This song is dedicated to two flowers that stand and grow together. One of them is yellow, the other one is purple. They are called Asters and Goldenrods. As Wall Kimmerer (2020) tenderly asks in her book Braiding SweetGrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants: “why do they (Asters and Goldenrods) stand beside each other when they could grow alone? Why this particular pair?” (Wall Kimmerer, 2020, p. 41) She goes on a life journey to learn that “their striking contrast when they grow together makes them the most attractive target in the whole meadow, a beacon for bees. Growing together, both receive more pollinator visits than they would if they were growing alone” (Wall Kimmerer, 2020, p. 46). In her book, Wall Kimmerer highlights the beauty, the poetry and agency of all plants and more-than human beings. Even their capability for having their own songs:
“A plant scientist, armed with his notebooks and equipment, is exploring the rainforest for new botanical discoveries, and he has hired an indigenous guide to lead him. Knowing the scientist’s interests, the young guide takes care to point out the interesting species. The botanist looks at him appraisingly, surprised by his capacity. “Well, well, young man, you certainly know the names of a lot of these plants.” The guide nods and replies with downcast eyes. “Yes, I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn their songs” (Wall Kimmerer, 2020, p. 43).
The song, Asters and Goldenrods, is an attempt to listen and imagine carefully to the song Asters and Goldenrods would sing. I write (See Appendix D):
“This is the softest song
to embrace your sadness,
I heard it from
asters and goldenrods
that grow together in the garden.”
My intention with this song is to emphasize that flowers and plants are not mere objects. Wall Kimmerer describes her experience as a botany student: “The questions scientists raised were not “who are you?” but “what is it?” No one asked plants, “what can you tell us?” The primary question was “How does it work?” The botany I was taught was reductionist, mechanistic, and strictly objective. Plants were reduced to objects; they were no subjects”(Wall Kimmerer, 2020, p. 42). This song is then a small gesture to find an answer to a better asked question to Asters and Goldenrods: “Could you teach me a soothing song for a loved one when she is sad?”
The song includes a melody that is sung twice, which symbolizes the softest song that Asters and Goldenrods would sing. This melody does not have words because I was inspired by the idea of exploring the “grammar of animacy” as presented by Wall Kimmerer (2020). She states “if we are to survive here, and our neighbors too, our work is to learn how to speak the grammar of animacy, so we might truly be at home” (Wall Kimmerer, 2020, p. 57). As much as I can stretch my imagination, and find a soothing melody, I also see the limitations of trying to write a song in the name of Asters and Goldenrods, I just know two colonial languages, Spanish and English, and I am trapped in my anthropocentric views of the world. Mycologist and author Merlin Sheldrake makes a comment in the beautifully written book Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Macfarlane (2019). He reflects on how to talk about fungi and more-than-human world:
“our present grammar militates against animacy; our metaphors by habit and reflex subordinate and anthropomorphize the more-than-human world. Perhaps we need an entirely new language system to talk about fungi… We need to talk in spores” (Macfarlane, 2019).
This Song is then an attempt to sing and write about flowers in spores or pollen melodies, and let my curiosity explore the Songs of animacy.