Mishel Mussali
Earlham College
Project
Conversing with the Spirit of the Land: A quest for the sacred in food and farming.
Peru,Senegal, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, Jordan and Italy.
Different cultural and religious traditions blossomed from the interaction between people and their environment. During my Watson year I will learn about people's connections with their land, food and spirituality in a journey that will take me to explore a variety of agricultural methods that originate from various religious traditions. From learning about natural farming with roots in Japanese Zen Buddhism to volunteering in a Sufi-ecovillage in Senegal to visiting community gardens in Italy and learning about biodynamic farming in New Zealand, throughout the year I will contrast different approaches to agriculture to learn how people relate to their land and discover how our societies and food systems would change if we were to reclaim the spiritual roots of food and farming.