Happy Beltane! What You Can Expect from The Link Newsletter
Let's light this newsletter bonfire together, because the only way through is out.
Welcome to The Link, a bi-weekly newsletter making the connection between “regenerative farming,” and you—city slickers, country mice, and everyone living in the in between—every other Sunday.
A few things you didn’t know, ask, or necessarily want to know about me: Today, May 1st is my birthday. That makes me a Taurean bull: extremely stubborn, indulgent in too many pillows on the bed and freshly cut flowers aplenty, and someone who grew up with maypoles at my toddler era birthdays. It's a miracle I never got stitches. May 1st is also an ancient Gaelic holiday called Beltane.
Wait, I thought I was subscribing to a regenerative farming newsletter? Why is she getting into magical practices? Completely valid, but stay with me. For thousands of years, rituals were performed on May 1st in Ireland, Scotland, and The Isle of Man to protect cattle, humans, crops, and to encourage growth. Special bonfires were lit, whose flames, smoke and ashes were deemed to have protective powers. At ancient Beltane gatherings, livestock were cloaked in flower garlands and driven between two bonfires to cleanse them of disease and ensure the future health of the herd and the families they fed. Just like the bovine party goers, humans too, would wear flower crowns and walk around or between bonfires, sometimes leaping over the flames or embers. So maybe it’s my Scottish and Irish ancestors or the fact that Beltane is an incredibly important tradition for farmers, fertility, and planting new seeds. Whatever the case: welcome to the official launch of The Link.
But who is this person? Completely valid, and I’ll try to stop with the third person question trope. For most of my career, I’ve worked on the golden spoon side of the food system. I’ve worked as a line cook, a truffle dealer and forager, a cookbook writer, a recipe tester, a food radio show host. I co-created MUNCHIES, the world’s first Global Millennial food website from VICE Media. Over the past few years, I’ve stepped into my current role as Editor in Chief of Thrillist, a lifestyle brand at Vox Media.
Like most people during the beginning and middle of this ongoing plague, I reexamined my relationship to time and found a new hobby. While others were making sourdough starters and quilting and writing fan letters to Monty Don, I leaned out of late stage capitalism for a moment and got into a lot of naps, epsom salt baths and not looking at my phone for a while. Then I got really curious about climate change and ended up getting two certifications in circularity from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UC Berkeley. But what the hell is circularity? (Don’t worry, that’s one of the many threads we’ll be pulling throughout this journey together.) As I kept sinking deeper into learning about circularity, “regenerative farming” was a topic that kept pulling me in and through to some interesting spaces.
Without trailing off into some sort of Ted Talk length discussion here because we’re just getting to know each other, all you need to know right now is that in 2020, I began volunteer farming. It started off really cringey, a la Pauly Shore in Son in Law—pulling n00b moves in outfits such as stark white Carhartt overalls in a literal pig pen full of shit amateur.
But as I got more into my exposure, I learned how to do “regenerative” practices such as rotational grazing (we’ll get into that later) with 600 lb pigs and large flocks of sheep in tall, rattlesnake dwelling grasses in the Texas Hill Country. I began to glean and compost tomatoes and partake in nerdy discussions on biochar and nematodes and more.
And as that pair of Carharrt’s became more and more baptized with the Earthen floor (humus), all of these experiences led me to realizing how intrinsically connected we all are to this vitally important approach to working with nature, and yet how very little most of us outside of this space understand what this practice is or why we need to adapt our mindsets to support farmers and those involved towards uplifting this perspective as a way forward.
There’s a lot to the why, but The Link newsletter is really happening because it tickles my brain, and I hope to tickle yours, too (with consent). It’s no secret that climate scientists are fed up. The news is telling us there’s seven years left to reverse the negative effects that we’ve created from treating Mother Earth like an unworthy ex. We’re all doom scroll experts. Let’s get into a dopamine hit together.
What you can expect as we grow into this (sorry for the pun) together:
Every other Sunday, I’ll be interviewing experts from across the “regenerative” space. If you keep noticing/are annoyed by the quotation marks around “regenerative farming,” this is why: Much like the progression of the organic (label) food movement, regenerative farming is still largely undefined, depending on who you are speaking to. I also want to preface that for many communities who have been using this worldview for thousands of years, placing a terminology box around a way of life can be seen as offensive. This is why I want to address the following with the utmost care, sensitivity, and importance: I’m not here to lead you as an expert, but as a humble learner, walking alongside you and whoever else shows up to this space to speak to and learn from people who are dedicated to letting go of trying to control the Earth, leaving the notion of “discovery” at the door (because nature always knows more than we do), and instead working towards harmony/treating this place less like a monster truck rally. There will also be many bad jokes and one liners to keep this from getting too heavy or too light; a steady equilibrium of optimistic energy because The Real Housewives of New Jersey can only do so much in that department.
This newsletter is powered by reciprocity, which looks like a circle. Every other Sunday, I’ll bridge the connection between you—even if you are Mitch Robbins, Billy Crystal’s burned out New Yorker character in City Slickers—and all of the elements of regenerative farming, speaking to voices and perspectives from across different industries to show how they intersect.
As a subscriber in this reciprocity exchange, you too, believe that indigenous voices should be at the very center of every conversation in regenerative agriculture, climate change, and the way forward. These are the voices that will often drive the conversation here. By the way, where do you live? You also dig land stewardship, land access, and optimism because we don’t have another option. I’ll also be speaking to farmers, climate scientists, well-known food personalities, food makers, food corporations, artists, and anyone with a curious mind. And if what I’m putting down here sounds too much like crystals and palo santo for you, I challenge you to continue to follow along so I can prove you wrong. I told you I was fiercely stubborn, didn’t I?
May you light your own May 1 bonfire and set your intentions tonight. Plant some seeds because biodiversity is sexy, and so is carbon drawdown. See you in two weeks!
Oh hi! I see you still reading this! If you have future topics, smart humans, or concepts you’d like to see featured here, respond to this newsletter or drop me a line and say hey: Helen@HelenHollyman.com.
And if you liked this post from The Link, I dare you to share it!