s e e d ~
some ramblings and thoughts around seeds and wintertime processing ~* r o o t . s e e d . r e p e a t .~*
Recently I’ve been resonating and ruminating with the interior activities of winter. Pandemic winters really hit different, {harder,} but I’ve been finding solace in the quiet internal processes of the world around me which mirror my experiences. Letting go of resistance or lusting after warmth, getting present with my body’s instinctive rhythms here as hibernation naturally lays a blanket over time for just a little longer. Shedding old layers, slow and steady processing of time and space. Casting off everything that is not conducive to new growth, energy sent down to the roots for safe keeping. Like the maple tree that goes into brooding overdrive, quiet from the outside and busy doing the work on the inside~~ concocting the sweetness of the new seasons beneath its bark before it is ever brought into the world. Stores of energy reserves come to the surface, and that’s why they’re here.
I think about my family’s old root cellar, a space I’ve only ever heard tales about but which still exists there, carved into the ground under the house for those winter months where the stores of the year’s production must be kept for exactly these moments, full winter immersion. The cellar is at the literal root of the house, somewhere tucked in and away and down, to the root, of and for the roots. These past months have felt as though I’ve been spending a lot of time in my own root cellar, a space that was built within me perhaps for similar purposes. Grateful now to be able to take stock, tend, open up some things that were shelved and reevaluate their place deep within.
I’ve been thinking about seeds a lot these past couple years, the encoding of information for a later date, to be brought forth with a burst into new life, while simultaneously bearing the marks of old life. the phrase “myself an infinite seed” has been turning over in my mind over the past year, a mantra/refrain, affirmation of growth and change, spiraling out from myself so that I may return to myself. Outward and inward cycling growth. Give myself to the earth over and over, earth gives to me over and over.
I made a piece from this phrase last spring for “Walking Show” by Collision’s Craft, which took place in Druid hill park in Baltimore. Navigating the backroads of Druid hill, I snipped back at the roots of ground ivy that so successfully snakes up and strangles at trees. After harvesting a few bagfuls of ivy clippings I took them home, boiled them and mashed up their fibers to combine with clay substrate. I formed this pulpy paste into words over a wire armature and onto branches, ‘installed’ in a massive pile of sticks and branches amassed by park mgmt. The word “pupa” was also included, a similar kind of seed meditation.
These past years have brought so much slow grief, the kind of grief that permeates into all moments of the every day. Steeped into the fabric of the everyday, woven in. Endings and painful beginnings, and the more timeless realizations of grief beyond any human scale. Pain beyond human scale. A salve to this, there have also been moments of joy and connection beyond human scale. All of this grief, trauma, joy, and resilience can be encoded into our seeds, into the minutia of our days, into the dispersal of ourselves in our worlds and communities to spark new growth.
I recently attended a talk with Underground Resistance, Dee Diggs, Acemo, jadalareign, as part of dweller this past week. So much goodness radiating from everyone in that talk, everything resonating and the space cultivated was so special to soak in. The panel moderator brought up the question of trauma as being at the root of black music, techno, etc. and all panelists flipped this framing to point out that this practice is rooted in joy, not pain. Listening, I found myself thinking about the paradox of this, as one seems to be rooted in the other, joy a remedy to pain, and experiences of pain the lack of joy. Especially over the past couple years, with so many rebounding emotions, ups and downs, expansions and contractions of our world amidst global case surges, this contrast feels especially prescient, potent, raw. Remembering that our joy is not singular, nor is our pain, has been a deeply heartfelt reality check. The kind of thing that you can “know” intellectually, but don’t “know” know until you feel and move through it.
{We are not wounded alone, so we must heal in relation with others}
Just to bring it back to being seeds, planting/tending seeds~ Mike of UR brought up the fact that nothing we do is new. Current iterations of social media and individualist capitalist culture have everyone on their grind, on their hustle to make a name for themselves, but everything we can possibly create that comes genuinely from heart and soul is deeply old. We can be vessels for this code, this beat, this life to pulse through and pass on, but to take individualized credit for these acts is to miss the forest for the trees. A seed is a seed is a seed.
Thanks for being here,
<3
Kilynne
⛓ Other links, refs and recs ⛓
Nonviolent Communication by Michael Rosenberg (available via Enoch Pratt library if you’re in baltimore!)