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Ep 60: Heirloom with Ashia Ajani
419 Plays1 month ago
In this episode we're joined by poet Ashia Ajani as they talk about their poetry collection, their family's migration story, as well as how Black folk's liberation is tied to the liberation of the land.
Ashia S. Ajani is a sunshower, a glass bead, a carnivorous plant, an overripe nectarine. Hailing from Denver, CO, Queen City of the Plains and the unceded territories of the Cheyenne, Ute & Arapahoe peoples, Ashia is the author of one collection of poetry, Heirloom (Write Bloody Publishing, 2023) and a forthcoming nonfiction collection,Tending the Vines (Timber Press, 2026).
RESOURCES
- Heirloom by Ashia Ajani
- Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists by Leah Penniman
- Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman
- Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions by Kimberly N Ruffin
- "BBQ Becky: The 'Woman on the Phone Meme,' Explained" by Catie Keck. Inverse.
- "Oakland Residents Fear Suspicious Death May Have Been a Lynching, Calling for Transparency" by Leanne Maxwell. SFist.
- "Family awaits results of independent autopsy on Delta State student Trey Reed" by Leonardo Bevilacqua. Mississippi Today.
- "Genealogy of a Vacant Lot" by Ashia Ajani
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
BOOKSHOP
https://bookshop.org/shop/hoodooplantmamas
Apocalypse Still by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
About the Boy by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
Between Us (pre-order) by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram: @hoodooplantmamas
DONATE
Paypal: paypal.me/hoodooplantmamas
Cashapp: cash.me/$hoodooplantmamas
This podcast was created, hosted, and produced by Dani & Leah.
Our music was created by Ghrey, and our artwork was designed by Bianca.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hoodoo Plant Mamas
00:00:01
Speaker
Hoodoo plants, mamas. Get your soul fed and your spirit ridden. This here in the trend, I possessed the power from way back when.
00:00:15
Speaker
Back when folk was stripped from all of their kin, so they had to find the magic within. Ancestors, they gather my urge. I conjure at my ulcers.
00:00:33
Speaker
We just out here trying to water our plants and mind our business, you know? Everybody from the deep south, man, everybody can't have a culture like us.
Guest Introduction: Ashia, Eco-Griot
00:00:45
Speaker
Hey y'all and welcome back to another episode of Who Do Plant Mamas. I am your co-host Leah Nicole. And I'm Dani B. And today we are joined by the lovely Ashia. Ashia, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi Daniel. Hi Leah. My name is Ashia. I am an author, eco-griot, yeah just overall ecological baddie who loves talking about plants and I'm really excited to be here with y'all today.
00:01:09
Speaker
We're excited to have you today. Well, before we get into the episode, we could do a quick check-in and then get into some gratitude.
Climate and Gratitude: Bay Area Reflections
00:01:16
Speaker
Ashia, how are you feeling today? You know, I am feeling too blessed to be stressed. I woke up early, you know, like I felt good. Very much like that Jill Scott song. And just, you know, enjoying what is trying to be summer. I'm here in the Bay Area where everybody, everywhere else, it's like...
00:01:34
Speaker
I've heard um it's humid. It's like really, really hot. I was actually in Virginia about like maybe a month, not even that long, maybe like two and a half weeks ago or so. And that felt like summer. But here it's like 60 degrees and cloudy in the Bay Area. We don't get summer until like maybe mid August to like early October is weird over here. um But I'm trying, you know, I'm trying to embrace it. I think like after a few years of living here, I've gotten used to it.
00:01:58
Speaker
And I'm just like, yeah, trying to trying to take it one day at a time, how it goes. And I'm feeling really grateful. How about you? It's hot as hell in the South.
Leah's Upcoming Book 'Between Us'
00:02:09
Speaker
As you go outside, you instantly start sweating. so I'm hearing 60 degrees like, oh my God, that sounds like a dream.
00:02:17
Speaker
um But today i am doing better by the time this episode comes out. The pre-order for this book will be out. But like I've been working on my latest book is called Between Us. I'm super excited about it Super excited for it to come out.
00:02:32
Speaker
And that's how I'm doing. How about you, Dani? I've been having a little bit of back pain. I realize it may be just stress, which is a thing for me. But other than that, I'm doing okay.
00:02:43
Speaker
I'm in North Carolina. The weather has been weird the past couple of weeks where it's been a little rainy, not as hot. And then the evenings have been cool. I probably should be concerned because I was like, oh, I'm going to open my window and get this breeze because I'm like, why is it feeling breezy and like cool at night in the summer? But yeah, but it's definitely probably like a month or so ago, particularly in July, steaming.
00:03:12
Speaker
steaming hot so tangent but yeah I'm doing good aside from the back pain But we can, let's get into some gratitude.
Community Appreciation and Environmental Efforts
00:03:23
Speaker
Ashia, what are you thankful for today? What most immediately comes to mind is fresh brewed coffee. I'm really grateful for that and the people who grow it and harvest it.
00:03:34
Speaker
I had the pleasure last year of going to Cuba and I got some beans from this sweet auntie and I've just been saving them. And I'm just really grateful for her doing her own regenerative ag work.
00:03:46
Speaker
thing and like being a model for us. I'm grateful for the city sweepers who make sure our streets stay nice and clean and do like the downtown work because here we have like a lot of issues with trash and people coming in actually from other cities to dump, which is messed up. And i'm I'm grateful for the folk who do it through the city. And then also, you know, just like good people who are like, I'm not, I'm not about it. And do the, do the city cleanup and try to, you know, make Oakland a ah nice place for all of us to live.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah. Those are two things I'm grateful for today. um What about you, Leah? I'm going to say i am grateful for artists. I have been working with one for my book covers. And he's like, I hate to give credit to a man, but he is so talented. he I'm like, this is art. You are an artist. is Like the way that he's able to think and be, I'm like, he just makes my job so much easier. So I'm like, thank God for artists. Thank God for people who like can think in that way and use creative, oh, a gift.
00:04:46
Speaker
How about you, Dani? I'm thankful for friendship. Yeah, it just being like a steady thing that's keeping me afloat, even when everything else is feeling chaotic and really bad. Just friendship being like a lifeline.
00:05:03
Speaker
Anna Roxy, you know, my child. my heart the best thing that's ever happened to me roxy is my cat i think most people know that but i should probably say that because i think one time i casually said that and someone thought i had children and i'm like yeah i do but not what you think not the kind you think But yeah, well, let's get into the episode.
Gardening Legacy and Environmental Justice
00:05:25
Speaker
I really wanted to open up with a question ah kind of about your journey into this work. Can you talk about a defining moment in your early life that led you into environmental justice work, not just as an educator, but also as a rioter and a poet and artist? Absolutely.
00:05:42
Speaker
Absolutely. who it's like, it's like kind of hard to pinpoint one because I feel like I have like a lot of like very small moments over the course of my life that have really influenced how I think about environment and how I think about environmental justice, but really like a big one was sitting with my grandma in her garden.
00:06:02
Speaker
My grandma um is originally from, well, she's originally from Bentonia, Mississippi. but She hitchhiked with her husband to Detroit, Michigan during like the Great Migration and like lived most of her adult life in Detroit, Michigan, um worked on the assembly lines at Ford and then came out to Denver. I was born and raised in Denver, came out to Denver with my mom and like helped raise me.
00:06:23
Speaker
And my grandma um always, you know, like always miss Detroit, always like kind of like Miss Mississippi, but she grew to like, she grew to enjoy Denver. And so one of the things that she had always carried with her was her garden. Whether she was in Bentonia, whether she was in Detroit, whether she was in um Denver, she wanted to always have a garden.
00:06:40
Speaker
And, you know, i remember her telling me stories when I was younger and know when I was little, you know, it's like stuff that like you kind of like half listen to, like your elders, like tell you when you're like really little and you just want to like go out and play.
00:06:51
Speaker
um But it really does stick with you because they repeat it so many times. So like, you know, like it it really does stick with you. And I remember her just like telling me stories about like how everybody at that time in Detroit. Now, this is like pre Detroit riots of like 60s.
00:07:03
Speaker
So a lot of stuff changed after the riots. But pre the riots, like, you know, like when like a big influx of black folks were moving to Detroit, pretty much everybody had a garden. Whether it was like really big, whether it was like really small, like if you had a house, um even if you had like an apartment, sometimes in like the next vacant lot, like you would have a garden.
00:07:20
Speaker
And these would be like community owned ones, these would be just like individual owned gardens. And a lot of that was, I think like some lingering need for food security during that migration, but also, you know, like he who feeds you controls you. So a lot of people knew like, I gotta, we gotta to grow our own food. We need to like supplement. We also like can't afford a lot of the, you know, like um healthy produce and veggies.
00:07:42
Speaker
One of the things that my grandma told me was like, you know, going to some stores in Detroit. And this was like, when when people talk about like segregation, people think about it as like this very defined thing. But then there's also places where you are not welcome, but even if it is not like, you know, like explicitly stated that it is a segregated store.
00:08:00
Speaker
And so sometimes she would be going to like white grocery stores um because the stores in the black neighborhoods, they were specifically giving like produce that was wilting, that was rotting, that was not just like good quality. And they were putting those in the but in in the in the black grocery stores.
00:08:12
Speaker
So she's telling me a lot of these stories and like, you know, how um she's in Denver and like that memory is still carried with her, you know, like to have a garden. We're living in Denver in a place where there's still like definitely like segregation. This is like in the two thousand It wouldn't be explicitly called that. But Denver is one of the most segregated cities in the in the United States.
00:08:29
Speaker
But yeah, a lot people don't know that because people don't know that there's black folks out there. There are. we are stra We are small but mighty. um But it is one of the most segregated places in the country. And, you know, I think that, you know, there's some like some of that lingering like desire for like sovereignty, for like agency, for like in case something happens, like I need to be able to have like my own like little garden. I need to be able to have my own food. And so just like being able to see her do that. And then also her connecting it to a lot of like once um the riots happened and like military law was like um implemented and like a lot of people's properties were seized or like a lot of white flight happened. A lot of those like garden beds, they just like went away. That's like one of the first things that happens. I feel like, you know, like, of course, and we focus a lot about on like the very human impact, like the neighborhoods that are changed.
00:09:13
Speaker
But one of the most powerful, powerful things that, you know, like white supremacy and that what governments can do is that they can just seize land and they can completely change it.
00:09:24
Speaker
So they can uproot trees, they can like tell you, oh, you can't garden in here, they can like designate vacant lots as like blighted and burdened. And even though the city has even though excuse me the people have been dealing with it for years, and they've been working on their own ways of like remediating or taking care of it, and have been begging the city to do something about it, as soon as you know like the tensions boil up to a certain point where people have no choice but to like revolt and into and to act you know a certain way, then the city can come in and say, oh, well, we designate this neighborhood blighted So we're going to condemn everything and we're going to uproot the trees and we're going uproot the people.
00:09:56
Speaker
And so, you know, that was very formative, even as a child living in like Denver, Colorado. Sometimes, you there's certain things that you like can't really imagine happening, but then you hear about it. And then, of course, you know, like even given the times that we're living in right now, like where it's a very real possibility and, you know, like it's a very real threat.
00:10:12
Speaker
that a lot of governments are making, you just realize how much power a government has over land and has over what you can grow on that land. And so that was really what kind of, you know, piloted me into thinking really critically about issues of like land use.
Impact of Urban Renewal and Gentrification on Black Communities
00:10:26
Speaker
And then also, you know, like urban renewal in Denver, Colorado, like ah we had, um yeah we had, ah i think it was our second black mayor, everybody was really excited and he was pushing a really aggressively for urban renewal.
00:10:39
Speaker
This was a time where a lot of like marijuana legalization money was getting pumped into Denver and they were pushing really hard for urban renewal. So they were cleaning up historically black, cleaning up historically black neighborhoods and um historically Latine neighborhoods, you know redoing a lot of the housing and then people couldn't afford to live there anymore.
00:10:55
Speaker
And so you know witnessing that and then also hearing like my grandma's and narratives, I just, it felt very much that like time was very cyclical. And this kind of stuff happens in different forms, you know, like the technology they might be using is a little bit different because, you know, it evolves, but the tactics and like, you know, like the desires are very much the same. So, you know, hearing from ah hearing my grandma's narrative and then also just like bearing witness to this really, yeah, really solidified, you know, yeah, how it was how I was conceiving and thinking about like environmental justice.
00:11:20
Speaker
So I'm glad that you brought up migration because that was something that I felt was kind of a reoccurring theme in this collection in heirloom. So for those who may not know, the Great Migration is where Black people left the South in droves for the first half of the 1900s.
00:11:36
Speaker
And in this collection, you wrote about your family coming from Mississippi, ending up in Colorado. You wrote in God Save the Forest, Mississippi is a graveyard of all my kin's wildest ambitions.
00:11:48
Speaker
And so there was a quote that we read in Black Earth Wisdom, which is our guiding text for this season where we're talking about Black people and environmentalism. ah where Jermaine Jenkins of Fresh Future Farms said, land in the South feels like a giant altar charged with a thousand ancestors.
00:12:07
Speaker
And I've really been sitting with that, especially in the context of the story and why Black folks leave, but also think, especially in terms of like spirituality, some of our roles is to tend to the dead and tend to the land. So like, what do we do with this graveyard that is the South.
00:12:25
Speaker
And so I'm interested in your thoughts about migration and Mississippi and spirituality. Wow. Oh my gosh. What a poignant question. And then I was like, Black earth wisdom, that sounds familiar. Yeah. Leah Penniman, who was very much influential, you know, in a lot of my thinking, what was it called?
00:12:39
Speaker
It was a guy that she wrote. I'm so bad with titles sometimes. Free, um, being all Black. Farming while Black. Yeah. I mean, i think like for me, um especially, I feel some of that being in Oakland in a lot of ways.
00:12:53
Speaker
There's a lot of heaviness and there is a very like, it's it's it's kind of like all encompassing the graveyard, not only just of like Black folks in the city, in the urban center, but also, you know, like um of Indigenous folks, you know, the Indigenous folks that were like genocided and murdered and like, and removed, and then also just like relocated.
00:13:13
Speaker
I think that, you know, like one of the things that I'm writing about when I talk about migration, someone was telling me that actually like it might be more accurate to call it like a great cleansing or like a great like purging um instead of the great migration. Because a lot of people were not leaving willingly. Like they, a lot of folks wanted to stay with family. They wanted to stay, you know, like where they were loved.
00:13:32
Speaker
But white vigilantism and the government made it so toxic and so dangerous um for Black folks to remain that they had no choice but to leave. I Highly think that if like Mississippi was a place where my family could thrive, like we probably would have stayed because of just like how black Mississippi is, how beautiful it is, how much memory there is there, how much of our just like ancestors bones are there, you know, that like, that's where like my people come from.
00:13:58
Speaker
And I think that that is very much, evident not only like in my writing, but even in the way that I was raised, like some people like tell me, it's been it's funny, you know being in the West, some people tell me like, oh, like, you like say certain words, like, you know, like with a little twang or something, or like you have like ah a certain way way you speak. And I'm like, yes, because my grandma's like, you know, like from Mississippi. And like, she taught me like, in a lot of ways how to read and to talk in the And to be myself, some of my like mannerisms, you know, like I think that that is one of the ways that we like carry on our dead, even if we are, you know, like away from them.
00:14:27
Speaker
You know, even like on my altar, I make sure that I have like certain plants or like certain herbs that like were like really important to my family, like in Mississippi. So even though I'm away, um I'm still carrying on that memory.
00:14:38
Speaker
And one of my friends says like, you know, everywhere, everywhere in the U.S. is like an extension of the South. Even if folks don't want to admit it or even if folks don't want to like claim it. I see that so much. like When I go to like Richmond, when I go to Oakland, like a lot of folks like during the second Great Migration during like World War II, they were coming out to like Oakland and Richmond.
00:14:56
Speaker
And even some of the practices like you know like sweeping like the doorstep, like you know like ah the blue bottles, like a lot of people like do that stuff out here. you know So we carry on that cultural memory and we carry on that you know like that spirituality and those spiritual
Great Migration's Impact on Black Cultural Memory
00:15:08
Speaker
practices.
00:15:08
Speaker
But, you know, as I think about climate change, too, and like, you know, like flooding and like, um occur like you know, like really real threats that are happening in Mississippi, um in like, you know, like the Gulf South.
00:15:20
Speaker
That's something that's also on my mind when I'm thinking about, you know, like the actual physical land and like what memories are like it saturated in the soil. um We might be losing like a lot of that. And how do we like maintain that?
00:15:32
Speaker
um And that's, you know, kind of keeping up with practices. I think that like archive is super important. I think like venerating our dead is super important. Keeping that storytelling aspect alive, whether that is like on the written word or whether that is, you know, like via oral history, making sure like folks know having like, you know, like images, having like those like certain practices is super important.
00:15:51
Speaker
and And, you know, and I think it's up to us, you know, like as future ancestors, you know, to make sure that that is that kind of like memory is maintained. This is like a hard question for me because I always think about I think about things in terms of like what how much we've lost, and it makes me so sad.
00:16:06
Speaker
And it just like, you know, the grief that you like have to sit with is so profound, that it's just like, it's hard to like, kind of untangle all of the various ways that um we have to heal, and we have to respond to it. But I do think that like, you know, like acknowledging it is one of those really important ways.
00:16:23
Speaker
And even the line that I wrote, like Mississippi is ah as a graveyard of all my kin's wildest ambitions. Like, I think that is very much in direct relation to like, we buried a lot of stuff back there. Like whether it was like physical stuff, whether it was like, you know, like um um umbilical cords, whether that it was like shoes, whether it is, was like herbs, whether it was like seeds, like a lot of the stuff that we buried, it was like a time capsule because we knew that that was like land that held us and, hold and, and, and will like, you know, it continue to hold us both like spiritually and like, um, you know, like, uh, ecologically, even if we aren't physically there.
00:16:56
Speaker
I love the statement about it being like a purge because, One of the things my grandma told me about leaving, now mind you, her oldest sister had already left and went to Chicago. Their oldest brother, who was a veteran, he had been up there for a while, and he was probably a part, he's much older than them, so he's probably a part of that first wave going north.
00:17:21
Speaker
But she said that the only jobs for Black women were like cleaning houses or being a teacher because she got a degree, but even with a business degree, she could only be a teacher. And she really always had this dream of being like in the corporate world as a little girl. I don't, and I don't remember where that came from, but I think she just always wanted to be like a business woman or something like that. And so that was part of the reason she left, but I agree. I think, ah and she's back. Like she eventually moved back to Mississippi.
00:17:56
Speaker
That's part of the reason why I grew up my second, well, Most of my life in Mississippi from eight until I recently came to North Carolina a couple of years ago. So, yeah, I really like that framing because I feel like a lot of people, don't know, it's talked about in interesting ways. But thinking about it as in people didn't necessarily want to leave their family and their people.
00:18:21
Speaker
is a really good way to think about it. So something else that I loved about this collection is how you were able to tie Black folks' oppression to the destruction of trees and pollution of the ocean.
Trauma in Southern Landscapes
00:18:34
Speaker
And so in Southern Symphony and Four Movements, you wrote, "'The wood that raised the church, shorn skin of cistern axe failed, a sort of revenge for its complicity in the Black curtain it made our ancestors.'" And it reminded me of how I've often tried and failed to articulate this trauma with Black people and the trees in the South, because trees hold memory. And what does it mean to be around the same trees that were the site of horror, the site of terror for our ancestors?
00:19:05
Speaker
And in addition to that, the fear that a lot of Black Southerners have of the forest while being surrounded by it. I know part of it is like blood memory. And then I also know that trees are our ancestors as well.
00:19:19
Speaker
And so I felt the same way reading Durag where you wrote the the Atlantic remembers every part of Black anatomy. And it was referencing our ancestors who either jumped or were thrown.
00:19:31
Speaker
during the transatlantic slave trade. So all of our pain and our trauma between the elements and nature and Black folks is interconnected. So I was wondering if you could speak more on that. Absolutely. This is like, i you know, like if there is ever an argument in my work this is kind of like the central one is like navigating that tension um because that tension is really real. I think especially as someone who like used to or like continues in some ways to work with young people, even some of the comments that they say. So I used to be a garden educator. And like when I would work with like some of my black youth, like especially like some of the black male youth, they'd be like, I don't want to be doing this. Like my ancestors already did all this. Like i don't want to be doing this or like, you know, like and.
00:20:09
Speaker
Sometimes they'd be making like slick comments, like it was like half joking, but it's also like, okay, so you're saying that, but you're saying that for a reason. Either you like heard it from somebody or like you are very much aware of this like you know like um ancestral like ah memory, or you feel it in your body. I think youre like sometimes we don't trust like young people to like really like feel things in their body. and like and you know Sometimes we just like take like what they're saying like, oh, they're just like saying that to say that but like, you know, like that is coming from somewhere right.
00:20:36
Speaker
But you know, in navigating this, I think that my my eyes were like really opened by read this a few years ago. um But it is a book by Kimberly, Kimberly Ruffin, excuse me, called Black on Earth, African American literary traditions.
00:20:50
Speaker
And she's specifically thinking about like African-American eco-literary traditions. So she's evoking like a lot of folks like, you know like Harriet Tubman and like um George Washington Carver. And then like, I don't know y'all familiar with like Frank X. Walker, who's like one of the Afro-Latian poets. Like, so like she's talking a little bit about his work and other folks work.
00:21:07
Speaker
And in the introduction, she posits this concept called the ecological beauty burden paradox. And that is what is like central to how black folks understand, engage with and think about nature. So when you're white and you're out on a hike,
00:21:25
Speaker
You just enjoying your hike. You're not worried about anybody asking why you're there. You're not worried about anybody potentially physically harming you. Or, you know, maybe if you know you're a woman, that's a little bit different. Right. But you are you are not like you do not have all of these things going through your head, whereas like black folks.
00:21:43
Speaker
We go on a hike or we go out to even like something like we go out to a picnic, picnic in a park, enjoying this, what is usually like a man-made urban nature space, which is totally fine. Sometimes we need, you know, like a lot of the environments that we understand today have been like stewarded for generations.
00:21:57
Speaker
They are not like devoid of like human influence, but- You are in this like designated zone for outdoor recreation. You're lighting your grill. And then, oh, i was like, why does it sound familiar? Oh, like barbecue Becky.
00:22:09
Speaker
this This lady, white lady comes up to you, says, oh, what are you doing here? You need to have a permit. Like you can't even enjoy looking at a tree because somebody is always all up in your business and somebody is always breathing down your neck and telling you what you can and cannot do.
00:22:22
Speaker
So that concept was really like helpful for me you know in thinking about extending that. and like it's And she's not just talking about it in like that kind of setting, but she's talking about it even if you go to the beach. If you go, like you are looking similar like what I said you know like in Durag, you are looking at the Atlantic and it elicits a response that like a lot of white folks are or you know non-Black people might not have.
00:22:42
Speaker
I would like you know maybe even put this akin to some of the feelings that you have when you... Even when you're driving, like even when you're driving on long stretches of of highway, like, you know, there's like a very strong sense of just like, even if you aren't, sometimes it's like you're, you're, you feel like you're being watched, or you feel like you feel like so much spiritual energy.
00:23:05
Speaker
in an area. So it's like that kind of like, you know, like ah that, yes, there is that very like real material fear of like being visibly black while outside, which, who oh my gosh.
00:23:17
Speaker
And then there also is that very spiritual aspect where you recognize, like you so you can feel that pain. I remember like one time when I was in college, I went to college in Connecticut and we did like a little girl's trip down to Rhode Island. And I'm like sitting there and I'm like staring at the ocean and like my friends are like having like a good time and like playing. And I'm just like, I'm feeling everything. Like I'm just like feeling so much and I don't know how to articulate it.
00:23:41
Speaker
And that's like very, you know, like that's very real because like I'm looking at this beautiful expanse of water and I'm also like, you know, like thinking about everything that transpired over it. And even if I would say like, you know, like some folks, some black folks who might not, like I study this, right? Like, you know, and I study history and I'm like, I'm very intimate, like with like if ecological history and environmental history, but even some folks who might not be as like familiar or whatever with this, I think you still feel it.
00:24:07
Speaker
And then you're like, you're like, why do I like feel like weird? Or like, why do I feel like really like strongly about this? Like, because like your body remembers, like, you know, like your body is your mother's body is her mother's body is her mother's body. And like, all of that is like really important memory.
00:24:19
Speaker
But then, you know, I think about times that I've been in like Senegal and like, I've just seen like black folks like swimming in the ocean and like ah fishing and like having a great time. And that is so beautiful to me. That's like so healing to me, you know, like to like see folks who are like expert swimmers who are just like kind of doing their thing, who are out in like itty bitty rickety boats, like pulling up like big nets of fish, like it's nothing. And, you know, the I think like blackness is so expansive and it's so complex.
00:24:48
Speaker
But it is, you know, like very much informed by our environments and our relationship to like, you know, like to land to the things that um are in that area. One other thing that I'll say too, you know, is like, especially with like the history and in the South of lynching and I, you know, that's that's not something that's just like concentrated to the South.
00:25:03
Speaker
It's very sad. there was a There was a man who was found um hanging, I'm sorry, this might be a little triggering, but there was a man who was found hanging by um a rope in Bayview Hunters Point in California. um in San Francisco and they are saying that it is alleged suicide, but you know, like, like black folks and we know what it is, right? Like, so like you think that these are things that are concentrated to a certain area and they're really not like it's, it's very much again, you know, an extension of, of a whole system that demonizes hates really like ah extracts like blackness, but ah oh my gosh.
00:25:32
Speaker
Ooh, thinking about that made me like lose my train of thought. Cause I was, Ooh, that was scary. You had prompted a thought for me about my trip to Senegal and being at the door of no return. And talking about sort of that spiritual kind of complicated experience of what our body remembers when engaging with certain parts of the natural world, it had prompted for me the memory of looking out of the door of no return.
00:25:59
Speaker
And like, yeah, I can't even really describe it because I felt an emptiness. Especially after, you know, our tour guide had just finished telling us the meaning behind it.
00:26:14
Speaker
I don't know. There was, I didn't have a good feeling, but I didn't have a bad feeling. It just felt really empty. I just felt really empty. But on the other hand, because that this is all on glory,
00:26:24
Speaker
Is it Goree? Goree Island? ah sigh In this same ocean that you're looking out of the door no return, just like you mentioned, there's like kids and families, most of them black, just in the ocean having a good time.
00:26:39
Speaker
And it was just jarring. Like it was jarring because you like you have those emotions, but then you see these people. just being free in the ocean. Even for me as someone who loves trees, I love being able to see trees outside of my window.
00:26:55
Speaker
I've always had a thing for trees, even as a child. I also frequently think about what stories a tree is holding and and what violent stories they're probably holding from particularly in Mississippi from like everything they witnessed because for whatever reason there was this obsession with discarding us not just in trees but in bodies of water so and I still i have I'm sure someone very smart has written about this but it's something I think about like that just this whole thing of leaving us discarding us in
00:27:36
Speaker
the earth in that particular way as an act of violence. Yeah, I just wanted to just wanted to name that, you know, even being on like Goree, like the past, the present and the future, they it collides so like strongly there. And like, I, yeah, I also just want to empathize. Like, I also felt like a very sense of like, like an emptiness, like something in like basically somebody had like unplugged the drain almost like on me, because in a lot of ways, at least like, you know, like the way that I think through it is that the Door of No Return was like where we became detribalized Africans. We were no longer, you know, like,
00:28:07
Speaker
Igbo. We were no longer, you know, like Congolese. We were no longer from Benin. We were just, we were just black. And there, you know, and like now I love that. I love being black, you know, and ah and and we form ourselves into a community, but, you know, we lose a lot of, we lost a lot of our ancestral traditions either by, you know, like that being physically like extracted from us, ah it being beaten out of us.
00:28:27
Speaker
And we lost a lot of our language. We carried a lot of stuff, but we lost a lot and, you know, and and took on this new identity and then got transplanted to this, like, new world that was very different, but also strangely familiar, you know, whether that was in like the Caribbean or South America, even in the American South, like a lot of, one of the reasons why they picked the people are like, you know, like why slaveholders pick the people that they pick was because um they knew of farming skills and they knew of like metalworking skills. And they knew that these were like folks and, and you know, um indigenous folks who are really good at that.
00:28:58
Speaker
And so, you know, we made and shaped in a lot of ways, we shaped the South into something that it needed to be for us to the degree that we could. and I think that, you know, there was still that lingering just like anger around that, like, like our bodies and minds and spirits are supposed to be broken entirely. And still like ah a piece of that lingered in it, a piece of that remained, and you see it like etched into the landscape, and it still remains.
00:29:27
Speaker
Let's get into some ways you can support the Hoodoo Plant Mamas. One is through our bookshop where you can buy the books that we've discussed with our Writing the Spirit guests. We have a Hoodoo Beginners Guide, Tarot and Oracle decks, as well as our top reading picks.
00:29:41
Speaker
You can also buy Leah's books. Every purchase you make helps support our show. Check us out at bookshop.org slash shop slash hoodoo plant mamas or click the link in our show notes.
00:29:53
Speaker
Our Patreon is currently paused, but other ways you can support us include rating and reviewing this podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow us on Instagram at hoodoo plant mamas.
00:30:05
Speaker
You can donate via cash app, cash tag hoodoo plant mamas or our PayPal hoodoo plant mamas at gmail.com. Let's get back to the show.
00:30:19
Speaker
When you were talking earlier, you so you were ah talking about being a garden educator and working with youth. And it reminded me of a discussion you and I had, Leah, actually, while we were reading the book about this sort of feeling of associating labor outside, even in gardens with like slavery, how making those little jokes, because you mentioned Leah, you made, you and your siblings made similar jokes when your dad would make y'all work outside because, you know, what you hear from family and what you learned.
00:30:54
Speaker
In thinking about children, there was two lines that really just like stayed with me throughout reading this book was from No Neutral Zones.
00:31:05
Speaker
The two lines are, at the playground pretend as power, children build brave new worlds from dirt and earth. this These two lines really, and the entire poem brought up many things for me, but one is like Black folks and especially Black children and how we're stripped of the freedom of imagination, how powerful imagination is when thinking about liberation,
00:31:29
Speaker
And children and particularly, like, we've been children before. and if you were children, like, before the internet, or at least before it was readily accessible, you didn't have to, like, tie up the phone lines.
00:31:42
Speaker
Your imagination was all you had. Outside of Mississippi, like, our imagination was all we had out during the summers.
00:31:54
Speaker
We didn't, you know, we might have had a little small play set, but we didn't have anything elaborate to, like, play with. And so we would just create these worlds and create these games and just, I don't know, just build something out of what felt like nothing.
00:32:10
Speaker
The point I'm trying to get at is that we have our imaginations until somebody tells us like, we don't. Like, we strategically get pushed out of spaces, we get pushed out of stories that convince us that there's limits to our imaginings.
00:32:26
Speaker
And there's limits to where we can go in the world. And it brings me back to children always because there's a lot of complicated like conversations around children. On one hand, people demonizing young people because like, oh, they're too reliant on technology and social media.
00:32:43
Speaker
This is what they were given. But also just like the sort of dismissing or underestimating
Children's Role in Environmental Justice
00:32:50
Speaker
how much we need them, how much we need their imagination and how we don't have to be those forces that are limiting them.
00:33:00
Speaker
And I'm thinking about how dangerous this is when it comes to environmental justice, because I think like it's all, you know, it's all in conversation. I don't think you can talk about environmental justice, obviously, without talking about children.
00:33:13
Speaker
and the rights of children and the voices of children. I'd love to know your perspective on what is the role of children in environmental justice movements, not just in the U.S., but also just worldwide.
00:33:28
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. I think about this a lot. And it's reminding me of and going to butcher this quote real bad, but it's reminding me of something that I read, and I don't know if y'all are familiar with, by Ritual with by Maledoma Patrice Sommet.
00:33:42
Speaker
um who is a Nigerian author and was talking a lot about ritual and it was really you know informative for me. um And he's basically, he was saying something like, when the elders of like the village are not held in high regard, the adults cannot do what they like need to do and then the children are left confused.
00:33:59
Speaker
And I think that we are really seeing some very serious manifestations of that today. When I think about, you know, even what you're mentioning, the over-reliance on cell phones, when we're thinking about like the like the immediate move to give like a child a tablet or the immediate move to like um have them in the house.
00:34:17
Speaker
I think that that is, there's a couple of things that come to mind. One, I think that that is a man of manifestation of fear. I think that a lot of Black children do not live in very safe environments and they do not live in areas where they can readily play outdoors.
00:34:28
Speaker
I also do think that the outdoors have been system systemically stripped from them. Like you looked at at that in land use policy, like if you can't, like you can't walk anywhere. Like if you are not in ah if you are not in a neighborhood where there's like, it's very like easily accessible or walkable.
00:34:42
Speaker
a lot of times the sidewalks aren't maintained, lawns are overgrown. Like that's like a very purposeful systemic choice. So you'd rather be inside. and where there's an entire world already built for you. And don't get me wrong.
00:34:52
Speaker
i was a like I wasn't really a video game kid, but I was an online game kid. like I loved online games, but I also like balance that out, right? You know, like with outdoors, because I had access to that. Like I could go outside and I could use my imagination. i also have really strict parents who were like, okay, you have 30 minutes on your game and then you're going to play outside.
00:35:09
Speaker
And then, you know, a lot of parents are overworked. They just, they simply just do not have the time. They don't have the time to read to young folks. um to their kids. They don't have time to like take them to the park, which, you know, and again, we're losing in a lot of ways. We're losing that communal aspect of things.
00:35:23
Speaker
Cause again, so much falls on individual parental units. And a lot of times a lot falls on single moms, to basically be everything and anything for their for their kids, which is just unfair to them and to and to also to their kids.
00:35:36
Speaker
So that's happening. And then I also think that, you know, think about, and this is no shade to nobody in particular, but thinking about the quote that Sommé, and you know, this has been ringing around in my head that I had offered from Sommé, a lot of young people, they just don't have mentors.
00:35:50
Speaker
now to look up to like, who are the adults that they are looking up to? Who is like, you know, like giving them strength and who is giving them empowerment and who is setting an example for what they should be or what they can be. Not even should, because like, I don't want to, I'm not trying to tell like any young person what to Cause sometimes, you know, I go into classrooms and like young people will make like such an astute or like an incisive like observation. like, dang, didn't even think about it like that.
00:36:11
Speaker
um And that's, you know, like, I think the magic of like youth and of of childhood is is having that unrestricted imagination. So even when I'm doing like intergenerational stuff, like sometimes we'll do like freedom dreaming and even like some of the older employees that I work with, I'm like saying like, okay, imagine like what things look like in five years.
00:36:31
Speaker
And there there's this like extremely structured. It's like, okay, well we need to like do this and then we need to like do this recruitment and then we need to do X, Y, Z. And then young people are like, well, we have a garden and we have chickens and there's like a poetry night every night and we're doing X, Y, Z and this is all happening and it's beautiful.
00:36:49
Speaker
and like And there's no like, okay, and we need to raise this amount of money to do that. we need to, you know, there's like not really like a lot of scaffold, which is like totally fine. Like it should be unrestricted. That's the point of freedom dreaming. And then it's like us up to us, you know, as as adults to like say, okay, well, what is, to fill in the gaps? Like, how do we get there?
00:37:04
Speaker
And, you know, like, that's, I think, like, what's really powerful and really beautiful about, like, you know, like, childhood and imagination, you know. And I think that that's something that I really carry with me, too. And I think it's sometimes evident in my work. Like, I do have that, like, imagination. I have that way of, like, thinking about, you know, like, the relationship between the human and the non-human. um And I'm trying to, like, evoke that. I'm trying to rewild that imagination while also holding, you know, like, that very, like, intense grief and that really intense understanding that, like,
00:37:29
Speaker
we are inheriting a lot of really tough stuff and we're inheriting like a lot of really tough trauma. And it's not all up to young people to like try and solve it, but they can offer like different perspectives and they can offer like, you know, like new ways of thinking through crisis that I think is oftentimes underappreciated because again, because like the mentorship in a lot of ways isn't there. My message to anybody um listening is ah if you know young folks in your community, offer to be a mentor, offer to be a guide. You know, there's so much, so much wealth. I think especially us as folks who do not currently have kids, we can be like such a wealth of support. And like, we could be like such like, you know, like a wealth of guidance, even if it is like something as simple as like, I just remember like, you know growing up, like there was nothing that I could get away with.
00:38:12
Speaker
Cause some auntie up the street would be like, oh, did you know that your daughter was like, off over there, like two blocks past where you said she could go, like that's not really happening as much anymore. You know, even when I was kid, I hated it. Right. Because like, dang, like they got eyes everywhere, but you know, that's part of community care and, you know, trying to like, ah you know, rethink through that and how that can be. Yeah. I love what you said about the differences in like older folks, imagining five years and children, because I think that's what I was thinking about. got to
00:38:43
Speaker
and We need that mix of like, I think children, for the most part, if it's not bullied out of them, they're not afraid to think about what doesn't seem possible.
00:38:54
Speaker
And you got to be able, like, we we need that. Because if you, when a lot of us, including myself, sometimes can't think about what possible. What doesn't feel possible, then we already put a limit there.
00:39:08
Speaker
We already put a limit there. But when you talk to children, they're really able to poke holes in those limits in our imagination and get us to really expand our thinking. And they really are incredibly insightful. You just got to sit down and listen to them long enough through the TikTok, like, lore and all that stuff. But even on TikTok, like, I'm sorry, these kids are brilliant.
00:39:31
Speaker
I don't care if I don't understand the slang. I don't care if it sounds silly. Like, they are brilliant and they have access to so much more that, like, I think with the mentorship thing, I think there's this, like, weird gap because,
00:39:46
Speaker
people have such negative views on them. Like so people, and it's like, yeah, I don't know. We were kids once. You knew how we were perceived. Like we were a part of that getting into social media. Like we millennials, older, mid-range millennials really set the stage for where we are with social media. And so it's really weird to this sort of animosity or this way that people look down on Gen Z and whatever that age group is after them, which I'm really, I'm scared of them and also excited for them because I actually think they have a lot to teach us.
00:40:21
Speaker
I just want to say that was a really good question, Dani, because I never thought about like, especially with like young children, what putting an iPad in their hands instead of letting them go outside or when they don't have access to go outside, right? And the assault that that has on the child's imagination and how it limits,
00:40:42
Speaker
how they can envision the future. And it shapes, it kind of shapes the future for them. And then that kind of limits all of our ability because the children can be part of imagining what our new world can be.
Flight as a Survival Mechanism for Black Americans
00:40:55
Speaker
But if they are looking at what has been created for them or what people are trying to gear them.
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah. It's just really limiting and impacting them. So, so my last question that I have about heirloom is, A common motif in Black literature is flight.
00:41:14
Speaker
It is an idea that I've struggled a lot with, mainly because I feel like being a Mississippian whose family has stayed here for like almost 200 years, I've been passed down the kind of like borough gene.
00:41:28
Speaker
But in two poems in particular, i was thinking more about what flight means for Black people. And so in Running, which was a tribute to Ahmaud Arbery, you wrote, the flight in these legs, a vestigial burden passed down generations of restlessness.
00:41:44
Speaker
We stay moving. It is harder to kill a thing in constant motion. And in Nameless, you wrote, I think the blackest thing about me are my eyes. Bless how they were taught to keep moving, to seek truth, to always greet the dawn with devotion.
00:42:01
Speaker
And so going back to like migration and movement, it's this idea that flight is necessary for Black American survival. Like it requires us to be hypervigilant. It requires us to move and it requires a bit of restlessness.
00:42:15
Speaker
So I was wondering about your thoughts on that. When y'all were kids, did y'all ever read the book, The People Who Could Fly? Do y'all know that one? It's like a picture book. I can't remember. still I have a copy. of I read it as an adult. So I read it as a kid and then I read it again as an adult.
00:42:31
Speaker
It's one of those books where I was just like, okay, like I i get why it's a children's book, but also like, dang, that's like, like not like heavy, but like, it's like, that's a, that's a very specific choice to like make, make that into a children's book. And it it comes, you know, like from like, you know, like ah enslaved narratives. It comes from like folklore and it comes from storytelling. And, you know, as somebody who also grew up on like, you know, Uncle Remus tales and like, you know, like Anansi and stuff, like, i you know, i get it. It kind of like falls within that zeitgeist.
00:42:58
Speaker
And I think a lot of it has been kind of, you know, like sanitized in some ways or like made appropriate for like young kids. And again, I think that that is also like a certain level of disconnect. Two, because in a lot of ways, I think as like Leah maybe had like kind of half mentioned earlier, is that like a lot of like Black youth are forced to grow up, like a lot, they are not regarded as youth, they are not like, you know, like they're denied like childhood in a lot of ways.
00:43:20
Speaker
They're adult, that's the word, they're adultified. But even, and I think that there's a big difference between like adultification and then also like recognizing like the capacity of young people and being like very candid and being like, you know, like being able to like have like those kinds of dialogues with young people.
00:43:34
Speaker
Because I think, you know, like even just thinking about the book, like the people that could fly, I think that that was very influential. um The people that could fly. That was always like one of my favorite stories when I was a kid. I was like, oh my God, I would love to like be able to fly. I would love to be able to like lift off, go somewhere, wherever the, you know, like wherever I wanted to go, land wherever I wanted to go. oh my gosh, wouldn't that be amazing?
00:43:50
Speaker
And then you know you get older, you read a little bit more of the history, you read like a little bit more of like the density behind that folklore. And it's like, wow, that was like a really real A really real like cosmology and a really real like you know like very specific like spiritual tradition where it's like, okay, if you were to leap overboard, your spirit, your soul would fly back to your home in Africa. Or if you were ah to die, if you were buried face to the east, then like your spirit would like go back to to home and and in the mainland. And that was like through flight.
00:44:18
Speaker
And so I think you know a lot about like flights in that kind of like spiritual like return to the motherland kind of way. And then also just kind of like, as you mentioned, in terms of like migration, constantly moving. I've been like very blessed to like, again, like have like a beautiful home like in Denver, Colorado. I mean, I live in Oakland now, you know, like, but my mom is like still in Denver, Colorado. My family is still in Detroit, Michigan.
00:44:40
Speaker
And so things feel like very settled. But there is, and you know, like considering history, I think that there is always like this like latent fear about like what comes next. And in a lot of ways, you just want to rest.
00:44:50
Speaker
And in a lot of ways, you know, like Black folks aren't afforded that rest. Be either by, you know, like the government coming in and like claiming eminent domain or, you know, even thinking about like a slave trade, like people having to run away um to the north, to the west. Some people decided to just like run away to other parts of the south. Some people decided to maroon, you know, um but that still was like a form of running.
00:45:11
Speaker
Whereas like the like freedom was a place that you kind of like stole away to or you ran towards. And so I think about that a lot, you know, like even when I'm thinking about this um ongoing climate crisis and the issues of, you know, like migration and climate refugee is a lot of black folks, you know, like.
00:45:28
Speaker
in places like, you know, like Louisiana. I think about like what happened with Katrina, you know, like um that is like, that people though those are some of the earliest like internal like climate refugees. And it's not really like considered, folks aren't considered like that.
00:45:40
Speaker
And so, you know, that is like a form of like flight having to like move because of, you know, like climate disaster or environmental disaster. And I think, you know, like there are when I go back and I do like some of the retracing, a lot of black traditions like prior to prior to us, you know, like becoming detribalized Africans, a lot of us were nomadic, you know, like we didn't like or like semi nomadic, you know, like ah even though we had like houses or we had like, you know, like homestays.
00:46:04
Speaker
um places that we stayed, like we moved a lot, we traveled around, we like, you know, like sought different futures. So like, you know, staying fixed, I think is like a very, it's very like specific to certain tribes, but it's also like, ah it's also kind of like very new.
00:46:17
Speaker
And to be able to like have like a home like that is, um you know, like that's granny's house that's like passed down, like that is like a very like, you know, like a new thing. and a very But also a very tenuous thing. Like that's not something that's like ah a constant.
00:46:30
Speaker
I think I would love to find like a stage. I think that in a lot of ways, my work is like writing towards rest and writing towards like, you know, like finding a way to like plant and maintain. But I'm also very much like aware of those realities.
00:46:43
Speaker
And I also think, you know, in terms of like an Afrofuturistic lens, you know, like Space is the Place. Sunrise, is like one of my like favorite movies, such a weirdo. um But like even like thinking about like the the idea of like going to outer space and like finding like a ah planet where like, you know, black people can thrive and be. It always feels like somewhere away from where we are physically, which is very heavy.
00:47:05
Speaker
And I think that like weighs on your psyche. But it also like, you know, I think that we do a really good job of like blurring the boundary between like the spiritual and the material where like there is always like there is going to be a place for us to be. And and maybe going to have to like fly to get there.
00:47:19
Speaker
I love that. I adore this collection. There was so much in it and so much of it overlapped with what we read in Black Earth Wisdom. I'm going to have to reread it because it was just like, you know how you get to to an end of the book you like, I got to go back.
00:47:37
Speaker
I got to go back. But what you said about running just sort of reminded me of my relationship to Mississippi and how I feel like I've been running. But I'm also, there's a part of me where there's something in me that wants to be planted somewhere. I actually don't like always having to move.
00:47:53
Speaker
I like to be just comfortable. Like as far as like, I like to have a safe place to land. And so constantly having to move. And even this tug of war I have been having with Mississippi, where I feel like my ancestors.
00:48:10
Speaker
When I say it was some spiritual intervention that was keeping me from leaving Mississippi, every time I got my foot over the border, was like something snatched me back. And then I finally got out and it, I don't even know what the make of it. Like sometimes I still, Leah knows sometimes when we're talking, I'll be like, yeah, big I'll still talk about Mississippi as if I'm presently there where I'll say, yeah, because here, because somehow it's still here.
00:48:39
Speaker
as much as I had been running from it. um And so, yeah, I think I need to reflect on that more, but it was a thought that came to me about this idea of constantly running, but wanting a place to land, wanting a home, and like, where do we go?
00:48:55
Speaker
Our last question is pulled from Black Earth Wisdom. And it's a question that Leah Penniman asked all of the interviewees at the end of like the sections, the chapters.
Earth's Message: Collaboration and Ancestral Wisdom
00:49:10
Speaker
So we want to know from you, what is the earth saying to you at this moment? I have a new piece in Art Review Oxford called Genealogy of the Vacant Lock, because I've been thinking a lot about like land use, especially at this time when we're dealing with like widespread, not even just government abandonment, but just like active like government vitriol and like and and violence um and ramping up you know against our communities. And I think the earth is telling me in a lot of ways, like, I want to be in collaboration with you. I want to be like a co-conspirator with you. I want to, if you will let me, I think that the, I think the earth has so much to teach us and has so much wisdom. The line in the piece that I'm refer referencing is like, ah nature is not a dainty miracle, but a violent insurrection.
00:49:53
Speaker
And I, you know, we love to think about like nature as like, just like this beautiful place that's like naturally occurring, but like nature, nature is violent. Nature is chaotic. Nature is like a trickster. Nature, you know, like uses what she can to live on and and to maintain.
00:50:10
Speaker
And I think that the earth is like telling us like tap into that a little bit more, like tap into that, you know, like that ancestral rage tap into, you know, like let us be like co-conspirators for a new world. Even if the earth is going to remain the same, there is a whole new world waiting for us. And and I think like the only way that we can do that is by listening to the earth and and listening to her.
00:50:27
Speaker
to her ancestral ra rage and wisdom and being like, you know, like collaborators and conspirators with her. So I just wanted to say thank you again for coming on and for talking with us today.
00:50:38
Speaker
Like Dani said, this was a collection I had read a few months ago and i was like, Dani, we have to try to get a she on. to talk about it because there was so much in here that I just felt like there were things that I have been thinking about for a while, but I felt like you articulated them a lot better than I did. So I'm glad you came. Thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you for your work. Thank y'all so much. Who do plant mamas? I'm really excited to be here. And Leah, I can't wait to read your forthcoming collection.
00:51:10
Speaker
I'm really looking forward to it. And just, yeah, appreciate the time and appreciate y'all's questions. Thank you. If you like this episode, you can like, rate, and review Who Do Plant Mamas on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
00:51:23
Speaker
If anything from the show resonated with you, make sure to share it with us on social media. You can find us on Instagram at Who Do Plant Mamas. Thank you for listening and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye. by