Missing Witches - May 18, 2023


Meditation： Plankton Kin

Topics
oceanography and algae evolution
MW Rx. 18 - Missing Witches Prescription with Risa + Amy MW Rx. 19 - Missing Witches Prescription with Risa + Amy

Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

104.54

Word count

1,691

Sentence count

111

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 There's still almost two weeks left to join the Missing Witches Coven fundraiser for Native
00:00:06.580 Women's Shelters. Make a donation of $10 or more to your local Native Women's Shelter or
00:00:12.120 Indigenous Support Organization. Take a screenshot of your receipt and email it to
00:00:17.020 missingwitches at gmail.com and you'll be entered to win fabulous prizes. Find all the details at
00:00:24.880 Missingwitches.com slash reparations. 1.00
00:00:28.060 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00
00:00:31.160 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:32.560 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:32.880 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:33.680 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:34.680 You must be a witch. 0.95
00:00:43.200 Risa and I were chatting a while ago, and she brought up the subject of plant kin. 0.89
00:00:48.200 Now, we'd been talking about kinship for years, but for some reason, that day, my ears or brain heard plant kin as plankton.
00:00:59.380 And it occurred to me that I had never once even really thought about plankton, and I was excited about what Risa had to say.
00:01:09.180 No, no, no, plant kin, she said, which made a lot more sense in the context of our conversation.
00:01:16.300 But I just couldn't shake plankton.
00:01:22.160 So come, drift along with me on this journey of discovery.
00:01:27.700 Much like plankton itself, I'm not sure where I'm going with this or where we'll end up.
00:01:33.540 But even that makes us plankton kin.
00:01:39.400 See, plankton is at the mercy of fate.
00:01:42.200 The diverse collection of organisms found in water or air are defined by being unable to propel themselves against a current or wind.
00:01:53.300 I am plankton kin, and I don't need to know where I'm going to start going there.
00:01:59.360 I am plankton kin, and I do not need to be in control to survive, or thrive, or change the world, or even create a new one.
00:02:12.200 I am plankton kin. I can go with the flow. I am plankton kin, changing direction on the whim
00:02:24.700 of winds or tides, and, knowing I have no choice, letting go of the illusion of authority and
00:02:35.020 jurisdiction. Jared K. Anderson, the Crypto-Naturalist, wrote,
00:02:41.480 All living things, humans included, are a tiny pinprick through which we glimpse some
00:02:49.140 fundamental aspect of nature. So, as we examine kinship, let's put a tiny pinprick into control
00:02:58.400 and see what we can glimpse on the other side.
00:03:02.300 The word plankton comes from the Greek for drifter or wanderer.
00:03:08.140 We drift.
00:03:09.840 We wander.
00:03:12.260 We go with the flow.
00:03:15.760 Me and phytoplankton and zooplankton,
00:03:20.840 me and plants and animals,
00:03:23.220 too weak or too small to fly or swim against the pressure,
00:03:30.260 too weak or small to change our course,
00:03:33.920 we are allowed in plankton times to float, observe,
00:03:42.300 generate and hold energy that might otherwise be spent striving,
00:03:47.880 driving, white-knuckling control.
00:03:51.800 I find myself in a plankton phase, feeling semi-unambitious, writing about plankton without a plan, seeing what this world has to offer, never grinding, trusting the rapids won't chuck me into the rocks or the belly of a whale.
00:04:10.600 I am plankton kin, and I admit, I have no control.
00:04:15.080 Algae is plankton. Too weak and small to make a difference.
00:04:23.100 But oh what algae can do. Feed the fish. Control pollution. 1.00
00:04:30.000 Come together and absolutely ruin your swimming pool.
00:04:34.580 Algae play a vital role in aquatic ecosystems by forming the energy base of the food web for all aquatic organisms.
00:04:43.180 As autotrophic organisms, algae convert water and carbon dioxide to sugar through the process of photosynthesis.
00:04:53.700 I am Plankton Kin, and just along for the ride, converting water and air into sugar.
00:05:02.740 Water and air into sugar.
00:05:07.240 Sweetening the world with my instinctual working presence.
00:05:12.680 Plankton.
00:05:14.480 Too weak or small to propel ourselves against the current or wind.
00:05:19.760 And yet, as oceanography professor Russell Chapman points out,
00:05:24.440 our lives depend on algae.
00:05:29.860 So, what is the metaphor here?
00:05:33.440 What can we glimpse through this pinprick in the fabric of existence?
00:05:38.060 For us witches, decolonizing together,
00:05:41.700 What is our kinship with plankton?
00:05:46.340 Well, first, plankton and witches are ancient beyond understanding.
00:05:52.440 Early in the history of life on Earth, algae changed the planet's atmosphere by producing oxygen,
00:05:59.180 creating an environment for the evolution of eukaryotic organisms.
00:06:03.960 There is a wide range of eukaryotic organisms, including all animals, plants, fungi, and so on.
00:06:13.100 Most of what we think of as alive.
00:06:17.580 Russell Chapman wrote, some 3.5 billion years ago,
00:06:21.840 prokaryotic life began on the planet in the absence of oxygen.
00:06:26.940 The cyanobacteria, blue-green algae,
00:06:29.780 arose and began releasing oxygen into the atmosphere
00:06:33.720 as a waste product of chlorophyll-A-mediated photosynthesis.
00:06:39.000 However, the levels of oxygen did not rise significantly for about a billion years.
00:06:45.440 Why?
00:06:46.660 Because exposed iron and other materials in surface rocks oxidized and consumed oxygen,
00:06:52.660 and because the massive ocean absorbed oxygen.
00:06:56.100 But about 2.45 billion years ago, the level of oxygen in the atmosphere began to rise because the exposed minerals were fully oxidized, and absorption by the oxygen-enriched upper layers of the ocean abated.
00:07:12.420 Oxygen levels rose, and the evolution of eukaryotic organisms began, giving rise along the way to humans, for better or for worse.
00:07:20.700 For changing the atmosphere and the course of evolution, the blue-green algae deserve our thanks.
00:07:31.280 We witches too can change the atmosphere of a room or a globe simply by existing.
00:07:39.640 And though like algae we are much maligned, we deserve the world's thanks.
00:07:46.920 We too create pathways for more complex understandings of what it means to be alive on this earth.
00:07:52.940 And though it may take a billion years for our slow, steady, world-changing to take place,
00:08:03.200 we witches aren't burdened by colloquial notions of space and time.
00:08:09.480 We exist forever. 0.98
00:08:12.340 Witches are the algae of the human world. 0.86
00:08:15.960 We can be patient. 0.61
00:08:21.000 And in that patience, sometimes we even glow.
00:08:29.920 Bioluminescent plankton gets its light from a light-emitting compound generically known as luciferin.
00:08:37.240 The reaction between the luciferin substrate paired with the receptor enzyme luciferase produces a catalytic reaction, generating bioluminescence.
00:08:49.420 And of course, we know that the words predate the name, Latin for lightbringer.
00:08:55.660 But imagine you're a witch, researching plankton, tying its existence to your own, falling into a literal and metaphorical light that comes from within, bioluminescence, only to discover that the compound responsible for our humble plankton glow bears the same name as he who disrupted the rules of the Christian god. 0.65
00:09:23.600 Witches are plankton kin
00:09:28.060 See, humanity's relationship with algae isn't always beneficial
00:09:33.540 Human pollution and poor land management can cause algae to grow uncontrollably
00:09:39.300 Causing great harm to waterways 1.00
00:09:41.820 We're only dangerous when you fuck with us 1.00
00:09:45.620 We witches 1.00
00:09:47.520 We algae
00:09:49.200 We become harmful to that status quo only when it forces us to contend with pollution,
00:09:57.420 corporatocracy that threatens our existence.
00:10:01.940 The World Wildlife Fund suggests that we need to thank plankton for the fact that we're alive today.
00:10:09.260 Not just for that billion-year-old oxygen production,
00:10:12.760 but because of plankton's continuing role in sustaining life on Earth.
00:10:17.540 Plankton make up 95% of ocean life.
00:10:23.120 They continue to generate half of the atmosphere's oxygen.
00:10:27.580 They help absorb carbon emissions.
00:10:31.340 Me and phytoplankton and zooplankton,
00:10:35.900 me and plants and animals too weak or small
00:10:40.420 to fly or swim against the pressure.
00:10:44.920 And yet, here we are.
00:10:47.540 Changing the world.
00:10:50.480 The us outnumbers the them.
00:10:54.900 Though sharks get all the press, 95% of ocean life is just floating.
00:11:01.560 Planktoning around, being responsible for life on Earth.
00:11:07.520 So we have to ask, who is more important?
00:11:11.540 Who is more powerful?
00:11:13.920 Those with sharp teeth and a tight grip on control
00:11:18.880 Who extract, profit, make laws to benefit corporate greed 0.99
00:11:24.380 Or those plankton witches who float along 1.00
00:11:28.560 Making sugar, making all life possible as they drift 0.96
00:11:34.020 Imagine for a moment, living in the moment
00:11:38.440 Unable to make plans or harbor expectations
00:11:42.920 plankton has no choice but to exist in the present. There is no should-I-stay-or-should-I-go
00:11:50.160 in plankton's world. There's no plan, which I think means that there's no such thing as failure.
00:12:01.940 Plankton are just doing what needs to be done as it happens, then moving on to the next.
00:12:08.940 Making sugar
00:12:12.760 Making all life possible
00:12:16.580 I am plankton kin
00:12:21.040 And I think maybe
00:12:22.640 There is more power in relinquishing control
00:12:26.480 Than we humans, bent on keeping a tight grip
00:12:30.500 Can yet understand
00:12:32.480 Maybe there is power in losing control
00:12:36.440 Maybe there's freedom in a loosened grip.
00:12:40.420 I had never once really thought about plankton.
00:12:46.040 Now, because of them, I understand that power and control are not synonymous. 0.95
00:12:55.280 I am plankton kin, not characterized by being strong or fierce or ambitious or having my shit together 0.75
00:13:02.740 or knowing what to do next, where I'm going or where I'll end up.
00:13:07.660 And yet, here I am, deserving of thanks for my world-changing, life-sustaining efforts.
00:13:18.580 So take a deep breath, dear witches, relinquish control, and float with me in a moment of plankton kinship.
00:13:32.740 No future, no past, no plans, no expectations, no disappointments, no disappointments. 0.79
00:13:48.140 Let go for a plankton minute and slip into the deep, deep waters of maybe, who knows, maybe, who knows, maybe, who knows.
00:14:10.820 We are plankton kin
00:14:14.320 We don't need to always be fighting against our current
00:14:18.820 We can take a plankton moment today
00:14:21.920 To just float
00:14:24.360 Lit from within
00:14:26.900 Making sugar as we go
00:14:30.220 Because we might not be here tomorrow
00:14:34.880 We might be somewhere else
00:14:37.760 Maybe
00:14:39.240 Who knows?
00:14:42.800 We are plankton kin.
00:14:45.660 We understand what it means to be alive.
00:14:49.680 You are plankton kin, and you do not need to be in control to survive or thrive or change the world or even create a new one.
00:15:01.980 Sweetening all life with your instinctual working presence.
00:15:07.640 as you drift through the world
00:15:10.120 and it drifts through you.
00:15:14.640 We can go with the flow for four billion years.
00:15:20.820 We are plankton kin
00:15:22.500 and we exist forever.
00:15:37.640 you must be a witch there's still almost two weeks left to join the missing witches coven
00:15:47.980 fundraiser for native women's shelters make a donation of ten dollars or more to your local
00:15:53.720 native women's shelter or indigenous support organization take a screenshot of your receipt
00:15:58.980 and email it to missingwitches at gmail.com and you'll be entered to win fabulous prizes find
00:16:06.720 all the details at missingwitches.com
00:16:08.980 slash reparations.