How do we transform our food-farming-health system?

Spiritual Ecology - Bioregional Foodsheds - Mindfulness in Action

Spiritual Ecology

Agriculture is entwined not only with human lives. How do we listen to the many more-than-human animals and plants we work with? How do we listen to the earth, the farm, the city, the region? There are as many ways of knowing a place as there are elements that make up a place. Through guided walks, sensing practices, and collaborative workshops, IMA offers tools and experiences for mindful immersion in nature and place.

All cultural traditions attend to the spirit in finding, cultivating, making, eating, sharing, and disposing of food. Part of what makes our food and farming systems so sick is the relentless disruption of the connection between our spirits and our selves, others, and the Earth. By making a place for the spirit at the “problem-solving” table, we give ourselves not only another facet with which to understand foodshed issues, but we reconnect a powerful part of ourselves to the whole.

Bioregional Foodsheds

How can we scale up biodynamic, regenerative food without losing the authentic integrity of farms and gardens, and the people who shape and share the landscape?

      • Is it sensible, especially on this continent, to think in terms of bioregions and regional food sheds? Does it make sense to shape them in the context of watersheds? Can we think of a food shed as a geological-geographic-ecological-economic-social reality?

      • How do we make sure that our home planet, the Earth, is represented and has a voice as the most important stakeholder in this transformation of our food system?

      • What are the new structures of multi-stakeholder-collaboration along the food value chain that will enable us to find solutions that are motivated by achieving success for the Whole? Read more.

Mindfulness in Action & Social Soil

“How” we choose to listen and to speak to one another is a huge factor in successful collaborative action to transform our current food economy. Building individual and social “soil” together is key to success. Small group discussions, one-on-one “dialogue walks” and a structured conversation called a “case clinic” are used as social technologies to bring members of a group into dialogue. Read more.