414 Bryn Roshong “Solid Ground Farm and Food Access”

Today’s guest on The Feminine Frequency is Bryn Roshong. She lives on her family’s farm in Lomontville with her husband, Wes Hannah, and two kids.  She has spent the last 15 years working in and up against the food system as a farmer, farmer policy advocate, and in industrial-scale food manufacturing.  She is co-owner with Wes of Solid Ground Farm, a four-season diversified organic veggie farm in Marbletown, stewarding 25 acres and employing 6 full-time farm staff.  At the farm, she serves in roles outside the fields, supporting the farm’s bookkeeping, mission, and communications.  Since 2021, after eight years working in operations at a former food processing facility called The Farm Bridge, Bryn has been working with a great team at Community Food Works, building community-focused food processing infrastructure in Kingston to strengthen the local agricultural economy and make local food accessible to as many community members as possible.  She enjoys hanging out with her family at home and in the woods, and volunteering with a few local organizations: the Kingston farmers market board, Marbletown’s Community Preservation Advisory Board, advisory committee for Growing Homes, and political advocacy working group of the HV Young Farmers Coalition.

We get to hear about how Bryn (and Wes) went from labor organizing to farm working to running their own farm supported by a team of dedicated farmers. We learn about the work Bryn has done and is doing to create a more self sustaining food system in the Hudson Valley which includes a deeper understanding of how food banks and food pantries work. I had no idea! Bryn is also well versed in the inherent racism in the farming industry and sheds light on how the Federal Government’s efforts to reverse DEI has impacted beneficial food programs that were bringing more equality to farming and food access. How does she do it all while also being a mom to two young children? She’s starting to find ways to receive help despite the personal challenges and perspectives that created the “I can and must do it all” attitude. Who else can relate??? (We do.) More on that, but for now, we hope you enjoy our conversation with Bryn.

You can learn more about the Farm and their CSA program here.

Here’s your New Moon Solar Eclipse astrology. Happy Year of the Fire Horse!

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.

Our show music is from Shana Falana!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

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208 Inno Powell from “Abundance Farms”

WELCOME TO SEASON 5!!!!! Today I have the privilege of speaking with Inno Powell, Founder of Abundance Farms. “Their mission is to get fresh organic produce into the homes of BIPOC families in and out of Ulster County, NY. There are so many people living in places where food apartheid plays a big part in our communities and we aren’t even aware of it. We started growing out of public and private spaces in Kingston, NY for our first two seasons. By the end of the second season, we had reached about 80 BIPOC families with most of those families being served on a regular basis with a free vegetable share from the farm. We had over 50 volunteers help out this season from the beginning to the end and I honestly think that they are the reason we were able to keep this going because it takes a village in every sense.” They are embarking on a fundraising campaign to continue and expand this good work which is just one of the reasons I was glad Inno said yes to being a guest on the show. You can follow them on Instagram, @wefeedbipocfree and Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/wefeedbipoc.

Today we hear the powerful story of how farming found Inno, or really, returned to Inno, as something that was always deep in their roots, and all about the journey to Abundance Farms and the good work they are doing there. Plus, Inno shares about faith, the “good book,” finding oneself, the other side of incarceration, midwifery, as well as some poetry about being a single mom. It’s a must listen!

Here’s the farm’s website where you can volunteer, join the CSA or donate.

And here’s the petition on midwifery centers in NY State.

Thanks to Ian Seda from Radio Kingston for engineering today’s show!

Our show music is from Shana Falana !!!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

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#139 Helen Zuman “Mating in Captivity”

After some short technical difficulties, I finally connected with today’s guest, Helen Zuman, a tree-hugging dirt worshipper devoted to turning waste into food and the stinky guck of experience into fertile, fragrant prose. She holds a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard and a Half-FA in memoir from Hunter College. Raised in Brooklyn, she lives with her husband in Beacon, NY and Black Mountain, NC.

She is the author of Mating in Captivity (She Writes Press 2018), a memoir of her five years, post-Harvard, in a cult with a radical take on sex and relationships. Mating in Captivity received a starred review from Kirkus, was named a Kirkus Best Indie Memoir of 2018, was a finalist in Creative Nonfiction for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses’ 2019 Firecracker Award, and was both first runner-up in memoir and a finalist for First Horizon and Grand Prize honors in the 2020 Eric Hoffer Awards. Other work has appeared in The New Farmers Almanac, in Communities and Livelihood magazines, and on the Foundation for Intentional Community’s website (ic.org). 

Mating in Captivity: When recent Harvard grad Helen Zuman moved to Zendik Farm in 1999, she was thrilled to discover that the Zendiks used go-betweens to arrange sexual assignations, or “dates,” in cozy shacks just big enough for a double bed and a nightstand. Here, it seemed, she could learn an honest version of the mating dance – and form a union free of “Deathculture” lies. No one spoke the truth: Arol, the Farm’s matriarch, crushed any love that threatened her hold on her followers’ hearts. An intimate look at a transformative cult journey, Mating in Captivity shows how stories can trap us and free us, how miracles rise out of crisis, how coercion feeds on forsaken self-trust.

In addition to cults, we also talk about the journey to trust oneself, the “infinite growth myth,” gift circles, her connection to a well balanced eco-village that is doing intentional living well and how she takes care of herself (no social media!). I can personally highly recommend her book even for those not remotely curious about how one gets pulled into a cult. It’s extremely well written and uniquely empowering to hear some of the more difficult details of her story.

Looking for an intentional community or wondering about the health of one you’re currently in? Helen’s article may be of help to you. And if you do have friends, family or loved ones you fear are wrapped up in a cult, eh hm, political party, then Helen recommends some resources written by therapist and cult expert Steven Hassan. You can tune in to hear the best thing Helen’s Mom did easing her exit from the cult mind-control.

Today’s show was engineered by Nick Panken of Freedom Highway.

Our show music is from Shana Falana !!!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

Leave me a voicemail with your thoughts or a few words about who inspires you! (845) 481-3429

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