Author: Sam Ovenshine
In conjunction with Local Foods Month and Sustainability Week, a group of Occidental students and staff packed their bags over fall break for Sustaining Spirituality, a two-day retreat to Ventura County sponsored by the Office for Religious and Spiritual Life (ORSL).
The 10 individuals who attended the event investigated the intersection between food justice, sustainability and spirituality in Ojai, California. They spent Saturday working on a 12-acre organic farm maintained by community-supported agriculture advocate Steve Sprinkel and his wife Olivia Chase.
Between breaks for lunch and self-reflection, students labored in Sprinkel’s fields picking vegetables. As they worked, Sprinkel explained to the group what it means to be an organic farmer, how he works and why he chose his vocation. Over the course of the afternoon, the group collected brussels sprouts, carrots, beans, pumpkins and potatoes – all by hand.
In 2001, proprietors Sprinkel and Chase expanded their vision for their Ojai property to include an on-site restaurant, “Farmer and the Cook.” Its success spawned the addition of a small all-organic grocery store, Meiners Oaks; a Mexican restaurant, the Daily Café; and a weekend-only restaurant, the Farm Café, featuring salads, pizza, specials and desserts. Whenever possible, the ingredients for the eateries came straight from the farm.
After students and staff completed their day working in the field, they ate at “Farmer and the Cook.” In application of the proximity between the restaurant and its adjacent supplier farm, Chef Olivia Chase incorporated students’ vegetables into the evening’s dishes.
Giovanni Saarman (junior) said, “It was so wonderful working all day harvesting and then getting to eat some of the fruit of our labor; the potatoes were served to us as an appetizer that night for dinner.”
Saarman also wrote on the Food, Energy and Sustainability Team (F.E.A.S.T.) blog to say that the day at the farm ended on a gastronomical high note that made the work in the field worth the effort.
Following dinner, participants set up tents for the night in the nearby Los Padres National Forest. Later, attendees explored the connections between well-being, sustainability, food justice and spirituality during a campfire discussion.
ORSL Director Susan Young said she feared the diversity of spiritual backgrounds of the students who attended the retreat might obstruct the retreat’s dialogue. But over the weekend, the limited experience that some attendees had pondering their own spirituality became an opportunity for those with more experience to hear new perspectives.
“Some of the students don’t talk about spirituality very much, so it was interesting to hear them debrief what that word meant for them. But they all had interest in the term,” Young said.
Saarman said that the discourse from the weekend touched even those who attended the retreat more for its theme of sustainability than spirituality. “It seemed like everyone in the group had different religious beliefs, but all of our views toward spirituality had a common thread,” he said. “Most everyone associated spirituality with a sense of awe or wonder, especially inspired by the natural world.”
Before the return to Eagle Rock, Young initiated a walking meditation on Sunday morning. She read the poem “Being Watchful” by naturalist author Wendell Berry while they proceeded. Young said that she selected it because of its “dual focus on the wisdom we glean from the natural world and its focus on living in the present moment.”
The weekend marked ORSL’s first retreat held over fall break. Previous retreats have taken place over Presidents’ Day weekend. This year’s timing was prompted by Local Foods Month, on campus this October, and Sustainability Week, Oct. 17-23.
The event’s theme, Sustainability and Spirituality, came out of perceived student interest in discussions coordinated among ORSL, the Office of Student Life (OSL), ResLife, F.E.A.S.T. and the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI).
Students first grew intrigued about the connection between food justice and spirituality after a similar ORSL retreat that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “We started looking into food access issues after we took students to New Orleans over a spring break,” Young said. “We took students who weren’t already interested, and they got interested in how food justice intersects with employability and with how social justice concerns interact with religious concerns.”
Based on these interests, major questions that staff directed toward students during this year’s retreat included how each of the group members understands spirituality, what it means to live a sustainable lifestyle, how to promote sustainability through career and how to live out personal convictions with integrity.
Students and staff worked through these topics to gain knowledge of the relationship between sustainability and one’s self. They also developed relationships with others in the process.
“I knew no one that was on the trip before I went, so I really enjoyed getting different insights from people I wouldn’t have met on campus,” Lizzy Dutton (sophomore) said. “I wish that more Oxy students took advantage of the opportunity to meet new people through these programs.”
Young agreed and said the retreat offered an ideal environment for interpersonal interaction.
“Administrators don’t often get to hang with students and dig through dirt and be present with them and have conversations about growing up and experiences after college. The relationships are much more important than the work we did. […] You get to know someone so much better when you’re digging through the dirt with them,” Young said.
For more information on Steve Sprinkel’s work at “The Farmer and the Cook,” visit http://organictransitions.wordpress.com. To read more about F.E.A.S.T.’s latest efforts to promote sustainability on campus, visit http://www.occidental-feast.blogspot.com.
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