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Marcus Kar is Director of Programs at Youth Farm in North Minneapolis, a mentor / healer, a musician, teacher, and community-builder. In this interview he shares time-honed insights about his transformative works and vision for a better future.
I’m an indigenous person. I’m a product of so many people.
What I try to tell people now is: I wish they would spend a little time with me when it comes to what they wanna see as far as change in their immediate environment, because I redirect energy...
No one is helping young people understand how to feel their feelings.
I’m trying to create a movement around growing and I want people to use it as medicine. I wanna share what I gained from nature with my entire environment.
One of the elders told me, “If you don’t move your physical, you lose your spiritual.”
Nature is medicine.
There’s a very thin line between a plant and a human being.
Everything we want for ourselves and we want to know about bettering this world, bettering our environment, you can find in the bio-ecosystem. We need to be a part of it, not necessarily be in control of it. You can’t control her.
I tend to never be married to any one idea or approach. I’m not trying to sustain any of these (institutional) systems. I’m really trying to figure a way for us to be able to listen to each other and self-correct, in order to provide the kind of environment we need to thrive.
This idea of “intergenerational processes”: it keeps the Old young, and the Young wise.
It’s very hard for people who’ve never dealt with any kind of adversity or any issues with the police to understand, but a kid who got his arm broke by a cop will live his whole life feeling that phantom pain. We need to recognize how we can extract it: by holding him; telling him he’s ok; telling him how to avoid those things; and telling him where his power is or her power is…
Instead of listening to people, you wanna write policy...
The new revolution has nothing to do with control or division. It has a lot to do with addition and it has a lot to do with balance.
Seeing this stuff is traumatizing. . . Man, if you could only redirect that. I don’t want us to react. I don’t want us to live in the poison of guilt, anger, and sadness.
Don’t ever keep this stuff to yourself. If you’re going through any depression or trauma, just do me a favor -- try to talk to someone.
I want to try and eliminate the number of shootings we have and green spaces have that impact on communities. The more we are outside together, eating together, living together, the less the shooters are there.
I’m not special, I’m present. I know them, their grandmas, their aunties, their fathers, their mothers, and I get down to their level. They wanna call me in the middle of the night and talk to me about what’s happenin in the crib, I got you… I’m present.
How do you keep the balance? This is something we don’t teach. We teach everyone they’re special and they all get prizes. No. Listen: In order to keep balance you need to learn how to follow… The idea of reacting isn’t a positive thing.
If you’re not a kind man, you’re not my kind of man. (“Man” = human)
Everything that’s happening has an impact on everything else here. Be aware of that. Know that you’re important in the grand scheme of everything.
We want to be one with [the seasons] so we can actually produce the thing that is our God-given right, what Nature provides us.
Every time we get an opportunity to rest and take our time, it seems like Capitalism is taking that away... I love being exhausted for a reason, like, if I get done shoveling 10 cubic yards of soil in a wheel barrow and running up and down a hill — yea, I’m tired, but for a reason. If you just wake up in the morning tired, there’s something wrong with that.
We should be in control of the technology… And I really hope we start using technology to Rest, first of all…
If you rest your mind, you’re capable of processing things -- not based on a forced system or process, you’ll be able to see many different processes and as long as there are shared values you’ll be able to take any approach to that end result… But, in order to choose one you have to rest; you gotta be in sync; you gotta be on time.
People think I’m growing all this, I’m not. This is a bio-ecosystem. I’m a part of it and I know every crevice and I tend to use it, and it consists not just of the weeds and the food and the flowers, but it also consist of the birds, the bees, some pests and things…
We have so many definitions about what we’re capable of being, so, spiritually, we’re not really tapping into a huge amount of our potential.
This thing that makes up our bio-ecosystem we need to start sharing… We all have our super powers and when were on the same frequency and rhythm and harmony there are endless possibilities. That’s what I love about Music. That’s what I love about Nature. That what I love about Food; try using different spices.
You don’t have a choice but to live. Your body, this engine that God has created, is here to thrive and live as full circle and graduate to new lives. There’s nothing to fear. .
AllCreation.org: Faith • Spirit • Biodiversity • Connections
This unproofed, unedited transcript was auto-generated by otter.ai.
We will update for clarity, asap.
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Rev. Louis Tillman 0:01
All right, what's going on powerful
people, we have another phenomenal, dynamic, amazing interview for you all. As brothers so deep and profound will come and live out of the all creation that or about integrity platform for you. And remember our theme and this in the season is envisioning transformation. doing interviews with those are come with different unique and gifted experiences and stories that the world needs to hear on this particular platform. And I have a dear brother of mine, who helped me get through my, I can't believe I lived in Minneapolis to begin with moved from Southside Chicago to Minneapolis in 2015. And I lived there for approximately 364 days, and that that I was counted each day or anything. But this brother that you're about to hear from a very good friend, very good brother to me, brother, Marcus Carr. He lived right down the block from me, in North Minneapolis. So it was just such a powerful time such an honor and just love the opportunity to reconnect with him after five years. And just want to say, welcome to the show. Marcus, thank you so much for your time, your talents and your treasures that you have graciously gifted us. And I'm not gonna waste any time because I'm doing too much talking as it is doing amazing work. So thank you so much for being here with us.
Marcus Kar 1:35
Thank you. It's good being here. Thanks for inviting me.
Rev. Louis Tillman 1:39
Yes, sir. So, yeah, I mean, the people that they've been asking already, who is this guy? I mean, I mean, to see a car salesman was going on. So you know, I'm like, You just dropped some knowledge. Because I've always known you as a community organizer. And my very first encounter with you, we were in my backyard, making firewood and cooking in a brick oven, like, but but they weren't synonymous. It was like two separate projects. So I said, wow, like dude has a chainsaw. I've never seen something like that as a Minnesota thing. And then later learned about your talents and gifts for Word and song and music, and then the gardening. And so you have a plethora of skills already and trades. But just last time we connected you were telling me about being Director of Programs, a Youth Farm. So could you just tell us just a little bit about who you are? And where are you and and I don't know, what's keeping you busy these days. And
Marcus Kar 2:49
like, you know, this, all this thing, all these things you're naming are like, a huge part of my quality of life and my medicine, all the work. But so my name is Marcus Carr. I am a director organizations 27 year old organization called Youth Farm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And what we do at Youth Farm is we grow everything, not just food, it starts with food. But your farm is a youth development agent in which we tend to use food and agriculture as a tool to create social change in our immediate environment, when the goal is to be a part of a bigger impact when it comes to our own autonomy, resilience and climate change and global conversations around cleaner air and water and food sovereignty and things like that. I don't even see it as a job. I didn't know. I didn't apply for this job. You know, I think I just I really just love nature. You know, I'm an indigenous person. I'm product of a lot of different people and products, my own immediate environment. I've traveled around the world and done all kinds of things, but always came back home feeling like a two time felon. I don't have any felonies. No KNOCK KNOCK felons. But it's like, if we all wake up feeling like a two time felon in a system like that does a thing to you. And I think this is the thing that happened that, you know, helped me graduate to accept it in my own life and taking my own life seriously, my own health, my own mental stability, spiritual self. And I found all that in nature. I found all that with plants and not really being stuck in the idea of like, you know, adult growing up and I still have in Inside this big old machine, you still have a 17 year old little one. So skateboarding and chasing a bunch of babies over North man, I got an army of them and they're growing everything. possibilities, all of our foods, we're farming three acres over there. Building a new institution greenhouse is going to hire 10 more of them. Yeah, I just love seeing, you know, brown black babies, you know, they're curious, they have a lot of questions. They want to do everything. And it's okay, let's do it all. Like, there's no limits. And this is the point. Right now, you know, I'm about to go meet these kids out of North. There is a garden tour of a bunch of students from the University of Minnesota College of Food and Agricultural Research coming, we're gonna cross pollinate a little bit. These kids ready to see what the possibilities are outside of North and everywhere else. What I tried to tell people now is I wish that there was spent a little bit of time with me when it comes to what they want to see as far as changing their immediate environment. Because I rather redirect energy now. I'm kid I was born in West Africa. I was raised in Minneapolis. I was raised by African mother, and I just have a grandmother, my grandma, my mom was adopted. So my grandma is I know it is Polish. And she's average. She's black and most black people. different dialects, you know, I mean, like she's different dialects has never been written different languages. They both grew up in West Africa. Her parents or her, my grandma's parents were missionaries. Okay, right. And they, you know, like, Well, my mom's real mother died. Her mother's friends adopted her and her friend was this. Marlon DeVore I have a picture of Baldwin you wouldn't believe we're proud of so many people. You wouldn't believe like, you know, my my histories because like, I can't believe I'm alive bro. Every day I wake up in the sun I'm as grateful as I can be and the fact that I get to move around and play in the dirt and be around youth and then I'm food is my thing. I swear I do. I'm literally the mayoral pick that co chairs the Minneapolis food Council trying to create a food action plan here with a group of like minded people, homegrown Minneapolis food council to help people who wants to work on our food system, source our foods locally, produce things locally, and stop spending money in the wrong direction. There's space in the system for all of us. But our food system in the state as far as most obvious the divide. And you see the numbers you know, that's where you see the divide is where you see the insecurities based on geographic lines and stuff, you know, nature in North Minneapolis is not the same as nature in I don't know,
Rev. Louis Tillman 8:29
Minnetonka
Marcus Kar 8:33
Bryn Mawr even this was just was used, the app was there right there. It's not the same. So I'm trying to create a movement around growing and I want people to use it as medicine I want to share what I gained from nature with my entire environment. If you go into it if you suffering from like manic episodes, hit me up and you'll find me in a garden somewhere. And I'll have water I'll Fiji I have Tosi min tea, I have herbs. I mean whatever we need is there. This is the richest place I have ever been you know, and it has nothing to do with anything material. And I grew up with a bunch of cats that were very limited because of their you know, because of their the way they were brought up in the environment that we come from. scares the crap it's traumatizing. You know, you get to like absorb a lot of like, generational curses by just being in this place. I think we're all in North Minneapolis a little bit sick, you know? And we tend to find our medicine in each other. And I find mine in nature and I want to bring us all to nature because is there man is a physical thing. One of the elders told me If you don't move your physical, you lose your spiritual. As real, move your physical, you lose your spiritual. And now you got people out here, shoveling, you know, cubic yards of compost and moving earth and putting seed in the ground, blending their meals today for tomorrow. I got kids going to college this year, I got kids going to grad school this year, they've been here since they were like eight, nine years old. This is 27 years, I've inherited a history here. Can't take it lightly. I plan on having to be very regenerative and self correcting. Like, major self. No, like anything that grows outside, I really want us to like wake up every season as a better version of ourselves. And I'm preparing them for our working world. By giving them a job, this is their first job when they turned 14. It probably pays more than we got paid when we were 14. I got cats in six $700 checks. They're 14 years old. And then I got to the bank. I gotta take them to because they want to buy all the Cheetos, all the talkies. And I gotta open savings accounts. You know, I mean, and all is right, like, they're doing good. They're learning how to manage, and how to think for themselves. Yeah, how to communicate.
Rev. Louis Tillman 11:33
And Mark is like, the thing that it's a meditation in my heart, but it's something that keeps me up at night a lot. The generational divide, and the generational oppression. I mean, this, it takes a village mentality is like dying off. I mean, I don't want us to get sued. But you know, tick tock and Snapchat and an IG and IE social media has really put on our youths minds today. You can do it on your own, you don't Don't, don't waste your time actually doing physical labor or going to school or whatnot. Like, what's your thoughts on this village, it takes a village to raise a child mentality, especially in North Minneapolis, where if I go to Broadway Street, or Broadway in Emerson or 20 100, block of Fremont, it looks like a war zone. And, and it is a food desert. And then I go to South Minneapolis. And it's like people are glorifying the war zone where everything with George Floyd happen,
Marcus Kar 12:40
you know, does take a village to raise a child and is a village concept, my approach to programming in North Minneapolis. I mean, for me, we come from a culture. And I do think there is a lot of adult ism, I think the adult autism is a learned behavior. And the kids are going to absorb it if we're not careful, which is why we're creating green spaces, to give them their own personal voice and their own autonomy. The idea of adult autism is really do what I say now what I do, you know, this idea of like, you know, preaching to young people, you know, they're very brilliant, you said to yourself, we're in a new world, they have tiktoks, they have like, they have a satellite in their pocket. Well now, and we talked to him, like the I don't know, all we have to do is is, you know, be able to get down to their level, you know, approach them like an elephant very carefully. Look him in the eye when you're talking, be patient, stop competing with them. They're younger than look your size. But if they're 1415 years old, these are babies. And there's a lot of learned behaviors and very predatory behaviors. In adults nowadays, they are entitled to things that are not normal. And they don't look at themselves to kind of self correct what they're dealing with in their, in their young people around them, you know, they don't look at themselves and say, Hey, he's out of control. She's out of control, because it reflects what they see. When they, what they are consuming. What they're consuming, not just to their foods, but through their touch to their hearing their ears, through their eyes, to their smell, to their taste. All those things. I mean, all of our music is, you know, right now the most popular diners trap music and so are really based on this idea of like, you know, pretending you don't need nothing I got I got cash with a, with a champagne palette, would you say, and a kool aid budget? Right, right, you know, running around over here and it's art, you know, like, and I appreciate it too. But like I don't want it to, I don't want to see it in their lives. All the behaviors we've seen in the world, I feel are all learned, they all come from the leaders before us. A lot of people were naming themselves leaders, a lot of people, artists, the con artists or artists. I mean,
Rev. Louis Tillman 15:49
I know, I know,
Marcus Kar 15:50
we're other's brains, right here as medicine. I was telling Chris, you know, there's a very thin line between a plant and a human being everything we want for ourselves and want to know about bettering this world better in our environment, you can find in the bio ecosystem when it comes to like nature plants, and we need to be a part of it, not necessarily be in control of it can't control her. You know, you can be just as healing as any plant, even the weeds. Or you can be poisonous, just as any plant the word disease is anything that causes discomfort, dis ease,
Rev. Louis Tillman 16:46
break it down, teach, teach
Marcus Kar 16:49
We walk around normalizing things that are not really comfortable. No one knows how to take broken pieces, and put it back together. seamlessly. Plus 2000 pieces is easy. But putting all the pieces back together, that's the discipline where that's that's a level of discipline, we have to always aim for as one nature does, that's why you get a cut, you can literally watch it, seal back up. Now if we can increase increase our immune system, our body, our machine, as we function, because nature have those things for us. We will be able to like put pieces back together, but no one is teaching that no one is helping young people understand how to feel their feelings. I I tend to never be married to any one idea, or process or approach. I'm not trying to sustain any of these systems, I'm really trying to figure out a way for us to be able to listen to each other and self correct. In order to provide the kind of environment we need to thrive in right. You know, this idea of intergenerational processes. Now you have young people talking to old people, and they're seeing themselves in each other, I being new, you gotta be me, you know, they're talking to each other as equals and keeps the the old young and the young, Wise. I'm a product of that. So I've been guided by powerful women man. Like I see them as like giants, you know, divan, Nolan, Tasha power, these are all food champions, food justice champions. And they're using this opportunity and food to create product like me. They're also giving me my own personal voice by telling me every day that I'm brilliant, that I'm beautiful. And no one ever tells me that but my mama and these women has nothing to do with you know, me being more beautiful than you and special and it's really is a gift to be around people that actually care about you. And actually wants the world for you. Only in America. Do we live in this idea of duality. gotta choose a side is good, bad. better, worse. Winner loser, Black White. Only you go anywhere else, you know, there's different forms of the same kind of like, you know oppression. But here is disgustingly embedded in our into or social fabric. And it's very hard for people who's never dealt with any kind of adversity, or any kind of like, issues with the police. They understand what it is, that is bad, but, you know, they're like, Oh, well, I gotta go on my boat, you know, and take a break from it now, but that no, a kid that got his arm broken by a cop now will live his whole life. You know, feeling that phantom pain, it may not even be damaged anymore, but it's in his body. We need to recognize how we can extract it by holding him. Tom is okay. Tell them how to avoid those things and giving them like where his power is, or where her power is. The funny thing about is when it happened to me as a young person, I went and talk to an adult about you know what they told me? They told me that's how it is. We all had to go through it.
Rev. Louis Tillman 21:02
That phrase, it is what it is, right? And causing more damage.
Marcus Kar 21:08
Isn't that some scary doesn't traumatize and stuff. I think I'm like, No, it's not how it is. Exactly.
Chris Searles 21:16
It's a mistake we've been carrying for way too long. And now we're trying to feed Marcus, what I hear you saying is directly describing from the inside this sort of terminology of kinship worldview that came to the all Creation world in our last issue. And just the idea in one sentence is that everybody wants to be an important individual in a nurturing community.
Marcus Kar 21:40
Yeah, and you can be and you are.
Chris Searles 21:43
And that's what we're trying to go, I think, because we have built a world where everyone should be, you know, like a celebrity or wealthier person, this sort of adulting stuff is, is adults who are trying to tell kids to be like the person they think they should be, and, you know, and then we're not caring for each other. And I hear you talking about from these women in particular that care, and that, you know, that relationship with the gardening
Marcus Kar 22:07
Its important. Like, you know, while we have that system of duality here, is not the only compass for where we're going. The new revolution has nothing to do with control and division. It has a lot to do with addition, and it has lot to do with balance. Now we got to find the balance, I always tell my kids, if you had two people standing on the end of the seesaw, and they're leveled, right? And balanced. What happens if one of them took a step forward? Something false. So how do you keep the balance? If they're going to take a step forward? Anyways? How do you keep the balance, and this is something we don't teach. We teach everyone that they're special, and they all get prizes, no lesson number to keep balance, you need to learn how to follow. If they take a step for you take a step forward. They move back, you move back. What that does is maintain the balance, the only time you move on your own is when you want to throw everything else off balance. The idea of reacting isn't a positive thing to have to prove you know what, what are you talking about, man? Come on, man. A puffing up and reacting. Black men get killed, the whole world is out here marching. And instead of listening to those people, you want to write policy. You want to do things in a group setting to hide the fact that they've all experienced this over and over and over and over. And still are. And you still not listening or talking. Because the excuses I get in Minnesota is like, Man, I know, I can't really relate to racism. I mean, because I'm white, but I do get it, I get it. Right. And the thing is like, let me ask you a question. Can you relate to death?
Rev. Louis Tillman 24:10
There we go. There we go, as
Marcus Kar 24:13
you've never died before, just like you've never been beaten up by the police. But every day you try your best to stay alive now. Don't you want to depend on a pool you will float and swim, won't you? Right? Because you don't have a choice but to live there. Your body. This engine that God has created is here to thrive and live his full circle and graduate to new lives. There's nothing to fear. Right? You become a part of this thing we're talking about. And right now, the temperature is weird. This is Minneapolis I've never experienced 100 degrees here. And Ben so uncomfortable. Plants are struggling you know lack of resources. All these things are happening because of the drastic changes based on the action of men. And it was one of the elders to told me they call human nature's humans are a part of mankind. And they call him mankind because it's made of kind men. If you're not a kind, man, then you're not my kind of man. Okay, and
Rev. Louis Tillman 25:27
that one more time for the listeners. You know, this one more time?
Marcus Kar 25:31
You know, it's true that, you know, he mentioned to me one of the elders man inherits the neighborhood. Like, he's brilliant. This is a Vietnam War vet, pilot in the Vietnam War, and just very brilliant. But I don't know if I want to name I don't know, if you like being named like that. We call it we call him old school. If he ever heard me talking about, he'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, come on. Now, he talks about me. Told me once is like, it's made out of human is like they call it mankind. Because it's made out of kind men. So if you're not a kind, man, you're not mind kind of man. And he wasn't referring to like, you know, genders. He was talking about humans and humanity as a whole humankind as a whole. And, you know, having everyone relate, be connected to everyone in a way, like every plant on the planet connected to every plant in the area. And I really appreciated that kind of wisdom that he shoved in my head, because I do like being kind. It's easy for me to not be kind. It's easy for me to be stiff, rude, and I make more money than you. And I can say whatever I want to you, what are you gonna do about it? Right? This is the kind of mentality that, you know, we're not doing it on purpose, teaching it on purpose. But it's learned behavior, because it's been witness watched. People that you're going to count on, to be your nurse, to be your teachers, to be your doctors. And if they have no respect for nature, if they're not kind people, if all they want to do is make money. What do you think they're gonna do with when you have a heart attack in front of them, they're gonna whisper in your ear. Let's not stop this from happening right now. Just, you know, but it's gonna cause you 100,000. Right. And this is just a scenario I'm giving you. But it's real. This is what adult ism in our institutions our school systems does for the future, is literally failing you, and it's going to fail me. What I'm going to do, though, it's not worried about what everyone else is doing in the world. But my immediate environment, what I can control, what I can lift on my own, and everyone else that comes makes it light as a feather. I'm doing that with babies every day. And I know them their grandmas and aunties, their fathers, their mothers, I get down to the level they want to call me in the middle of the night, talk to me about what's happening in the crib, I got you. I'm present. I'm not special. I'm just present. And I also happen to have a daddy voice. Now, for a superpower.
Rev. Louis Tillman 28:40
I love it. I love it.
Marcus Kar 28:42
I want people to know, man, this work we're doing in creating green spaces, growing plants, starting seeds, using fresh, locally grown produce, to feed our communities and celebrate our changes of the seasons. You know, Minneapolis is one of the places you most visibly see the changes to season and leaves turning the snow falling, the snow melting. And we want to be one with all those things so we can actually produce the thing that is our God given right is what nature provides us. And I kind of love having this conversation with my people. I think I don't even sometimes I don't even know like where he's coming from. I think I'm a vessel. I think I'm talking because many people before me had been here. I'm marcembodying all the ancestors, all their stories, all their you know journeys, and I think they're all here. They're all here with me protecting me. All my divine feminine are here. Every time I'm in the hood and there's gunshots. I brought my Mac. I don't want to be used to that. What I want to do is try to like eliminate them. Number of gun shootings we have in green spaces have the impact on communities. The more we're outside together, eating together living together, the less the shooters are there. Because they don't want to be seen. So like, we're gonna go for hours. Louis, you said something about north side? You know, you know, but the perception of North Minneapolis is just that a perception. Perception. Yeah. Is paradise to me. Seeing North Minneapolis to my eyes is different than having someone explained to you how life is over North, because they will tell you man, those gauges is always. But I think South Minneapolis is worse. I think most white suburbs are worse. They just don't talk about it. They only talk about north south because majority like people of color. And that's real. And I think I would love to change the perception as we know it. You know, murder Apalis all this stuff. But I really don't know if I want to do that either. Tell me. I don't want someone to come by my house and raise the rent kick me out. And I can't afford nothing. I don't want that. So maybe you know, I'll be your boogey man. No, someone referred to me as the most dangerous black man in the north side. And I was like, What the hell? I was like, What are you talking about? He's like, Yeah, man, look, you don't have to fear a black man with a gun. You got to fear one with ambition. There you go. Okay. And I want to change that perception. But I think about that, I gotta find a balance. The balance is really in what I'm doing right now, which is like, building affordable living and owning it. Namely my own price. Now based on capitalism.
Rev. Louis Tillman 32:02
My question is, with this very diverse platform and listeners that we have marked, what is your one message that you wish that you can just share with the world.
Marcus Kar 32:14
With all the things that are wrong with the world, you know, you may feel like it's not your issue, because it's not happening to you. So maybe Jesus loves you more, or something. But just want to let you know, across all the lines and divisions, and no locations in this country, on this planet, everything that's happening, have an impact on everything else here. And be aware of that. Our goal isn't to try to fix everything. But really to try to tap inside our inner medicine to find what we need to be safe, to be healthy, to be strong to be well know that you're important in the grand scheme of everything. Napping also. Oh, nebulous he, yeah, I mean, it used to be nine and five man, like we use that to work nine to five. I bet you anyone nowadays, you got people working from 9am to 10. Lewis is flying to China, Japan. You know, he, he coming back, building universes talking to mark his car. And every, every time we get an opportunity to rest and take our time, it seems like capitalism has taken that away from us is a lot of nice to like, I don't know. Add another hour, maybe another hour, maybe another hour, maybe an hour to the point now where people don't even know what rest is. Everyone is kind of, you know, use this idea of fatigue, exhaustion. I love being exhausted for a reason. Like if I get done shoveling 10 cubic yards of soil in a wheelbarrow and running up and down a hill, I'm tired. I did something today. So when I get done rehearsing, or teaching a drumming class for that group, and doing that for two, three hours, yeah, I'm tired for a reason. If you just wake up in the morning, tired. There's something wrong with that. And that's that exhaustion isn't just a physical thing is a spiritual thing. And it has a lot to do with, you know, the systems around us and the things that we're normalizing Live should not be the same as it was for our parents. We literally this is like Star Trek, I can see all y'all, I can see quizzes, smile, and everyday, we can see like laws. And it's like, you know, we didn't have that before we had like, you know, travel dial, we should be in control of the technology. But instead, like I said, the learn behaviors, programming to control us. All these things are, for me kind of moving backwards. And I really hope we start using technology to rest, first of all, to give us space enough to rest, and to also give us control of our own domains our own direction and destiny, instead of having to control us.
Chris Searles 36:04
I'm fascinated by the rest thing because of your gardening. And I've recently gotten into community gardening. And the thing that we have most learned is the permaculture concept that the recliner is the greatest designer. Yes, you've learned to get out of the way and stop gardening and let the garden like you. You guys have been saying put the pieces together. Yeah. And all this kind of oneness that you're describing is sort of in that process of seeing a garden, come into composition and produce food
Marcus Kar 36:33
is amazing, isn't it is a huge part of I mean, you got to remember things usually flower at night. Like why do you think that is because they're spending all their energy during the day absorbing the things they need to do that. So they rust and be open to the possibilities. If you rest your mind, you're capable of processing things, not based on a horse system will process but you'd be able to like see many different processes. And as long as their share values, you'd be able to like, take any approach to that end result. If there's an end result you're looking for, there isn't one way to do it. But you have to choose one. You spend your time playing with everything. You exhaust yourself. That's what's happening. So in order for you to choose one, you got to rest you got to be in sync you got to be on time. Yeah, man, I love that. You know, Permaculture is an amazing, you know, people think I'm growing all these spaces. I'm not. This is a bio ecosystem. I'm a part of it. And I know like every crevice and I tend to use it and they consist of not just the weeds and food and flowers. But it also consists of birds, the bees, you know, there's some pest and things that are killing things and I'm comparing and planning things with cross pollinating things with for different flavors and different things. And they're they're people. You know, when I'm not there, there are people they have two eyes, two ears, two hands, I don't have to be there. You know, Bubba toondah lea of world renowned drummer, told me that they said two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. But I've never said anything about two spirits, two souls that are stuck with me. And he proved it to me in drumming. didn't even need words highest level of social consciousness.
Chris Searles 38:55
Yeah, you were talking about how we come together through the nonverbal pneus of music. And there's that in gardening to you oh well, and plants relationship with plants and other animals
Marcus Kar 39:05
other than ourselves. And we work we have the ability to work not just physically but through chemistry. Also. It's just that we have so many definitions of what we're capable of being. So spiritually, we're not really tapping into a huge amount of our potential. Man, you know, this year I had a lot of people lost their lives, you know, like especially the ones that was suicidal. And I had to like, you know, have conversation with my kids. Um, just let her know like, don't ever keep this stuff to yourself, man. Like if you go into any Depression, or any kind of like, you know, trauma. Just do me a favor. Try to like, talk to someone, you know, hit me up. Even if it's something who's making us so angry? No call me you can use all the F bombs, man hang on since you, I know says to you, I'm here, I ain't going nowhere. I ain't going away. Talk to somebody, you know, I'm not saying that just to say it. I can't tell you how many times that's what I mean by I'm present. As I've been that I didn't have me. And I don't want people to like isolating these things. So like, all of all of this thing that makes up our bio ecosystem needs to stop being divided, isolated, and we need to start sharing, because I have something is like a band dude, I'm gonna strings. I'm not gonna go play the saxophone. When I'm a strange person, I'm just gonna call Wayne. He's a saxophonist. We all have our superpowers. And we on the same frequency and rhythm and harmony man like endless possibilities. That's what I love about music is what I love about nature. You know, that's what I love about food. Try using different spices. May, you know, old school, the, the elder I was telling you about. He was he breaks down things to me a lot. And one thing he told me was the word community is like this language we're speaking isn't in our own language. It's too nasally. This word community is an extension of the original texts. He says, community spawned from the original, we'll be looking at Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi things comes from the word uni. And that were uni. You and I. Right? means one in the dictionary. There's only from one can come to this is the whole idea. This idea of community we have an original tax, it was unique was you and I know your communities should be always be based on the idea of you and I right. And the way we do it here in America, those we tend to isolate in large groups. And we got to choose a group of group setting, we got to go for this cause and that cause but our message is not loud at all. All that screaming? I know, so many black kids had to carry to the medical center for many episodes. And it really impacted me during the unrest in the uprising. And then we went straight from that into a pandemic, you know, and I see these kids man being led, you know, screaming Black Lives Matter. And, you know, trying to change the system as they know it in. The energy they're using is the highest part of the chakras, and they're just angry. Now, seeing this stuff is traumatizing. And they're all that energy they're putting out in the world. Man, if we only redirect that you only give me an hour of your day. You know, I don't want us to react. I don't want us to live in the poison of anger, like, guilt, sadness. Stuff is sad, but even during the worst times of our lives as people of color we've been singing. The past times we've been saying these are the lessons. These are the things we need to pay attention to. I don't want you to just listen to me. And I appreciate this though.
Rev. Louis Tillman 44:48
Bro talk this bottom, my heart just so thankful to reconnect. And I think this is just the beginning of something prophetic and needed in such a season when we're trying to make hope as to and was despair. So I definitely want to give your flowers now and politically Thank you just want to give a major shout out again, Marcus Carr, Director of everything going on the garden for youth and just thank you so much for what you're doing in our community. And thank you so much for continuing to just pay homage to the ancestors for the ground that we're privileged to walk on today. Thank you again, Marcus for everything. As I said back on the WB, the that's all folks!
Marcus Kar
Yeah.