Growing Together Retreat Facilitators
Damon Brangman (he/him)
Born and raised in the island of Bermuda, Damon Brangman a farmer/educator and musician founded Roots Rising Farm to offer hands on garden education through school and community gardens. Damon started farming at a young age, and his inspiration to grow food was his grandmother’s love of fresh vegetables. Through the curiosity of other youth in the community, he felt inclined to share the knowledge he was gaining from gardening, and also give them the opportunity to connect to the land. Damon traveled to New York City to study music production in 1997, and while there he became sick, and decided to attend a body/mind retreat in Ithaca, NY during the summer. The experience of a raw food diet, meditation, and yoga, encouraged him to make changes in his lifestyle, and eventually move to Ithaca a few years later. Having a strong background in music, and determined to continue healing from Crohn’s disease, he produces music with the intention of healing himself while also assisting others on their own personal healing journey. The earth is healing itself, and we play an important role in allowing the process to heal us, if we can only stop for a moment and listen.
Himanee Gupta (she/her)
Himanee is a farmer, writer, and professor who sows seeds to provide food, uses words to form ideas, and creates thoughts to help guide herself and others through learnings to sustain future generations. She is the author of Muncie, India(na): Middletown and Asian America, which blends memoir, ethnography, and critical thought on the question of what it means to be an American. She also has written, spoken, taught, and pondered extensively on the relationships between land, food, and spirituality and has drawn on her own experiences as a farmer and daughter of immigrant Indian parents in reflecting on her place in North American settler-colonialist spaces. A desire to contribute to the healing of historic intergenerational violence and ongoing trauma led her in 2022 to the Cornell Small Farm’s Reconnecting With Purpose Retreat, from which she was motivated to rekindle prior work with Reiki and to fulfill a long-held desire to transform her practice of yoga into teaching it herself. Since becoming certified through the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, she has led yoga workshops at numerous academic conferences and in community classes in the Saratoga area, where she lives, farms, and teaches at SUNY Empire State University. Her hope is to meet students where they are at, and to guide them to find peace, grounding, rejuvenation, contentment, and hope.
Kate Cowie-Haskell (they/them)
Kate comes from a background in anthropology, storytelling, and farmworking. They spent three years as a farm worker (working with vegetables, hops, and alpaca) before transitioning into a technical assistance role. Many conversations with farmers about crises like poisoned soil, extreme flooding, and prolonged droughts led Kate to wonder how the spiritual care network for earthworkers could be strengthened. This interest brought them from their long-time home in Massachusetts to Minneapolis, where they are pursuing an MDiv in Interreligious Chaplaincy and Eco-Justice. Kate loves to help people find words, rituals, and actions that connect them to a greater whole. They are particularly interested in helping to heal the disconnect that whiteness creates between individual health and collective wellbeing. Growing natural dyes, dancing, and reading sci-fi are some of their current personal healing practices.
Kate has been involved in Reconnecting With Purpose and Growing Together since 2022, and is deeply grateful for the exploration and expansion this community has offered.
Violet Stone (she/her)
Violet leads a wide range of retreats and workshops for the agricultural community drawing on themes of connection, wellness, purpose, integrity and courage. She sees this work as contributing to a more inclusive ‘culture’ of agriculture where all voices are warmly welcomed, honored and celebrated, including the voice of our intuition or inner teacher. In this highly technological age of automation and artificial intelligence, we have much to gain from the act of offering one another genuine listening, open-hearted attention, and wonder. Violet has led programs for the Cornell Small Farms Program since 2007 and has also served as the New York Northeast SARE Professional Development Coordinator since 2009. All of her programs are aligned with the principles of the Center for Courage and Renewal.
Previous and Current Facilitators
Anu Rangarajan
Anu is the Director of the Cornell Small Farms Program and the Equitable Farm Futures Initiative. She was appointed director the program in 2004, and at the same time opened a U-pick strawberry farm in Freeville, NY. The experience of operating a small farm changed her entire approach to research and extension, and deepened her commitment to NY farms and local food systems. She has worked for 30+ years in sustainable agriculture, and has a special gift for reciting poetry!
Jamillah El Bey (Roo)
Jamillah is a gardener, earth-worker, integrated healer and wellness educator. Jamillah brought boundless enthusiasm and deep wisdom to our former community, Reconnecting with Purpose (2020-2023). Always inspired by natures gifts and wonders, Jamillah continues to search for the best version of herself. This constant reflection is what lights the path to her life’s mission to "uplift fallen humanity." She is always seeking ways to be of service to the communities, families and individuals that are in need. Her hobbies include and are not limited to woodworking, toy making, quilting, art of all kinds. She also has a pretty awesome library that includes books that span various topics.
Kimerly (Kim) Cornish
Kim is a social justice advocate and accessible yoga instructor. She's been a student of the Center for Courage Renewal's programming since 2017. Kim grew up in rural Dorchester, Maryland with farming in her extended family. She regularly facilitates reading and discussion groups on works by authors Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and Ibram X. Kendi.
Marcia Eames-Sheavly
Marcia served as the co-founder and co-designer of Reconnecting with Purpose. Without Marcia's generous enthusiasm and commitment, this program would not exist today. She co-facilitated the program up until her retirement from Cornell and remains a friend and mentor to the program.
Pork Rhyne
With a deep-rooted commitment to social equity and agricultural empowerment, Pork Rhyne has championed transformative initiatives across the globe. As the founder of AGRO Educators International, they've equipped over 5,000 AgroPreneurs with skills for sustainable livelihoods and have actively furthered inclusive agricultural practices through collaboration with organizations like the National Young Farmers Coalition and EATBETA International Foundation. While his work encompasses a vast range of endeavors from grantmaking redesign focused on diversity to spearheading regional food system collaborations, a consistent theme is their leadership in facilitating growth, understanding, and equitable progress in the agricultural community.
