health and also just Vermont's agricultural landscape and some of the changes and challenges that it's going through right now there have been a lot of stories told in the media that don't necessarily fairly reflect the stories of individuals or groups and I think you know a story that's told first hand has the ability to really meaningfully reflect that person's experience and cut through the noise of a story that's sort of told in the third person in the media for example one example that comes really clearly to mind are sort of the dueling op-eds or stories that I've seen in newspapers locally and nationally recently there have been op-eds that are really demonizing of some of our dairy farmers for example and kind of calling out dairy farmers as polluting our waterways and challenging their way of life and their way of farming in this way really removes the person and their personal story from the narrative altogether and that really is an effective way to drive a wedge between people who see themselves as caring about the environment first and foremost and farmers whereas most people who interact with or who are farmers know that farmers do deeply care for the most part for the vast majority of farmers about the land and the animals that they are stewarding it's a really meaningful connection to them so the other side of that coin that I've been seeing a lot lately that I think is also a really powerful story but told from a personal perspective are the stories of people losing their dairy farms that have been in their families for generations that personally go through trying to maintain this way of life that's really financially and economically straining for them and their families while also doing the best they can in most cases to care for those animals in that land and so there's a really stark contrast in my mind when I read kind of an op-ed from someone who may not have as much direct experience with farmers themselves portraying that group from an outside perspective versus the inside perspective of farmers themselves who are really living that story day to day and can own that and I think it's really important that we create space in our communities for individuals to tell their own stories so that their experience and their true intentions and goals can really be reflected because I think at the end of the day that seem like they may not agree on very much if you project out into the future especially in the case of Vermont's agricultural landscape and what we all want this state to look like in 50 to 100 years I think we would have a lot more in common than we would disagree about and so finding those kind of the heart of our intentions and what we view as important and valuable is a really good way to make a bigger context and then work toward the future that we really want to see so in the context of soil I think stories are really critical to bringing together those kinds of groups that we may not think can intersect and a clear example of that is that sort of farmers versus environmental divide which in some ways I think is sort of a false head that there is a divide there because I think farmers are often times environmentalists and many environmentalists also may be farmers or homesteaders and so one of the goals that NOFA has this year and I know that we're not alone in this is hosting on farm workshops on a few farmers around the state who are doing great things in terms of soil health practices and really inviting environmental advocates who may see themselves or may have in the past seen themselves as farmers to actually come to those places and be on the land with farmers who are really doing everything they can to innovate in the name of climate change and soil health so they can really see for themselves and hear those stories firsthand about what farmers are dealing with what farmers are learning every day about how to store the land better and then we can all hopefully come to a better shared understanding of how to respond to the climate emergency that we're all facing together Stories allow us to have that conversation and I'm just thinking based on what you said Maddie how it's so built into the way that we talk in our day to day lives this notion of separation and this first that what does the economist say about this what does the environmentalist say we assume that different people because of their primary affiliation or their focus that they feel a certain way and on top of that we assume that that is necessarily in conflict with the way that we or somebody else may feel so part of a healthy and functioning democratic process is the presence of all of the different perspectives together and the reason for that is because you know we're all members of the same citizenry and our society requires that justice requires it that all of our voices are heard and you know when we adhere to just one narrative alone or worse impose a false narrative kind of like what you're saying Maddie on other people or on places we've done demigrate and justice so I think this kind of ties back to the problem with facts alone you know data and facts are very important you know because they can demonstrate a point we can see quantified evidence that something is causing a problem that needs to be addressed for example however far more powerful than that data is what really moves us humans which is the way that we feel we like another false construct or a narrative that we impose upon ourselves and there's a term it is so prevalent that in the law there's a term for it legal fiction we love to come up with these admittedly false narratives because they work well within the way that we want the world to work an example of this is the neutral judiciary so it's taken very seriously judges are you know because they've taken an oath they are able to strip themselves of their entire past all of the experiences they've ever had and stand before you now without any bias another one is a judge can instruct him or herself to disregard testimony that was just heard and I love that one because that is just so patently impossible it's comical we do it and we do it very seriously and we make objections and we talk about it as though the judge just completely forgot what was just said that is a legal fiction and you know it's funny but we do the same thing outside the courtroom too and we impose these narratives on one another another great example that just came to mind of a legitimized legal construct is the corporation as person you know that's a lovely little narrative that allows us to go about our legal processes with some ease but it's ridiculous you know so this is the power of storytelling as we make decisions and try to convince others to align with our goals and decisions but so beyond the facts talking to one another by communicating our stories requires a certain vulnerability and a certain courage because we and I you know another construct that we love is unless so these days which is encouraging but you know expressing emotions is weak and talking about fear is cowardly you know it's it's written into our laws and court procedure even that appeals to emotion are you know manipulative and inflammatory overly prejudicial I mean the law is full of this language understandably you know because we recognize the power on the one hand we condemn storytelling as you know manipulative and sorry on the one hand we condemn storytelling as soft and you know non-credible and mushy but on the other hand we are afraid of it because we realize that no amount of data can convince you of something if you feel otherwise a wonderful example I heard in a class I took the other day is a windmill project being developed in New Hampshire and there was some concern before the committee about the negative impact that a windmill development project would have on property value now there's been some amount of research in recent years on this and every single study that's been done has shown that where windmills have been developed there has been no negative impact on property value however upon presentation of this evidence to the committee again human beings they listen to that and they disagree because they you know they thought they felt that property lost value when you put windmills there you know so we are very good at telling ourselves stories and persuading ourselves that there must be something wrong with the data climate change is a wonderful example of this as we sit here you know our federal administration denies the existence of climate change and I feel a little bit as though you know when there's a frog in the boiling water it happens so slowly over time that he doesn't even realize what's happening that he's slowly dying until you know it's far too late but so this is kind of what's happening to us some people call this complacency or we just kind of when shocking events happen we're alarmed and outraged and there's tons of news articles and protests but then we kind of settle in and the narrative shifts and we slowly adjust so this is why I think storytelling in this context I think this is a wonderful event Kat because it is very important that we continue to tell our stories and continue to talk about these the feelings that we have beyond the facts because that is what moves people to change whether you know we like it or not and whether that fits into our understanding of the way humans operate you know people are moved to action they're not they're not convinced to do so because the data says they should I'm curious I'm curious about all of you while Matty's looking something up I want to know who here is a writer and that means you like to write not that you're published okay great who here writes songs who here tells story through imagery and art tell stories to who who here is a gardener who here is infatuated with the story of the forests or the world of mushrooms what else can I ask you that I'm curious about who here works in the field of law who works with municipalities hospitals schools these are all places where I feel like story is incredibly powerful I don't think there's a single place where it isn't but while you were talking those were some of the places that really stood out to me where I see the need for story to become more of what we do the other side of story that you're both encouraging us to do is listening and listening with presence and to me listening with presence means that I have I'm constantly trying to do this I'm human too but trying to stop my thoughts and my reactions from what I'm hearing and just listen so listening with presence is really really listening and I found that the more that I train myself to do that I am finding different outcomes from all of my relationships whether it's my doctor or the insurance company or the folks from India on the phone for consolidated communications right storytelling is really important I just thought of this while thank you Kat I just thought of this while Catherine was talking and Kat mentioned this earlier just in the passing conversation we were having around stories and how they were so often used in advertising for example to call us to a certain action to get us to buy a product we use stories in the context of NOFA as a membership organization to try to get people to join in collecting origin stories for example from our board members about how they first got involved with NOFA so that we can use those to share with others and hopefully inspire people to get involved with us as well in terms of climate change I think the way that we use stories is really important and interesting and complicated because they're so often the narrative around climate change is very often and this is one of the things Kat mentioned earlier and fear oftentimes stalls people whereas hope can inspire people to act but on the flip side I also saw this amazing quote from Greta Thunberg who's a Swedish teenager who's kind of come to the forefront of the climate resistance movement and climate change resistance movement and was recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize you may have heard which is very cool and this quote I saw from her the other day she said adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope but I don't want your hope I don't want you to be hopeful I want you to panic I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act I want you to act as if your house is on fire because it is and that's I think one of few messages of fear that actually really made me want to act I would say go another five minutes or so and then I'll read this bit and then I'd love to that sound okay Chris yeah so just a couple of closing points which I've already touched on are this the real need that we have for functional and whole feedback loops and by this I mean you know the sharing of stories amongst you know from farmers to government agencies but also conversely you know government agencies to farmers there's a wonderful predicament of a state employee who goes to an area with a map and he's looking for he's talking to a landowner about going on the land and the landowner is looking at his map and he says oh there's a stream here you know this you know that easement can't go through right there there's a stream and the state employee looks at his map and he says no there's no stream here and the man takes him out to you know his land and he shows him the stream and the state employee is frozen because there is no stream on that map and he can't function because of it and this is so amazing because that in and of itself is an interesting you know malfunction of our feedback loops but beyond that the landowner cannot just tell the government agency to please put his stream on the map you know because it doesn't fit within the process so that is that is a poorly functioning if at all feedback loop so and I do kind of wish I brought this one slide but I can describe it to you here is a an description of a feedback loop that is hardly a feedback loop at all if there's a development project or any kind of action being discussed typically it starts with industry and science industry funds the science and then the design phase rolls out after that you know the government gets involved and there's discussions about procedure and process at which point science may again come into this conversation this time funded by the government after that there's a period you know 60 90 days what have you for public input before policy is implemented and regulations you know developed that at that point you know the development has already happened and so asking for public input at that point is a very common way that we you know include our communities in our process but you know I think I think the point the point is clear true democracy requires that we have all of our perspectives included at the very beginning so you know I'll wrap up by saying human beings love stories you know we love to watch movies and we love to listen to stories and when we're children our parents tell us stories you know of the old days and we're just totally our imaginations are captivated by you know worlds that we don't know and that we can just imagine and you know stories make us feel things they make us feel connected and they move us and you know realizing that allows us to really communicate with one another in a way that recognizes the humanity in ourselves and with other people and connects us in a way that limits my you know it decreases my ability to inflict harm on somebody that I now know through the stories that we've shared because you know we protect what we love and we love what we know so I think storytelling is this really wonderful universal as old as time practice that we can use and that we really need to use to connect research, government, science, communities, farmers in really developing you know a system that allows us to combat climate change not at the expense of any of our community members. I've had this scene running through my head almost this whole time just in the background. I don't know, where is it going to be in the movie The Life Aquatic? The Life Aquatic it's an amazing quirky, very strange Wes Anderson movie highly recommend it I was watching it recently and there's this amazing scene where Bill Murray's character is this aquatic explorer and he takes his crew on these underwater explorations and they see amazing things and he makes all these documentary films about the ocean and has discovered all these creatures he's sort of like a Jacques Cousteau character in the movie and very quirky or his next documentary they've acquired funding from this bond company who's going to fund their next exploration but because they have some doubts about the Z-SOU squad's ability to carry this out and their intentions they send along this guy who they call the Bond Company Stooge to keep track of them make sure that they're on the up and up and that they're not spending money frivolously and so the intermediary tells Steve Z-SOU they're going to fund you but they're going to send along this Bond Company Stooge and so they get an elevator after this meeting and Steve Z-SOU the explorer is in the elevator with one of his team members in the Bond Company Stooge and he says some off-putting thing about you're just the Bond Company Stooge and the Bond Company Stooge looks at Steve Z-SOU and says I'm also a human being and you know then Steve gives him a hug he learns his name and he's kind of like a little bit more part of the team for the rest of the movie and it's just this like very touching moment because you all sort of in watching the movie you know you're kind of like oh yeah the Bond Company Stooge that guy seems you know that guy seems boring and he you know points out the amazing human being and I just it's so touching and it just is a nice reminder that we're all human beings and we all have a story to tell and yeah that's all I have thank you so much Kat for having us and I'm excited to hear from the rest of you yeah let's hear it for these two these two women and the other two who I'm going to read from now inspire me so much so this is a piece and it's just called offering for soil stories event this is from Sean and Cheryl Sean and Cheryl wanted to be able to take part tonight and are grateful to Kat for the opportunity and sorry they were each unable to make it happen but the topic of how the health of soil of the earth is connected to stories and to storytelling is a beautiful and fertile one that excites us both when we talked about it we thought about how the words human humus soil not the chickpea humus and humility share a root word human humus humility and that let us think and wonder about how the act of listening with humility of being present to complexity and mystery whether in the soil or in each other's lives seems like it's got to be a key practice of healing and growing the world that part about humility seems so important with story how we might accept an invitation to bear witness to another's truth without assuming that we can never know a complete truth and how this may be applies to soil health when we think about farming practices and how families and communities are seeking to live whole lives and balance with each other and the land and in the complex landscapes of history and power and privilege and the desire for humus we are living in such interesting and complicated times of awakening and striving and on some level it seems like the goals of a just society for human beings and a society in balance with the more than human world are facets of the same gem and maybe presence and humility are a key part of both thank you for the opportunity to share a bit of our thinking and our process if you're curious about our work together on the Who Farms project Worsha Ann's work I am to Vermont project or Cheryl's work in the communications at the Center for Sustainable Agriculture who is another one of our sponsors for this event feel free to get in touch and I will make sure that their contact info and the projects that they're working on I am to Vermont or I am Vermont too and Who Farms project and Vermont that you get links to those I also in the notes will make sure to send around some links that I found recently to some really beautiful videos of farms in Vermont some are put out by farm.gov I think and these are short little stories have you seen these they're really amazing of Vermont farmers that are really doing a lot of good work for land stewardship and struggle with trying to pay the bills and also struggle with the public perception that somehow they're not stewards of the land even though they have been for so many generations and it's a really beautiful story there's also another series of beautiful videos about farms on the real organic project website where they have been taking any farmer who signs up to be a real organic project farm which is certified at a higher level than well yeah we have to be careful what we say there they're real organic so in order to get that certification you get videoed and so you get a virtual farm tour of each one of these farms you meet the farmers and you get to see their landscape I think it's a really beautiful way for us to try and connect with our food in a marketplace that's becoming more and more and more confusing so I would like to pass the mic around and what I'd like is I would like to know who you are I think we all need to know each other so that we can continue to build the resilient community that I know we can do one of the things I love about passing the mic is that we get to find out the incredible people in the room and all of our talents and skills we have a lot here we live in a lucky place I think probably most people are lucky and there are great people all around them wherever they are so say who you are what brought you here and then I'd like you to either ask a question that may not get answered because that's really fun to do or to say a statement and we have enough time we may be able to go around twice and I'm going to ask you to not don't hog the mic because there are a lot of us here so we want to try and pass it around but also please take some time to say what you want and please hold the mic like that we'll let you know if we can't hear you and when we get to Carl Tiedemann I would like you to take extra time to please read us a poem that we've discussed I can tell the difference just in my own ears yeah my name is Beth Champagne I live in St. Johnsbury it's 20 years since I moved away from Randolph and I've been down here 25 years so I'm really really happy that's one reason I've come because it's in Randolph but the biggest reason I come is that once I discovered this Vermont Healthy Soil Coalition I knew those were the people I needed to be with I had a couple of really difficult points in my life found that only when spring came and I could get my hands in that soil was I confident that I was still me yeah I've always gardened from when I was a kid but even before I was big enough to garden I was being brought up by a father that I thought must be a French peasant no sort of it's what they call Metis in Canada European and Native American it was my grandfather who was not French at all meh meh was French so once I got done doing the college thing and I'd even adjusted to being in the city it didn't really take long before I said this will not do and I came to Vermont I just wish that all of our schools in the state could stop everything and have a whole year in which kids basically just learned the soil health principles and all about the extraordinary power of getting to know that the earth is alive and we're part of it just like she said human and humus because there's so much we can do loving the land and caring for the plants and trees and receiving gifts even so these people tell me I haven't gone out personally to approve it but you know how nice it is to walk in the woods in the summer it's moisture and cooler there's just so so much that we can receive and the biggest thing of all to me would be I mean as a grandmother if we don't give young people the chance to get out there in the sunshine in the dirt doing work that helps us all even by this one cooling effect I mentioned never mind all the carbon coming back in the soil where it does so much powerful work if we don't give them that what kind of adults are we that's my question I am a master's student at Vermont law school studying environmental law and policy I'm from southern California and have been interested in agriculture and have worked on farms probably for the past five years in California and was drawn to come to Vermont because of its own rich agricultural history and story and I feel very special to be here to learn the stories of all of you and my name's Stuart Saunders Smith I'm here because my wife invited me she is very involved with agricultural issues stories are literally genetically implanted stories have a beginning middle and end as we all do and telling stories is the fundamental is a fundamental way for all cultures to impart values the structure of a story is impartial to the contents of a story so it's very important to fill those contents Hi, I'm Sylvia Smith from south Stratford is this in a good spot? I'm trying to grow more and more of my own food and build a I don't know what to call it build a place that is resilient and friendly to plants and animals and people I have a little story about trees I used to live in Baltimore Maryland and Baltimore is a very large city there are there's a lot of poverty there are many areas of the city where you can go for blocks see a single plant no trees no grass coming up out of the sidewalk no plants of any kind these areas are hard to live in lots of crime and someone had the bright idea well why don't we plant trees so they planted trees along the sidewalks and the crime rate went way down nothing else changed except the presence of trees in the neighborhood so I take this to mean that trees and plants do much more for us than just things that you can list there is some other thing that we need we need to be involved with trees especially Hello everyone my name is Jack Spicer I'm an attorney in Woodstock originally from Central Ohio where there's a different kind of agriculture can you hear me? so I'm originally from Central Ohio where there's really a different kind of agriculture that you see out here a lot of flatter land with lots of row crops so when I moved out here for law school I really fell in love with this area in particular just because of the people and the stories here but also just because of the agricultural practices it just kind of astounded me that there are so many CSAs which is something I hadn't even heard of back in Ohio but I learned about this series because I was recently appointed to the community resilience organization of Hartford which is a recent sponsor of this series and I thought well this sounds like a good one to go to so I picked this particular talk Hi I'm Genevieve Byrne I'm also part of the Vermont law school contingent here I work with Catherine in the Energy where I'm a staff attorney working with clinical students on particularly renewable energy projects but our focus is also on the impact of those projects on agriculture and farmland and getting agricultural participants to be able to participate as well in kind of the renewable energy revolution and then maybe three very short stories is what brought me into my interest in agriculture and community building which is when I was living in Northampton, Massachusetts I was sort of looking around for things to do and the organization Grow Food Northampton had just organized itself to purchase the single largest contiguous parcel of land that was left over in downtown that was about to be sold off for development and this group of community members organized within six months and raised $600,000 in that time to then purchase that piece of property started on profit and lease that property out to local farmers and create a community farm and I did some canvassing for them and the very first door I knocked on for fundraising wrote me a $1,000 check to support this project which gave me a fairy tale story of how easy it might be to use money for community based agriculture but what a fairy tale that was because they're still thriving today with a community farm right in downtown the second is about the word nimby or not in my backyard which I think is in a lot of ways a derogatory word that we use for people that want to participate in the public process that Catherine mentioned when we have development projects and we allow open it up for public comment when people in fact exercise their right to comment they are often called nimbies or people that do not want that in their backyard I think that is a story that we tell to undermine very valid concerns of people that want to comment on development projects even good renewable energy projects and so I'm trying to remove that word from the community vocabulary I think the other story that we tell though and that is sometimes told by these nimbies is that renewable energy is ugly or has an impact on aesthetics or has an impact on tourism these are stories that we tell we just as we decide standards of beauty in all kinds of realms we decide that windmills or solar panels are somehow objectionable because of the way that they look and that is another story that I would like to remove from my vocabulary I think that renewable energy and working to mitigate climate change is a beautiful thing and something I'd like to be supported as such my name is Nicole Conti and I live in Barnard, Vermont I've been there for a little over 20 years and I guess my professional hat is environmental educator went to Antioch a long time ago for master's in environmental studies with the education focus and I do a lot of school time stuff with kids and I'm here because I like the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition cat I first speak a few times now and she's her passion really impresses me so I just like to be where she is and it's good to get re-energized in an area that I care about and also an area that I feel really a very much a beginner at like understanding the soil even though I have this studies degree I just there's so much to know and we're learning all the time and I'm a mom of a teenager so my focus really hasn't been on continuing my education in a lot of these areas so this is neat to be here and also I do really impressive those are two organizations that I've gotten on their listeners in the last few years also the theme of stories really was interesting to me and I just thank you for your sharing and reminding me because I took a storytelling class at Antioch and I I think I have tried to think about storytelling and education and I haven't used it extensively in any kind of I mean I'm sure I use it informally but I've tried to use it more formally it's not always easy to figure out the best way to incorporate story and storytelling in education so I guess that's my question for myself is how I can do more of that at my summer camps and things like that I mean you sit around and you talk at sleep away camps there's more storytelling because you have more time and I work with really little kids and they love to tell story and just chat but how could maybe I sometimes bring ask the right questions or get them to ask the right questions to get everybody learning more together Hi I'm Lexie Basil I'm a master of food and agriculture law and policy at Vermont Law School I also volunteer with vital communities food and farm team right by the upper valley co-op and my interest is mainly in food justice and environmental justice especially the intersectionality with race and just a little anecdote so my grandfather was a second generation Italian I'm from West Hartford, Connecticut and he just passed away he was 93 years old and I think the thing that he was most proud of me for was last summer when I called him and told him that I was working on a farm he was just over the moon about it about getting my hands dirty and it ended up being one of the most important experiences I've ever had so my name is Nancy Rice and I live in Randall Center I got to get an agricultural background without paying money because I grew up on a farm some day one and I've been really grateful to have that background I'll just mention a couple of things I have a friend who came I think last week for this program which I wasn't at and she's a farmer and she said I don't think she mentioned this because she's kind of shy but she said they're talking about all the farmers making pollution into a Champlain but what about all those homeowners that use poison on their lawns and so forth and I thought yeah do they think about that I remember going into the hardware store 20 years ago and there was this thing was at 24D in regular lawn things I was appalled the other thing I'll just mention is you mentioned the stream that wasn't on the map well a few years ago about eight years ago our daughter and her family moved to Eastern Mass and so usually I like to try to orient myself where's north and south and so forth and go down but behind her house was this body of water so I looked on the map and it wasn't there neither was the one a little further up and I thought huh what's the matter with this man well I think it was a man made pond probably because then I could be thinking we used to go down to visit my in-laws in southern Vermont for about 40 years and we go six times a year and we passed this this body of water a couple times we stopped and had a picnic there and then a few years ago I thought I noticed it's not there anymore and so it had all filled in I forget that term but there's a word for how that natural progression works with ponds so I could relate to your story of no map there but the map is just a man made thing so my name is Travis I'm originally from Minnesota I've been out here in Vermont for the last three couple years studying soil ecology I'm here because I'm trying to become a better soil story teller myself one of my goals is I'm going back to North Dakota to study commercial agriculture to help all learn how to implement regenerative techniques to meet the demands of commercial agriculture in the Midwest one of the questions I guess I would have is these conversations really inspiring but are they happening fast enough to get out to the mass and to really make a change with these large systems that we're having my name is Dean Wallenberg I'm from Rhode Island I've lived in Vermont for only two years now and I actually didn't even know this was the storytelling part of this class my guy here it's kind of cool because I moved to Vermont to work with a group called The Hallow Movement out of Montreal and their whole thing is they are environmental storytellers they're kind of trying to make sustainability cool they're like big in the social media world and all that and I also one of my own projects is a group of friends and I we kind of wanted to bring this idea of art there's a lot of struggling artists out there who really want to change and help tell their story but also tell their story in a way that helps the world ecologically as well and I think it's hard for them to physically do so as only my friends created a group that's kind of trying to bridge that gap called The Wicked Collective and so I guess my question for everybody here would be how can we empower folks with less means to be able to participate in the change that they want to see in the world? I'm Laurel from Portland I'm the first refugee from Long Island a petroleum refugee I expect there'll be climate refugees following me and I'm wondering how many people have heard of Jim Bendel or have read anything not very many okay well there's a concept he has of something called deep adaptation with the assumption that we are not going to preserve our economic system that climate collapse could happen within the next five years and it's much easier for me to accept that and actually welcome it because I have had to give up petroleum in my life I had to give up my house my clothing my books my computer, my livelihood fled Long Island to Vermont and I've never been happier in my life living on very little money and in the interest of time I probably better pass the mic here My name's Greg I kind of looked into this series tonight I've been trying to come several of the previous series I had missed them but I'm I was raised in Vermont and had left the state after finishing my college at UVM and was in Colorado for 20 years and storytelling has always been a big thing in my experience I grew up around a lot of farms and worked with a lot of people on those farms at various times this little program tonight ties together a lot of things for me not the least of which is the messaging of our leaders tonight because when I went to Colorado I was very much involved in messaging and storytelling around environmental activism and leadership training which is what I was doing with young people out there for a couple years and it's exactly how that message can get corrupted and manipulated and adjusted over time that can make it pretty messy and hard to say to the core message and the true message of the story and to make sure that the disinformation that's out there does not overwhelm you my family and I just recently moved back here and I've only been back in the state a little less than three months so this has been a really exciting thing to be a part of tonight to see how this all is going on here we had talked for years about leaving Colorado to come back I couldn't find the circumstances that would work for that and so but we really felt like we could no longer live in the state that was plowing all of its dirt and its soil under to both massive tracks and development throughout and well everything was burning so we were ready to come back here to the place that I grew up and called home so it's going to be back I'm going to try to project can people hear me okay excellent okay I'd like to well first of all start with a shameless plug for my organization soil for climate if people are interested in following this topic scale we have over 10,000 members from more than 100 countries anytime new studies reports anecdotes from people's farms come out there share globally and anyway it's an exciting community I'd like to actually say first of all I'm a poet a climate and a soil poet but I'm not reciting any of my poems tonight I hope there'll be other opportunities for that but I would like to start with a brief excerpt of a poem a point that Catherine made in her comments about facts being devoid of perspective this is a theme that was addressed by the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay who was quite well known about 100 years ago typically she would perform to sold out audiences and sometimes audience members would be so carried away by her passion that they would literally have to be carried away on stretchers this is from her poem Huntsman Wet Quarry 1928 Edna St. Vincent I'm sorry 1939 Edna St. Vincent Millay who wrote upon this gifted age in its dark hours rains from the sky a meteoric shower of facts they lie unquestioned uncombined wisdom enough to leach us of our ill is daily spun but there exists no loom to weave it into fabric a few days ago I was listening to Krista Tippett show on public radio called On Being and she was interviewing a poet named Sharon Olds and I was quite taken by this poem Ode to Dirt by Sharon Olds Dear Dirt I am sorry I slighted you I thought that you were only the background for the leading characters the plants and animals it's as if I had loved only the stars and not the sky which gave them space in which to shine subtle various sensitive you are the skin of our terrain you're our democracy when I understood I had never honored you as a living equal I was ashamed of myself as if I had not recognized a character who looks so different from me but now I can see us all made of the same basic materials cousins of that first exploding from nothing in our intricate equation together O Dirt help us find ways to serve your life you who have brought us forth and fed us and who at the end will take us in and rotate with us and wobble and orbit I just want to acknowledge that it is 8.30 which is the time we said we'd end I'm not ready to go I'd love to hear from the rest of you but I just wanted to acknowledge is that time if you need to get up and go please do if you can stay please do yeah let us Hi my name is Abby Meiling and I live in Randolph Center this central Vermont has been my home for almost 40 years but I too came from the Midwest like a number of you they used to say I'm from Wisconsin and the people from Vermont I remember going to the Woodstock the Rockefeller place but anyway hearing the story about how thank you very much Billingsfarm and hearing how the people in the Midwest you know who used to live here and just need a little more elbow room out in the fields anyway there's a connection always so I'm also part of Bale and I'm on the Bale board and I was drawn to Bale when we were having those farmer dinners back in the South Royalton High School the elementary high school cafeteria and just have always been kind of drawn to any event that related to farming and food and it's been a rich existence in my life all my life and I think the only times, not the only times but most of the time when I feel most alive of course I'm my hands are in the dirt where I'm out in the woods and being and yet when I started gardening I had no idea what the soil really had in it other than simple things like worms and such and now it's like I'm just captivated with what it has to give for me and all of us anyway and I'm also a cat fan now and this is very good cat thank you very much for joining and I'm not going to say much more because I know it's time but I I think what I'm picking up tonight and I'm learning and appreciating most is that listening quality because I want to be able to listen more to people who I'm different from and who think differently from me opening that avenue because I need to hear that story and I liked the concept very much of inviting the differences to come out before policy gets made before that strikes me as very powerful and I just want to remember that so thank you I'm a little closer and join the group I'm David a long time resident here in Randolph and I was late for tonight's gathering for two reasons one I was providing care for my 18 month old granddaughter and second when I thought I actually was on my way to get here I got stopped completely in my tracks by watching the rising of the super full spring moon over Randolph center this evening my goodness so the word for my story today is newness seeing the world through the newness of a child's beginner's mind we spent time this afternoon, a sunny afternoon out on the porch playing with seeds and Kaya was enthralled with just letting picking up seeds and letting them run through fingers and moving them from container to container I think she could spend most of the afternoon doing that but then it got to be time for lunch later in the day as we were out aside again she stooped down and picked up an open pine cone that was finally getting revealed as the snow pulled away and she held that all the way home and as we went up the steps to her house, to my daughter's house low and behold Kaya already has a little pine cone collection going so in addition to that but also in terms of newness being the word for my story was the newness of the spring super moon rising reminding us despite all our confusion yet again we are blessed with the coming of another spring my name is Keith Walsh I live in Detford Center, Vermont I am I play as a farmer I really don't do that for a living and I haven't done it for very long I'm a flat lander and I'm true to it so in case you can't tell by the way I talk but I have spent well over 20 years excuse me Tending Bar in Harvard Square in Boston and Cambridge Mounds I've done it in the French Quarter in New Orleans I've done it in Burlington I've done it in White River Junction I've done it in Rhode Island and I can't I don't know if I can overstate in any way the depth of connection that happens through story and communication and it's not always fueled by alcohol although it certainly can help in some instances the truth of the differences between us and how we can understand that is defined and clarified through our communication I've seen Deans of Colleges for Harvard sitting next to people who would be considered the lowest rungs in our society being able to find commonality in connection through the depth of their experiences and being able to communicate that to one another so as we all have our own individual experiences with the soil and our earth as we all have our own individual experiences trying to regenerate our soil that we have abused for so long as people on this planet keep in mind that how we share that story works as our mycelial network in helping to share the riches of in-depth that we have in our experiences and the impact that you will have on others may not seem like much at the time but you're planting seeds and providing nutrients and minerals and every single time you communicate verbally or not so thank you all for sharing here today and for keeping this communication happening hi am I holding this at the right place my name is Kai Cochran and I grew up on Cape Con but I spent many years in Montana working at first for a group of farmers and ranchers who were trying to fight the coming coal strip mining in Montana in the 70s and also into the 80s and as I worked for them I found that I instinctively wanted to promote something and not fight it I don't like fighting things I rather promote things and so I worked into actually forming another organization that was promoting the use of renewable energy the alternative energy resources organization in Montana which is still going strong and so is the original one the Northern Plains Resource Council I moved back to Vermont to a farm that my grandparents had bought in 1940 they lived in Boston so they were absentee landowners but my mother inherited the farm and she wanted at least one of her five kids to come back and live there because she lived on the cave and she couldn't just keep on paying all the taxes on the farm without having at least one of the kids living there so my husband and I and our three year old twins moved back to this small farm in West Hartford Vermont and then of course a number of years later I found myself embroiled in another incredibly huge thing happening which is climate change and I could think of a million ways to try to fight that but as soon as I started hearing about the soil and life in the soil and how that might actually be a hopeful thing that we could promote that was what I really wanted and I love Bale anyway and Kat is one of my best friends and so unfortunately my kids all have moved back to Vermont too and my younger son is farming our farm again and he is very very interested in doing all of the soil principles that are talked about and experimenting with Johnson-Sue composters and that sort of thing so I feel very very delighted that that sort of thing is happening and I love having this kind of thing happen my name is Cynthia Jackson and I live in Randolph and I've been here for 50 years which is a drop in the bucket and I've lived in the house I know for 40 years and spent the first 38 expanding gardens and things like that and then all of a sudden it sort of got ahead of me and in 1986 it really is ahead of me and I knew in the back yard that I would love somebody to take over at any time and I'm still really wrestling with my gardens in front but I love gardening and I'm just enjoying this and feeling as though I'm learning a lot thank you so much I moved here in Randolph I probably moved back when I was involved with the Exit 4 group I think a couple other members are here and I'm looking forward to working with the option of that which is going to be Randolph Community Orchard where we actually just done something similar to that I think I'm going to get Genevieve I'm not sure if she's still here was talking about in this case it's an orchard that will be trying to put up along the regenerative agriculture lines just starting out nothing's happened yet but that's the path that we are going down and just personally also interested in any kind of regenerative soil topics and that's from you so thanks Hi my name is Tammy Jo or Jo is all my children call me because I'm all about the kids and that's what I do I teach the kids as much as I can as much as I know and I encourage them to learn more if they're all under the age of 7 right now but they're all up and coming and they have a lot of curiosity and when I take care of my grandchildren I bring them outside and the only thing that I do I take them in the woods I take them everywhere or they can learn about the earth and whatever so that's my function right now the more I learn the more I can help them and I'm a Vermonter mostly I've moved away a few times but I keep coming back and I think I'm going to stay Hi I've been here there and everywhere and I think this past year has been a really big year for me in terms of getting angry at the world and trying to reconcile that with doing something about it and so I like coming to these events because people here want to solve issues and overthrow the way we all think and I think hearing today how storytelling can contribute to that informative say the least My name is Kepp I lived in Vermont for about 30 years and raised my kids here and my eldest son Ross fell in love with a Kiwi woman and moved to New Zealand and the first time I went to visit them I was absolutely certain that I was going to fall in love with New Zealand and never want to come back to Vermont but I didn't I can't imagine living anywhere else and I think part of that is represented here tonight I just love the way we respect one another even though we come from different backgrounds and whatnot and I just really appreciate this kind of a forum and so thank you presenters for making this happen I'm very excited for the Kiwi part I'm very excited Chris White I guess I'm here I walked into the bail office completely unannounced and Chris and Abby were very receptive I am endeavoring to start a farm I previously worked in digital storytelling so both soil and storytelling are very applicable for my current situation so I couldn't have been luckier to meet all of you nice to ask a question what are you thinking? this is so inspiring to be here and talk with all of you and I really appreciate you having me come share my thoughts Kat I do want to just give a little invitation to all of you there's a flyer over on the table as part of the healthy soils law project I'm working to develop a community engagement piece because I really deeply am interested in learning all of the stories that inform the way that we live and interact with one another and as a lawyer I'm interested in learning how that can how those can come together to help us identify really strong feedback loops and policies that will allow us to work together to steward our environment and support one another so if anybody's interested you know I'm not quite ready to do interviews yet but we'll be starting in May and I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has anything to say about the ways that governments can work with farmers and land managers to support the ways in which people are stewarding the environment and increase you know our overall collective stewardship yeah and I don't have any questions but well I said I didn't have one oh I just wanted to say that you know I'm no expert in storytelling and I don't know any experts in storytelling I don't know that there are any we are constantly telling stories kids tell stories you know with no experience whatsoever stories are the way that we interact with each other so nobody's bad at telling stories you know sure maybe somebody can captivate our attention the same way somebody else's story might but that doesn't mean that person is less of a storyteller a lot of us may feel we have stories to share but don't know how to share them and you know that's form that's not content I think it's really important to remember that stories are communication and you know there are ways for us to connect and nobody should be afraid to tell their story I think it's a really important it may seem small but I think it's a really important point to make you know in the in my past experience as a defense as a public defender I was constantly you know working to to convince not only people to listen but to convince other people that their stories were worth sharing and it's an amazing thing to see somebody stand beside you and feel that their story is important to hear them share it and then to see what happens when people are moved by it it's a powerful thing and it should not be you know it shouldn't be diminished facts are devoid of perspective but they also just they cannot they cannot tell the full story it's impossible because the way that we experience things that's the story meaning that we derive um individually and together is the story I don't know if any of you have ever experienced you know if you share something that happened to you or that you experienced just day to day and you're surprised by the reaction that you get you know somebody may say oh my gosh that's amazing I can't believe it's horrifying that's terrible and you're thinking oh my gosh I didn't think it was so bad that is perspective you know gosh maybe I should be mad you know that that is participation and that is where the storytelling comes alive and allows us to really connect with one another it allows our own perspectives to evolve and it allows us to see our story within one another and I love what somebody said about getting to know the soil you know I come from Philadelphia where much like any part of Baltimore you can go blocks without seeing any kind of life it's almost as though our cities have become dead zones and kids grow up not knowing soil and not knowing that food comes from somewhere other than the grocery store and not being able to recognize you know good healthy food versus something manufactured and if there is soil it's most likely toxic and that is the soil that some kids play in and that is their experience of dirt and that's a great tragedy I think that we can really use storytelling and also recognizing that getting to know something allows us to really love it and protect it and care for it it's true for people and it is just as true for our environment so yeah thanks for having me on the subject thank you I don't have that much more to say but I do want to tell everyone in case you don't know I just dug into there's some bread pudding on the table over there it's awesome I did a cup of black bread I was going to say one week most for everybody who wants hot just made bread pudding you said some maple cream sweet they feel bad so they made hot bread pudding on your way out for those who don't have to dash there's some yummy dessert I don't know if you all have noticed but I am growing another human so the baby was hungry I'm just really reveling in this and I kind of feel like I switched over to listening mode so I don't have that much more to share but I'm so thankful this is obviously a huge part of my current story and I'm so happy that this little person is getting to hear from all of you as it grows because they can hear in there it's very cool so I'm really thankful that this is kind of part of this new story and also I've been thinking how excited I am to get into the soil to play in soil I'm going to ignore that I think because I'm not going to be able to not get my hands in the dirt and I also am very excited because this baby is due in the middle of May which is asparagus season and we have this beautiful 10 foot bed of asparagus in my house that we pick like a pound a day in the middle of May so I feel like I'm just so excited for spring in soil and all that and asparagus and also just in terms of connecting the skills very formal but I do have a bunch of business cards and I'm going to just leave some on the table in case anybody wants to get in touch with me or with NOPA I would love to hear from any of you so thanks so much for being here again and thank you again to Cats who's fan club I'm also proud of them thank you all so much this has been really fun I didn't quite know what to expect and I've learned a lot through this whole process about story so I wear a lot of hats and a couple are relevant here I guess they're all relevant one of my hats is I manage the edible schoolyard at Pepper Elementary School we compost 200 pounds of food scraps a week the sixth graders run the compost system and I've been doing that for 10 years with the school and I helped design the gardens and compost it's amazing the stories that these kids I learned so much from them every time I work with them but I feel very proud that these kids for the last 10 years have experienced an edible schoolyard and their lessons builds around this outdoor classroom that they can eat from and they can smell and they can listen to the wind and all of their food scraps are going into compost that then turn into soil and go back to their gardens we call it the food loop and when I from some of you coming around the circle and I'm just so grateful to live where I live and to have the opportunities that I have and I'm grateful that these children that I get to work with are going out into the world with this very rich story of connection to the planet that feeds us all I can't wait to geek out next week if any of you have ever heard me talk about soil that's really what it's all about for me as I love to talk about science and soil and systems I'm going to do the intro next week and then my colleagues are really going to geek out so Juan and Jess are really going to get into it so if you're into the science piece definitely come next week this was a really nice break from slide shows I love my own slide shows too but I just I love to look at you all and know that you're my neighbors and that we live in this community together and as we move forward we can and will do what needs to be done to adapt and transform to meet this climate emergency we have to we have the skills I want to hear your stories we can do this together we just know that we can and we've got to bring more people in so I said at the beginning Chris and I have decided now that May 8th or 9th it's a Wednesday that week it'll be here well actually we have to ask oh we have to ask David if we get permission after we get permission so this last event which we hope will be here with no speakers so that's when we're going to take a lot of the information that we've been pulling in for the last events and the next three and Lauren has been taking great notes and she and I are working together to keep those really organized so I think we're going to really have some productive session and the goal there is to plug people in so this is about acting right now we're talking we're getting to know each other as we as we fix we fix it all so Chris do you have any Les? thank you all so much I'm so impressed it's 9 o'clock or half an hour over time you must be enjoying yourselves thank you so much for coming yeah eat go eat go eat