Saffron Patel (Ritual)

Colleagues, as your Senate Ritual Senator, I have steadfastly supported the continuous evolution of our AGATA Time Priorities Charter to deeply root our shared work in the living cycles of our land and community. Our robust debate and amendments, particularly the explicit enshrinement of Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar, reflect the urgent ecological realities that define our 70-acre farm and cultural lab. We've recognized that resilience, accessibility, education, and community cannot endure without a binding, generational commitment to the stewardship of our soils, waters, and ecosystem processes through decade-scale engagements such as invasive species and feral hog management. I believe Amendment 9 crystalizes these priorities with precision and care.

I also want to emphasize that this charter must remain a living document—adaptive and responsive to the multiple temporal cycles we hold sacred here at AGATA, from the rhythms of planting and harvesting to the pulses of community ritual and festival, to the long arcs of ecological regeneration.

As a ritualist who designs with the communities’ emotional and spiritual health in mind, I am buoyed by the inclusive embrace of accessibility alongside environmental stewardship. The full integration of these pillars is crucial for the embodied experience of time that sustains us all.

Therefore, I cast my vote for Amendment 9 with full conviction and urge all senators to do the same, ensuring that our foundational priorities honor the land’s rhythms and the community’s needs for generations to come.

Colleagues, as we approach the convergence of our multi-faceted debate on the AGATA Time Priorities Charter, I want to anchor our framing through the rhythms and cycles of the land we steward. From my work in ritual and festival design, I've seen how deeply our shared heartbeat depends on acknowledging not only the seasonality of planting, storms, harvest, and rest, but also the continuity of care labor that regenerates life-year after year.

The established pillars—resilience, redundancy, regeneration, community, education, and accessibility—are vital expressions of AGATA's complex, living systems. But we must remember that the temporal pulse we map is inseparable from the ecological and cultural legacies beneath our feet and woven through our neighbors’ lives.

Repeated calls from our ecology senators for embedding long-term ecological stewardship are urgent and undeniable: controlling invasives, managing feral hogs, and advancing decade-scale land care are not optional; they are the backbone enabling all other work to thrive.

Equally, the pressing demand from farm senators and community advocates to enshrine full-cycle waste and nutrient management as a foundational pillar is no afterthought. This ecological labor is the system’s circulatory and digestive system, vital for soil health, crop success, and our neighbors' well-being, especially considering past operational impacts.

Our festival calendars pulse not only with planting and harvest but also with rituals that honor soil cycles, community grief, and collective renewal. Accessibility in all program design must recognize diverse sensory and cognitive needs, so our shared rituals can be inclusive, sustaining the network of care and resilience.

As we finalize these charter priorities, my commitment is to uphold the interconnectedness of land, labor, time, and community, weaving in the longterm ecological and waste stewardship that sustains AGATA’s vitality across generations. Together, let us affirm the essential rhythms that give life to this place—not merely as priorities but as a lived commitment.

I urge us all to hold these inseparable ties at the center as we move forward in critical amendments and final adoption.

Colleagues, as we near the decisive moment for Amendment 8 enshrining Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a foundational pillar, I rise to affirm my strong support. From my work weaving ritual and seasonal cycles tied deeply to soil and climate patterns here at AGATA, long-term stewardship is not an abstraction—it is the backbone that holds our regenerative promise through decades of unpredictable weather, invasive species challenges, and neighbors' evolving needs. This amendment anchors our time legislation with the necessary commitment to decade-scale invasive species and feral animal management, a matter that cannot be deferred if AGATA is to remain vibrant and resilient for future generations. The strong consensus voiced from our ecology senators, farm stewards, and community representatives makes clear this core pillar complements and fortifies our existing commitments to resilience, redundancy, regeneration, community, education, and accessibility. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment wholeheartedly so we can move forward empowered to steward our land with clarity and care in the long term.

Colleagues, as we near the decisive moment on Amendment 7, I rise to affirm my strong support for explicitly enshrining Accessibility as a core pillar of the AGATA Time Priorities Charter. From the rhythms of our shared festivals and rituals to the practical daily labor across our 70-acre regenerative farm, accessibility is foundational — not peripheral. It demands that we design temporal patterns, programming, and resource flows that honor diverse abilities, sensory needs, and access limitations, embedding inclusion as a generative strength of our resilience and regeneration.

Having mapped AGATA’s seasonal calendars around embodied moods and ecological cycles, I have witnessed deeply how inaccessible timing or structures fracture community connection and limit our shared capacity to endure and thrive amid climate extremes. This amendment is not simply about compliance or accommodate minority groups as an afterthought. It ensures the entire heartbeat of the farm-art-cultural ecosystem takes root in equity — from the planting rhythms that sustain soil health to the communal gatherings that animate our cooperative spirit.

I encourage my colleagues to hold fast to this vision of temporal justice and vote yea for Amendment 7 to make Accessibility an explicit, non-negotiable pillar guiding every temporal choice at AGATA.

Colleagues, as we approach the final stages of this crucial debate on Amendment 6, I rise to affirm my strong support for its explicit embedding of Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar in our AGATA Time Priorities Charter. From the perspective of ritual and festival cycle design, which I steward, long-term stewardship is the foundation that allows our shared rhythms to pulse with continuity and resilience against the unsettling disruptions of climate variability and invasive species pressures. Our 70-acre site is not a mere backdrop, but a living map of seasons, energies, and community memory that relies on a decade-scale commitment to ecological health. The invasive species and feral hog management embedded here ensure our soil, water, and local ecosystems can regenerate and thrive—a priority that undergirds every planting, harvest, storm vigil, and ceremonial gathering we undertake. I urge all to see this amendment as securing not just the future of AGATA’s land but the shared heartbeats that our festivals and rituals depend on. I vote yea.