New blog series: Luminous Botanicals’ Sensory Suggestions
You may have spent so much time at home in the past year that you’ve started to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of TV shows, movies, books, and podcasts. You’re not alone!
Fortunately, endless scrolling in the pursuit of finding rewarding ways to pass the time gave way to an idea: A new blog series where we share what the Luminous Botanicals team has been enjoying watching, reading, listening to, and perhaps even cooking! A list of “Luminous Botanicals’ Sensory Suggestions”, if you will.
The first recommendation on our list is a documentary called Gather.
As supporters of regenerative agriculture, we felt it was imperative to kick off this series off with a documentary about the food systems of Indigenous people. That’s because regenerative agriculture is rooted in Indigenous knowledge.
The very practice of land stewardship originates from Indigenous cultures and often goes beyond the baseline goals of regenerative agriculture by not only prioritizing ecological sustainability, but securing the continuance of cultural practices and community values.
Gather instills a sense of hope as it beautifully illustrates multiple generations of Indigenous descendants in pursuit of food sovereignty. It also insists that we don’t turn ourselves away from the painful history of the land we live on.
Even if you’ve seen it before, it’s difficult to not be paralyzed by the image shared within the documentary that shows a mountain of dead buffalo, illustrating how over 60 million American buffalo were slaughtered by colonizers in order to starve the Plains Indians into submission. Only 10% of Indigenous Americans survived genocide and disease brought on by European colonizers, and survivors were met with forced relocation and assimilation, as well as nullification of their hunting and fishing rights, furthering the decimation of their lives and culture.
While these reminders can be haunting, they also reaffirm the sheer resilience of American natives. Gather courageously revisits the past in order to illuminate what changes can be made in order to create a more sustainable future.
Here are a couple of the many resonant statements we gathered (no pun intended) from the documentary:
Watching this documentary leaves you with a profound sense of longing to have Indigenous people and our natural ecosystem returned to their rightful places of power, and allowing that inspiration to turn into action can lead to powerful changes within our society.
If you have a library card, there’s a good chance you can stream Gather on Kanopy for free, and it’s also available on iTunes, Amazon, and Vimeo-on-Demand for a small fee.
Visit nativefoodsystems.org to learn more, get useful resources, and donate to help build healthy Native economies and communities.