Thanks to Johanna for these recordings of 17 February 2023.
A Care Farm Apprentice learns about what it's like to live with people on a Care Farm.
On a Care Farm we're doing Care Farming -- so we learn all about it.
There's farming aspects and caring aspects.
They could be anything. [relaxed — yet activated — generative sigh]
Care Farmers know how to tend with disabled people in really nourishing generative ways.
We are connected to the land, and we do live on some beautiful land that we're also in relationship with.
One of the things we do differently from other care facilities and other farms is illuminated in how we navigate priorities and expectations.
A Care Farm can't operate as an island in the middle of a hostile sea. Care Farms also have connections with the broader community; energy is coming in and flowing out.
Everyone's economy on the Care Farm is important -- and equally important.
We move slow. We communicate. We learn from each other.
We make sure that the most vulnerable s needs are not left out.
We make sure that the invisible and unseen have a seat at the table and in all of our councils.
We take a pretty practical but very open and creative approach to problem solving, working on things about money and all of that.
Especially how things are currently set up in the USA, if the farm is not self-sufficient and off-grid, dollars necessary for utilities are really critical.
We may be working with systems that we need to protect each other from and access very, very mindfully.
There are Care Farms that do not interact with mainstream systems -- or not very much -- or the whole farm doesn't, but perhaps individuals get income from social security or something like that.
Developing alternative economies, including people in the community making sustaining donations of time dollars and other goods -- right? Perhaps communities want to tithe to something like this and share a portion of their harvest and help us preserve it -- or be a part of something where we're doing something like that, and then we also have a farm stand.
Making art is also a really important part of Care Farming, just like outreach documentation, creating media and spreading the word.
Having lots of on-farm enterprises is a really great thing if the community has the spoons to manage something like that.
Specific duties for us hiring a Care Farm apprentice right now would include...
+ Cooking...
+ Cleaning...
+ Spending time on specific things that individual residents need...
+ Spending time tending to the organization and systems of how the Care Farm works...
+ Learning how to coordinate work together, communicate...
+ There may be quite a bit available to do about communications and coordination of care, or working on teams with others to do that together...
+ There might also be projects and events that a Care Farm Apprentice might be the point person for.
These are all really primary skills.
There are many things that a Care Farm Apprentice might end up focusing on while they are with us learning.
There might be enterprises that the carees, farmers, residents, and community members are working on.
For instance, a tea and herb company and a big community apothecary: How do we do community herbalism... and community supported herbal sharing... to help get medicine to our communities?
We might also just learn basic homesteading skills, home care skills, personal care skills, secretarial skills, and all these kinds of care skills.
We might learn about the philosophy and practice of why we're doing Care Farming instead of institutions, and why it's important -- and how we want to get the word out.
Creating media and documenting what's happening on the Care Farm seems like a really potentially important part of the Care Farm Apprentice's job.
There might also be other residents that are doing healing work, coaching work, teaching, and so on.
An apprentice could support them with secretarial and other kinds of care, and just body doubling while we do things related to these enterprises.
An apprentice could therefore be exposed to and perhaps directly study the modalities and methods that survivors, carees, disabled folks, and whoever's here on the Care Farm might be developing and or professionally already offering to their communities.
I could go on at length about the many other kinds of things that we could do, but the basics would be calmness... joyfulness... presence... communication skills...
...generally being available -- as able, in a very positive way for everyone's body -- to show up for doing needed things that disabled people need help with. And hopefully enjoying themselves a lot.
While we're doing Care Farming and teaching apprentices about how to do it, we want to cultivate and help everyone participate in developing a culture that has a lot of pleasure in the way that we do things, in our activities, in the balance...
...learning how we manage and tend and respond to stress, to changes in the system, to conflicts...
...all of that in really, really generative, useful, helpful ways.
Thank you for tuning in to this message about what it could mean to become a care farm apprentice.
More writings, recordings, living art, and generative garden-tending from Johanna O’Tea can be found by browsing t.me/CareMagicJoha, t.me/EverageJoFreshArtGalley, and t.me/WildFarmacy. • Reach out to ask how you can assist Johanna’s vital community revitalizations by messaging t.me/JohannaBotanica.
More art info & prints purchase: t.me/IntuitiveGallery/260
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