This Sunday walk your block. Look down. See what is growing up through the cracks and between the perfectly planted flowers. Take your time. Bend down. Get on your knees and look closely. Crawl a bit. Feel the damp earth and cool sidewalk. Observe those weeds: Dandelion, Chickweed, Plantain, Clover, Shepherd's Purse, Curly Dock, and so many others. They have been with us for so long that they are really part of you. They are your extended body. Just as billions of bacteria make up your internal microbiome, these plants, fungi, insects and bacteria communities underfoot make up your external distributed biome. These entangled multi-species communities have wandered the world with you on migration after migration. Some came from Asia across the land bridge, others with more recent migrations. They have fed you, healed you, sheltered you, produced the soil underfoot and co-shaped all that is around you. Our world is also their world. Recognize this. The cracks forming in that abandoned mall are their work as they bio-remediate and actively transform the world around us.
Pick a Dandelion leaf. Chew on it. Let its powerful astringency remind you that there is more to eating than salty and sweet. Let what has happened to it and the world it grew in enter your body. Actively feel it crossing into your being. Now you are connected again. The world we turned away from to find a salvation in the beyond is back with you. Welcome this change. Know that what happens to it also happens to you. Care for this world underfoot — this extended collaborative network of interdependencies, for it is you. Compose with it. Co-compose this world, right here where you are —it is after all the only one we have.
As to salvation? Well, this Easter we in SPURSE will not be looking for someone or something coming from the beyond or any where else to save us. We will be deep in the weeds working on the ongoing co-composing of this world. We hope that you will join us in your own way.
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Need a recipe inspiration? Try making Dandelion Wine from our Eat Your Sidewalk Cookbook.
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