Seasons on the Farm
While weekly playgroups offer an opportunity for parents and caregivers to start exploring their faith in community, our additional events invite deeper conversation about beliefs anchored in faith traditions and seasons of nature. After meeting Rev. Mary Laymen on Tikkun Farm, a partnership emerged to help invite more families to connect with the Spirit at work in this incredible urban ministry that is anchored in Episcopal traditions, but inspired by interfaith relationship and nature.
Based on Tikkun’s elemental retreats for adults and partially funded by support from an Evangelism Grant from the The Episcopal Church, Imagine Cincinnati hosted two events on the farm in fall 2023 & winter 2024.
In the fall, we embraced the element of air and explored how the breath of life runs through every living thing. We picked veggies, made pizzas, and learned about the importance of air in the making of our meals. But first, we started our time together reflecting on the season under a beautiful pergola built by Rockdale Temple in honor of their 200th anniversary as a faith community.
The pergola was built in September as a Sukkoh, to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. According to the My Jewish Learning newsletter I subscribe to, “The origins of Sukkot are found in an ancient autumnal harvest festival, often referred to as hag ha-asif, “The Harvest Festival.” Much of the imagery and ritual of the holiday revolves around rejoicing and thanking God for the completed harvest. The sukkah represent the huts that farmers would live in during the last hectic period of harvest before the coming of the winter rains. As is the case with other festivals whose origins may not have been Jewish, the Bible reinterpreted the festival to imbue it with a specific Jewish meaning. In this manner, Sukkot came to commemorate the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert after the revelation at Mount Sinai, with the huts representing the temporary shelters that the Israelites lived in during those 40 years.”
It was a beautiful gift to be in this sacred space, a gift made possible by Tikkun Farm inviting them to celebrate in their space and inviting us to the farm as we start finding our community’s traditions. The old and the new, the sacred and the ordinary.
When our families gathered again in February, we invited leaders and families from All Saints Episcopal, Holy Trinity Kenwood and Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship to join us.
Together we explored the theme of earth. Using resources from Saltproject.org, we learned the meaning of Lent through the wisdom of flowers, bulbs and trees as they prepare for spring. Together we planned our gardens, played in the dirt, rested around the bonfire, and ate a meal made only of foods in season for winter.
One family in Pleasant Ridge told us that the event really helped their 9 year old. Having the opportunity to run around the farm with other families and getting “hands on” with the ideas of Lent really helped him to want to go to his church on Sundays. He now understands the season and has kids and adults he looked forward to seeing.
This is one of the things we love most at Imagine Cincinnati. We help foster the faith/community connection for kids and their caregivers. Small and progressive faith communities can connect with families from other spaces and faith backgrounds who share their values. We come alongside amazing teachers, leaders, therapists, and community activists who are already doing incredible work and can help our families dig deeper.
Whatever your feelings are about this upcoming holiday season, consider opening yourself up to another’s traditions. Seek out rituals that fit with your life now, that honor the person you once were and the person you’ve now become. Invite your loved ones, your kids, the people you care for and do community with to share their traditions with you. And if you have little ones and don’t know where to start, then join us any Thursday or Friday morning for playgroups, where you can join us in sharing our traditions with each other and start building new ones too.
