Harmony

Final Thoughts

2006-05-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

Our project was not only innovative and necessary, it made sense. It was an experience that was rooted in conversation and celebration. We hope that no aspect of our plan or performance was environmentally "preacy" or invasive. Our invitation into the Senior's Garden by the seniors and the managers of the garden has left a wonderful impression on my value base, plans and hope for the future in the garden. I intend to continue to invest time and effort tending to the garden throughout the summer, possibly to utilize the space for summer concerts and festivals.

A.F.

In the end, Harmony's Mission

2006-05-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

Harmony is about sharing. Harmony, A Celebration of Life is about getting a neighborhood outside in its own garden for the sake of coming together outside in a garden. Our mission is no greater than that, but that has much to do with a great mission.
Environmentalism is struggling in its expression, and we have found ourselves unwilling to struggle. The words with which environmentalists work to express their mission have left us still fighting and moving too slowly towards the protection and conservation of our natural resources that we desire and know is necessary.
The neighborhood most struggling with environmental health, also happens to be the neighborhood closest to the Barnard community. Harlem is largely environmentally unaware, and its people's health have suffered greatly as a result of this.
Harmony is about Harlem regaining common experiences in the organic world. Our team hopes for people to re-member the organic things which surround them and to feel the biological connections to these organisms and elements. Considering the harshness of this concrete New York City landscape, this task is a difficult one to achieve. However, we intend to lead a neighborhood by the hand to their own garden, where hopefully they will be able to remember.
Harmony is about refusing to accept. It is about believing in a greater connection and understanding of humankind and life, where the connections rest on the shared resources of the Earth itself. We are here to help people re-member these connections. And we believe that sort of re-membering is only possible if people experience the connections themselves. For that, the collecting of a neighborhood to enjoy a spring afternoon together in a garden is one great achievement.
The event we have developed is to be supportive, encouraging, relaxed, with plenty of room for all to attend. We are not applying any pressure surrounding environmentalism because we do not believe that tactic is effective or beneficial. Instead we intend to lead Harlem residents to their own resources within their own neighborhood to show them what value lies in the forgotten green spaces next door. This in and of itself is great enough to alter people's perspectives and attitudes about much.

Hello elephant, have a seat.

2006-04-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

Adrionna and I are 15 minutes late and Dr. G is watching cartoons and eating poridge out of the pot she cooked it in. When you're working on Saturday, I think that's a necessary style.

After we arrived at her brownstone and Dr. G turned off the cartoons, we headed for the Taqwa Community Farm, a garden in the South Bronx that had promised us some ground cover and other plants.

Dr. G introduces Adrionna and me to "the brother that runs the place." He's an old gent, with grey hair and few wrinkles. He shakes my hand, offering little eye contact, then shakes Adrionna's saying "how you doin', sistah?" Dr. G asked him to show us the yard.

He walked 'round the garden mumbling the names of fruit trees, waving an arm in the direction of a cherry, a pear, a mulberry. He showed us their hydroponic growing system, telling us the vegetables it grows don't even compare to other vegetables because they're so good. Then he led us to a bed of irises, telling us we could take a clump made up of about a hundred of the bulbs.

We dug irises until we had two buckets full. The first thing I noticed was when you lifted up a brick laying in the dirt in this garden, there was nothing underneath. The ground was not squirming with rolly-polies, roaches, spiders, larvae and worms. There was nothing. Just dirt, if dirt can even be called dirt when there's so little in it.

There was a group of kids that had come to the garden, a woman who works with literacy programs had brought them there. We were just leaving as they were getting a breakfast of white bagels, cream cheese, and colored sugar water with artificial flavoring. They sat in a row on the two benches where one enters the garden. The woman running the program offered Adrionna and me something to eat (we refused) and gave us water to drink. She said they had brought bottled water for the adults, but you couldn't make the kids drink the stuff.

Adrionna set out to explain to the kids why they should drink water. They didn't have any problem telling us why. "For energy," they said. "To keep your skin good." "To keep your body healthy." They shouted their answers, and drank their artificially flavored sugar water.

Then Adrionna tried to talk about eating vegetables. They talked about everything else they eat, the bacon, the eggs, the cheese, and lots of white bread. They talked about how good the food is from the bodega down the street. One little girl said she gets a bacon and cheese sandwhich every day from the corner store. She didn't eat eggs because her mom said they were bad for her cholesterol.

"The bodega calls to her, 'come spend your money,' it says; and she goes. Every day she goes and spends her money on that. It has you fooled, it controls you. Why don't you eat a sandwhich at home?" the girls mother spoke to the group,as she asked her daughter.

The little girl explained that the man gave her plenty of things for free all the time. She said she could prove it and go get 5 bubblegums for free right now if we wanted her to.

"Yeah, I'm just wondering why he's giving you things for free. Investment in future endeavors? I need to know," the mother said.

The conversation became an argument about food choices between the kids and adults. Neither one listened much to the other, and both seemed fairly convinced that the other side didn't get it and never would.

Afterwards a group of the adults there talked about the attempts to organize the gardens, the attempts to get more money, more resources, more political justice. They spoke of the years of failed attempts, as they planned more.

"Half of that money we spend on the lotto needs to be coming back into the 'hood." Dr. G said.

Adrionna and I wondered how you make people stop spending so much money on the lotto. We wondered why the gardens weren't collectively organized.

The man in Taqwa Community Farm eventually spoke to me about the garden because he saw I loved the plants. He saw they meant a lot to me. He saw I knew them. So he helped me dig and smiled at me.

Dr. G talks often of "brothahs and sistahs," suggesting contacts we should make, and looking at Adrionna when she speaks.

I don't know what to call these exchanges, but they do exist. They exist because my color has history.

Every day that I work with this project, I tell myself I will not believe in racism because if I refuse to tolerate it, it will dissappear from my world- because we are here, and we are now, and we have been through so much to have that be an option, that kids like me can opt it out of their lives, and the horrid stain of racism that curses much more than just America will dissipate into thin air, and color will mean no more than color itself, and all will enjoy its spectrum, so diverse in that tiny band of light it comprises.

And I will always begin every day as such, and I will always go to bed as such.

I am over racism in the same way that as of today I have decided to be over sexism.

Harmony is about sharing. And I think that just might be it. Anything else seems a little ridiculous. I'm not from Harlem. I'm not black. I'm not from New York City. I'm not poor. Adrionna's not from Harlem, she's not from New York City, and she's not poor. And Jennifer's not from Harlem and she's not black.

The garden is located in Harlem. We are celebrating the land, the environment- and thus this event becomes about Harlem.

But it can't be about race, it can't be about helping poor people, uneducated people- they do not need to be helped. They are strong, they are wise, they are able.

It is about sharing. Adrionna, Jennifer and I are sharing all we love and adore. A Hue-Man Books banner because we adore books and that is the local bookstore, a garden because we love nature and the earth, life-celebrative music, nutritious foods because we enjoy health, puppet shows and storytelling because they are fun and wise in our opinion, photography because it is powerful.

I am exhausted by the preaching. I am exhausted by the entertaining of injustices carried out by the fighting of the same battles.

I will not fight. I will not convert. I will not preach. Thus, I need no power of persuasion. Thus, my white face need bother no one. I am not here to teach.

Harmony is about sharing.

I have spoken about racism because I needed to say something. Now it has been given the nod. Its presence can stay there in the room. It is not ignored. We know it is here. Everyone nod to the elephant in the room. Please, tip your hat.

I am waiting for things to change enough that racism will walk back out, finding that there's really not enough room for it in here. Eh, let's not wait. Let's just be busy. Let's be so busy with making gardens, with putting on concerts, with promoting musicians, with doing what we enjoy that the elephant in the room shrinks down into a mouse and scampers out through some hole in the floor.

I believe in magic, so such a trick seems entirely feasible to me. Already I'm watching this elephant puff into an assortment of sizes, a series of ups and downs, squeezes and expansions. And oh, when that final swap occurs, what a funny and delightful display it will be.

And we will all sit back, feeling a little less cramped, and revel together in our newly discovered magical capabilities.

Stuff tra la la.....just some things in the garden

2006-04-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Flowers tra la la...just some plants in the garden

2006-04-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

Meeting Dr. G

2006-04-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

Society has never been short on people with big ides. In fact, it is really no challenge to come across someone willing to espouse fanciful ideas of how to solve humanity’s biggest concerns. The true challenge is coming across those people with big ideas and enough conviction to act on those ideas. I am glad to say that this weekend I had the pleasure of meeting one woman who is full of such conviction. Dr. G’s story is truly an inspirational one.

Dr. G came upon her garden in the mid 90s when it resembled more of a garbage dump than a flower garden. For decades, residents had defenestrated various waste materials from the apartments surrounding the abandoned plot of land, which also served as loitering grounds for local drug dealers. No one had thought twice of using this makeshift garbage dump as anything but that, until, that is Dr. G came up with a plan. She saw that the land under the piles of garbage could be worth something as a catalyst for community solidarity. Dr. G investigated the ownership of the land and with the help of Green Thumb she began the painstaking effort of clearing the land of garbage. Over the years, Dr. G has moved an astonishing four tons of waste from the site.

Not only has Dr. G cleared the land but since 1994, she has begun a community effort of using the garden as a site for senior citizens to enjoy and for local schoolchildren to learn. And while the extent of Dr. G’s good works may, at first, seem hard to quantify, while I sat with her on a sunny Sunday afternoon the signs were all around. Every person that passed by the garden was greeted with a big smile and a hearty “hello, neighbor!” by the cheerful Dr.G. She seemed to know absolutely everyone in the area. And whether through their own experiences growing up or through those of their children, every passerby has some personal connection to Dr. G’s Garden.

Dr. G is far from finished with the garden. Though there has been vast improvement in its appearance, there is still a lot of work to be done. Dr. G hopes to install a Jacuzzi in the garden for the seniors with arthritis and is adamant about conducting art classes for local children as well. (In fact, she would love to have any interested Columbia/Barnard students help her with this initiative.)

Dr. G's sense of conviction and initiative is truly rare indeed. She's not just another plethora of endless plans but a srue source of change within the Harlem community. She is always looking for new ways to continue her efforts in improving her garden. This enthusiasm is part of the reason why Dr. G is such a wonderful partener for the Harmony initiative.

Also I have a question: What do people think of this design for a Tshirt?

Back to Life

2006-03-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

Jam in the Garden

So, it seems that our project is continuing to evolve. Such evolution has its ups and downs especially when it comes to the design process. Trying to come up with a theme and develop a coherent design for the promotion of any event can be quite challenging. However, that process is made even more so when dealing with an event that is still in the process of development.

Our project began as a celebration of life in Harlem, then it shifted to an on campus celebration of life in the upper Manhattan community, and now once again it has undergone a metamorphosis into a celebration of life and art in the garden. As one can imagine, all three forms of our event are relevant to the local community as well as to environmental concerns, however, because the concept between each is different the designs and relevant imaging for each is different as well.

Thus, the design and imaging portion of Jam in the Garden must begin anew. For the new variation of our event I hope to be able to create images and art work that reflect the importance of local parks, gardens, and wildlife in the everyday lives of local New Yorkers. I hope to highlight the joy and energy that these elements bring to our lives. I will travel to local parks and around the city in attempt to capture New Yorkers interacting with the environment.

However, all things considered, just as our last shift in event theme seemed to bring more relevance to our goal, so does this latest shift. After all, this class is about environmental ethics and the ways in which people can make changes to interact positively with nature. And what better way is there to highlight such interactions than by focusing on gardening.

Gardening and human cultivation of nature in general is a wonderful issue to bring to the forefront in our community. Why? Well because our interaction with nature is vital to positive mental health, physical health, and environmental health. Human interaction with nature, whether it be a casual stroll through the park, tilling a garden, diving the Atlantic, lounging on the beach or hiking through the forest has long been a source of solace and inspiration to people.

Especially in the bustling streets of Manhattan, people rarely take the time to pry themselves away from their respective computer screens and “smell the roses.” New Yorkers, and people and general, have become entities removed from nature and the experience of life. We search for the answer to our burgeoning levels of stress, depression and anxiety in a plethora of prescription drugs, when maybe we should really be looking to how unnatural our lives have become. When most people spend every waking moment in the confines of air conditioned cars and sterile office cubicles, eating processed Franken-food, glued to computer screens and almost completely sedentary, I would be amazed to find one person who feels in touch with nature.

What we need is a reintroduction of the role nature and our interaction with it can enrich our lives and the environment. In many ways, it is overwhelmingly sad that we need to be reminded of this. However, by bringing at least a few people back to the garden, back to life, nature, and some semblance of normalcy we hope to be able to remind each other just how important interacting with and being a part of nature is.

What Kind of Jam?

2006-03-28T09:17:00.000-08:00

"Jam in the Garden" the title of my last blog post is the title for our hunt for musicians on Craigslist- the very popular on line classifieds.

Here is the link: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/tlg/145366640.html

Our posting, title and its description running since last sunday has been a tremendous success. Already we have sparked the intrest of a (4) time award winning jazz singer, one of MTV's up and comming singer/song writers, an award winning mass choir from Harlem, an electric harpist and Native American flute players-- to name a few.

The title "Jam in the Garden" is truely the way we invision our event. Not jam as in "peanut butter and jam" but as in a melding of cooperative forces, coexisting and performing "in Harmony." The title of our ad also seemingly strikes the fancies of particular types of musicians; Many of whom have us sent links to their web sites and others invited us to upcoming gigs or rehersals.

As demonstrated by Dr. G on our initial visit to the seniors garden, these performers seemed to completely vibe with our intention. Their replies to our ad have had life celebrative tones and the types of music they create do the same.

Check out the links to a few of our potential acts:

www.cdbaby.com/dreamtal

www.myspace.com/organicrain

Our patience, faith and willingness to be flexible and open about the possibilities that are presented, has proven to be a rightgeous approach. This is the way we (the Harmony group) approach our lives daily.

The Importance of Gardens, for me

2006-03-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

I've grown up in gardens, or maybe that statement in and of itself can't help but be a lie; so instead I'll say, I've stayed around the age of 5 because I've always come home to gardens.

My grandmother had a garden. She grew vegetables and tobacco for a living, but around her house she had a flower garden. "Crazy Lottie's Crazy Garden" a sign made by some children at church said. In the South women have a way of sticking "trash" into their gardens, little doo-dads and knick knacks that someone found in the dump, wires and tires somehow turned into beautiful, creative art to give the garden intrigue when the flowers aren't blooming. My grandfather grew petunias in the beds by the river, and every Sunday after church the two of them would walk beside the river picking trash out from in between the blooming plants.

At the church they used to attend, the grave of my aunt and now my grandfather we have covered in Hasta and Day Lillies. We have sprinkled seeds of wildflowers yearly. My family goes to these graves, kneels, and tends flowers. We've never believed much in death, we've got too much power for creation for that. Things die when you let them. Our flowers tell us that's true.

My mother had a garden that took up half our front yard when I was a child. A giant rectangle completely full of flowers. The nieghboors hated it. She had Carolina jasmine climbing on everything, strangling the roses. There was Wandering Dew seeping into the drive way. Honeysuckle was all tangled in the Azaleas. But it was always blooming. The neighboors saw it as a mess- they wanted to see something more manicured. To mother and me, it was an amazing dance of color.

My first job was in a garden shop. Whenever I travel I am sure to visit gardens. There is something special about the creation of a place solely for the purpose of allowing plants to bloom. And there is something special simply about blooming all together.

My grandmother has a pillow sitting on her couch, (She now lives in a retirement home, her patio overrun with potted flowers, and she's begun to dig up the landscaping outside her door to make room for some collards) that a friend embrordered for her. It says "To cultivate a Garden is to walk with God." She's 92 and still planting flowers, so I think the pillow just may speak a little truth.

To have a life permeated with flowers, so richly saturated with every aspect of their being, I am delighted to have Harmony taking place in a Garden.

Dr. G told us she had started the garden ten years ago. The kids in the neighborhood would come to her saying, "Miss Vicky, Miss Vicky, come out and play."

"So I came outside, and we made a garden," Dr. G. said.

We can say the commonness of humanity is enough to keep us all understanding one another, to keep us all connected. And I've got faith in that. But I know I'm a white girl from rural North Carolina, whose spent a good deal of her life chasing flowers. And that's real different from growing up in Harlem, or even just growing up in New York City or LA. And the truth is, in dealing with city folk, communication bounderies pop up looking like glass, but I keep ramming my head into them and find out they're real.

But gardening, now that's a language I can speak, one I can understand. So the boundaries are still there, but now we've found a room all of us can fit in, one I can finally fit in.

People are different. Every day I'm realizing that is actually true. People have completely different value systems. People stand so far at the other end of the spectrum, they couldn't see you, or even imagine you. I think the location of the garden gives us just enough space that we can all come together, and small enough a framework that we're all truly seeing one another.

And the garden has cats. Adrionna and I have always loved cats.

Jam in the Garden

2006-03-27T18:06:00.000-08:00

Two Sunday's ago around 10am I got a phone call from Professor Detrrick. She wanted me to call Ms. Goldson who she'd met at a meeting on Columbia's expansion in Harlem. Mrs. Goldson runs the seniors garden on 153rd street between Columbus and St. Nicholas. Later that Sunday I contacted Ms. Goldson (aka Dr. G) to set up a day and time meet and discuss the posibility of using her garden for our concert/festival. She said "What better day then today. Two hours later Megan and I were standing in one of the most beautiful gardens in the city. "What better place to have a party, than in a garden," Dr. G said.

Dr. G wanted our celebration in her garden just as much as we did. The garden big enough to hold 300 people, is tended daily by the neighborhood youth that helped Dr. G revive it from beneath four feet of garbage years ago.

The garden serves as the back yard for the brownstones faces north on 153rd (where Dr. G lives) and a senior center on 154th street. After getting a tour of the grounds and good conversation with Dr. G, we went in the center, told elders about our event;we asked for their permission in part, but more so their participation in our celebration.

The seniors garden is privately owned grounds and rest atop an auqifer. Collards, tomatoes and other edibles are grown there. We saw an assortment of colorful flowers preparing fully show out. There there are childerens sculpters and beautiful mosaics that boarder the garden. That was last Sunday.

In the mid-to late 1980's the area surrounding the seniors garden was on the cusp of drug war territory in upper Manhattan. This activity kept the elders inside the center as they were in fear of being robbed and/or harassed by wandering drug feinds.

According do Dr. G the garden has served as rehabilitator of the elders veiw of young people and the outdoors. The elders work in the garden and rest there. "It gives them the opportunity to engage with young people in a positive way" she said.

Obtaining this particular space has added a new and very important demension to the project. These are historical grounds in which its creators and ancestors still reside. This garden space is also unlike the city owned park or Barnard's campus is maintained by the members of its commuity. This space is truely a community space and lends itself to a stronger community feel.

Dr. G's enthusiasm for toward our event and her desire to use Harmony as a tool to promote the maintanense of green spaces, elevates our project from one of inovation to activism.

Harmony, is once again and finally, a celebration of life and the enviornment in Harlem. The event will take place on Earth Day (April 22nd,2006) from 11a-5p.

Back to Square One

2006-03-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

Our NEW logo!

On knowing and believing

2006-03-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

Jennifer and Adrionna have given the updates on prject changes, and the project has me tired. I am talking to the people, making the connections, and working with the daily buzz of all it takes to make Harmony happen, just as we all are. Amidst all this, I find the need to remember what it is I'm doing- honestly, where my investment is in this project, why I have claimed it, helped to create it, and why I want to see it work. So for now, I offer no updates on the project- just updates on why it is that this project need happen at all because I need to take a moment to remember. For me this class, and every environmental class I take, is not ever just about that class. It is ALWAYS about a larger mission, it is always about piecing together the shambles we are making out of our planet. The first day of class I said the thing special about me was that I feel things really, really hard, and that was no lie. I want to remember Harmony's weight, the weight of our class, and the weight of all of our projects- with hopes that others will believe in their weight and intensity.
I am learning that all environmentalism is is making the case for what we Love. Harmony is an attempt to make an entire community fall in Love with the same thing I have fallen in Love with.
"What is it that I am in Love with?" I must then ask myself if I am expected to make others fall in Love with it as well. And I suppose I would answer by saying, "all that is beautiful and the triumph of that beauty for all time." And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I have given myself an immense range of options to convince people they must fall in Love with. But now, am I brilliant enough (is Harmony brilliant enough), once I have had them all fall in Love with "all that is beautiful and the triumph of that beauty for all time" to prove that the Earth holds the only guarantee to the protection of their new-found deepest Love?
That is the mission. One will risk all for something she Loves. Many a human would sacrifice her life for a child, a sibling, a mother, money, a culture, wherever it is she has directed her Love. So the quest of the environmentalist is to prove the dependency of whatever one Loves on the Earth.
People give up kidneys for their loved ones. Am I skilled enough, is Harmony brilliant enough, to teach a community that every second the Earth is their kidney donor and each of us are in dire need? Is Harmony clever enough to teach people that it makes more sense to test for their vitals in the air, the water, the soil, than in their own wrist or neck? What does it take to make people see they have never been a closed system?
Science class lied to us all. Our digestive tract is linear, either end open to the environment. Our respiratory system is circular with our environment making up half of the circle. One cannot measure her vitals simply in her wrist and get any sense of her health or what health the future holds for her. One must also incorporate the vitals of the rest of our system- this Earth.
How does one make such a truth be believed by people? People cannot even believe that their heart does in fact provide them with life, until they experience its disfunction. Only then is one able to see, "yes it is this little organ within me that allows for me to exist at all." And then one recognizes the desire to care and look after it. And that is within our own bodies, that is so clsoe to home- perhaps that is the difficulty in seeing. How can one make the truth real without the urgency of near-failure?
It's a funny mission, this quest to make people believe in what they know is true.

Now that we have a location, that is my new goal. Harmony must devise a way to make a community believe in what they know is true. I am looking forward to the joys of planning.

community action

2006-03-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

We have a location!!!

On April 30th, 2006 from 11:00 to 4:00 our concert and environmental festival will be held on Barnard's Quad Lawn and Lounge. We are, for the first time thinking and working in terms of our own interest and our own community. We have not compromised the focus or the aim of our project by changing its location, we have only made more sense of it. It's not all about Harlem, and its not all about the kids. It's about all of us.

Sure, I'm black. But I'm not from Harlem and I don't live there. The fact that I buy my herbal deoderant on 125th street or occassionally perchase 5 dollar boot legged CD's there does not give me a right to Harlem.

But I did choose to come to Barnard, and my parents give Barnard their hard earned money, and I do use my hard earned money to pay for overpriced textbooks for Barnard courses, so I do have the right to creating and participating in what's happening on this campus. It is my responsibility. My community is right here. And this is something that Megan, Jennifer and I have in common. These are some of the things that define our community.

Our Celebration of Life and the environment is a community service event now more than it ever was. We are doing our Barnard community a great service by creating a program that is both community and serviced based on its campus. And, we are doing so in an innovative way: responsibly.

This event is not co-sponsored by Aramark for the purpose of getting people together for the sake of unhealthy food give aways. This is actually about community for the community's sake. This is an exercise in community building. And the people that we are reaching out to on campus for support are understanding this and are jumping on board. The Office of Residential Life and Housing has already contributed greatly to our project by helping us secure a space as well as providing us with ways of attaining monetary support on campus and broadening our field of human resources.

Fresh, the new cafe on 121st and Amsterdam, a few skips from the Plimpton residence Hall is ready and willing to donate food for our event.

Making the switch to work within our community has equaled rapid results. Securing a space meant walking into Sulz and talking to Velma and Lorie in Res Life. It all happend in a matter of minutes. And getting support from Fresh Cafe meant walking in and asking for it.

The Forces of Change

2006-03-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

Fluidity and flexibility; these are the virtues of the creative process. This is especially true because an idea rarely materializes without first going through a series of changes. It is essential that any plan has room for tweaking and change or it will be virtually impossible for that to become a reality. This fact is all the more true when one is trying to plan a public event because such occasions require the cooperation and coordination of so many different forces. And this is precisely why the ‘Harmony’ project has and continues to change and evolve as it develops.

The Harmony project has now been changes from the “Celebration of Life Earth Day Concert” to the broader “Community Celebration of Earth and the Environment.” Basically, the focus of the project has shifted from focusing strictly on the Harlem community to encompassing the entire Morningside/Harlem area. The goal of shifting the project’s focus is to truly capture the idea behind ‘harmony.’ By broadening the scope of the event to the entire Morningside area, the hope is that true community awareness of the environment can be achieved. There is an undeniable divide between the Morningside (University campus) area and its surrounding neighborhoods. However, there is no justification for allowing such a divide to persist when we all inhabit the same neighborhood and face many of the same environmental and health concerns. This is precisely why in order to make an attempt at true communal harmony a broader more encompassing focus must be adopted.

The ‘Harmony’ festival will now take place on Sunday April 30th in the Barnard quad. Although the festival is no longer being held on Earth Day, the focus of the event is still to raise awareness of community environmental issues. In addition, thought the location of the event has been changed to Barnard’s campus, that in no way is meant to exclude the surrounding neighborhoods. If anything, by inviting Barnard’s neighbors to the campus, that will only contribute to the goal of communal integration and harmony. In addition, this goal will be further achieved by having all people from around the Morningside/Harlem community celebrating life in that community. Thus, what initially seemed like a continuous cycle of setbacks and false hopes, location changes and road blocks, has turned out to be a blessing. And through continual change while remaining fluid and flexible, this project has taken one giant leap closer to its purpose of communal and environmental awareness.

What is Harmony?

2006-02-28T12:47:00.000-08:00

Harmony,
A Day to Celebrate

A Day to Celebrate, Earth Day 2006

Every year Earth Day takes place on April 22nd, and this year we’re excited to bring that celebration to Harlem. It is time for Harlem to take a Saturday afternoon to come outside into its streets and celebrate life, something that’s so common and so commonly taken for granted. It is time to celebrate life in Harlem from the ground up, from the soil underneath it’s sidewalks to the sun that shines down on its faces and all the creations that spring forth everyday from these interactions. It is time for Harlem to see how truly alive it is, and how that life is able to unite a city block, a city street, an entire city neighborhood into an active, vibrant community. And to do all this, all April 22nd needs is a few talented musicians, some good food, people willing to share and have fun with one another, and the space for all this to come together. All of these components are right here in Harlem, and it is time for the people of this neighborhood to enjoy them together.

The Makings of a Celebration of Life

We intend for our festivities to include:

A concert of neighborhood musicians performing music with life-celebrative themes
Classes in healthy, appetizing food preparation
Information and activities provided by neighborhood groups involved in music and environmental fields.
Children’s events and activities centered around environmental topics important to Harlem
A farmer’s market
All of this taking place outside in Harlem, so all are invited and encouraged to come outside and celebrate together

What All This Will Bring to Harlem
Awareness of the community resources available within Harlem
An opportunity for Harlem’s community organizations to make themselves known
A sharing and trading of knowledge and information important to the livelihood of Harlem
A building of community morale and positivity
A sparking of Harlem’s music scene
An awareness of the knowledge and power inherent in Harlem
A greater sense of and appreciation for the many components of Harlem’s community

It is the aim of these festivities to put Harlem in touch with the wealth of resources living within its streets, and to inspire, through this community gathering, the people of Harlem to use these resources to allow Harlem to grow as an active, creative, community in charge of its own destiny.

The Music

How does one demonstrate the commonality of life? How does one make a group of people rejoice in the fact that they have this quality in common with one another, with the pigeon on the sidewalk, the dog at the end of their leash, and the sources of the food on their plate? Thankfully, truth has a way of sounding familiar when people hear it, and thankfully we have been given more than words to work with. What moves people without explanation, without thought or premeditation, without language, without command? Music. Music has heads bobbin’, feet tappin’, and bodies swayin’ before the ear has even realized what it is hearing. Music has a rhythm that is as good as all of our heart beats because we are all able to feel it. We can’t help but be penetrated by it. Thus, music is wrapped up in life, for they share a rhythm familiar to all who experience it.

So, we’ve got a rhythm of music to carry a melody of celebrating life, and that should be good enough to make Harlem move.

Contacts

Megan McLaurin
Executive Director
910-200-6130
Mm2452@barnard.edu

Megan, an environmental policy student, is currently working with NASA’s Goddard Space Institute and the Millennium Villages Project researching agricultural policy. She is an award-winning writer, as well as a yoga instructor and saxophonist. Megan is also interested in women’s health issues and has led many workshops on health for teenage girls in the surrounding area.

Adrionna Fike
Public Relations
661-313-6175
Af573@barnard.edu

Adrionna, former Columbia University basketball player, is an anthropology student with a love of music and children. Her work in anthropology is environmentally based, exploring relationships between the land, its food, and its people. Adrionna is committed to promoting education about nutrition and health to her community, particularly its younger members.

Jennifer is a psychology student with a strong belief that art is the force that has the power to inspire a people. She is a photographer, currently studying at the International Center for Photography. In her art, Jennifer aims to regain the connection between individuals and their environment, helping people to take a look at themselves, their actions and their home.

Harmony, not Har(money)

2006-02-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

Harmony is possible. It's true. But how easily it is forgotten.

Harmony by definition is "compatibility in opinion and action; congruity of parts with one another and with the whole". In terms of music, harmony is "a collation of parallel passages, especially from the Gospels, with a commentary demonstrating their consonance and explaining their discrepancies". We intend to exemplify these notions on April 22nd.

We have all of the parts we need to bring our vision to life. Now we must exercise and engage them.

I am constantly learning how to listen. I am currently working on how to not get caught up in everything that everyone says. They kept saying that what we need corporate sponsorship. But it's simply not true. And we knew this all along. But we got caught up-- thinking too fast and too far outside of our means. Discovering our means: our primary and natural resouces is the defining quality of our project. Harlem does not need Starbuck's or Whole Food's market to help it discover itself.

Reaching outside of Harlem for resources is completely antithetical to this project and our vision. It is a slap in the face and strips away the creative power and resourcefullness of people. Looking for a handout is behavior that we must not perpetuate here. It is a mode of opperating that is simply irresponsible and lazy.

A particular type support and cooperation is neccessary--it's called community support. All handouts aren't needed and many that are given aren't ever recieved. They aren't recieved because many of them do not have anything to offer their target community. For example, what does Starbuck's on have to contribute to Morningside park on Earth Day? Coffee. Are they planning to teach people how to grow coffee in Harlem? Cause it's damn sure not to promote health or economic development.

I am not bitter, just disappointed that the "Friends of Morningside Park" is choosing to "sell out" and turn Earth Day over to Starbucks.

This goes to show just how much work there is to be done.

This is a casting call for community actors, directors, producers and technicians. We are gaining support day by day.

If we need a stage for our performers, we will create one ourselves; for our health food, we will be able to cook; we will outfit ourselves, we know what looks and feels good.

With heart, mind, soul and breath we will acheive Harmony,. Music, play, and dance are all modes of harmonization, and when done responsibly we see all that Harmony has to offer.

Stay grounded and Keep your eyes.

2006-02-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

We're learning to remember our roots, or rather, we're seeing that for a moment we forgot them, and it's time to get grounded yet again. We had heard talk of corporate sponsorship and had spent hours thinking of the right words to get the right company with the right amount of money to write us a hefty check.- what was that about showing Harlem it has all the resources it needs? What was that about getting Harlem rooted in its own soil, not in someone else's money? What was all this we had forgotten?
So we're remembering, and we're getting us a school, and we'll have a grand concert and a grand old time on the playground; that's where we all learned most of our lessons anyway.
But all this has shown me, whatever you do, keep your eye. Keep your eye for brilliance, and work your way as high up as you can, because then if you're high up on whatever ladder this is that people are so sure they're standing on, and you've still got your eye for brilliance, you can change the world as easy as flipping a coin. But somewhere along the way everybody's getting their eye poked out, or maybe they just start climbing and realize they're afraid of heights, so they close them. I'm not too sure. All I know is when you get up high, people lose their eye for brilliance. Lesson number one of the project: Never let ANYONE poke your eye out- even Starbucks. No matter how big their pockets are or how much power they're wielding- keep your eyes, they are far more valuable.
I picked up a fortune yesterday. It said "Ultimate creativity is maintaining perpetual newness, a childlike openness and a curiosity in life." I thought it had grand timing.

Photographic Harmony...Harmonic Photography?

2006-02-18T13:04:00.000-08:00