Conversations about Trees (Gespräche über Bäume)

We’re showered every day with the gifts of plants—the food we eat, the air we breathe, medicines for mind and body—just about everything we need is provided for us by plants. Despite this undeserved, unearned flow of green generosity, we find ourselves embedded in a political climate and an economic system which is relentless in asking, “What more can we take from the Earth?” That question and its answers have led us to the brink of disaster.

I think the question that we need is, ”What does the Earth ask of us?” How can we give back in return for everything we’ve been given, and for everything that we’ve taken? How can I be in reciprocity with the land, how can I be a giver, not just a taker?

That is the question I hear so often that it feels like a river of longing for rightness, a powerful, untapped river that is dammed up behind a highwall, artificial barrier of perceived powerlessness. It’s time to release that pent up yearning for reciprocity and let its power flow. What will we do with all that power? It’s up to you.

The call for “Plant, Baby, Plant!” is a response to that river of longing. It’s a millwheel to harness our collective creative resistance in support of life. It’s an invitation to ally ourselves with the good green world. Because plants know what to do in the face of climate catastrophe. They don’t emit carbon dioxide, they absorb it and store it away in the bodies of trees, the roots of grasses, the true wealth of fertile soils and the safe deposit box of wetlands. At the same time, they purify air and water, create habitat, give more than they take—and make us happy and healthy at the same time. All this time they have supported us, isn’t it time we returned the favor? Everything depends on this.

The outcomes of extractive economies have ushered in what evolutionary biologists are calling “The Age of the Sixth Extinction” where the current loss of species rivals the extinction events that wiped out the dinosaurs. Only this time, we are the meteor. Geologists have named our era in history, the Anthropocene, in recognition of the ways that human activity is changing every aspect of the globe. I understand the evidence and the devastating footprint of our species. But it needn’t be this way.

In fact, for most of human history, before the great delusion that the Earth was merely a warehouse of commodities destined for our consumption, humans lived in fruitful symbiosis with the land. This corrosive period of unbridled destruction is but an eyeblink of time in human history, when the western worldview of domination tried to eradicate the indigenous ethos of reciprocity. But it was not erased, it is still here and beckoning us, glimpsed from the corner of our eyes.

In the messages from readers like you, I hear a collective wail from we who love the world but feel powerless to stop the onslaught of ecological and social crises. What can we do? In that cry I feel a different era on the horizon. Beyond the Age of the Sixth Extinction, beyond the Anthropocene, I feel the motive force of the Age of Remembering. As we reckon with the wounds we have inflicted on the land and therefore on ourselves, people are remembering what it would be like to be an ally to the living land, instead of an enemy. We are remembering what the land has taught each of our ancestors: that all flourishing is mutual. That we cannot take without giving back. The longing I hear from readers is also the yearning to belong. To belong again to a larger purpose. In giving back, in acts of reciprocity are the seeds of belonging. It’s a longing, to once again be a valued member of the community of species, to re-member ourselves. To remember ourselves not only as takers, but as givers to the Earth.

Readers of “Braiding Sweetgrass” and “The Serviceberry” are answering the call to create cultures of reciprocity, sharing homemade examples of local gift economies, from community gardens to tree giveaways, seed libraries and rewilding schoolyards. They have written new music, new curricula and new liturgies. They have restored land and restored hope. Their stories are an inspiration.

We stand at a crossroads, crying “what can we do?” Let’s pick up our shovels, our seeds, and our spirits in common purpose, in service to the regenerative power of the natural world. “What does the Earth ask of us?” “Plant, Baby, Plant!”

My inbox is full of despairing “what can I do?” messages from readers. Like you, I am searching for acts of resistance, for something I can do to counter the firestorm. I’ve made my daily calls to legislators. I’ve written letters and gone to protests. I’ve donated. I want to do something more direct and tangible. I want to give love back to the land which is so threatened by the extractive worldview.

“Drill, Baby, Drill “ is an intentional slap in the face to people who value land, life, health and justice over corporate profits. It’s a stick in the eye to fierce advocates for environmental justice. Well, I want to raise a garden-gloved middle finger in return. How about you?

“Drill, Baby, Drill” of the Trump administration is “anti- everything”: anti-science, anti-justice, anti-truth, anti-climate, anti-biodiversity, anti-songbird, anti- water, wildlife and wellbeing. And dare I say it “anti-American”? Well, I have no intention of wallowing in the toxicity of anti-everything. I have no intention of surrendering to the short-sighted stupidity of a playground bully. I want to be for something, not against everything.

I am for purple mountain majesty, I am for the fruited plain, for bees and butterflies, bison and cranes, rabbits and roses, for children who can pick berries and be dazzled by fireflies at night. I am for snow. I am for people working together, sleeves rolled up in common purpose, instead of  devising ways to tear each other down. And I bet that you are too.

As I lecture around the country, I am always asked, “What can I do?” At the very top of my long list of responses is “Raise a garden and raise a ruckus”. And so, that’s why I am embracing a new mantra of resistance to counter “Drill, Baby, Drill”. I invite you, my friends, my neighbors, my readers, my fellow citizens into a new movement called “Plant, Baby, Plant”. We will counter the forces of destruction with creative resistance.

When I’m searching for direction, grasping for solutions, I go to my elders for guidance: my elders, the plants. In the worldview of my Anishinaabe peoples, plants are understood as our teachers of creativity, generosity and healing. They represent intelligences other than our own and models of right relationship. They know what to do about climate change—and they are doing it. They are not stupid enough to spew eons of accumulated fossil carbon into the air. They take it out. They don’t try to go backwards to outdated energy technologies—after all, plants have already converted to a completely solar economy!

As a plant ecologist, I know how our traditional Indigenous perspective aligns with the scientific evidence. Every green leafy being is removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into life support by providing food and habitat and storing carbon in rich fertile soil. Plants cool our overheating planet with shade and transpirative cooling without using a single watt of electricity. Plants should be the model for our energy policy. Plants know what to do to slow climate change. But they can’t do it alone.

We will ally ourselves with the good green world, not against it. In protest of Drill, Baby, Drill, we will plant trees, raise gardens of all kinds, protect wetlands, restore prairies, create native plant landscapes in homes, churches and school yards, parks and parking lots. We will enact Tree Justice so that every corner of our neighborhoods have the healing benefits of nature.

Gardeners, patient and peaceful, may not seem like warriors. But our passions lie in nurturing the land, in countering destruction with regeneration, in fostering beauty in the face of ugliness, in sharing the abundance of the land with our communities. These are the skills of creative resistance that we need in this moment of peril. Gardeners: Will you join us in using your gifts of time and talent and love to counter Drill Baby Drill with Plant, Baby, Plant?

Is planting enough?

Nope. Carbon removal from reforestation, restoration and rewilding are not enough to match the output of greenhouse gases from industrialized human society. But with many hands and many roots we can collectively make a dent.

And planting does so much more than store carbon, of course. Plants build habitat, create soil, purify air, regulate rainfall and they make us happier and healthier. Planting together can create communities of mutual reliance and common purpose, instead of conflict and division. Because everyone benefits from a happy planet.

Their carbon output dwarfs ours. But we’re also creating something else: biodiversity, food security, community, justice, soil, local economies, friends, picnics, community power and joy.

Not only will we plant trees and food and wildflower meadows, but we will plant our feet and say “no more destruction”. And we will plant a flag, to claim that this is what good citizens do on behalf of Mother Earth.

Together, we can counter the anti-climate actions with pro-climate actions of supporting nature-based climate solutions. It’s not everything—we still need to hold our government to climate commitments. We still need to demand accountability from corporate thieves. We still need to support the restoration of democratic principles as well as restoration of land.

We don’t have to be complicit in destruction. You don’t have to sit by while what you love is in danger. If our leaders won’t lead, then we will. We can take our future into our own hands and PLANT. Ask the trees and grasses and the wetlands to help. As we help them, they will help us, in the ancient reciprocal gift economy of living beings.

Will you join me and pick up a shovel? Plant, Baby, Plant!