Staff Spotlight: Mackenzie Fink
Hello!! Mackenzie here coming at you with an early morning sunrise, a hot cup of coffee, and only the sound of swallows singing in the sky. Creating space and savoring silence each morning is something I have come to treasure as life swells around me the moment the rooster crows or baby cries each day. With 5 children whom I homeschool, a husband who travels frequently and is in service often, and a homestead full of animals, our life is full and robust. Over the years, I have been involved with many aspects of the organization – from Admin, Finance, Marketing, Operations, Logistics, and Event Planning, to Business Strategy, Human Resources, and Team Development. Three years ago, I landed in a place of passion and heart when we decided to create and establish our very own food program.
I developed a real relationship with food when I started growing my own. I can remember the year Micah and I started our very first garden. Micah often shares the story of our little seedlings sitting in the windowsill showing their first buds. Some of which had the seeds trapping the buds below. Micah thought that he’d help the seedlings grow faster by removing those seeds. As a result, he helped them to death. This is a parallel that Micah has used to describe what the VA and other systems have done with the veteran community. As we learned from our missteps and corrected our mistakes eventually we grew and established a flourishing garden. The yearly spring process of planting seedlings and watching them reach for the sun reminds me of this quote by Florida Scott-Maxwell: Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn’t do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.
Over the years, many people have asked “What’s been the hardest part for you?” in reference to military life and all of its complexities. Holding it down for the 13 combat deployments, 3 kids in 3.5 years, a house flood, starting a non-profit from nothing, moving across the country 8 months pregnant, lawsuits, slander, being robbed, death threats, being on the receiving end of horrific phone calls, middle of the night convulsing, and my relationship with Micah are just a handful of external circumstances that have created the perfect amalgamation to the heroes journey home to my heart center. The soul seed within me broke its shell three and a half years ago, shattering every concept of reality allowing for a re-birth, an active engagement with death. The cycle of birthing, dying, and being born again has been the hardest but most beautiful part of my life. Over the course of these last three and a half years, I have engaged with this process again and again and again and again. Unfolding from the inside out layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, like a lotus revealing itself to the light. I have plunged into the depths of learning to alchemize the pain into true authentic beauty using life as my curriculum. More recently, the choice to homeschool our children was met with great resistance for me personally. Facing the resistance just 6 weeks postpartum, I was raw and rendered and met with many reflections of self. This gave me the opportunity to accept and love and to integrate many shadowy aspects of self with our children as my witness. If I had to answer this question today, my answer would be learning to surrender with unconditional love to the most unlovable circumstances while simultaneously trusting in the unfolding. I am grateful to the many modalities that have served as tools on this path - everything from sound medicine (tuning forks and sound bowls), to subconscious excavation work, to meditation, breath, cold and hot therapies, anti-inflammatory nutrition, going into the Inipi and learning the ways of the Lakota Sioux, and simply spending time with Mother Earth, our greatest teacher.
It is no surprise that the birth of the Heroes and Horses food program, backcountry meals, and the Anti-Inflammatory Farmacy has paralleled my personal re-birthing journey as cooking is a form of expression. Being in the kitchen, creating, playing, and making food into art that actually tastes like love and helps heal the body is one of my superpowers that has allowed and helped the real me to be expanded and embodied. In a world where people are consuming more because they don’t feel enough, I share a small taste of my story as a simple reminder that you are enough – you hold the keys to the kingdom of your unique brilliance and intelligence that resides inside. I invite you to grab hold of whatever form of expression that you love and start embodying your true beauty!
-Mackenzie Fink