Maegan Custodio From the trees to the sunshine to the soils of the Earth, I have learned to love and appreciate all aspects of nature. To be a steward of nature, to protect it, care for it, not to harness it and abuse it. Being able to work on the farms has allowed me to appreciate ways to cultivate the Earth, while maintaining its ability for self rejuvenation. When a community loves the Earth enough, nature shows its gratitude and provides for the community.
This was not only seen in the community gardens, but also in the readings. Braiding Sweetgrass emphasizes an overall appreciation of Nature and its elements. Not to view climate change as a thing to fight off, but to change the perspective and relationship we have with the Earth. To create a relationship filled with understanding and care, a mutually beneficial relation that sustains the community and Nature itself.
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Joyce Pang When my dad asked me what this class was and what we were learning about, I couldn’t find the words to explain to him the significance of the class. “So you just visit farms? What does that have to do with fighting climate change?”
CJARs has given me so much joy and radical hope and has helped me build deep relationships rooted in shared values of community and the belief that we all deserve better. It has helped me rethink the way I think about climate change and reminded me of the importance of childish play, imagination, and joy in social movements. Perhaps what summarizes it the best is what Frank said on our first visit to the S+S family ranch. He was talking about the history of the land, the terrible smell of Rosie's breath (the farm dog), and the way that we frame climate change. How through “Fighting”, “defeating”, and “tackling” climate change”, all the language we use around climate change is the language of war. “Nobody wants to be at war for their whole lives”, he said. Instead, he framed it as an act of care, and act of love. Maintaining a close relationship with our land, land stewardship, respecting the world around us, and creating systems of care, reciprocity, and mutual aid, rather than profit and extraction. Loving our planet – isn’t that what we were all taught to do in kindergarten? To truly overcome climate change and create a livable future for us all, we need to recognize the root problem (a system that prioritizes profit over people, incentivizes endless extraction, and enables destructive, selfish behavior) and work toward collectively imagining, experimenting, and creating a better world. A radical reimagining of what is possible, what is “progress”, a transformation of power structures, a revitalizing of community care, the creation of community resilience, a revolution of love. A large transformation of society is not possible without community care networks — an intrinsic part of building resilience and collective resistance. To create inclusive liberation movements, community care structures are necessary to care for each other’s health and safety, to make food to sustain the revolution, to share grief and joy, to renew commitments to goals, to strengthen and renew commitments to goals, and to make sure that a lack of income, family, resources, etc aren’t barriers to getting involved. There is a long history of radical community-care networks, such as the Black Panthers Free Breakfast for Children program, and the dissolving of private family structures into communal care and labor during revolutionary movements, such as the 2006 Oaxaca Commune. Similarly, during the Dakota Pipeline protests (which lasted for months), there were daily community meetings where people strategized, shared joy and grief, called on ancestors for strength and courage, and reminded themselves of why and who they were fighting for. Today, as Palestinians endure genocide and unspeakable horrors, the brief moments of joy, weddings, and dance in refugee camps amid the bombing strengthen their faith, the culture of resistance, and inspire radical hope. Radical hope and joy, often inspired through prayer, as well as calling on strength from ancestors and the collective, are crucial in fighting imperialism and colonialism, and in nurturing a spirit of resistance amidst a seemingly unwinnable fight. In my lifetime, I have seen border walls constructed to keep the “wrong type of person” out, police harassing and kicking out homeless families for simply existing in the “wrong place”, and cities ruined, families destructed, and children bombed for profit. But I have also seen volunteers drive daily into border encampments to deliver supplies and construct temporary shelters, grassroots mutual aid efforts to provide care for the community, and millions across the world rise up and protest in the streets in solidarity. What is that, if not love? I guess what I’m trying to say is that the most all-encompassing, radical, un-exclusionary love is the creation of a better world for us all (revolution). And that the revolution is fueled by, created by, imagined by, and forged through love. To me, the realest lovers have the hearts that beat the hardest at the sight of injustice. To me, love is systemic. Love is resistance. Love is mutual aid. Love is a system of care, not one that prioritizes profit. To love is to fight against oppression. The English language only has one word for love. In “Learning the Language of Animacy” in Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes that the Potawatomi language is a language of verbs, rather than nouns. She writes that “a bay is a noun only if the water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb “wiikwegamaa - to be a bay - releases the water from bondage and lets it live. “To be a bay” holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between those shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers.” Just like Potawatomi verbs can emphasize the fluidity and animacy of nature, we can create phrases that emphasize mutual relationships and different ways of loving. To splash is to be loved by the water. To tan or freckle is to be loved by the sun. To run or fly is to be loved by the wind. To be dirty is to be loved by the soil. To eat is to be loved by the Earth. The construction of a language maps our relationship with each other and with the world around us. To build a world built around love, we must first change the way we think about the world, which starts with language. Instead of “crushing” capitalism, “defeating” global imperialism, and “demolishing” oppressive systems, maybe the “fight” is instead a movement to reconnect everyone on Earth to the heart — the collective loving aching heart of the world, lifeblood of the revolution, roots of the unbreakable human mycelium. |
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