<div dir="ltr"><div>So excited to be in conversation here- many thanks, Margaretha, Oliver and others, for inviting a feral multi-species-ness to convene in this digital space in a time when the relationships between physical and ethereal matter feels increasingly slippery. </div><div><br></div><div>I am slowly gathering steam that builds around this waxing moon in Capricorn; I write from a low-lying seaside community in Red Hook, Brooklyn; near the harbor where we recently gathered to honor the ocean waters in this seventh year after strong floods (unprecedentedly for our times) blanketed streets and sidewalks. Are they not simply waters in pursuit of reclaiming their home, that has been concretized by humankind? Much of Red Hook is built on landfill, atop a salt marsh estuary that was once full of the 'native' Salt meadow cordgrass, or spartina. </div><div><br></div><div>Spartina now blankets many of the wetlands across the eastern US, and is feared as an 'invasive', although it is often also endemic to nearby regions where it stands. It thrives alongside polluted wetlands, spreading by its roots, sending signals to encourage microbial life below ground. The linguistic demarcation of binaries (native v. invasive) as related to control or valuation / eradication of plant beings sets a tone similar to a common <i>us vs. them</i> dynamic, a reminder of the structural logic that was employed by the cultural purges of the early modern European witch-hunts, and is all too familiar in American politics around gender and cultural variances. Though humans have created drug compounds extracted from phytochemicals found within plants, we do not know them by their names. The hemorrhaging of connective tissue between consuming and experiencing plants is a wound that can (must) be treated, locally.</div><div><br></div><div>In searching for the incantatory amongst the edges; I find many of the plants that APRIORI has created signs for– in the slivers of soil in sidewalks and alongside street side tree-pits. This landscape that has been re-inundated with saltwater is, in its seventh year, full of ruderal plant magic - a derelict ecotone where plastic bags soaked with pet dander cling to Knotweed, Mugwort, and Plantain whose roots exude organic compounds into soil helping to bind carbon from the atmosphere. Empty lots radiate with this intermingling; Seaside goldenrod, Jimson weed, Mullein, Evening primrose - which all thrive in sandy, disturbed, salty soils, are "following us" as armenian-american writer, activist, herbalist, and one of my dear teachers, Rosemary Gladstar says of her favorite plant beings (the 'weeds')– they're ones that are right there when and because we need them. </div><div><br></div><div>I cultivate the 'weeds' that live in the streets of my neighborhood- growing them in rich humus in raised beds far from immobile heavy-metal contaminants that lie dormant within human-altered soils of Red Hook's once fertile red clay- (for which it gathered its name) to make decoctions with their leaves, stems, fruits, roots and seeds. Many of these plant elixirs are macerating on my shelf, waiting to be strained for next year's allergies, inflammation, coughs and infections. I share them with fellow city dwellers; neighbors, friends, and strangers. I believe that the term 'weeds' is more of a descriptor for a human's state of mind than a name for a category of plant- an act of deeming a plant who is growing where a human wishes they wouldn't. But feel it is important to recognize how humans have demoralized them merely for holding this transitory space, the queers and in-betweens who reclaim the streets as a vibrant, messy places for all kinds of phenotypes to gather.</div><div><br></div><div>To cultivate the 'weeds' might be seen as an unpopular tactic, eschewing the neat and narrow rows of kale and brussels sprouts, (is it me, or did brussels get a PR team this year like kale did back in 2010?) but perhaps it is those who hold the hold the powers to thrive amidst, that <i>are</i> the technologies (and are extracted for use in <i>our</i> technologies) who remind us of the presence of magic within all beings. </div><div><br></div><div>I aim to practice the work of taking more time sensing in these 'weedy' spaces, - for feeling the prickliness of Japanese hops as they catch on my skin, sending me nerve-numbing medicine as I try to pull them from the fence. As the spines of get stuck in our arms and fingers, can we be (with) them, embodied at the edges– before pulling them out? </div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><font size="1"><b><br></b></font></div><div><font size="1"><b>Marisa Prefer <br></b></font><b style="font-size:x-small">(they, them, their)<br><a href="http://invisiblelabor.org">invisiblelabor.org</a></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 11:13 PM Oliver Kellhammer <<a href="mailto:okellhammer@gmail.com">okellhammer@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr">Yes to the 'rudeness' and category-defying ferality! One of the things that can be maddening to purists is the Interzone between the ruderal and indigenous, the hyper-ecologies that self assemble into novel ecosystems. I have fond memories of stumbling through a Superfund site next to the Willamette River near Portland and coming upon the indigenous Madrone and Cottonwood trees growing cheek to cheek with Paulownia and Robinia. Red-tailed hawks and western fence lizards took advantage of the thermal opportunities afforded by weedy expanses of abandoned pavement, while homeless folks made funeral pyres of salvaged electrical wire with which to burn off the insulation before selling it for recycling. Yet toxins were leaching into the water table and the fish were too contaminated for healthy consumption.<div><br></div><div>The ruderal may be empowering but not perhaps for those that ruined it. Yet the ruderal is playing out a longer game of earth repair that may or may not include us.</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 10:57 PM WhiteFeather <<a href="mailto:whitefeather.hunter@gmail.com" target="_blank">whitefeather.hunter@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Hello, empyrites! <br></div><div>I can't express how excited I am to see this topic of discussion come up here, and to learn from you in this shared space, about what magic and witchcraft mean from your different contexts and positions. My current PhD research is very much centred in practice-based (witch)craft, in relationship with biotechnology (I have a practical background in cellular and microbiology), and of course with a very keen eye on feminist witchcraft historians such as Federici, also Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English before her, as well as favourite feminist technophile philosophers, such as Donna Haraway, and very (most?) importantly, other (bio)tech-witch practitioners. <br></div><div><br></div><div> I'm very much interested in 'troubling' scientific narratives and methodologies through practice and philosophy, where they historically and contemporaneously intersect with mammalian bodies/selves especially, but also expanding this to better reflect multiple senses of other-worldliness--including deviants, hybrids and more-than-mammals (for example, microbes essential to the nutrient uptake and growth of our plant foods/medicines as well as those that emerge, feeding on and reducing toxicity in spaces such as the 'ruderal'). <br></div><div><br></div><div>What a magnificent word ruderal is, for it contains the word, <i>rude</i>. <br></div><div><br></div><div>
Some of the most rude experiences I've had in the field have been with regards to confronting ideologies around ecosystems and “protected” (pristine/pure) areas, particularly where privileged systems of knowledge production influence policy that restricts, undermines and suppresses lived/embodied/anecdotal knowledges, when those knowledges run counter to capitalist imperatives. I can expand more on these experiences later where there is interest or opportunity. </div><div><br></div><div>So looking forward to reading everything,<br></div><span style="color:rgb(91,155,213)" lang="EN-US"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"></span><span></span></span>
<div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><font size="2">WhiteFeather Hunter</font><i><br></i></font></span></div>:::she/her:::<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><a href="http://www.oliverk.org" target="_blank">http://www.oliverk.org</a><br>twitter: @okellhammer</div><div>mobile: 917-743-0126</div><div>skype: okellhammer</div><div><br><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></blockquote></div></div>