Adélàjà is Yorùbá and Ayisyèn born and raised outside of Baltimore, MD, USA

From a young age they have been deeply inspired to live a life of service. What that looks like at this time is supporting the movement of returning to and strengthening ancestral ways of praying, honoring the earth, and healing the mind. With this foundation, our way of being in relationship with(in) all of life can be harmonized. 

In practice this looks like supporting ceremony, tending to land (supporting capacity for the land to hold water, Forestry, and Food forestry), homesteading and bodywork. 

They are returning to traditional spiritual ways within their blood through direct connection with an Araba and Babalawos in Ekiti State, Nigeria; as well as continuing to heal and learn with traditional spiritual teachers of North and South America. 

Adélàjà shares passion and prayer with music - especially through voice - and has an album on the way in 2024. 

Adélàjà lives most of the time at Emerald Earth, with a week in Oakland per month and is honored to be a part of this project: to put into practice so much that was learned and practiced in Oakland over the last 13 years, on a larger scale.

They work in collaboration with the Healing Clinic Collective, APTP and other organizations that are bridging spirituality and political work.

Zappa Montag was born in 1969, in New York City.  His parents were idealistic 19 year old hippies from different corners of the Earth.  His father a Hungarian Jewish immigrant who came to the US when he was 7 in 1956, and his mom a Black woman from the Bronx, and the leader of her two younger sisters who were also hippies from the hood.  Zappa came to California later in 1969, as his parents followed friends and family who had made their way West in recent years. 

 At the age of 3 he moved to Mendocino County (Albion) with his father, and a couple years later they moved to the nearby town of Elk, and eventually made a home on Greenwood Ridge, on a north facing mountain slope. The incredible Greenwood Ridge Redwood Forest, with its abundance of plant and animal life, bordered by Greenwood Creek, on one side, and the Navarro River on the other, and the tangible remnants of a recently thriving indigenous  Pomo civilization, made a huge impression on him and created a pathway for him to follow.  He returned to the “City”: moving back to Berkeley in 1987 to attend college, and to fulfill a longing to be with more black, and brown folks.  

The need to choose between nature and Black culture created a longing, and he began to dream of a way in which this division would not be necessary.  Conversation and daydreaming with his daughter Bibi Sarai, led to them envisioning and eventually forming “Black to the Land”, a physical, political, and spiritual homecoming of sorts.  The dream was and is for Black people and family to reconnect, heal, and thrive.  In February of 2023, Bibi Sarai passed on to the next realm, and Zappa and his son Leo, are determined to carry on with the dream in her honor.

Zappa also works as an educator.  He has a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from UC Berkeley, and a MA in Education.  He loves and believes in young people, and seeks to help the younger generations heal and grow, knowing that our future needs empowered and impassioned youth to lead the way out of this incredible mess that humans have created.  He also loves music, walking in the woods,  believes in radical and revolutionary change, and collective efforts of all types.

Noni Session is a Cultural Anthropologist and the Executive Director of the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, which supports BIPOC and allied communities to finance, purchase, occupy and steward collectively-owned land and housing. As an Oakland native, Noni’s diverse formative, academic and professional background contributes to her unique approach to economic development. Raised by teachers and small business owners, Noni cut her academic teeth on the challenge of equitable economic development.  As a Fulbright-Hays fellow she studied international humanitarian strategies for developing communities globally.  Upon completing her Doctoral work, she helped found several small scale collective civic action networks.  After a run for city council where she garnered more than 43% of the District 3 vote, Noni saw a clear path to ameliorating resource disparities in her West Oakland community-- building more cooperative networks and galvanizing opportunities for collective economic action.