An interfaith, intercultural gathering celebrating the 2024 International Day of Peace was held at the Glandore Community Garden and adjacent Rugby Hall in Adelaide, South Australia, on 23 November 2024. This was co-hosted by Neil Jones (URI individual member) and the Multifaith Association of South Australia (a CC in the Southeast Asia Pacific region). Ann Aisatullin, a member of MFASA and the URI coordinator of the Southeast Asia Pacific CCs, joined the celebrations.
In a world of converging crises involving ecological overshoot, human sociality, and human health/wellbeing, community gardens offer a critical space and opportunity to simultaneously and practically address these escalating challenges.
We were welcomed to Country, under a towering Blue Gum tree, by Aunty Elaine Magias who then provided attendees with stories describing the importance of nature’s seasons to the way of life of the aboriginal Kaurna people, including food sources.
The Community Garden volunteers provided a tour of the site explaining the principles of organic gardening and its circularity, before firing up the pizza oven. Meanwhile, the attendees proclaimed their commitment to interfaith harmony ahead of a Dance of Universal Peace, the “Spirit of Peace” dance.
A meal consisting of pizzas and frittata was prepared with a focus on the use of no-waste plant-based local, seasonal and unprocessed ingredients sourced from gardens, and guests also brought plates along for sharing. We also shared date paste derived from date palms grown in the Riverland region in South Australia.
A general discussion was then held around the basis of this gathering and the important work of Judith Friedlander in establishing FoodFaith in Sydney, Australia (See TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
This discussion also included the intertwining and significance of food in relation to various cultures, traditions and religions. Stories were shared around the biology of pollination, the domestication of the chicken, the making of bread (including sourdough) and the germination of 2000 year old date palm seeds from the Dead Sea area. Lastly, it was time to compost the food scraps ensuring the circularity of our visit was complete.
We were all reminded that in a world of growing uncertainly and challenges, community gardens offer a safe retreat for local communities to iteratively build their own resilience while growing prosociality (including in a spiritual dimension) as well as human and ecological wellbeing, and we are all grateful for that.
