plants as pedagogy

Landguaging with plants: The Dandelion Project (by Rhonda Chung)

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A splash of water. 
A cocoon of dirt. 
That spark of germination that sets us afoot.   

Spiraling through the ground. 
Arms unfolding wide. 
Legs tunneling through the dark of time.   

Rooting in place. 
Drinking the sun. 
Plants teach us just how wild we can become.

The language of plants has been capturing our imaginations since we first evolved onto land. Rocks are our 3-billion-year-old ancestors, moving in a time and space that is inconceivable to our 200-thousand-year-old imaginations. Plants are our second oldest teachers, outpacing us by 500 million years.

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Part 2 — Plants Are Our Second Oldest Teachers (by Rhonda Chung)

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In “Land as Pedagogy” (Simpson, 2014), young Kwezens watches Ajidamoo perched above her, nibbling on a branch of Ninaatigoog. Upon returning home, Kwezens recounts the interaction with her mother, who then tells the aunties to gather round the Ninaatigoog the following day. Kwezens shows her community how to tap the tree for sap, modelling the knowledge she observed from the small tree-dwelling mammal. 

In Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg epistemologies, Simpson explains, knowledge comes directly from relationships with the environment, which flow in non-linear ways from the young to the old and from non-human beings to humans; hierarchical ways of thinking are not useful in ecological relationships.

https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/mirroring-nature/
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