Is it justice or irony when a celebration of Native American history takes place on land once owned by an early colonist alleged to have spurred a bloody conflict with local indigenous people? Go with the former and it's of a piece with one of Seed Song Farm's key themes: reclaiming a pre-colonial, organic relationship to nature.

With 215 acres of fields, wetlands and forest tucked away from the commercial hubbub along Kingston's Ulster Avenue to the east, the banks of the Esopus to its west, Seed Song, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, occupies what once was part of the Chambers Farm, named for the man widely held to be Ulster County's first white settler. That would be Thomas Chambers, whose business dealings with local Lenape people ended in hostilities that left dead on both sides.

It makes sense, then, that this coming weekend the farm hosts Standing Stone Gathering 2024, an autumn festival of music, dance, storytelling and games in celebration of Native American history and culture.

Per its mission statement, Seed Song Farm and Center (as it is known formally) seeks to “nurture a reverence for land and food that it provides and incorporate the arts to understand how plants, animals and elements of farm and wilderness shape and strengthen us.”

In addition to a pre-school program and a summer camp with a major outreach to local low-income and immigrant youth, that mission has taken the form of a year-round calendar of public events including — in addition to this weekend's event — maple sugaring, music festivals, crafts and skills workshops and the occasional bonfire.

Seed Song's social activism reflects the thinking of its founder and executive director, Christopher "Creek" Iversen, a former Cornell biology student whose life's journey has taken him through a range of pursuits with two things in common: the natural world and education. The last 35 years of that have been in the Mid-Hudson Valley, where he took up farming 16 years ago in the form of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), through which consumers subscribe to shares of local harvests and, hopefully, foster a sense of community.

“Well before this operation, I had run some others, CSA farms that were integrated with community work,” Iversen told Kingston Wire when we visited the farm. “A lot of CSAs, they sell vegetables to the customers. They don't have school field trips and summer camp and events and things that are really designed to integrate the public into the agriculture. So this has a social dimension. It's an agro-ecology model, which is a Cuban type of farming, very organic, that they developed after the Soviet Union wasn't able to provide them with big machinery and stuff like that.”

“I grew up in Cooperstown, two hours over the mountains, and I came east to work on the Clearwater,” Iversen explained. “I love that community and honestly, this farm is very similar to that public ecology model, because they get people out on the river, into interacting with the river. And that has changed the public consciousness of this whole Hudson River Valley.”

Seed Song's neighbors have taken well to its presence and extraordinary ways. Local kids on dirt bikes and ATVs are welcome to pass through, the Rondout Valley Growers Association has pitched in with a grant for fencing.

“I think the community has embraced us,” Iversen says. “They come to our pumpkin-picking events but I don't think they're really aware of all the community work that goes on here. Like to them, I think, we're just a farm that grows their pumpkins and does fun things, but they don't know that we have a scholarship program, 33 percent of our camp kids here for free. Most of them are Guatemalan immigrants. We pick them up in our own bus and we give them meals. There's trilingual teenage counselors to make sure they have a good experience here, because some of them don't speak much English. A lot of people don't know that.”

Another, more natural fit is that between Seed Song and the region's network of alternative enterprises. The Ashokan Center's kitchen is a customer, as is that of Tilda's Kitchen and Café. The Hudson Valley Brassroots Festival has three times been held at the farm. Additionally, Iversen says, “We're really entrenched with some local groups like the African Roots Center and with Neetopk Keetopk (a Hudson Valley Native American group) who teach traditional wisdom as solutions to modern-day problems.”

The Lenape non-profit Ramapough Culture and Land Foundation, will lead this weekend's Standing Stone Gathering. But the goal, to quote Iversen, is the same: “That spirit of collaboration and respect for each culture's different paths coexisting.”

Sharing the bill both days will be Seed Song's first Fall Harvest Fest, featuring hayrides, pick-your-own pumpkins, a two-acre, eight-feet tall crop maze, and a variety of other family-friendly games and activities.

On the Standing Stone program:

Wiping Away Tears Ceremony
Peace Tree Planting
Jeremiah Wolf “Thunder Cloud” of the Mohawk Nation, Haudenosaunee Singers, Dancers & Storytellers
Luis Sanakori Ramos “Taino Sagrado” Behike of the Arayeke Yukayek from the Mountains of Naguake
Richard A. “Lunging Bear” Nischan of the Powhatan Tribe
Matoaka Little Eagle of the Tewa, Apache and Chickahominy
Evan Pritchard “Abachbahamedtch” of the Mi’kmaq People, Algonquin Nation
Spirit of the Mountain Singers & Drummers
Guest Drum: Wolf’s Moon Medicine Drum

Admission (for both events each day) is $10 for adults and teens $5 for kids under 12 and seniors. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

For more information, visit seedsongfarm.org.