Tuesday, February 26, 2008

preparing for Spring

Over 30 folks joined together this past weekend to work on the land, including members of "Cakalak Thunder," a radical drum corps based in Greensboro; new friends from the local Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation; and friends from Durham.

Rose and Vivette finish painting new trim for the windows in our new practice space.














Moving mulch from the truck...















... to the garden.




Will paints our tools blue...











While Rachel paints the walls green.










By lunch, the morning's work was coming to an end but the music was just beginning. Cakalak played their incredible rhythms, inspired by Brazilian samba and collectively created as music of resistance. Check out more about this unique and potent group on their website.


Community Feast for MLK Day


For the past five years, Gita and Edd Gulati-Partee have gathered people for a Community Feast in honor of the Martin Luther King holiday. (Those are Gita's proud parents in the foreground!) It's a unique gathering; everyone brings a dish to share from their cultural background and the entire group shares some about this history with each other. After many years of hosting the event in Durham, we were thrilled when Gita and Edd chose to have it this year at The Stone House.




Next time you come by, check out the fabulous "I Have a Dream" banner on the wall, made lovingly by hand with Edd and still hanging on our wall. The banner displays this quote from King's "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence" speech on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York:

We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A nation can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy.


Lovely host Gita shares a moment with Q Gaynor, friend and awesome building and maintenance person at The Stone House.

winter wonder land