Pecan nut trees don’t give fruit every year. And when they do, all across a large large area such as a country, they give them together.

 

“A gift relationship with nature is a “formal give-and-take that acknowledges our participation in, and dependence upon, natural increase. We tend to respond to nature as a part of ourselves, not a stranger or alien available for exploitation.” (p.30)

 

Puhpowee, the force that pushes mushrooms out of the ground. (p.48)

> Forces of life larger than the social, larger still than inequalities. Rosa talks of social energy. I feel he is missing that force. The social is our starting point, the problem. The solution is to open up to other forms of life, to that which is inbetween. Rosa understands this in this 2023 interview: Social Theory Today, Chile.

 

English, 30% verbs, Powatami, 70% verbs. A bay is a verb. And it makes sense when you sit there still and understand the bay is alive: smell, sound, living beings. Only if I were in the mindset to do something with the bay, may it be considered still and "dead". Think dead is not accurate, but the human is doing the doing, conquering it, building it. Imagine telling Ayn Rand that a bay is alive and a verb. She might have a heart attack.

 

"Doesnt this mean that speaking English, thinking in English, somehow gives us permission to disrespect nature? By denying everyone else the right to be persons? Wouldn't things be different if nothing was an it? Swept away with the idea, he said it felt like an awakening to him. More like a remembering I think. The animacy of the world is something we already know, but the language of animacy teeters on extinction." (p.57)

> found, not have. On beauty and being just, beauty is always already there, whether we see or not. Watt, community is found, Frosh. Weil, an obligation exists whether we see it or not.

 

Chapter. Picking Sweetgrass.

"Science is nothing more than listening to what is already there. Just like Columbus discovered what is already there. Of course he created a new world in that sense for Europe, but this may be similar, just on another magnitude, to me introducing a book to someone else that they fall in love with. That opens their world, too. "To me, an experiment is a conversation with plants: I have a question for them, but since we don't speak the same language, I cannot ask them directly, and they won't answer verbally.... Experiments are not about discovery but about listening and translating the knowledge of other beings."

> Sweet grass actually thrives through people's harverst. It might be that the removal of stems makes space for the new. The untouched populations maintain dead stems, that if not removed, seem to inhibit growth of the new. This is what happened to my mint pot outside, without constant harvest, it starts to shrivel.

 

"After all, grasses are beautifully adapted to disturbance - it's why we plant lawns. When we move them they multiply. Grasses carry their growing points juts beneath the soil surface so that when their leaves are lost to a mower, a grazing animal, or a fire, they quickly recover... Many plants undergo compensatory growth in which the plant compensates for the loss of foliage by quickly growing more. It seems counterintuitive, but when a her of buffalo grazes down a sward of fresh grass, it actually grows faster in response. This helps the plant recover, but also invites the buffalo back for dinner later in the season. It has even been discovered that there is an enzyme in the saliva of grazing buffalo that actually stimulates grass growth. To say nothing of the fertilizer produced by a passing herd. Grass gives to buffalo and buffalo gives to grass. The system is well-balanced but only if the herd uses the grass respectfully. Free-range buffalo graze and move on, not returning to the same place for many months. Thus they obey the rule of not taking more than half, of not ovregrazing. Why shouldn't it be also rue for people and sweetgrass? We are no more than the buffalo and no less, governed by the same natural laws."

 

Regional decline in sweetgrass therefore might be because people do NOT interact with sweetgrass. The distancing from the grass causes it to falter. What is immediately available is ignored for what is immediately available within the human world alone perhaps, like Prime next day delivery. I suppose this is something that is lost in a culture of splitting production and consumption to the extreme. That I am producing something but not really a product for me, for I am compensated with money. Money in turn buys me something for consumption. So when it comes to a hat, I may pick grass and spend hours making it. Or, I could work on something else, earn money for some hours, and then spend it on buying a hat. Many more people are involved in this second option. It sustains people, whilst the natural world takes a toll, being ignored, and burdened to carry the CO2 emissions that emerge in this process.