Incredible, Edible Todmorden

Garden in Todmorden, UK

“The industrial revolution came... and went.”
Thus begins the story of Todmorden, England, 
the little town that could.
Food grows free for the picking, everywhere,
at the police station, the fire house, the schools.
Yum, yum!  Fresh and free, festivals and street fairs,
recipes traded from around the world.
All grown here or right nearby.
“Everyone’s got to eat,” they say, and so they do!
“The time to act is now.”
Creating a world truly nourishing, 
for their children,
for us all.
Food production begins in the garden of every school,
vegetables, chickens and fruit trees.
“The joy of connecting people is fabulous.”
Training the young people to grow food and market it,
small sustainable jobs 
where despair and depression had been.
In every nook and cranny, an apple tree.
“Go ahead, take some, it’s free!”
Poultry raising, bee keeping, dairy.
“You just have to give a damn about tomorrow.”
Dear little Todmorden, voting for life with all your being,
keep those three plates spinning in the air!


Annelinde Metzner
November 4, 2012

I'm reposting this poem which appears on page 120 of the We'Moon Datebook this year, 2019.


The foundation of the philosophy of Incredible Edible Todmorden, England, is to keep these three plates in the air: community, education, and business.

Click here to keep up with the ever-growing doings in Todmorden, England, the little town that could.

Prayer for the Wood Thrush

On this exquisite New Moon of May,
the Wood Thrush has returned, exuberant, virtuosic,
casting its heartbreaking riffs 
into the eager ears of the woods.
All nature sounds with her, in its bones, in its sap.
All of us are freed with her freedom.
All of us are catapulted into new ways, new paths,
vibrating down to the quivering spirals of our DNA.
Welcome, darling brilliant wee singer!
Break up for us the frozen overused ruts
that form our cold winter thoughts, our stiffness.
Push us one more step forward into joy.

Annelinde Metzner
May 13, 2010


I search for the sound of the wood thrush, deep in the woods each summer.  Its sound lifts me like no other.   Here is a video and recording of the wood thrush.

 

Convivencia

Ladino Singer, artist unknown

The three musicians on the stage-
     the Trio Sefardi,
     music of the Jews of Iberia.
Forced out of Spain in 1492, they spread to the diaspora,
     France, Morocco, Turkey, Yugoslavia.
Drifting deep into the Ladino songs,
     I blink and I'm walking a cobblestone street
     in my Medieval village.
Children kick a ball, carry bread dough, fetch water.
     I wave hello and I hear it! 
     I hear the music!
On the village square, three musicians play,
     the lute, the daff, the rebec,
     chanting songs of love and history.
A single word comes to me,
     full, full, full of tears and longing: convivencia.
Hundreds of  years of music and peaceful coexistence,
     Muslim, Christian, Jew,
     here in these cobblestone streets of Spain,
     France, Morocco, Egypt,
     these ancient Mediterranean lands
     where all the faiths lived comfortably, side-by-side.
Enjoying each other, living, thriving,
     the oud, the lute, the guitar,
     loving their common language, music.
Convivencia,
     living together in peace.

Annelinde Metzner
June 7, 2019

    In one of the oldest synagogues in America, we heard the Trio Sefardi perform ancient Ladino (Jews of Spain) songs during the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC.  Listening with tears in my eyes, I relive the time of convivencia, a word coined in the Middle Ages in Spain and Morocco, before the expulsions of 1492, when Muslim, Christian and Jew shared cultures and lived peaceably side by side. 

Trio Sefardi at the Spoleto Festival

Daff (frame drum) school

 

Spanish guitarist, Renoir

School of Daff dance

Highlander Fire

Highlander circle of rocking chairs

"You can't padlock an idea," said Myles Horton,
     founder of Highlander School in 1932.
A place that loved the people,
     looking for the inner core,
     that fire that moves us all
     in the face of domination, injustice, white supremacy.
Here is the quiet circle of chairs,
     rocking, rocking,
     even today shouting the words
     of those who gathered here-
Rosa Parks, Pete Seeger, Septima Clark, Martin King.

"Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?"
     went the old Sea Island song.
Singing!  To unite our spirits, to strengthen us,
     to make our vision clear.
Learning to connect ourselves, to organize,
     teaching literacy in the far reaches of the land,
     voting rights, equality, how it feels to be free.
Not long ago, March 29th, a fire
     burned down the front office,
     White Power signs painted on the ground.

This is not the first time, and won't be the last-
     but who has the fire, really?
Vicious liars who hate,
     or those who carry the fire within,
     burning, burning
     with the desire for us all to be free?

Annelinde Metzner
June 20, 2019

      On March 29, 2019, White Supremacists burned the main building of Highlander Center, New Market, Tennessee. 
     I took a workshop at Highlander Center in August of 2006 and was agog at the famed circle of rocking chairs where many plans of the civil rights movement were first envisioned.
Trainings were done, hearts were strengthened, and this still goes on today.
     May Highlander continue to help us all, as it has for almost a century!

Housing the circle of chairs

Mural on the main building

 

Highlander Fire, March 29, 2019

Civil Rights class

Circle with Guy and Candy Carawan, song collectors