What I'm planning for this substack publication
"Plant advocacy" for the sake of reducing "plant blindness"
I just arrived in Colorado yesterday, where I'll be spending the year working at an educational farm, Groundwork, in Paonia. You'll definitely be hearing more about that later, but for the moment I've landed in a friend's cabin nearby, where I'm hanging out til the snow melts and the weather warms a bit more. The last week was spent packing up in New Mexico, and I simply didn't have time to post anything to substack or anywhere else, and this is my first chance to sit down and tap anything out.
At the moment, I'm looking out over Pinyon-Juniper woodland with the San Juan mountains on the horizon. On the other side of the back fence is land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. or as some call it, the Bureau of Livestock and Mining, since that comprises a lot of what ends up happening on BLM land. Our public lands are held mostly for "management," which is to say, resource extraction by private, profit-making interests. Only a small percentage is set aside for "protection" or "preservation," terms that are often misleadingly applied and that stand for concepts that are often poorly conceived. You'll definitely be hearing more about all those ideas later, too.
"All Things Plants" could sum up what I plant to write about here, which includes wild plants and domestic plants and those between; farming and wildtending; protection and preservation; ethnobotany (the study of human use of plants); plant senses and responses, and what some call plant consciousness.
Just about any issue considered "environmental" involves plants, whether it's related to climate, land use, pollution, energy production, transportation, etc, because they are present in virtually every habitat on the planet. Though much of my writing in the past has been political, I'll be leaving that out here, unless plants are directly involved.
About half of what I post here will be new, and half reposts from my long-term blog, Macska Moksha Press. Many people subscribed to this substack are new to my writing, so these old posts will be fresh for them. Also, none of them got as much attention as they deserved the first time around anyway!
Generally, every other post will be for paid subscribers only and every other other will be for everyone. So far, the paywalled content has been from the book-in-progress that I am co-authoring with Nikki Hill, tentatively entitled, "Stop Blaming the Messengers," which is a critique of invasion biology and ideology. There will definitely be more from that, and I will also be including excerpts from other books that have so far only been available to people who have bought those books.
"Plant blindness" -- this is a term that describes the fact that most of the time, most people in our society ignore the very existence of plants, let alone give any thought to their absolutely essential roles in sustaining life on earth.
"Plant advocacy" -- this is the term I've been using lately to describe the direction I'd increasingly like to take in my own life's work, which would include trying to reduce plant blindness. This substack publication will be a voice and sounding board for these efforts.
Our collective relationship with plants needs to change. The current perspective, of dominance and human supremacy, is causing widespread destruction and is ultimately a suicidal course. Our individual relationships also need to change, but that process is all about awareness and awakening and offers deep rewards, so I don't want to describe it as work, or even an effort. Really it's not so much about learning certain things (although there's lots of fun things to learn) as it is about dropping certain things; we could all enjoy lightening our loads by discarding some outmoded beliefs and burdensome prejudices. They really just cause conflict where none is needed, and separate us from who we really are: beings embedded in life.
I enjoy feedback, so please feel free to comment here or to write me. A recent email from a subscriber raised a topic that I plan to research now, and might even include in the "invasives" book so I am also open to topic ideas.
Thanks so much for reading! If you like what you find here, please share with your friends and encourage them to subscribe too. I'm not on social media anymore these days myself, but I don't mind if you post my stuff there.