To Reciprocate All They Freely Offer
Bees shimmy into apple blossoms, their wings making music with the petals. Ants crawl on peonies, so their petals, now tightly wrapped, may shortly bloom. Basil left uneaten, basil gone to flower, to seed, with one more gift to offer: a promise of future sustenance. These are my relations, and the relationships I want. Let the mycorrhizal net be our connection while we tend to our gardens, across space and generations. Here, I will take the time to learn what these relations can teach and what they need to thrive. I want to reciprocate all they freely offer.
On Instagram, I take screenshots of Indigenous friends’ stories identifying plant relatives as a way to learn. Mediated by a screen, for now I keep myself at a distance as a means to alleviate anxieties that stem from alienation from ancestral knowledges. I wonder: how do I reframe my ways of learning to be hands-on, experiential, and communal? How do I do this amid a revolution and pandemic? I believe revitalization and reclamation work asserts
