The Occupy San Francisco encampment was receiving so many food donations last week, they had to turn generous people away. Across the nation companies, organizations and individuals have shown their support for the Occupy movement by contributing supplies to the camps of people who now occupy public zones in reportedly more than 1,000 U.S. cities. These citizens are not merely erecting tents and staying the night, however: there is incredible organization going into the demonstrations. Many encampments have their own first aid tents, communications areas, and, of course, food tables. All the effort going into creating these temporary mini-cities reveals how popular the movement has become in the month it’s been active.

How did Occupy Wall Street begin?

The Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters first proposed the idea of occupying the New York financial district in late summer of this year, circulating a poster showing a dancer atop the Wall Street bull and posing the question, What is Our One Demand? Since the protests began September 17, many demands have emerged, including ending corporate personhood, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, shrinking the income gap between rich and poor, and reforming campaign finance laws. With its strident and raucous anti-capitalism stance, we could have expected Adbusters to launch a fringe movement that would fail to capture the hearts of a majority of citizens; however, widespread anger at the state of the economy and exploitation by corporate power have caused the movement to move towards the mainstream. Time magazine, for example, recently reported that 54% of Americans approve of Occupy.

Where does Cafe Gratitude fit into all of this excitement? Well, if you haven’t heard, our LA location just trucked a big batch of Grateful Bowls over to Occupy Los Angeles to feed the people camping outside City Hall (see the video below!). Ryland Engelhart, general manager at Gratitude LA, explained that he sees the Occupy movement as a call for unification from people across the country. Americans are feeling separated from each other and from our institutions, he says, and this may be a chance to bring us all together to improve our society. Luckily, the tent village in the City of Angels was still in need of food, so Ryland was not turned away and protesters got to enjoy delicious organic vegan meals!

We can connect food to the Occupy movement in more ways than simply feeding the demonstrators, however. A great article in Mother Jones has just been published, illustrating how the financial industry is not the only economic behemoth that has been consolidating power and causing angst for the majority of Americans. The food industry, the article claims, is even more consolidated and monopolistic than the financial sector. For example, just four companies produced 75 percent of cereal and snacks, 60 percent of cookies, and half of all ice cream in the U.S. in 2002. And since then, not much has changed, although the food movement is gaining steam, and will ramp up its power this October 24, the first-ever National Food Day.

Here’s hoping that the people on the streets keeping eating well, and that we can all start understanding that we’re going to need a movement as powerful as Occupy Wall Street to reform our current food system!

This week I encourage you to be courageously transparent.  Consider that we create walls surrounding our authentic selves in fear of not being loved.  As Matthew Engelhart says, all we are ever really saying is “love me” or “I love you”.  I’m beginning to notice that most of us are so caught up in ourselves, trying to conceal parts of ourselves in fear of not being loved that we don’t look up to see others.  

Sometimes I feel so alone that I never open my eyes to see that I am constantly in community and there are millions feeling the same way.  What will it take for us to be loved?  Be ourselves!  This week I invite you to open up to your truest self, whatever that means to you. If there is something that you are hiding in fear of judgment, then you are not giving others the opportunity to love all of you, to love you to the core.  I invite you to crack your castle walls and lower your defenses to be seen for who you truly are.  Maybe this means thinning a mask of makeup for a day.  Maybe this means expressing when you are hurt.  Maybe, just maybe, it means telling someone that you love them.  How funny we are in our aim to be loved and yet withhold loving.  It’s up to us to break the cycle.  My invitation to you is to lower your walls and connect more deeply with those around you.  Imagine a community of people truly knowing each other and having such a safe container to love each other in.  Know that the only thing at stake in speaking up is your ego.  Remember that we love you, that you are powerful, that you are perfect.  Thank you for who you are, and for who you aren’t.  

I'd like to share with you something that I am taking on practicing this month:  speaking up without having it all figured out.  This is a major stretch for myself in that I hate looking stupid and/or vulnerable.  I have considerable anxiety around being caught in criticism without my defenses up, without my side ready to explain itself.  I find myself repeatedly gearing up with evidence to present anyone who asks me about my politics, my decisions, my actions....

I am realizing that my compulsive need to have all evidence organized causes me to be in a separation story,  be in defense of the world, be a victim, and live a safe/reserved life.  Gearing up by having everything figured out 100% before I speak up, I'm creating the world as something that I am separate from... as if there are teams to be on or not on.  Not only that, but I am practicing as if I am a victim of an agitator.  I am creating a story that the world will attack me and that I must have everything organized and ready for battle to survive.  

By not acting or speaking up before I have 100% certainty, I've living a stale and safe life... I'm living small and not growing.  See bottom image of the treehouse- I'm visioning how this way of living is like living on the trunk of the tree, settling down and completely living on the most sturdy, solid and unmoving area of the tree (versus, see top image- getting out on the skinny branches: living without evidence. Growing and moving with fluidity).  I've been living a life based on evidence, a small and passive survival technique that I am not committed to.  

I meant to send this to you a long time ago and just re-discovered it on my hard drive. We visited your wonderful cafe in the summer of 2008. My eldest daughter Frederika who was 8 at the time created a game with her school friends after returning to London. They had a den and created a cafe where you didn't need money, only pebbles. Frederika suggested they call the cafe Cafe Gratitude. They created a full menu for the cafe and then it turned into a song which they played with the school orchestra at an end of term performance. One of our ex teachers who now teaches in California was there for the occasion which was rather appropriate.
Click here to view the video on youtube! 

Frederika is on the left, with her little sister Ingrid.  I hope you enjoy the clip as much as we enjoyed your cafe!

Brought to you by Philp C.

A beautiful winter day. We had several guests yesterday and one stayed over.  He so appreciated the community here and loved the farm. It was so fun to see him helping Matthew prune all the fruit trees with their stocking caps pulled down over their ears. 

We put up a swing for our granddaughter Kate and what fun it was to hold onto her and teach her how to move her legs to swing herself. Childhood memories are precious! (see picture of Kate standing on top of woodchip pile at the farm)

Happy New Year to everyone,

I am so grateful for how we can use the end of one year and the beginning of another to align ourselves with our mission, our passion, our opportunities to start again. 

Winter weather is here! we are all bundled up and spend our evenings sitting around the campfire cracking this years walnuts! The leaves are falling off all the trees, our "Christmas Tree" is a BIG pine that we have strung lights from, and I always smile when I see it...

The frame work for the new green house is up, and it seems so BIG! We are looking forward to filling it with plants in January.

On really cold nights we light up the sauna and heat ourselves to the bone before a COLD plunge into the swimming pool, then quickly back to the sauna to re heat before scooting off to bed with a down comforter pulled up over our heads. Welcome to winter.
This week is the first of our all employee meetings which start at either 6am or 7am, so we are rising early as well. The meetings are focusing on all of us speaking up more, getting louder about who we are and what we are standing for and causing in the world. How about you joining us... Where could you speak up more, really letting others know how they could support your mission that you truly believe is part of creating a more sustainable existence on this planet for future generations?  I notice what stops me from sharing with others is always some version of not being present to the impact of not speaking up,  Not letting others know about all we are doing to create a spiritually fulfilling, environmentally sustainable and socially just human presence on this planet. I love that despite the negative or frustrating news I read or hear, I believe that what we are creating is moving us towards a better future, being solution oriented in the difference we are making.
Thank you for supporting us and Happy Happy Holidays.

This weekend I had the awesome opportunity to attend Terces and Matthew's workshop, Sacred Commerce.  We met in the cozy inviting "living room" of the Central Kitchen in San Francisco, which was once their home before they moved to their Be Love Farm.  About 40 of us attended and an incredible conversation between mostly strangers took place.  Matthew and Terces sat at the front of the room with their notes but mostly just spoke from their hearts, giving examples of their own lives and experiences to show us all what's possible when you create a safe place for emotion and sharing to show up.  

What I love most about this work is how authentically everyone around me in Cafe Gratitude shares.  It is in this honesty and transparency that we can truly connect to those around us.  Terces and Matthew both shared their vulnerable selves, showing us where they've gotten stopped, where they've been (or are) resistant to circumstances.

Through their honest sharing I felt the room open up and felt truly open to sharing my own concerns and triumphs, which then further opened the space for others to do the same.  Remaining safely quiet and reserved is a breakdown in human connection.  Sharing my own experiences and being honest is not only an invitation for others to be open with me, but is a powerful stand for my own self worth.  When I speak up I declare that I matter, that my voice matters, that I am a contribution.   When I speak up I take responsibility for my thoughts and I reach out for connection to others.  Whether I am asking for support or sharing something that I've learned... I declare the legitimacy of my feelings and invite others into having a conversation that goes below the surface.  These are the conversations that shake the ground and transform the world.  It's because of this that I believe the first step to world wide revolution and consciousness is being honest and speaking up.