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[queerness-nature]

The plants in this book are typically regarded with the designation invasive, describing the ways they multiply and grow without consideration to limits. The need to attend to the negative impacts of these species is real. However, we propose resistance to language and thinking that deems these species as a threat in need of control and eradication. This kind of orientation reproduces a binary inherent in colonial thinking–being that echoes xenophobic and militaristic responses to “foreign” or deviant human bodies. Instead, we propose the term transplant as a way to consider connections between plant and human bodies beyond colonial categorization. —Meech Boakye & Christina Kingsbury

[queerness-nature]

Queerness and Nature Walk notes by Petra Floyd

[queerness-nature]

A Tick Researcher’s Tips for Staying Safe Outdoors - The Allegheny Front

One tip: walk in the center of the trail. Ticks like to attach themselves to long grasses. No need to use DEET.

Learn about ticks before you get deep in the woods! 

[queerness-nature]

Sassafras, Cypress, & Indigo - Ntozake Shange

[queerness-nature]

the earth is a living thing - is a black shambling bear

is a black shambling bear ruffling its wild back and tossing mountains into the sea is a black hawk circling the burying ground circling the bones picked clean and discarded is a fish black blind in the belly of water is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal is a black and living thing is a favorite child of the universe feel her rolling her hand in its kinky hair feel her brushing it clean

[queerness-nature]

Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them. Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life. Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer. Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need. Take only that which is given. Never take more than half. Leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share. Give thanks for what you have been given. Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken. Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

[queerness-nature]

Notes for Noticing, created by Dana Bishop-Root and Ginger Brooks Takahashi for a walk and exhibition Singing We Must Rage at Tufts University Gallery, 2021.