Deep resilience: healing through herbal medicine, farming, and ancestral memory
Jovan Sage is a farmer, chef, community organizer, entrepreneur, herbalist, doula, and wellness coach. Drawing on the knowledge of her West African and Indigenous ancestors, she is deeply engaged in healing on many levels–the soil, the body, communities caught up in the global pandemic, race relations–through deeply reciprocal relationships with the land and one another.
Find out more about her work at Alchemist Jovan and Sage’s Larder.
Show Notes:
2’50 Jovan’s path to agriculture and regeneration
4’25 connection between people and soil, reciprocal relationships
6’03 facing history, healing our land and ourselves
7’05 finding shared narratives is key to healing
7’40 defensiveness about racial history
8’44 enslaved Africans provided not just free labor but vast agricultural knowledge
9’07 West Africans were great rice cultivators
9’51 Africans were healers, midwives, cooks and many other contributors to US society
11’40 connecting with slave ancestors and their roles in their communities
13’24 deepening her relationship to food in New York City
18’17 how she found herself in Georgia
18’50 getting the farm through hurricanes in Georgia
23’00 loss of animals, loss of business
27’32 parallels between dealing with hurricanes and pandemics
28’35 positive changes coming from catastrophe
30’24 food system crumbled so quickly, so much food was wasted, distribution system failed
32’09 disrupting the schedules of ranchers and cattle growth cycles
33’50 regeneration and listening
36’24 using ag to heal race relations
More Episodes
Episode 95 – The deep history of apples
Orchardist Gordon Tooley knows apple trees–and has been cultivating rare and heirloom varieties for three decades. But for him it’s as much about the landscape and lifestyle as about the product. We talk about living slowly, observing closely, and promoting healthy land, water, wildlife, and human communities.
Episode 94 – Pests, pathogens, and porcupines: thwarting the marauding hordes in an apple orchard
New England is lush and green—and all kinds of creatures want to eat a farmer’s crops. Apple grower and cider maker Steve Wood talks about Integrated Pest Management and its challenges.
Episode 93 – Rockweed: underwater forest or industrial commodity?
Seaweed has always been used for food, fertilizer, and medicine. But now, off the coast of Maine, over-harvesting threatens rockweed and the many species that depend on it.