For The Wild - ANTONIA ESTELA PÉREZ on Uncovering Plant-Human Intimacy ⧸305

00:00:00.240 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we are speaking with Antonia Estela Perez.

00:00:10.660 The communities that are often most in connection to the plants, whether or not they realize it or not, are communities of color.

00:00:22.000 Antonia Estela Perez grows medicine, gardens, and networks 0.94

00:00:27.860 that work to interrupt anthropocentric, individualistic, separatist socialization

00:00:33.400 and bring folks into a deeper awareness of their ecological family and belonging.

00:00:38.720 They are first-gen, born and raised on Lenape territory in New York City

00:00:42.760 and descended from the Mapuche people of Chile.

00:00:45.440 They have cultivated a deep relationship with their plant relatives since a very young age

00:00:50.440 And their passion for open source pedagogy founded the inclusive healing, learning, and collaborative space, Urban Kuda, along with its medicinal product line.

00:01:01.660 Well, Antonia, thank you so much for being with us today and having this grounding conversation that we're about to dive into.

00:01:13.160 I'm really looking forward to exploring with you and learning more about your work.

00:01:17.720 Thank you so much, Ayanna.

00:01:19.300 it's an honor to be here. Awesome. So to start off, I want to ask for listeners who are unfamiliar

00:01:27.880 with your work with Urban Kura, if you could speak a bit on your offerings and mission,

00:01:35.200 and maybe as part of that, share a bit about your own spiritual and decolonial journey in relation

00:01:40.860 to this work? Absolutely. So Urban Cura is an organization that started about five or so years

00:01:51.540 ago. And it comes out of my own personal journey, growing up in New York City, being first generation.

00:02:01.780 my parents are from chile and growing up here i was always interested in understanding

00:02:10.840 my story and relationship to this place and understanding why i ended up here and

00:02:18.160 growing up when i would return to chile there was always the question

00:02:21.920 are you do you feel more chilean or gringa and there was this constant uh inner dialogue and

00:02:30.800 questioning within myself in regards to these questions and understanding why my parents ended

00:02:40.000 up on these lands which was due to a us-backed coup on september 11 1973 which caused my parents

00:02:50.640 the need to leave chile due to being part of the communist party so long response towards

00:03:00.800 And my relationship to place was influenced by both my relationship to my motherland, Chile, and all the stories that I heard of the mountains and land there and my parents, both of my parents' relationship to land.

00:03:21.300 And I think that inspired them as they were on these lands to begin to relate to the land that they were now inhabiting and bring my brother and I towards building that sensitivity that they grew up with.

00:03:37.780 so they would bring us out of the city and to the forest and my mom even if she didn't know

00:03:46.920 the plants that she was harvesting for these bouquets that she would adorn the house with 0.82

00:03:51.560 she was harvesting these plants that I now harvest like goldenrod and queen anne's lace and

00:03:58.880 there was that beauty and relationship to the land and the plants that we were living on

00:04:06.600 and as i i would say when i was in middle school i got really interested in wanting to know the

00:04:15.000 plants that were growing around me in with more more intimacy and so i would go on plant walks

00:04:21.900 with my mom my and my my mom's friends that were gardeners and go to the botanical garden

00:04:30.180 and identify these plants and my mom gifted me a book that was about plants and their medicinal

00:04:39.020 properties so I would learn to identify a plant and then go back to the book and see what what

00:04:44.220 are that plant's properties and so I got really excited and curious and just began opening my

00:04:52.300 eyes and relationship to New York City and the surroundings in such a different way where

00:04:59.880 I was no longer just seeing a sea of green but I was seeing my new friends and I would

00:05:06.960 even if I was in a car I could say oh that's a maple that's an ash or that's probably

00:05:12.700 burdock or yellow duck that's growing on the side of the road so throughout high school and college

00:05:21.680 I kept just building upon these skills of intimacy with land and feeling that it was so essential

00:05:29.400 towards understanding and orienting myself to land and place in the world and from there in in high

00:05:40.720 school uh starting clubs like focused on teaching my classmates how to make chapstick or their own

00:05:50.500 deodorant and in in that moment in my life it was uh i i think i was looking at this work from

00:05:59.020 a place like very anti-capitalist uh questioning consumerism especially growing up in new york

00:06:06.060 being like well why why can't we make the things that we consume or what would shift if we

00:06:11.500 if we made these things ourselves and we didn't need to depend on buying them at the supermarket

00:06:17.880 and also when we make things ourselves we know the ingredients behind them so that evolved into

00:06:23.360 college wanting to know more and now I was in at Bard College and spending more time in the woods

00:06:32.120 and I had this whole idea of like I want to learn everything that I need to know for the

00:06:37.640 apocalypse so need to know more about plants and cooking and ovens and shelter building and fire

00:06:47.240 making and I wanted to not just learn this from myself but bring my community with me

00:06:53.360 And upon returning to New York after college, I felt this work can continue and that work will look like urban kuda.

00:07:04.380 And so it started hosting all these workshops in my living room and other friends' living rooms and city parks and bringing forth these conversations and these opportunities to connect with the plants and collectively begin orienting ourselves to the environment that we live in.

00:07:29.700 So that would be my response, but perhaps I could also share the Urban Kura mission statement as well.

00:07:40.280 Yes, please.

00:07:41.940 So our aim is to increase collective intimacy with plants many of us interact with daily.

00:07:48.400 Often these are plants whose recent histories include violence and exploitation.

00:07:53.540 Mais, coffee, cacao, sugar, indigo, cotton, tobacco, and others.

00:08:01.220 We can uncover this intimacy through understanding the original constellation of relationship

00:08:07.360 and ethnoecology.

00:08:10.360 Through Urban Kura, we seek to create access to ancestral wisdom, both through the rematriation

00:08:15.760 of indigenous lifeways and also through remembrance and reclamation of how to live in solidarity

00:08:21.920 with the earth, with our human and more than human king. We believe this knowledge puts us on the

00:08:28.340 path to healing by remembering what it means to be in direct and balanced relationship to the plants

00:08:34.360 and more than human beings that cohabitate with us on the land. We understand this work of

00:08:40.900 remembrance and reclamation to be decolonizing and abolition work. This work is in service to

00:08:47.480 dismantling white supremacy, settler colonial logics, transphobia, ableism, homophobia,

00:08:54.340 and human supremacy, wherever it lives in us and within our communities.

00:08:59.660 Our educational offerings of knowledge shares and immersions provide a forum for exploring

00:09:05.520 of healing traditions, practices, and relationships from diverse cultural and ecological contexts,

00:09:12.840 With content ranging from demonstration of applied skills and preparation of foods and remedies to people's histories and cosmologies, all presented as interwoven diasporic legacies, we prioritize and center Black, Indigenous, people of color, as well as queer and trans facilitators and participants.

00:09:33.760 thank you so much for reading that that was really just

00:09:41.120 nice to hear all of the thought and care you put behind your work

00:09:48.200 and I would also love to to name that this work has been not just my own thinking and work but

00:09:58.280 I'm currently in collaboration with M. McCann and my brother, Sebastian Perez. And I also

00:10:06.300 give gratitude to everyone who has facilitated with Urban Cura, as well as all of

00:10:14.900 my own teachers that have supported me in deepening my thinking around this work.

00:10:21.860 thank you for naming them because yeah we can't do any of this work alone and it takes

00:10:31.380 so many relationships and support systems and it's nice to be reminded of that

00:10:38.280 i am wondering how can learning the stories of plants help us to fortify our understanding of

00:10:50.240 the interconnectedness of plants and people in terms of colonization or exploitation and

00:10:56.380 the present day global food economy? What is the impact of learning these stories on

00:11:02.640 our collective imagination? This is a question that I ask myself all the time,

00:11:10.180 and I don't have a clear answer except my current thoughts around this. But it's definitely a

00:11:19.780 continued exploration and a lot of study that I'm inspired to continue doing something that I

00:11:28.560 currently think about in terms of the global food economy just going to the supermarket and seeing

00:11:35.620 all these plants that are there but their presence there is as a commodity

00:11:41.660 And I think that when we begin to look at these plants that are at the supermarket, for example, a banana, or even the white sugar in that paper bag, or the coffee that's also being sold in these different packages.

00:12:05.440 and we think where where not just where do these are these plants being grown but where did they

00:12:14.160 originally come from and what were what were the human plant relationships that existed and I think

00:12:21.920 that there are two parallel histories or many parallel histories happening so when I'm thinking

00:12:28.920 of these plant stories, I want to personally learn the story of this plant pre-colonization,

00:12:36.040 pre-exploitation. Where were they geographically growing? What were the ways that they migrated

00:12:42.800 either through humans or animals in a way that wasn't necessarily

00:12:50.060 rooted in violence and capital? And then there's that other parallel story of the plant that is

00:12:58.900 rooted in that colonial context that I think is so important to understand because our current

00:13:06.000 economy and food, the foods that we eat, have been shaped by these plants. How certain countries'

00:13:16.720 present-day ecologies and economy exist is because of the cash crops that were grown on those lands.

00:13:26.500 I think I'm thinking of the Caribbean or Bahia in Brazil or Equalor is how the ecologies of these lands have been shaped by cash crops and their economies.

00:13:44.520 and so I think learning these plant stories help orient us to again to why things are the way that

00:13:53.000 they are and also help us to to take responsibility for how we're going to continue to relate to these

00:14:02.080 plants not just as a commodity or transform our relationship to these plants beyond being a

00:14:09.720 commodity and help us rethink as we be as we're doing this decolonial work how are we still

00:14:17.200 influenced by that colonial legacy in our consumption and our interaction with these

00:14:23.780 plants and i think it's hard for us because we so many of us have grown grown up going to the

00:14:30.860 supermarket to receive our nourishment to think of these beings as beings and as plants that

00:14:39.760 are being grown by by certain geographies landscapes and peoples and so much of the

00:14:49.140 colonial legacy around labor that can of exploitative labor continues to exist in the

00:14:56.840 production of these plants, thinking coffee, sugar, bananas. So I think those are two really

00:15:06.020 important reasons to understand these stories. And in terms of understanding that more ethnobotanical

00:15:16.320 story, pre-colonization, it helps us to bring reverence to these plants that have been so

00:15:25.100 distorted because of colonization and for me I think it also brings softness and empathy and

00:15:33.980 also opens up a whole well of grief when I think of these plants in relationship with

00:15:41.700 their human caretakers I think of maize I remember there was a moment even though I

00:15:47.780 when I would go visit my family in Chile we would eat maize and it was a huge it's a huge part of

00:15:54.520 our culture when I was in the United States on Turtle Island I would think of maize as corn and

00:16:02.400 think of this plant as like not even as a plant but just as this product that was so problematic

00:16:07.980 and now I've through my learnings and my travels I've come to a different position and

00:16:17.000 relationship to this plant where I see how this plant has undergone so much violence and I always

00:16:26.060 think how the ways in which these plants have experienced so much tragedy and violence and

00:16:36.220 that same violence has been committed to the peoples that were in original relationship

00:16:46.260 to these plants like maize

00:16:48.960 and that there's continued violence upon these plants

00:16:54.060 and the humans that labor to maintain and grow these plants like corn

00:17:03.200 when it's in the context of the global food economy.

00:17:10.140 And so I think the importance in learning about these stories

00:17:14.480 is to take responsibility for learning

00:17:21.660 and connecting more deeply with these plants

00:17:25.780 in their pre-colonial form,

00:17:30.780 but also how do we begin to revere and respect

00:17:36.340 and heal those relationships with them,

00:17:38.620 as well as understand that these politics of exploitation continue to exist.

00:17:48.180 And there are people that are growing and maintaining these plans for the global food economy

00:17:55.820 that are still undergoing terrible working conditions.

00:18:00.960 And so that legacy of colonization is still very much alive.

00:18:04.880 and while we can be drinking a cup of coffee in this very sterile or beautiful

00:18:12.000 cafe there's a shadow side to that cup of coffee that while we can't see it is happening

00:18:23.340 simultaneously and so I think of all the simultaneous and parallel histories that

00:18:30.160 are happening that aren't only rooted in in that exploitation and that and i would also like to add

00:18:38.920 because i don't want to make it seem like people are no longer in this deep deep intimate

00:18:45.840 relationships with plants that have um that have become also cash crops i think

00:18:52.660 paralleled there are also many communities around the world it also in their original

00:19:01.660 the original geographies of where these plants come from that continue to be in deep relationship

00:19:08.560 and in a caring reciprocal relationship with these plants and I think maize is a huge example of that

00:19:16.460 all throughout North and Central and South America.

00:19:21.260 And I see that with coffee and cacao as well

00:19:25.000 and sugar cane.

00:19:27.900 So I want to uplift that reality as well

00:19:33.100 that there continue to be keepers of those wisdoms

00:19:37.620 and relationships with plants that have been,

00:19:41.460 that have also experienced such deep exploitation.

00:19:46.460 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, thank you for those reminders. The shadow sides are so real, but of course the systems of power want us to be completely forgetful of that. And yeah, I appreciate that.

00:20:08.120 And yeah, I'm just wondering if you could also speak a bit on dismantling the mythology that Black and Indigenous peoples and people of color residing in urban areas are disconnected from the natural world by virtue of their localities.

00:20:25.880 And how does the practice of plant identification subvert this myth?

00:20:32.060 I want to begin with saying we've always turned to the plants.

00:20:35.980 I think that part of this mythology comes as a continued tool of colonization to separate us from ourselves and the land.

00:20:52.520 Because by being in relationship to ourselves in the land, there's power and there's recognition, there's that connection and that intimacy that supports us in knowing that we can survive and that we are in such deep relationship with the land that the land can provide us with the things and sustenance that we need.

00:21:21.840 the relationship not just in in terms of sustenance but also with spirituality and culture

00:21:28.900 and i would say from my experience in new york city the communities that are often most in in

00:21:40.620 connection to the plants whether or not they realize it or not are communities of color

00:21:47.460 oftentimes because they may be first generation or second or third generation but they still

00:21:55.660 witness their aunties or grandmothers or mothers or uncles in relationship to their plants whether

00:22:03.640 it's just the house plants or making a strong ginger tea for when they're sick

00:22:09.420 or going to the botanica to get roof or olympia and perhaps it's not always

00:22:18.420 that relationship isn't always claimed as i'm in relationship to the land or

00:22:27.020 i have this connection it's just part of

00:22:32.940 part of their life um but what's interesting is when i have in the past when i've done these

00:22:41.800 plant walks in the city especially with youth and even some adults will say i don't know anything

00:22:49.300 about plants or i don't have a connection to plants and then we start having these conversations and

00:22:54.540 all these memories come up memories oh yes my grandma talks to the plants or i remember when

00:23:00.840 I was sick and my mom would make this garlic ginger honey tea and it's so beautiful to see

00:23:11.360 and witness in in these physical spaces how through conversation through beginning to

00:23:19.520 identify plants all these memories and feelings will come up and that remembrance

00:23:27.160 brings them not just in connection to that memory but also to their ancestors to where their

00:23:39.280 ancestors came from whether that was on the island Dominican Republic or also known as

00:23:46.560 Quisqueya or Puerto Rico or Buriquen or Ecuador and it's such an emotional moment for me and I

00:23:56.880 thing for everybody because they begin to see that as important and valuable knowledge

00:24:07.620 that perhaps in some moment was told to them or uh or seen as something that isn't important or

00:24:19.980 something that's what you need to let go of as you're coming onto these new lands that

00:24:26.820 this kind of ancestral wisdom or survival knowledge is no longer relevant or isn't relevant

00:24:49.980 Mira a luz de estrellos verdes, misterios respirar.

00:25:09.920 Voy a fluir en paz, en camino a tu soñar.

00:25:27.460 Rescura, misterio, sorpresa, transparencia,

00:25:35.080 Convirme en el agua

00:25:38.380 Encontrar ese lugar

00:25:42.500 Y tocar la eternidad

00:25:46.360 Y contarle al corazón

00:25:50.200 Lo que el alma me enseñó

00:25:54.360 yeah just hearing you speak is reminding me of all of the plants and it's spring and

00:26:13.700 like i'm feeling them coming back through your voice and just looking outside and

00:26:18.380 coming out of winter feeling a bit lonely for them again and how many reminders they

00:26:26.660 offer us just just want you to know that you're really awakening my plant love again not that it

00:26:35.660 ever went away but you know in the in the heart of winter there's other loves to connect with

00:26:42.400 and but I'm starting to smell them and see them again and yeah so something that that you just

00:26:50.300 said of like remembering like we're not alone I think that that the plants offer that that gift

00:27:00.220 that we're not alone and in the city deepening relationship is so important I was thinking about

00:27:07.840 this with my brother yesterday how we have while living in the city you could be surrounded by

00:27:16.640 all these people and be in such close proximity yet we don't know each other's names we're not

00:27:24.520 interacting we're moving so quickly through space and being driven by our minds and our economy

00:27:33.060 and competition and we're not slowing down and we're not taking the time to turn to the person

00:27:41.080 we're sitting next to on the subway and ask their name or their story I hold that as a practice when

00:27:48.620 when when I was younger and every time I'm in the city is how can I move a little bit more slowly

00:27:55.560 so that i can be present to my human and more than human kin and i think this is a problem

00:28:03.760 that doesn't just exist in urban environments it's just a product of of capitalism uh and in

00:28:12.080 our thinking that we feel we need to be moving so fast and not waste time and we lose our connection

00:28:20.700 to ourselves and our and our and our heart and our ability to soften and really think about

00:28:28.140 our relationship between all the life that is around us

00:28:34.700 absolutely yeah that slowing down is so necessary and

00:28:45.500 oh wow there's an eagle that just flew by my window and they are

00:28:51.200 there i don't know what it's called when they do the noise they're doing the call the eagle

00:28:58.620 call i'm like what right now of course wow that was just the timing of that um i i want to ask

00:29:09.700 a question on how you navigate the decolonial or pre-colonial third space. How do those of us

00:29:18.340 actively working to decolonize begin to know our ancestral practices and reconnect without

00:29:24.600 culturally appropriating or participating in ways that are harmful to other cultures?

00:29:34.540 And this is a question I've asked a number of people on the podcast because I think that

00:29:38.960 I think that a lot of us have good intentions and I think we of course can be forgiven when we

00:29:47.440 step out of boundaries but just yeah your thoughts on how do we search and long for

00:29:57.180 these connections in a good way I think we begin with ourselves we begin with asking

00:30:14.300 ourselves the the questions that we've been asking for our time together but asking those

00:30:23.460 questions of where do I come from which can often be a very complicated question so by no means do

00:30:33.100 I mean to say like that that's that's necessarily a question that's going to point us in a clear

00:30:41.040 direction. But I think it's a starting point that can also lead us to really grief-filled stories

00:30:54.780 and really violent stories. And I think beginning to build relationship with the land that we're on

00:31:04.440 And learning those stories that often hold violent and grief-filled stories, I see all of these as mirrors of the tragedy that has occurred because of colonization throughout the world.

00:31:24.040 But from which the context in which I'm speaking from is my relationship between North and South America that has many similar histories in the ways that colonization has played out.

00:31:40.900 And of course, always very specific to those places and communities that colonization impacted.

00:31:48.300 But I think beginning from that place and seeing what comes from there, maybe it is a connection or some answer or symbol comes through of a land that we do have relationship to and going there if we can.

00:32:12.360 Or maybe it's asking our grandparents or oldest living relative, learning from them and learning their stories of how they ended up in the lands that they're in now.

00:32:26.740 And so speaking from my own journey, my search to understand myself and how I've ended up here on this land, being Lenapehoking, New York,

00:32:45.360 it's brought me to return again and again to to chile and to travel throughout central and

00:32:55.280 south america where i continuously learn the relationships that exist between

00:33:05.020 all throughout central and south america in terms of indigenous wisdoms

00:33:09.640 in terms of the foods that are eaten and the relationship that exists between the people and these plants is so similar.

00:33:26.140 And it makes me think how, of course, there's all these similarities.

00:33:30.060 There are all these similarities between the plants, maize, tobacco, potatoes, amaranth, throughout North and South America, because these trade routes existed.

00:33:45.060 existed and there was a whole civilization of millions of people that were on these lands

00:33:51.300 pre-colonization that had their own forms of agriculture and stewarding of the land and

00:33:59.880 animal tending and it it fills me with so much excitement to think about all these pathways

00:34:11.320 of connection that existed on these lands and how part of my work right now my internal and

00:34:24.700 my personal work is to to learn these pathways and to learn how I can become more present to

00:34:35.720 those pathways within the land that I'm living in?

00:34:40.360 And how can I become more intimate in the land that I'm living on?

00:34:45.280 How can I build and deepen respect to the communities on the lands that I live in?

00:34:58.080 To our elders who teach us of our creation and our past,

00:35:02.520 so we may preserve Mother Earth for ancestors yet to come.

00:35:07.040 We are the land.

00:35:08.780 This is dedicated to our relatives before us thousands of years ago

00:35:12.780 and to the 150 million who were exterminated across the Western Hemisphere

00:35:18.000 in the first 400 years' time, starting in 1492. 0.98

00:35:22.820 To those who have kept their homelands and to the nations extinct 0.93

00:35:26.680 due to mass slaughter, slavery, deportation and disease unknown to them

00:35:31.880 and to the ones who are subjected to the same treatment today.

00:35:35.920 To the ones who survived the relocations and the ones who died along the way.

00:35:40.820 To those who carried on traditions and lived strong among their people.

00:35:45.300 To those who left their communities by force and by choice

00:35:48.620 and through generations no longer know who they are.

00:35:52.000 To those who search and never find.

00:35:54.460 To those that turn away the so-called non-accepted.

00:35:57.540 To those that bring us together, and to those living outside, keeping touch, the voice for many.

00:36:04.000 To those that make it back to live and fight the struggles of their people.

00:36:08.180 To those that give up, and those who do not care.

00:36:11.200 To those who abuse themselves and others, and those who revive again.

00:36:15.540 To those who are physically, mentally, or spiritually incapable by accident or by birth.

00:36:21.460 To those who seek strength in our spirituality and ways of life.

00:36:26.400 it's really beautiful it's like i'm going into memories and thoughts of my own personal

00:36:39.060 journeys and those of friends and yeah i want to ask how do you go about fostering

00:36:50.380 for people in your community an emotional attachment to place within the city and how

00:36:58.000 can those of us living in cities foster an understanding of our non-separateness from

00:37:03.000 the natural world one way is

00:37:11.220 taking a walk on along a block

00:37:18.580 where people live or where the wherever the workshop plant walk is taking place

00:37:27.680 that the community that is attending is connected to and we will take a walk in a place where

00:37:34.600 it doesn't seem like there are many plants and we'll literally just pause

00:37:39.400 and look between the cracks and maybe there's some moss that's growing there and

00:37:46.220 maybe there's a little dandelion that's growing out and we'll take a moment to just

00:37:52.440 acknowledge that there's life that is growing there and

00:37:59.580 there's that that moment of of our surprise or like how is this living here how is this plant

00:38:09.300 able to thrive or maybe not thrive but but live here and i say well how are we then how are we

00:38:15.960 here how are we living here in this environment this a parenthesis or a thought that's coming up

00:38:22.400 but I often think of our bodies in the city as also the lungs

00:38:28.520 that are helping to purify the air here.

00:38:31.600 Life that maybe because there aren't enough trees,

00:38:36.580 I feel like our bodies are also as an extension of the earth

00:38:41.080 helping to clean the air here,

00:38:43.600 which is kind of a scary thought or an intense image.

00:38:52.400 um but i invite i invite my community in in these in these walks and these experiences

00:38:59.960 to to sit with a plant and and observe and we'll do sit spots that they can continue to do

00:39:07.560 beyond our time together and then i invite them to sit in this place every day and observe observe

00:39:17.360 who are the people that walk by what are the animals that maybe fly by or pass through or

00:39:26.980 that maybe were there before if they notice any tracks and to begin developing a relationship

00:39:35.540 through that slowness and through that pause and when meeting when meeting a plant and this is

00:39:42.880 something that I learned from one of my herb teachers Dina Falcone is looking at the plant

00:39:50.320 not just from one dimension but looking at the plant from many angles and perspectives

00:39:57.420 to to learn that plant in a more intimate way and something I always share when I'm teaching

00:40:06.960 about plants or sharing my experience with plants and how to develop these relationships

00:40:11.460 i hear the comparison of of meeting a person we can see a person from afar and we're curious to

00:40:22.340 get to know them and we may approach them and ask their name but we're not going to start touching

00:40:28.640 them or or being too intimate because we need to develop trust and so i i relate that to getting

00:40:38.320 to meet a plant and and reminding them that these plants are are also living so how can we begin

00:40:46.920 to build that relationship of respect and before we run towards well what is this plant's name

00:40:53.340 and what does it do and falling into that trap again of of a commodity well what can this do

00:41:00.400 for me it's how can we foster a relationship and a friendship where we learn what can I do for this

00:41:09.080 plant not just what can this plant do for me and I think that opens up our imagination in the city

00:41:15.580 to think about how we can support these plants to thrive here and how through having plants here

00:41:25.440 are we also supporting our community? Where can we plant medicinal plants to not only have more

00:41:34.580 green spaces, but also to have a living pharmacy for our community? And even if we're not necessarily

00:41:42.580 harvesting these plants for medicine, knowing that they're there as a reminder that if they're

00:41:49.500 ever needed we have the knowledge of how to identify them as well as how to prepare them

00:41:57.340 we're growing plants that are culturally relevant to the communities that live around these these

00:42:05.160 spaces how can we plant these plants and so i i think those those are some ways that

00:42:12.900 that we can begin to to build more intimacies just slowing down and again I keep returning

00:42:23.080 to story and being curious and observant and asking uh asking ourselves how do these plants

00:42:32.360 end up here and bringing it beyond just the plants one of my my friends and colleagues

00:42:38.600 Kale Mays we've done a lot of work in thinking about the stories the the ecological histories

00:42:45.660 that exist in New York and Kale always says what is the story of that street name and who

00:42:55.580 before there was who laid down the concrete and before that who laid down the cobblestones

00:43:01.880 and before that what was grown uh on that land whose farm was it and before that where was the

00:43:11.200 spring where was the creek and so beginning to do this time travel uh that can I think be inspired

00:43:20.280 by recognizing the life that is growing through the concrete to ask ourselves what are what's the

00:43:28.320 what's the complex and multi-dimensional stories that exist on this land and how are these stories

00:43:36.160 um reflections of that grief-filled story of of colonization and fragmentation of land

00:43:47.960 and displacement um and the growing of of private property and yeah oh goodness there's so much

00:43:58.240 there um in that response and it's really felt yeah i keep wanting to hear more about

00:44:11.580 your relationship with specific plants i think you mentioned a few throughout this conversation

00:44:18.000 and i am just kind of seeing plants wave to me or something in my imagination right now

00:44:26.680 and I want to hear yeah some of your personal plant relationships and any stories or what

00:44:36.460 you've learned from them or how they've shown up for you in times of need

00:44:40.060 yeah I want to share about mulberry because I'm looking out my window

00:44:50.260 to a mulberry that is just beginning to leaf a mulberry that grows near the Mahican Tuck River

00:45:00.900 also known as the Hudson River Mahican Tuck the river that flows both ways

00:45:07.320 and this one particular mulberry tree is a tree that

00:45:13.080 I grew up observing and all throughout all seasons and when the mulberries would come out

00:45:25.040 I would see people come and harvest these mulberries and this was before I knew that

00:45:32.540 they were mulberries and that they were edible but I would see all these people come and harvest

00:45:36.980 the mulberries and I would see that happening in different parts of the city and I don't remember

00:45:48.060 at what point I tried the mulberry but I remember just thinking it was the most delicious fruit and

00:45:56.540 wondering why there was so much wasted mulberry all throughout the city just painting the concrete

00:46:05.680 purple and all of the the the energy that was being put to fight the mulberry or complain

00:46:16.740 against the mulberry and all of and to this day i hear people say oh the mulberry stains

00:46:22.060 the cars and stains the ground and it causes rat problems or what are we going to do with

00:46:29.220 all these mulberries that are falling and and disturbing our peace essentially and when i

00:46:36.740 realized that they were edible and that they were medicinal and how tasty they were i was just so

00:46:42.780 curious like well why why are we complaining about the mulberries instead of eating them

00:46:47.340 and in that relationship with the mulberries uh not just this one but then going down towards

00:46:56.320 the river and seeing that there are all these mulberries that grow along the river and near

00:47:02.600 these mulberries are also juneberries that are native fruit shrub to to the northeast

00:47:10.980 it got me so excited about the potential and possibility of having all this edible food

00:47:19.740 growing in the urban landscape and so i i attribute mulberry to

00:47:26.860 expanding my my vision and imagination um of the sweetness that is is is possible to

00:47:39.500 to feel uh within within the urban and how much abundance they offer and how many people

00:47:49.080 and squirrels one tree can feed um and through through my many seasons and years of of harvesting

00:47:58.880 mulberry there have been so many people that have stopped by and i said oh you can eat that

00:48:05.860 and i say yes and then they stop maybe they they stop walking or park their bike and we start

00:48:12.860 eating mulberries together and it's the most exciting feeling when someone

00:48:19.260 gets curious to observe what is this person doing eating mulberries and their faces all purple and

00:48:28.180 their hands are all stained like they there's there must be something yummy about this tree

00:48:34.580 but i i wanted to to also share some stories and observations that i had visiting

00:48:46.480 uh my friends in in the amazon this past month uh particularly um thinking of my friend

00:48:56.480 and one day he invited us to take a walk through the jungle and he said this is the fruit season

00:49:06.880 and we we just entered the path and he harvests cacao del monte which is a kind of cacao

00:49:16.960 um looks very similar but much smaller and a bit sweeter and and more sour and throughout that

00:49:27.020 that that walk we were just harvesting these these different plants and it was reminding me or

00:49:35.400 teaching me um how intimate we uh and his family are to the land that they live on

00:49:45.380 and not just with with the plants but also knowing that that pathway that they were on

00:49:57.380 that they learned uh went from their grandparents and their parents and learned to walk on when they

00:50:05.240 were young children so a path that i didn't know and and couldn't recognize at first and felt that

00:50:14.920 I needed to be guided through, but seeing how this pathway was also their garden and

00:50:22.880 was their, the land where they harvest these fruits as well as where they hunt for the

00:50:30.660 animals.

00:50:32.180 And when thinking of, back to the question of intimacy, how I'm thinking of deepening

00:50:39.020 intimacy in my life right now to the land is how am I walking on the lands that I move through and

00:50:51.100 how can I walk through these paths knowing what knowing how to feed myself and

00:51:02.060 knowing and being so comfortable and knowledgeable of these paths or where I'm

00:51:10.600 oriented that I'm not getting lost. And I think it's difficult to compare,

00:51:18.660 even though the Amazon is under great threat, that there are still certain

00:51:23.660 lands where you can walk for days without having a fracturing of that land.

00:51:32.060 um but so i'm thinking a lot about how to currently i'm living upstate new york

00:51:38.640 um how to sewer the land in a way where i am in this big where all of that is my home and

00:51:49.560 where there's all this abundance of food as i'm walking through the forest and wherever i i walk

00:51:56.640 I know my way back home so thinking of in terms of of plants that I've have been developing

00:52:06.260 relationship to from from a more ancestral perspective I would say is cacao and probably

00:52:16.180 my first relationship with cacao in its commodified form was some chocolate bar probably like Twix

00:52:25.200 because i used to love that when i was in when i was allowed to eat uh candy so probably middle

00:52:33.140 school um but being able to be in relationship to the plant that where chocolate is transformed from

00:52:45.440 and to see the many varieties of cacao that exists types of cacaos that aren't made

00:52:53.400 into or extracted for to make chocolate and to be able to to become more intimate with the tree

00:53:01.640 and to be intimate with the fruit itself not just the seed which is then used to make chocolate

00:53:09.640 i currently have the desire to deepen intimacy with all these plants that have been commodified

00:53:20.580 um like as i've mentioned cacao bananas mice um and natto indigo and i want to understand

00:53:33.420 more deeply what these plants look like in their in their true form what do they look like when

00:53:39.460 they're growing on on trees or um and also learning how to prepare them in their traditional

00:53:46.680 So I've had the opportunity to learn how to toast cacao seeds, grind them on a metate, or sorry, first toast them on a comal, grind them on the metate, and have had the same opportunity with maize, both learning how to nixtamalize corn or maize, growing it, harvesting it.

00:54:16.680 nixtamalizing, grinding it, preparing it on a comal, or umitas, and learning many different

00:54:27.700 ways in which to prepare, prepare maíz. And similarly with tobacco, last year, seeded

00:54:35.360 about seven different varieties of tobacco and about 400 tobacco plants. And so learning

00:54:43.100 about how these these plants grow uh how they are how they've been prepared traditionally

00:54:51.580 and rethinking especially tobacco and and coca these plants that have been so demonized

00:55:01.280 in what ways are they medicine and in what ways are they culturally and spiritually important

00:55:09.180 for many cultures and yeah i think about that as well with with sugarcane in its unprocessed form

00:55:20.340 it's so medicinal and when i've i've been in thailand see sugarcane everywhere and

00:55:28.020 people drinking the juice and it's huge part of thai um thai traditional medicine

00:55:36.760 so those are those are the plants some of which can grow here in the northeast many of them that

00:55:47.220 can't but that i'm in in a continued um journey to to deepen relationship with

00:55:56.400 hmm oh antonia thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom but also personal

00:56:06.060 insights into your world it was really special to hear so much of what you shared and yeah i just

00:56:15.480 appreciate the time with you and i'm definitely feeling the urge to go outside and look for all

00:56:22.360 of the plant kin that are starting to spring up here and welcome them back

00:56:29.360 yeah maybe see some more eagles

00:56:33.680 it's been such a pleasure spending this time with you and thank you for all the questions and

00:56:42.820 opportunities to reflect on all these plants and thoughts that i will continue to be thinking upon

00:56:51.880 and growing and expanding thank you for listening to this episode of for the wild podcast

00:57:01.080 the music you heard today is by julio quinto and the ulali project was pura fe

00:57:07.760 for the wild is created by ayana young ali constantine erica ekram emily guerra and julia

00:57:18.860 Jackson.

For The Wild - September 21, 2022

ANTONIA ESTELA PÉREZ on Uncovering Plant-Human Intimacy ⧸305

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