Hi everyone. Welcome to becoming the people. I didn't think that it would make sense to start this podcast without naming what is happening in our world.

And one of those things that's happening significantly is that the

invasion of Rafa is imminent and already nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the last half year.

It's an unimaginable, it's a horrific.

I use words like inconceivable, incomprehensible, because I think language fails us to convey the amount of devastation and the way that the pain that Palestinians are

experiencing will stretch far into the future. I worry every day for the families, for the children, for the land, and I worry that

we have yet to learn, yet to understand who we are as human beings,

and especially I think we've failed to learn what it means to be humane.

I wanted to start this podcast by listening and I felt very aware as I was

listening that there is a particular kind of burden on Palestinian people right now amidst everything to convey something

that is beyond the realities of many of us. As Vivian shares with us on this

episode, all of our histories really contain these moments of

deep violation disconnection and death. So on today's episode I am in conversation with Vivian Sansur, who's an artist, a researcher,

and a seed saver.

She founded the Palestinian Airloom Seed Library in 2014, and through that work work she works with farmers in Palestine and

around the world. Listening to this conversation I think the invitation is to

bear witness to Vivian and her wisdom, her generosity in sharing with us the beauty and the abundance of Palestine and bear witness to how

this conversation changes you. Immediately after I got off the call with Vivian, I felt something significant shift in me.

I feel different after having talked to her.

And I'm grateful that she was willing to share

so profoundly and so beautifully in a way that does not let me be the same.

Here's Vivian Sansor.

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