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WHEN I WAS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD ...
I started to bake.
And it became more than a hobby - it entangled with my identity and influenced the way I moved (and still move) through this world. I can trace this back to two main forces.
The first is rooted in the fact that baking (and sharing my creations) is a portal of connection. These acts of care built my relationships and reputation. They taught me that the work I do in this world can impact others - nourish them, delight them, touch something deep inside them that goes beyond food or flavor. And that food is fundamental to our existence in this realm, in a way that goes beyond what we need to survive.
The second force of baking is related to empowerment. In a system designed to make us think we always have to look outward, and pay someone to meet our needs, building solid skills in the kitchen empowered me to experience a different path. One need not only rely on professionals to provide; industry and corporations need not be the only answers . . . we can cultivate skills that feed, clothe, house, and care for each other. We are much more capable than we were led to believe.
And often (not always, but often) these skills - the ones to grow and cook food for ourselves and others, to craft clothing, to build, and to heal - yield results of higher quality than what we outsource. Beyond the physical objects we produce, the energetic ripples of being able to make and to repair what surrounds us holds immeasurable power.
It's the combination of these two forces - the connection and the empowerment - that creates a dance of reciprocity and truly makes us feel alive and in company. The foundation of baking launched me into other areas of passion, such as growing a garden and foraging for food. Once you open your eyes and your heart, you realize how much abundance the Earth holds - a nearly unstoppable force when you work with it.
These truths make watching what continues to unfold in Gaza even more difficult to bear. How deliberate the destruction has to be to stop the forces of nature - the amount of resources (money, energy, weapons, and (wo)manpower) that go into not just stopping food from entering, and stripping the abundance of modern conveniences by not refilling grocery stores and markets, but also tainting water supplies, bulldozing trees, bombing farms, polluting the soil with layers of rubble . . . it makes me realize how much energy it takes to oppose the natural abundance all around us.
One image that continues to sit with me is the lack of green in Gaza - not because the landscape can't be green, but because the green has been eradicated with great force, at great expense, to control the food supply, and to force a population out of a place by making it temporarily uninhabitable . . . when the reality is that if all of these deliberate forces ceased, if we left nature to it's own devices, the regenerative cycles would recalibrate and balance in a relatively swift amount of time.
Starvation does not just eat away at the organs, it eats away at the soul. Taking away the food supply is inhuman enough, but what happens in the same motion is the removal of people's ability to care for themselves and each other, a true deprivation of dignity.
What a supreme stain on our collective humanity.
The widespread starvation being imposed in Gaza (and everywhere around the world where the established pattern of imperial power places profit over food sovereignty) may be made possible by bombs, but it is largely sustained by silence. As people who have devoted our days to the power of connecting through food, we urge everyone in this field to continue to make speaking up for Gaza a central tenet of their current work. Not doing so negates the very essence of our purpose.
No one of us can single-handedly change the reality on the ground in Gaza, yet we remain responsible for continually speaking up, donating, organizing, and holding faith that the Earth will heal, with or without us. Life will continue. May it bring a day when we all learn how to work together to enjoy and appreciate the abundance and each other.
In solidarity,
Tay + Dor
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