My conversation with Sarah Heynen, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Food & Ecology (CCFE) in Tkaronto. Sarah is a strategic systems-thinker with a warm heart and a generous nature. Sarah introduced me to the Surviving the Future course which you heard about in episode 218. We mostly talked food, about artfulness and what it means to be inspired and inspirited by say a conversation or a meal. She also explained the Anishinaabeg 7th fire prophecy: a time when the light skin race needs to choose between a scorched earth path and a rainbow path leading to flourishing and the 8th fire.
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Imagine a world where every meal reconnects you with the earth. Sarah Heynen shares her vision of a regenerative food system, inviting listeners to consider food as a powerful tool for cultural and ecological healing.
Chapter Summary
00:00 The Joy of Food Experience
01:25 Cultural Perspectives on Food
02:43 The Role of Art in Renewal
04:29 Contextualizing Our Location
06:50 Spiritual Connections to Food
08:32 Projects for Cultural Reconnection
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Behind the Story
Sarah Heynen, drawing from her background in anthropology and her role at the Canadian Centre for Food and Ecology, explores the cultural significance of food and its potential to address environmental challenges. She advocates for a shift in perspective, viewing food as a solution that invites participation in a collective journey towards healing and reconnection.
Note: This is an automated transcription that is provided for those who prefer to read this conversation and for documentation. It has been verified but is not 100% accurate (some names might not be quite right). Please contact me if you would like to quote from this transcript: claude@conscient.ca
[00:00:00 - 00:00:47] Sarah Heynen
The approach of the CCFE is what has been so attractive to me. And it's a conviction around joyful, immersive experience. And it starts with the conviction that until someone has experienced the sensory joy of experiencing food in a new way, there's little interest in understanding the facts or the cognitive, you know, issues surrounding our food system. You know, one can focus on that which is the problem. And it truly is, you know, a problem, but way more compelling, way more attractive, is to think about food through the lens of it as a solution that invites people in.
[00:00:47 - 00:01:23] Claude Schryer
In episode 224, my conversation with Sarah Heinen, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Food and Ecology in Tkaranto. Sarah is a strategic systems thinker with a warm heart and a generous nature. Now, during our conversation, we mostly talked about food, but also about artfulness and what it means to be both inspired and inspirited by, say, a conversation or a meal. Food as a solution that invites people.
[00:01:25 - 00:04:21] Sarah Heynen
Well, as one who's studied anthropology, what comes to mind is to enter into this question first through the lens of culture and the recognition that culture is really all of how we make sense of the world, including what we define as art. And so much of the rituals, taboos, power structures, the ingredients of culture are unseen. They kind of operate below the surface. And in some ways, it's like a fish in a pond who doesn't see the water. And what I think an awareness of culture begins to introduce is the opportunity to understand the quality of that pond and how it got to be the way it is, who's tending the pond, what it means to be an obedient fish in that pond. And through that intellectual understanding of those ingredients, we can begin to see that the pond has been fouled. It helps to introduce us to the awareness that maybe there's another way of being that holds more promise. Here is where I think the role of art becomes so important for renewal. And I'll just share. Having been one who studied anthropology, I have a certain degree of resistance to how we have defined art in the Western worldview. I prefer to answer this question by thinking about what is artful and that quality of what we consider artful as coming from a place that is inspired. And what does it mean to be inspired, to be inspirited? And I think it's through that quality of making something artful, be it a meal, be it a garden, be it a conversation where the space has been created for a certain quality of energy to be brought to the surface. I think that's where we begin to open ourselves to other ways of understanding beyond the linguistic. I can see an art exhibit created by Mexican artists on Anti GMO. I don't need to know what the Spanish text says to know what's being conveyed. And similarly on that quality of what is alluring when we feel that the artist has tuned their frequency to be a channel of that muse, there is a quality to that energy that I think is fundamental to the whole journey of renewal.
[00:04:22 - 00:04:52] Claude Schryer
That's a good answer and the beginning of a conversation that will go on beyond these 15 minutes. Because I wanted you to situate us where we are here in Tkaronto. And I also want to thank you because you're the one who recommended I take the course that's called Surviving the Future. And I wrote a bit about it in my calm presence and there's going to be a group discussion from it. But where are we, Sarah? So where are we and what do you do?
[00:04:52 - 00:06:37] Sarah Heynen
Okay, so we are in the Tkaronto region, bounded by the Great Lakes and Oak Ridges Moraine, Turtle Island, also known as Canada. We are in place as I described, and in time, I think, living within a chapter of our species storyline that is what I might describe as an evolutionary date with destiny. And in this region there is a view that has begun to become shared. That is a teaching from the Anishinaabeg people that speak of this time as the age of the seventh fire. It is within time foretold by their earliest teachings. And it speaks of a time where the light skinned race will be confronted with a choice. A fork in the road, a path from which two options reveal themselves. One is a scorched earth path. The other is the Rainbow Path which leads to flourishing and the potential lighting of the eighth fire. So it's an uncertain time because there is a question as to which choice will be made. And it has also been explained to me that this choice can be viewed through the lens of the material versus the spiritual.
[00:06:38 - 00:06:49] Claude Schryer
So what are you doing in your work and in your life to move us in the right direction, A good direction.
[00:06:50 - 00:09:03] Sarah Heynen
The personal choice for me comes from a belief that our challenge, that we think of through the material lens, fossil fuel emissions, engineering challenges, the opportunity of energy transition. They obscure what I believe to be the underlying spiritual cause of this challenge. And I see that underlying spiritual cause as rooted in the illusion that we are somehow separate from spirit. And the path that I'm now following looks at food as a potent invitation into a collective story of reconnection with each other, with the Earth and with ourselves, because that which we choose to put in ourselves, the ecology of our gut, is the very same dynamic as the ecology of our planet. And so this does present the opportunity to be a participant in a collective story of healing that is at once as relevant to the individual level as it is to the planetary. And so I'm the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Food and Ecology, and this organization has been created in acknowledgement of the power of food to reconnect. And we are on a journey that hopes to inspire within people the motivation to explore what might be an alternative to the current pond that we might feel trapped in.
[00:09:05 - 00:09:31] Claude Schryer
And food and agriculture and gardening has been talked about in this podcast many times as not an art form, but well within the sphere of art and creation and beauty and aesthetics and all that. So what are examples of some of the projects that the foundation is doing that either connect to culture and all of it being cultural in a way, just so that people have an example of some of the things you're doing?
[00:09:33 - 00:12:33] Sarah Heynen
Well, it all starts for us in the soil, because the degree of life that exists in the amount of organic matter that exists in the soil is now being shown through science. And that it matters. It matters to not only the overall environmental story of carbon sequestration and water retention, but it also matters to the quality of the food that gets produced. And over the years, as we have been transitioning our soil to dirt through chemical inputs, we've also lost quality of food. And the data is now helping us to see that what we used to be able to eat one of several years ago, we now need to eat three of eight of five of depending on which food type you're talking about, whether one is motivated by the story of personal health and nutrition, or one is motivated by the role of sequestering carbon in the soil, the story really is the same. How can we cultivate the conditions for more life in the soil? And so an example of a project for us is how do we create matches between motivated audiences that may not yet have food as part of their programming, but has a curiosity or a potential to be interested? And how do we match them with existing producers and suppliers who are already dedicated to that more regenerative food system, so as to build motivation among audiences to prioritize and choose those existing suppliers? Because it's all too easy to feel like we're without options, you know, that we're trapped. And I understand that feeling. What I also see is the world of existing producers and suppliers that are going against the grain, you know, a great effort to bring into being that more connected, regenerative food system. It's like a mosaic. You know, there's this big picture of an alternative, more beautiful vision that we believe in our hearts is possible, but it hasn't yet formed. But that mosaic does have some pretty well established images. So how do we begin to reflect that that is an available option now and to bring more and more people into their role in building up that beautiful and attractive picture.
[00:12:34 - 00:13:10] Claude Schryer
And we won't have time to talk about permaculture and bioregionalism and all of these important concepts for the future of life on earth, but we will start talking about what suggestions you have concretely. Action points for now, a lot of the people listening to this podcast are artists and cultural workers, but more broadly, personally and through the foundation, what do you recommend people do that is really grounded, so to speak, and alive and useful?
[00:13:11 - 00:14:58] Sarah Heynen
Well, I would imagine that most of the listeners have also grappled with the tension of this point in our unfolding story. But I think that's the first start for many is to sit with the discomfort, confront the emotion, and in your own way feel guided out of that valley because there is sun peeking over the peak that beckons us. And from that place of personal conviction and agency, begin to take those steps through the lens of food. I think it quick, you know, I would urge a deep sense of recognition that choices do matter and that they can start small with looking to suppliers like Alt Grocery that is mapped across the country. All of the alternative suppliers of food, the grocers, the markets, you know, these are examples of that other pond, maybe perhaps even that, you know, fast moving stream that's just over the bank, you know, where there's. Maybe it takes a little more effort, you might bump into a few more fish along the way. But that's kind of the point, you know, and how to begin to make choices that put you into relationship. There's all sorts of choices that go in every day and every single one of those, if it helps a person take that step towards the sunlight, it matters.