Michel Pimbert, Director of the Centre for Agroecology Water and Resilience at the University of Coventry, with Miche and Flora, joined us yesterday for our morning rituals and work in the gardens, and then all our students traveled to Visual Arts Building quad in the afternoon where Miche and Flora curated a beautiful convivial afternoon and evening making soup and baking bread using local organic ingredients. This followed lectures by Luke and Eve on global food systems, reconnections to the soil and what it means to be human in a world facing a food and soil crisis.
My reflections on the day:
Rising up from within
Memories of ancient pasts
When conviviality was just a way of life
Now it has to be art –
Intended, to remind
Curated, to experience
Organised, to happen
All transported in, for making
Ovens, materials, even fire
Who sensed what we’ve lost?
Touch of soil
Food as love
Smells of the fire as place
Conversing without structure
Connections without intent
Sensuality without possession
Discoveries in the everyday
Excitements of solidarity
Happenings, not structures
That’s the sense of place.
And from this arises
Another kind of beauty:
Poised, poignant, delicate
Curious, probing, soft eyes
Relaxed bodies, exposed, flowing
Unguarded faces
Rippling lightnesses of unorchestrated laughters
Curiosities of the aroused
Blends of beautiful male power –
Moving fire, stoking ovens, chopping wood
With lithe moves of the feminine –
Cutting, serving, tasting, mixing, connecting….
And through it all
Memories surface
Of futures
Where art returns
As way of life
Where all is in place
Nothing brought in
For its just simply there
All can do it
Know-how is passed on
Specialists are not needed
Creating becomes the norm
For in that reconfiguration
Peace prevails
Conviviality thrives
All have a place
Reconnected
And life unfolds
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