June 2021 Meeting Transcript: Braiding Sweetgrass

Brandon’s note: In the past couple months, I’ve shed light on some of the stories in Book Club’s community. The post below is what actually happens when the Club meets to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences about and around a given month’s selection. This is the first time a transcript of a meeting has been released and it is lightly edited, only to give the reader more of the rhythm of the room’s speech.

Yahdon:

Okay. Welcome to the book club. So we gone get started. You know, we can't do a book like Braiding Sweetgrass, and be inside. I have to be outdoors in the natures. I got mushrooms on my shirt. It's going to be a good discussion. Good evening everybody. Welcome to the sixth Literaryswag Book Club meeting. I am your host Yahdon Israel. Welcome to the Literaryswag Book Club, a social club and subscription service where we get to meet and discuss books every last Wednesday of the month. This month's Book Club pick is that Braiding Sweetgrass. You see my book. So, you know, this is a book I've fell asleep on, woke up with, ate with. This book was giving me a lot of language and all I've been getting from y'all in the Book Club is mad texts, DMS or emails about "Yo this book was one of the ones." So I'm excited to hear what we all thinking. But you know, for the people who are new, raise your hand. If this is your first Book Club meeting. One, hold on, I know we got a few other people. So we got Jules' first book club meeting. I know Cherelle, this is your first Book Club meeting. Is there one more person? And Sally. So I want you to unmute your cameras and let's give a round of applause so they can hear it.

Yahdon:

We got to give you all the greenery. So welcome to the Literaryswag Book Club. It is a monthly book club service. Six years ago, I started this book club because I wanted to create a space for people who not only read books, but a space for which, for people who wanted to find a community of people to learn about books with and discover books with. One of the challenges, if anybody's read a book, you know that one of the challenges of reading the book is who do you talk to when you finish? School provides that, church in many ways provides that. Reading circles provide that, but what I realized in casual conversation, when you think about award shows, sports competitions, different TVs and movies, you can go on Twitter and you can find a conversation happening about what you care about.

Yahdon:

Books is one of those spaces where you gotta, try to find a friend who read at the same time as you. And if they didn't read it, you let them hold your book. Then you gotta hope they don't lose your book. They don't, they, they didn't even get to read it. And all that, what it ends up doing is it, it becomes a discouraging act to read, because even though the act of reading is solitary, the community that supports it isn't. So I wanted to create a community to support the act of reading. And so that's why this club was created. And it was started with a collaboration with The Strand bookstore in 2015. And then after six months, I decided that I was going to have the book club, no matter where it was. And then we moved from everywhere from a friend's loft in Soho to a Starbucks in the middle of the same neighborhood to doing it in Washington Square Park to a nutrient supplement shop to the Brooklyn circus, to the pandemic and zoom.

Yahdon:

But what you see is the community that has sustained this has been people who said that they were going to show up no matter what happened. And we have not missed a meeting throughout the whole pandemic. We have not missed one meeting. So I want to give everybody, have everybody give a round of applause to that because there's a lot of things that got shut down, but book club was not one of them, and I'm blessed to be able to say that that's true for us. For people who are new to the Book Club, to understand what makes us, us, you have to understand why we are who we are in this Club. And it's because, although this is a conversation that's happening in a digital space. These are the types of conversations that you'll see. Everyone is allowed, not even just allowed, but everyone is empowered to say what it is they need to say.

Yahdon:

But if you say something you're going to be challenged about it. No one's going to ever tell you in this space, what you can't say, we're just going to ask you why it is that you said what you said. And so unlike the other spaces where it's very easy to tell somebody what they shouldn't say and removing them from conversation. What we want to do is bring everyone into conversation, because this is one of the few spaces where, we get to unpack the way we think and not just present those thoughts. So all I say to anybody, you don't have to read the book and you don't have to finish the book to be a part of the conversation. A very recurring theme in Book Club is someone always says, "I didn't finish the book, but," and you'll see that none of us ever say, "well, you can't talk."

Yahdon:

If you didn't finish it, the whole purpose, the whole importance of these meetings is that as long as you come from a thoughtful, considerate and a sincere place, this is a welcoming space for you. If you don't, we ain't going to kick you out. We're going to bring you back in, which is a way of saying, why did you say that? Why do you think that? And it's just a place of intellectual rigor and there is no joy without this rigor. So we go and get this work. All right. So how we run this is, I always give a prompt to get everybody talking so that everybody in the meeting, says their name, where they're from, their pronouns and answer the prompts. Everybody could hear everybody's voice.

Yahdon:

And then what we do is we jump into an open forum conversation, where we talk about everything from the book to our experiences, to other books, to other things and culture that we connect with. So there is nothing that you should feel like you can't speak to or say about this book or in this conversation. You will see that this is a conversation that goes in many different directions. We do that for a good solid hour, hour 15. Then we conclude with me anointing some of the littest members in the meeting and those are the people who, in addition to connecting the book to the conversation, are people who provide new language for us to articulate the world with and anybody who's been in this book club and people for whom this experience is new.

Yahdon:

What you'll notice about all the book club picks that I've chosen up until now and what I will continue to choose. These are books that give us language for how to have conversations. One of the most difficult things about having a conversation is not having language to do it. And so that's what these books do is they provide us a landscape to acquire language so that we can have a conversation. And then I announce the book for the next month, and then we take a group pic in and we dip, all right. So y'all know, Braiding Sweetgrass was on the board. One of the reasons why this book even came to me was because I shared this through my Instagram page.

Yahdon:

If anybody knows, within the last three months I became a senior editor at Simon and Schuster. Two months ago, I acquired Camille T Dungy's, latest nonfiction book, entitled soil, the story of a black mother's garden. And so in order to take on this project, I had to elevate and expose myself to the type of nature writing that informs her work. So it's been like me digging in the crates and her giving me books in order to understand what she's doing. Books like My Garden by Jamaica Kincaid came up like just a bunch of different books, but this Robin Wall Kimmerer book was one of them. And I started reading it. One of the things I always appreciate from a writer when they have the ability to be instructive without being prescriptive, when they can inform me without telling me what to think.

Yahdon:

Anytime I get a book that's given me access into a world I don't have access to without... Nuratu, are you driving girl, please say you in the passenger seat. Oh my God. All right. That''s Nuratu she's always trying to risk it all for Book Club. When I started reading this book, I always think about the books that give us a way to articulate the world in which we live with language we wouldn't have otherwise.

Yahdon:

So when I got this book, I was like, oh, this definitely was a book club pick. So one of the things that I've wanted to stress this year and everybody who knows, knows that what I've been challenging myself with as the leader of this book club, as the founder and the host is to push myself to stretch beyond the books that I feel comfortable picking. This is one of the first, if not, I don't, I want to say almost safely, the first book we're doing that explicitly deals with nature writing. And so what I'm interested in is what language about nature or the ways in which Robin Wall Kimmerer brings that indigenous knowledge, intertwines it with the Western frameworks of grammar and language and science and policy. What is some of the language that you've got? Like, it could be a passage, it could be a sentence, it could be an idea.

Yahdon:

It could be a description of a plant. It could be a plant. What was something that you got from this book that helps you see the natural world possibly for the first time or in a new way? So I always go first just to set the tone, and this is language. It's in the last chapter of the book. Um, and it's called "Defeating Windigo", on page 376. On page 376, second paragraph Robin Wall Kimmer writes in an essay describing hunter gatherer peoples with few possessions as the original affluent society. Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins reminds us that, "modern capitalist societies, however, richly endowed dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world's wealthiest peoples." The shortage is due not to how much material wealth there actually is, but to the way in which it is exchanged or circulated. The market system artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and the consumer. Grain may rot in the warehouse while hungry people starve because they cannot pay for it.

Yahdon:

The result is famine for some and diseases of excess for others. The very earth that sustains us is being destroyed to fuel injustice. An economy that grants personhood to corporations, but denies it to the more-than-human beings: this is a Windigo economy. This was the language that I've been, you know, coming into the, not just the literary industry with. I was thinking about that phrase, the Windigo economy and the Windigo way of thinking, because I found it interesting that before we had a language for what capitalism was, the indigenous people had a language for that way of living and that way of seeing the world. And so what I've been thinking about is what are the ways in which I approach the world through what is older than capitalism, which is like this indigenous way of seeing the world through commodification and property rights and hoarding and scarcity, and how can I approach the world through a lens of abundance and the fact that we have enough for other people and not have to frame my way of thinking around, like, I don't have enough, but I actually, we actually have more than we need.

Yahdon:

So that's my language that I got from this book. Uh, we're going to go, I'm going to go to in alphabetic order. Amina.

Amina:

So for me, the entire book was just like poetic and, the language, I'm not going to say new because, I always feel like this about earth and plants. And so, um, the part where I think it was honorable, I'm not sure what chapter it was, but it was this European man that came and he was going to go do rice cropping with, uh, indigenous family. And he told them that they were wasteful because 50% of the rice used to always fall in the lake. And he came up with a plan where they could save 80% of it and the indigenous people listened to him. And then when he was done, they were like, well, you know, we only take half of what we need, we need, because if we take all of it, what about the ducks that need the rice that is in there and what about the rice that needs to grow again? And that, and so that was just, um, her thing that how the European mindset of like always being greedy and Windigo is interesting.

Amina:

You said when to go, because when to go is like the idea of a monster that's about greed and, he wants more than he needs. And so that was, I feel like the theme of the story of taking more than what you need. And, um, and actually just yesterday, I was talking to my department head about capitalism and she was like, “well, capitalism and white supremacy are the same thing because without white supremacy, there is no, um, capitalism.” So I was like, oh, you know what? That's kind of deep you're right. So, you know, it's just how capitalism has, just destroyed so many of our cultures and our ways of life and just the language, um, of the word that constantly came up all the time. And it's one of my favorite words anyways, reciprocity. And she says it over and over again is, um, us giving back to what we take from the earth because we're too busy taking from the earth, which is basically capitalism. We take, take, take, and we don't give. So that was like language that really resonated with me. And that was something new for me.

Beth:

Hello, everybody. I'm Beth from Philly. Um, so mine is coming from page 57 and it's a conversation going on between students. And I'll read just the, um, the one paragraph, "Another student countered Andy's argument. "But we can't say he or she. That would be anthropomorphism." They are well-schooled biologists who have been instructed in no uncertain terms, never to ascribe human characteristics, to a study object, to another species. It's a Cardinal sin that leads to a loss of objectivity. Carla pointed out that "it's also disrespectful to the animals. We shouldn't project our perceptions on them. They have their own ways. They're not just people in furry costumes." Andy countered, "But just because we don't think of them as humans doesn't mean they aren't beings. Isn't it even more disrespectful to assume that we're the only species that counts as 'persons'?" The arrogance of English is that the only way to be animate, to be worthy of respect and moral concern is to be a human." The language there that really, um, had me resonating was that it is, we only, well, some of us that only know one language speaking from this viewpoint, there is no language fully for the plants.

Beth:

There's no language for anything other than humans, he or she and everything else is an "it" in our language. Um, so it made me really think about, um, honestly my grandparents and my parents when we were younger. They really talk to the plants. They gave them names, they gave their cars names. They really tried to give an inanimate things, titles and names. So we wouldn't give them "it" because in the, um, English language, we only had the plant, the car, but my mom would named her car Kesha, like Kesha, "going to get us to work." But it was always so every time she got a new car, it would take her a few days, but she would give it a name and all her plants had names too. But it made me think about why she did that and, um, how our language doesn't give us really the words. But if you get creative, we can find the words.

Yahdon:

Right on time Camille, welcome to the book club. We've got Camille joining us. So Camille, you came right on time in the prompt section. The prompt is what language. When you read this book, when you go back, what was the language that this book gave you? That helped you see nature, either a new or differently? While you're figuring it out, we'll keep going and come back to you. All right. So Betty, it's on you.

Betty:

Hey everybody. I'm Betty. She, her pronouns. I'm in Providence, Rhode Island. I think around this question, the word that I'm gonna use that stuck with me was reciprocity. A lot of my work is around supporting global social movements. So there's a lot of conversation around the systematic lack of support that folks get. And sometimes it's just going to specific programs, but not for the political education organizing work that folks are doing. When it comes to the sovereignty movements and folks that are growers have been on this land for generations. And so the need for that reciprocity and for folks to continue to listen to each other, as we continue to like try to support this work. Get out of our own way so that we can do the best we can by the folks that are doing this and are defending the land and the water. So I think that that's something that is still ruminating a lot on, and it's, uh, really appreciate that this book has cemented for me.

Camille Dungy:

Okay. Uh, well, I came in right when Beth was talking about the key kin pronoun. And to me, there's just this sense of connection this way in which we have this ability to be connected with so much of the living world. And there's so many ways in which we've blocked ourselves off of, or allowed ourselves to be blocked from those connections. And I love the way that this book reminds me of so many of the ways that those connections are there and valid and sustaining. If we know how to look for them and support them.

Cherelle:

Hi everyone. Thank you for making the space. Okay. A couple of things that stuck out to me, one is on page 19. So it's the question if the wind can be trusted with the Fecund responsibility, why not with messages? And I just loved the reciprocity that is highlighted throughout the parts of the books that I did read and the thought of how powerful it is to think about how things are connected to one another, um, without sound and without the senses that we identify, um, things communicating by. So that's it for me. Thank you

Christy:

I don't remember which chapter it is. Um, but the part where she and her students are in the, um, the river or the lake with, uh, the reads coming up and they're talking about it, like it's a Walmart and they were picking everything that they need, and they're talking about the different, um, the different plants and how they provide for them. And there's always that like, it's out there and if you appreciate nature, it will appreciate back. And it has everything that you need right there. Like a Walmart

Connor:

Yeah. So, um, not, I, I do have one particular passage, but really what stuck with me the most was the concept of the honorable harvest. Um, and just one particular place that it's mentioned is on page 148. Um, so John keeps the tradition of the honorable harvest take only what you need and use everything you take. I know in a couple other instances, uh, it's, it's also discussed, uh, when talking about, you know, never take the first, never take the last, and you know, I'm not someone who gardens, but I've been looking for ways to like put this into practice, like in other aspects of my life. Um, just the concept of like taking only what you need never take the first, never take the last, I feel like that's, that just translates or could translate so well to, I don't know, just how we move through the world so that that's an idea. That's just been coming up in my head repeatedly over the last, like couple of weeks. And I think it will stay with me.

Diana:

Hey, y'all um, I'm Diana I'm in Brooklyn. Um, I guess it's more like a personal attachment that I had from the story in regards to, um, what Beth was saying, how the language of giving the plants, not "it's, "but characterizing it as someone and seeing it as a grammar of animacy. Um, because I recently been learning the Georgia language, which is like my personal heritage and it's also a very old language. Um, and I mean, I don't know much about either, um, Robin's, you know, native indigenous language or Georgian, to be honest, but one interesting thing was in Georgian. If you're saying like, I have a chair it's different than if you say I have a sister and it's like the same exact verb, but there's just like one letter difference. That's so nuanced. And it sort of translates to so much other parts of language too, in regards to living beings and non-living beings and what's categorized. And not which I feel like does not translate. It's like the modern English language, which is the only other one that I really know well, and like Georgian is a really old thing, which is like fourth century, third century, like as an English as much more modern. But I thought also these indigenous languages are also don't have a structure in Georgian doesn't and how these old languages see the world as more of a, a one and a entity that we're having this like, worship with as opposed to like making it, this inanimate being, which I feel like a lot of modern languages might do.

Eggie:

Hello, everyone I'm Eggie I'm in Brooklyn. Um, so the, the part that stood out to me was, um, it was in the council of the Pecans. Um, it says, uh, it's page 15, "if this were true, each tree went through on its own schedule, predictable by the size of its reserves of stored starch. But they don't. If one tree fruits, they all fruit, there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act, not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don't yet know. But what we see is the power of unity, what happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together." um, that connected to me by way of a Jay Z bar.

Eggie:

"No one will fall because we'd all be each other's crutches." Um, so it's kinda like, it made me look at nature as giving you game. I mean, that in combination with the rest of that chapter or that essay, rather, because there was a lot of stuff about like reciprocity, which made me look at Lauryn Hill differently, like the "X factor", it feels like a nature song now. Um, but like just, it's like giving you all this game about how to move like on earth, you know what I mean? Not how to move with societal things, but how to move in general, as outside of whatever structure you're living in.

Errol:

Hey, I'm Errol, in Brooklyn. What really struck me was the book gave me a language is, I think typically, spiritual or mystical, writing doesn't really resonate. Like, I remember "reading war of art" and I found that helpful. But then when the author gets into sort of like talking about music and stuff, that sort of loses me, but with this book, I think she did a very good job of weaving in the science and the spirituality. Like how she talks about the myth of the sky woman how, where we sort of like are part of nature rather than in the origin myth of Genesis, where nature is, is something for us to dominate.

George:

Okay. There were several places in the book, but of course I can only mention one. I'm only going to mention this because it's in the early chapters. This is on page six, talking about sky woman at the very end, before you go to page seven "on one side of the world were people whose relationship with the living world was shaped by Skywoman, who created a garden for the well-being of all. On the other side was another woman with a garden and a tree. But for tasting its fruit, she was banished from the garden and the gates clanged shut behind her. That mother of men was made to wander in the wilderness and earn her bread, by the sweat of her brow, not by filling her mouth with the sweet juicy fruits that bend the branches low. In order to eat, she was instructed to subdue the wilderness into which she was cast."

George:

The reason why this one, this one got me going in the book because growing up, I always blame Adam and Eve for the fate of like, why we are just like the worst. I mean, honestly, I had some religious upbringing that contributes to the craziness but, if they hadn't ate from that garden, the world would be a different place, but it's amazing how the sky woman and how native American culture don't really see the earth and the garden and nature in that same way. And it just completely upended how often I'm like, wow, I wish I had read something like this when I was a kid and not be so like, you know, every day I'm telling you, I used to go to bed at night. Just hating on Adam & Eve for eating that food because i was like they ruined mankind, but now understanding better, like, you know, we created that narrative and what that's done to society to me is why there's probably a disconnect outside of native American culture and other cultures that really see the connection between nature and mankind. This is George and I'm done speaking.

Gerald:

Hey everyone, I'm Gerald, my pronouns are he/they. For me, the passage I'm going to highlight that I really enjoyed, I think just like a lot of folks that have gone already. On page 183 and it's just essentially the italicized section in the honorable harvest, uh, chapter. Um, and I just, I really appreciated it. So I think as simple as it was something that like really resonated, like the way that my family and community raised me, it really kind of succinctly just put into the guidelines for the honorable harvest. So, uh, reading aloud, "Know the ways of the ones who take care of you so that you may take care of them, introduce yourself, be accountable as the one who comes in asking for life ask permission before taking abide by the answer.

Gerald:

Never take the first, never take the last. Take only what you need. Take only that, which is given never take more than half, leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. Use it respectfully never waste what you have taken, share, give things for what you have given, um, get things for what you have been given, give a gift, the reciprocity for what you have taken, sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever." I just really liked how succinct that was in terms of guidelines.

Yahdon:

Appreciate you, Gerald. Um, who else is next? Uh, wait, wait, just alphabetical order thing, Jackie. That's on you, Jackie, you with us? Can you hear me? Okay. Cool. Cool, cool.

Jackie:

I know my, uh, audio was bagging out last time I joined, but I'm here. Um, I'm in San Francisco. Pronouns are She/her. It's been mentioned a couple of times, but I'll maybe take a different angle. Um, the chapter on animacy like just really struck a chord with me personally, as someone who grew up where perhaps it was like a little bit of a split. Um, like my mom would often say like, you know, people who had passed on were kind of reincarnated as animals. And so whether it was a hummingbird, you know, that'd be like my grandmother it's still kind of passing, a human soul onto another being, but I think of, there's some kind of similarity there. Um, and I also really loved the comparison of English and, uh, Potawatomi. I, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly languages in the ratio of nouns to verbs and how they're basically the inverse and how 70% of that indigenous language is our verbs. And so you have to be a bay to be a river, um, and really showing that something can be fluid, which I think is something that like the English language really struggles with. Um, we are, you know, we are one thing and one thing only, and I think that's especially true in American culture as well. And it's, it's so rigid and sort of have this example from, you know, people who've come before us that really highlights that now, like you, you transform, you know, it could be minute by minute, day by day, I thought was really striking

Jake:

Yeah. On page 34, when she's talking about, um, public names and true names. And she says that they have these two, uh, the potawatomi people do. And then she says, true names are used only by intimates and in ceremony. And then towards the end of that paragraph, she says, "when we call a place by its name, it is transformed from wilderness to Homeland. I imagine that this beloved place knew my true name as well. Even when I myself did not." It was just thinking more about the fact that like, when I go into nature, I don't know the names damn near anything. And like, part of it, I think is like living in the city, especially living now with like a smartphone. Like you just never looking around like looking at what the stuff is and like never taking things in. So just to reminder, like people were talking about the respect, like the reciprocity, the idea of like giving back and like respecting nature as a being, um, yeah, I think without naming things, it's hard to have that respect. So that part really stuck with me.

Jamie:

Hi everyone. I'm Jamie. Um, going along kind of a similar theme with everyone here. Um, mine was on page 56. Um, the third paragraph where she says "English, doesn't give us many tools for incorporating respect for animacy. In English, you are either a human or a thing. Our grammar boxes us in by the choice of reducing a non-human being, to an it, or it must be gendered inappropriately, as a he or she. Where are our words for the simple existence of another living being?" Going along to what everyone has said here, just this book has kind of changed how I look at nature and all

Jamie:

Non-human beings. I also, I have a lot of plants and I speak to my plants. So I felt a little validated by that. I also will say, this is the first book where I actually like kind of hugged the book. I found myself kind of hugging it. So definitely a book I want to return to for sure.

Jules:

Hey, y'all, I'm really happy to be here for the first time. Um, I'm Jules I'm based in Oakland, California, New York city native. I'm missing my Brooklyn people right now. I will say that a passage that really stuck out to me was on page 112. For me, the cumulative impact of the Pledge of Allegiance, from my time as a school girl to my adulthood, was the cultivation of cynicism and a sense of the nation's hypocrisy- not the pride it was meant to instill. As I grew to understand the gifts of the earth, I couldn't understand how "love of country" could omit recognition of the actual country itself. The only promise it requires is to a flag. What of the promises to each other and to the land." And I put that in, in sort of conversation and my thinking with the passage on page 28, around what the currency of a gift economy is. And in Western thinking, private land is understood to be a bundle of rights, whereas in a gift economy, property has a bundle of responsibilities attached. So it just, um, I think a lot about democracy, but I've never connected democracy and the ideas of democracy to expand beyond sort of the people of the country to the land of the country and the sort of notion of being in relationship to the land, as in the context of a gift economy, agreeing to a relationship of reciprocity or responsibility.

Kenny:

Okay. How's everyone. Kenny. Pronouns are He/him. Bridgewater, New Jersey. So, uh, there's a lot here, the three sisters, And I guess talk about that chapter or the passage on 140 and she says "Of all the wise teachers who have come into my life, none are more eloquent than these who wordlessly in leaf and vine embody the knowledge of relationship. Alone, a bean is just a vine, a squash an oversize leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge, which transcends the individual." And I thought, they've been here longer than us, and they teach us. Together, we can accomplish more, and thrive as a group and whatever community you're involved with, whether it's a community of two or whatever community you're involved with that that really resonated.

Kate:

What George was saying about the origin stories, the Judeo-Christian origin story and the idea of sky woman. Something that really stuck out for me besides demonizing nature was also demonizing women in those stories, the difference between honoring women and what they bring to a culture. The abundance of them being a beautiful thing. I listened to a lot of this book driving from Northern California down to LA, with my kids through the central valley. And just looking at the way that crops are grown and feed lots and her talking about sending her daughter off to college with tears streaming down my face. Seeing the way that we have "conquered the land" throughout the central valley. I kept coming back to page 26. It is the Cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchanged that a gift establishes a feeling bond between two people. And knowing that in that chapter, she's talking about strawberries as people as, as living beings. Um, I just thought that line is so beautiful.

Kenyatta:

Hello, my name is Kenyatta and I'm from Brooklyn. From what I've read it just flows like poetry. I mean, just the stories, the language, the imagery that she just kind of wove into her stories. And you know, about some of the indigenous story, it was just beautifully woven. One thing that's stood out for me was this notion of the gift economy versus kind of prosperity like property economy. And this was in the "gift of strawberries", but it was really woven throughout. "Many of the stories from the viewpoint of a private property economy, the gift is deemed to be free because we obtain it free of charge at no cost, but the gift economy gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is at its root reciprocity and Western thinking private land is understood to be a bundle of rights, whereas in the gift economy, property has a bundle of responsibilities attached." That really stood out for me and allowed these stories because I could connect to learning and growing up around the understanding of our responsibility as humans to not take more than we need to pour back into nature.

Kenyatta:

And I thought that was interesting, that distinction. And I hadn't really considered the two different variations of that space, but I thought it was really powerful, how she kind of wove this theme throughout the stories going to the market and people giving stuff away for free because they didn't own it. And just that notion of, we don't own this, we're just giving this and sharing this with other people and that sense of community. And I thought that was a beautiful theme that, that kept showing up throughout the book.

Kourtney:

Hi, I'm Kourtney. My pronouns are she/her and I'm from Brooklyn. I'm refereeing my dogs who are fighting right now, play fighting, say, hi, boys. Sorry. What stuck out to me was the notion of intelligence. It was the chapter about, pecans and how modern scientists have always said that trees can't feel and can't communicate because they lack the ability to do so the way animals do.

Maybe. Yeah, but only recently have we started to understand the notion of trees releasing pheromones and pollen, being able to tell the story about health of trees and plants. Do we start to understand, okay, maybe plants have an intelligence that we can't quite decipher, there's genius in everything. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live his whole life believing that it is stupid. I liked that part the best.

Kristin:

Yeah. I had to go to the allegiance to gratitude chapter because I think that for me was the one that just totally struck me. She talks about gratitude being almost a revolutionary act in a society that is based on scarcity. As you had talked about you, Yahdon, and how gratitude can almost become like a verb. We show our gratitude by showing reciprocity when she says cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity on page 115, "each person human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship, just as all beings have a duty to me. I have a duty to them. If an animal gives it's life to feed me, I am in turn bound to support its life. That's like the revolution that I could get behind, you know, and in terms of like how I think about gratitude, not just having gratitude to feel good, but gratitude as a responsibility, to the relationships around us, both, plant animal, rock and human.

Leba:

Hi everybody. she/her I'm in LA, but I'm coming back to Brooklyn, so excited. We're moving back. I also was really moved by the pecans, but I decided to share something else. Cause Kourtney had shared a part that I really liked about the pecan.the wisdom of the trees, it's in the epilogue it's page 383. It says "our elders say that ceremony is the way we can remember to remember. In the dance of the giveaway. Remember that the earth is a gift that we must pass on just as it came to us. When we forget the dances we'll need, will be for mourning for the passing of polar bears, the silence of the cranes for the death of rivers and the memory of snow." And then a little further down, she says "more than anything. I want to hear a great song of thanks, rise on the wind. I think that song might save us." And I picked the passage because I really loved, the way she woven legend and ceremony and spirituality with the science and storytelling. And I think the ending on this note about ceremony felt really important to me. So I like that.

Yahdon:

Appreciate you. Maggie on you.

Maggie:

Hi, I'm Maggie. She/her usually in Brooklyn this evening on the road with my wife. Yeah, I'll just say quickly. Thank you. Sorry. Uh, I really appreciated her talking about restoration the way that she did.

Melissa:

Melissa. Hey everyone. I'm Melissa. I'm in LA. Everybody's said all the good things. That's the trouble with going at the end. I already have shared a lot of similar feelings towards nature, as Robin did and as she describes. I was thinking about maybe using that more so in my own language. When I was reading in the beginning, right in the very beginning, when she says she surveys all of the students in our class and she asks, what's a positive interaction you've had with nature and they say none. Um, I was like, oh, I

Melissa:

Like, nature's where I go. If I want to feel grounded, especially during lockdown, like that's all I was doing in LA, just being in nature, even the way I described interacting with nature to my son. Like, I'm very purposeful about it.

Melissa:

Reading that and I was thinking, some of my friends that I interact with that probably have like negative interactions or perceived negative interactions with nature. So maybe being more aware of like my relationship to nature, is really what kind of connected with me.

Sally:

Hi everyone. And thank you. Yahdon. Good to see you. Um, so this is, I'm sure I have been introduced to new language and I'm not done with the book. So hopefully that question will be in my head as I read further. This passage is a good example of, I thought a lot about specificity and seeing the parts of nature. This page 89 second paragraph, "I developed a new relationship with mud instead of trying to protect myself from it. I became oblivious to it, noticing its presence. Only when I would go back to the house and see strands of algae caught in my hair or the water in the shower turning decidedly brown. I came to know the feel of the gravelly bottom below the muck, the sucking mud by the cattails and the cold stillness where the bottom dropped away from the shallows. Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge." Which is so true, but just the author, what I have read, she's just so specifically seeing all the parts of nature that just giving visibility, that every little part. And I also have add, I'm from, in Minneapolis and I just now noticed this is a milkweed edition, which is a small press here in Minneapolis. So that was fun to see. Good to see all of you all.

Syreeta:

What's going on Y'all? Syreeta. I'm in Jamaica, Queens. Pronouns, She/Her. To keep it a buck. I mean, Yahdon said this earlier, when people didn't read the book, honestly, didn't read the book, but, shout out to y'all because the language matters. And so when Gerald had mentioned this piece on 183, which I will reread, I automatically thought of the word gratitude. If I believe in nothing else in the world, I believe in gratitude. I'm gonna share why in four seconds after reread this joint, because it was a hit again, I'm on 183. The italicized portion, sorry, I sound like four days ago. I think I got the flu or the coodies or whatever. "Know, the ways of the ones who take care of you so that you may take care of them. Introduce yourself, be accountable as the one who comes asking for life, ask permission before taking abide by the answer. Never take the first, never take the last. Take only what you need. Take only that, which is given never take more than half. Leave some for others, harvest in a way that minimizes harm use it respectfully never waste what you have taken. Share. Give thanks for what you have been given, give a gift and reciprocity for what you have taken, sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever." I don't know if it's because I'm from New York city. I'm like nature. Nah, I'm good with going outside. Like I heard crickets, at like five years old and I was like, I don't know what the hell is that, but y'all could catch me in the house watching TV. So I have a very fascinating relationship with nature.

Syreeta:

I'm like bugs don't really do that at all. I just started not killing lady bugs. Outside of that, everything has to go. But just that passage, um, and Eggie talking about this in relation to Jay and someone else said it in relation to Lauryn Hill. So I'm like, oh music, great gratitude. So now just from that one passage and hearing, the good situation that this book shared on you all now, I will actively read the book. So I am grateful gratitude, just full circle moment. So that is the language that I am taking from this particular, section

Yahdon:

You know what? I was just seeing Eddie just saying, this is the most Book Clubby moment of book clubby moments. And that's the reason why I always insist that people don't read the books to come, because there's these spontaneous moments. Like the one that Syreeta just experienced where it's like, if she's not here to hear somebody connect this book to Jay and Lauryn, does she continue to read the book? Because you know, at the end of the day, it's really also about like the fact that these books are going to be with you, even if the book club isn't. So it's about that revisitation. It's about opening those books and it's by having context to do so. It was a beautiful thing.

Tsahai:

I'm upstate New York, pronouns are she/her/hers. When I started the book, I usually start the books on audible until they come in the mail. When the physical book came, I started over from the beginning and this paragraph stood out to me. The Council of Pecans on page 17, the last paragraph where it says children language lands. So the word that paragraph like provoked this thought about what does belonging really mean in the sense of ownership? Right? And it made me look at the world and nature and land. And no, this is ours, but it's not. Um, it's here for us and we claim ownership on it. We do real estate. We come from other parts of the world and wipe out entire peoples, just to say, I like this spot. I'm going to take it.

Tsahai:

It's not your it's no more. Um, it really had me thinking heavy on belonging, the paragraphs says "children, language lands, almost everything was stripped away stolen when you weren't looking because you were trying to stay alive in the face of such loss. One thing our people could not surrender. It was the meaning of land in the settler mind." I would have used a different word, but okay. "In the settler mine land was property real estate capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our non-human kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Um, the sentence that really struck me as closer to the end, um, where she goes on to say "whether it was their Homeland or the new land forced upon them, land held in common, gave people strength. It gave them something to fight for, and that's what the federal government was afraid of. So it really had me thinking about what does owning something really mean and rules and laws, and it just sent me in that direction.

Alejandra:

Thank you so much. Um, hi everyone. And I'm in New York. Pronouns, She/her. So I think the language of parenthood. I'm relatively a new mom, I have a two year old, I think two is right around the time where I've started, like really actively parenting. I think before that it's just kind of like survival every day. Um, but the allegiance to gratitude chapter, I know the prompt was like about language on how we see nature, but Robin gave me the language and values to instill in my daughter that I've been looking for. That entire chapter is something that I will share with my children and with my family and take with me far beyond this book. But in terms of the language of motherhood or parenting it's, you know, I think the idea, like I have plants, friends of mine have plants.

Alejandra:

They refer to them as their babies, as their children. That's not new. Um, but the, the idea that plants could be parents to us and that we could seek, or that nature could give us that nurturing when we need it in the way that we look to family. I guess it's the language of like relationship and that has just completely opened my eyes to the way that I relate with nature and see nature and how I hope, um, to have my family relate to nature. Um, so that was, that was something new, new for me.

Kristin K.:

Hi everyone. It's been a long time. I really appreciated the reflecting on what nature has to offer us and just the kind of very capitalistic mentality that we've taken on. What we can take and it's really about our own selfishness. How we've really affected the world. I didn't get through much of the book, but that's really what I pulled through in the first few chapters. But, now I'm inspired to read that one chapter Alejandra, because I want to feel what you felt.

Yahdon:

All right. Y'all so I appreciate y'all for participating. So one of the things that I've been thinking about in terms of even this, this language of how we think about nature. I think about the bad PR that people who love nature have gotten. Like, I remember growing up and seeing how popular culture will represent people who love nature as like, kind of being quote unquote "weirdos," people who were like, not if I could think about anything about the way in which popular culture and media represented, people who were connected to nature was almost like, it was almost like being impractical. "Tree Huggers" And one of the things that this book has provided me was people who weren't like rooted in any real way to the world and white, but it's just like, it's just like they were white.

Yahdon):

Like it was just, they were mostly white. And so it was and Camille and I have been talking about this a lot, like the language that a book like, um, Robin Wall Kimmerer provided for me in this context was like, how much of the principles of this book I had already had in my life that I didn't know were rooted in something that was larger than myself. But I just felt like that, not even, it wasn't even a deep feeling. It was like something I thought that was born out of a link out of a culture of poverty. And I see that actually so much of what I thought was born out of poverty was actually a culture of abundance, but in a capitalist context, I thought of it as poverty. So I don't know, like then that's, I think a lot of people talked about the, um, the whole language in and around like the gifts.

Yahdon:

And I think about like growing up on section eight and welfare and like having that interconnected network of families who like, I would get sent next door to go borrow some sugar and then we would have to, you know, it was like, we all depend on one another. And I remember just thinking that poverty like that wealth was not having to depend on people anymore. And so when I read that chapter on the gift of strawberries in different chapters, I'm like, oh. Like if my concept of wealth is not needing people or not wanting to need, then what am I actually expressing? And it just like, this book really shifted, not even shifted, but it's continuing.What I'm trying to convey. What I am actually trying to grapple with is like, with all of the things that I'm reading in these books that challenging my notions of the type of trajectory I want for myself.

Yahdon:

It's like, do I even get a 401k plan anymore? Like, do I invest in the future now? Like, I'm trying to understand how do I reconcile all of which that I know now about how, the ways in which we invest into capitalist structures, disenfranchised and disempowered, not just other people, but also ourselves against, so then how do I make sense of living in one? How do I responsibly and practically set out? I'm in a position where it's like, I don't even know what to do with what information I have. I don't know if that's been anybody else's grappling, but that's been mine. If anybody else wanna speak to it.

Kristin:

One of the ways that I've seen this come up, um, friends of mine are basically, they bought some land together and, um, this land can't be subdivided. So if they want to live on this land, they have to go into, what's called a tenancy in common. And every advice that they've gotten has been like this is financially a terrible idea. And it made me think about, uh, I guess thinking about things in a currency, that's no longer about like investments or capitalism, but like they're investing in this like life to be near each other on this beautiful land that they bought in upstate New York. And I'm just thinking about how much, how narrow I think, our thinking is on what is valued. Um, and it's like relationships kind of go to the bottom of the list. A community kind of goes to the bottom of the list, um, when it comes time to really think about like the systematic investments that like what you do with your money in life and where you put it. Um, and I don't know. I just think that there's like a real, it's really hard to step outside and risk. Um, kind of like you said, like the 401k thing, like, I don't know, like how do we, how do we invest more in, how do we actually invest more in people in communities when like the entire system that we work under is not that, um, which is what I was having a hard time with.

Yahdon:

Right. Appreciate you. George and then Amina.

George:

It's so funny. You should say that because as I read the book, I thought about like really how my daughter and I have, we we've lived for, we've always loved walking, you know, with nature, like when we lived in Chicago, we loved walking on the lake. We lived near the lake or we've traveled. We've always gone to like botanical gardens or like gardens. And now that we live in Brooklyn near a park and it's so great because I'm like, wow and those are calming. Those are calming experience for us. Like the conversation is great, it's relaxing. And just to be out in nature, I'm so envious of those who have lived their lives with the traditions. And one of the chapters where she talked about how that a tradition of, of where they would go, I think to this camp, you know, and the rituals they would experience.

George:

She thought it was historical, but it's really how your dad started doing it. But, um, it's interesting. My daughter is actually reading this book. She was reading this book before we started reading it. So I was just blown away that this was, you know, a book that was, again, another bonding experience for us. Then my last point, there was an article in the journal talking about becoming the best friend of a tree. And it's crazy. That's article. I read that article, reading this book, and it says a tree should be your bestie, find a tree and doing the, uh, the heyday of COVID. When I had to go workout in the park, near my house, there was a tree that was the shade for me. And I love this tree. I mean, well, this tree provided shade and I could go sit under this tree.

George:

I could recover under this tree. So we were walking the other day. I'm like, that tree is my best and I haven't officially named the tree yet. But in looking at that tree yesterday, I notice things about the tree, I'd never noticed before. I'm telling you this article is actually because it says it's calming for your spirit. It's an emotional experience to have that kind of a relationship with the bestie and the bestie being a tree. So those are just a couple of points I wanted to mention.

Amina:

All right. So, a lot of things. I did actually name a tree that was funny, cause I was like a joke in my family that I would, like, I wrote down that I like named the tree across the street. And, it was so many things about this book that I remembered like maybe six, seven years ago, I started playing. Cause I really believe that one day I'm gonna sustain life and I'm going to live off the land, but you know, I'm in Philly. Like we're in the city. I have no garden. You know how city living is, you just have a little urban little pots in font of the house. Like I'm going to live off of live off of tomatoes, growing in a pot. That's not going to happen.

Amina:

And they would keep dying. My husband used to say, your energy is not right. And then recently he would be like the last three, four years. He was like, yeah, your mind is right. Your energy is better. And as your energy is good, your plants are showing your energy through that. And this book just reminded me of him over and over again about how he would say, see when you get your mind right and your soul right, then everything else is right. And so it was like after he passed that one month, many of my plants died because then I was like, I gotta get it back because I gotta get my energy right. And like, it was just that. And I thought, when she talks about reciprocity, it's like, I was talking to my mom always talked to the plants and just to say, like, I accept you.

Amina:

I love you. I, you know, I want to thank you. You feed me, you nurture me. And I grow from you because you know. And that just reminded me of the book "Sing unburied, Sing." It made me think of that too. And how like, um, our, our culture is always, you know, use herbs and plants and things to heal. And, um, Western medicine has created these chemicals that are not natural to our body when these natural things right in the earth. And she was talking about how all these natural healers are just right here in front of us. So that was like so many things in this book. I think this might be my favorite book of 2021. Yeah, it might, I don't know. This one was definitely the top of it.

Jules:

Yeah. Um, I really love the question that you posed to us. Yahdon about how can we practically live essentially in resistance to capitalism when it's all around us. And, um, and it can be so seductive. And I was really moved by a book, um, called "How we show up" by Mia Birdsong last year. She basically really examines the sort of myth of the American dream as the underpinnings of capitalism and demonstrates for the whole book, different models for living. The focus is basically living in community in a really expansive sense of that and different models for doing that. Thinking beyond the nuclear family, to chosen family and thinking beyond, you know, property to share, interdependent living. She's very cognizant of in the book sort of holding these models from primarily traditions outside of white supremacists, capitalists, et cetera. So anyway, I just thought, putting another book out there for either those who are interested in, some examples, or maybe Yahdon you want to consider it for the book club.

Eggie:

I don't have a relationship with plants, or nature in general, like that. So it's not something that calls me, but the style of living that she described is very familiar. I grew up mad at my parents because they were cool with being broke. You know what I mean? Like, it was like, they wasn't doing. Like they was cool with it. But at the same time, when I look back at it, I feel I never went without. So the whole talk about abundance, the feast and famine, but doing it all together, resonated in terms of how we all got along and our community, you know what I mean?

Eggie:

My uncles, my cousins, my play cousins, it was feast to famine, but it was so many of us doing it at the same time that you never really felt like we was going without. Like, yo she's got mad game. That's kinda like, yo, you looking at shit different. You're looking at, like in terms of capitalism and all of that, to me, I gotta get outta this. I gotta get some money get out of here. But there was so many things to learn there that putting it through this lens, how we examine those things and just like creating a new language for what was actually going on when I wasn't paying attention. You know what I mean?

Jackie:

So one thing I wanted to circle back to that you mentioned Yahdon is, how pop culture has in the past been like, oh, "tree huggers", "granola." I think someone mentioned like, someone's really crunchy, but I almost feel like now in like, maybe this is more like Instagram culture, but there's this new, like, it is very capitalist, like "green", like "green person." Right. Then it's still like driven to spend a lot of money. So, uh, like, you know, whether it's like you're buying a lot of turmeric to like lower inflammation and turmeric is great, like not hitting on turmeric, but it's more just like the, the vessel in which it's being sold to us and fed to us is so much more just about like buy stuff. Like you do this and you will be healthy. Um, just like, you know, pharmaceuticals always have been. Um, but it's so disconnected from nature and from like the heritage and like the cultures that have brought this to us, I think in a lot of ways, like sometimes like yoga is kind of given to us in that way. It's like, it's very, white washed.

Jackie:

So this book really made me question that even further up, like how can we each get to understand where all these things come from, we live in a very globalized country. We have access to pretty much anything. Um, you know, which is incredible. But at the same time, like beyond like, you know, that shop front, I think it's, it's really difficult to connect. And so this book does such a wonderful job at drawing, drawing those connections back. Like I love the chapter on witch hazel as well. Um, so it just calls into question of wondering how can we really dive in? How can we find the origin story, or at least learn more about the cultures in which we buy these products from ensure that we're buying them from the right growers or providers, um, rather than just kind of continuing to funnel money into those billionaires and such.

Yahdon:

Appreciate you for adding that to the conversation, Betty. And then before you go, Jared I'm to say something and then Betty is on you.

Betty:

Um, so, uh, oh gosh. I'm like just thinking about, um, a lot of different comments triggered, like just like the anger at there's a lot of situations I feel like that are happening right now where indigenous people are having to buy their land off of white people. Right? Like, there's this constant, like the white folks have bought this land. And like, now that the indigenous folks are like, we're here, we've lived here. Like, why do we have to fundraise crowdfund, like millions of dollars in order for us to claim the land that's rightfully ours. And I think that this is happening, here in the Northeast. I've heard of a case in the Caribbean, like there's a constant, um, like the commodification of like making land into resorts, right. Or making land like sexy. And it's like, well, there's people that want to work on the land and grow the land and live on the land.

Betty:

But instead you're making it difficult for those folks that would want this. And like, when folks are trying to find growers and folks that are living on the land to support, they're not there because like white folks are just taking up space where they shouldn't be taking up space. I don't know what my point is, but it's something I'm really angry about that has continued to happen. I was like, nah. Like that needs to be continuously called out because it's something that's a trend, right. That's continuing to happen and being lifted up right now. And I think like there's so much that should be done. And it's difficult that like folks are putting land for sale to people that were the original, like their ancestors. There are the people that were on that land first. So it's just like, that's just a wild concept to me. And I'm like, huh. So, yeah, I don't have a point, but I just wanted to share that.

Yahdon:

What you, I would say what she's sharing is insightful because when I come back to this whole notion of like, what I'm trying to grapple with is like, even these narratives that our country, the country, that in which we live of the U S with the rags to riches narrative, and like, I've been resisting telling even like the quote unquote, like, "oh, I used to do this. Now I do that." What this book has enabled me to do, in addition to what I've already been doing, is fortified me with giving language to my childhood in which I saw that I always had abundance to which, what Eggie said, that when I think about the lack that I described in my life, I'm not describing actual things that I needed to live. I'm describing things that I wanted to have.

Yahdon:

And so what that then requires me to do is then to change the way I think about even where I am in my life now. Right. It's like, oh, I'm a senior editor at Simon and Schuster, but like, what does that actually mean? In context to like the way in which the life I lived, like, I think about the life I live now as a senior editor and I'm like, yo, it's actually a lot lonelier. And I think that's more that has to do more with the pandemic, gentrification, other things where like a lot of the people I grew up with, I don't even have access to because the ways in which the people I grew up with are displaced and they live in different places. The communities that I grew up with in quote, unquote "poverty", um, felt more, I recognize as having wealth that I could not actually put a price on.

Yahdon:

And what I'm trying to constantly reconcile is like, okay, like as a black man in America, who has, what is it like, you know. I have a life insurance policy, dude. Who'd be like, "oh, you know, it's a genocide happening with black people in this country." And he'll say things like, "you know, the average black person in the country dies with 10, like a hundred times less net worth than a white person." And I'm trying to like reconcile that with like, "what's the price of that wealth though?" And at the same time as like, but I have a daughter, you know, do I get the job with good healthcare? That is also, but then is that actually helping to plan? Like, that's where I am in my own personal struggle of like what parts of it do I take in?

Yahdon:

It's like, how do I reconcile the principles that I want to live by, with the reality in which I live? And like, that's the best way to describe it. And it's like, I recognize one of the things that I've been appreciative about a book like this is that, I can't do this in a vacuum. Right. So I can't do it individually. Right. And I think that, like, that's one of the things that like a narrative like Robin Wall Kimmer's book has disabused me of his thinking that like, I could arrive at this reckoning alone, but it's something in which to process in a community of people, for whom not only I depend on, but even the way I think of dependency has to then shift about like one of the things I know not having money and I'm not even gonna use the word poverty, not having money created was a complex of having to need people.

Yahdon:

And so when I read a book like this, where like everybody needs everybody, I'm like, oh. Like, it's almost like, kind of like looking at your GPS and realize that you went the wrong way. I gotta turn back around and then go back the other way. And that's really what I've been doing with this book is like, oh man, like I spent a lot of time thinking that I was on this trajectory of progress and I'm like progress on whose terms? Progress to what ends? Who does this language of Ascension benefit? Does it benefit? Not just me individually, but does it benefit the communities in which I care about? And then also I got to start thinking about bugs and plants and all this other stuff. I'm like, oh man, like, this is, it's expanding my notion of how I think about myself in the world, but then what it means, it's just challenges. So like, what do I do when I wake up in the morning? Like, do I like, do I go to work today? All of what I'm learning is like, what do I do with the information I'm learning? So that really has been what I've been navigating personally. Like what do I do with all this information and not as if I'm looking for an answer, but I'm looking personally for how to put these things into a sustainable practice. Gerald, it's on you homie.

Gerald:

I'll make this quick just because I'm whipping up something in the kitchen. I want to uplift a lot of that, like, you know, that Yahdon, that you pointed out that, Betty pointed out, to Eggie. Yeah. I think this book just sort of like reminds me of growing up. Yeah. We use a language of working class, you know, impoverished communities are under-resourced and yes, I can. I'm aware of that, but I appreciate it about how this book did remind me to the point Yahdon that you, you mentioned about the abundance that I was living in. You know, there are times where I look back at my life and like had this scarcity mindset, I don't, we don't have enough, but like there were like small things that I appreciated that I was like surrounded by. I remember particular moments that my mom would like pull up in the kitchen and really cooking something in the kitchen.

Gerald:

And she would be like, go over to so-and-so's house and you ask them for some eggs or some milk. And that would be like, there's always that reliable, like community connection that, you know, like who to hit up, if you need to, like, you need something as simple as sugar, or you need some eggs, like, because like the paycheck didn't like roll through that Friday. So you knew who to hit up to like have that Sunday meal that felt abundant. Right. And that I can think back of so many moments of like, I'll, it wasn't that we didn't have enough. It was like, we were like surrounded by it. And that was always rooted in a relationship that we had with somebody in the community. Right. Um, and that, that's something that, you know, Eggie, to even just thinking about like a childhood that you had and that'd be a spark, a rekindle and remembering that abundance that you don't have, you're pointing out. Betty to your point.

Gerald:

I feel you on, it's just like asking the question, like it's nothing new, right? Like when you think about particularly, this country, we think about using the language of this country, as a sort of island like who owns the land? Then the notion I put on in quotes, like the fact that like that, and they have questions, like the notion of you own it is, is absurd. Right. And like, we can, I can make a long list of course, of like, you know, treaties that were like, and land that was quote unquote "sold" for like this amount. But I appreciate that reclaiming that reframing. I think what it's, that Yahdon to your point. I don't know.

Gerald:

It's not a solution, but I think to the idea of living into our principles and aligning that with the realities in which we live in, um, yeah, there's, there's so much that I think about that isn't alignment. We just like thinking about, the come up and level up, or like when you're sitting there, like where in roles that are like, you know, making an income. That's just like people that I know, like it's hard to even. I have yet to have a 401k. I remember having a conversation with my dad, like, "make that a goal. Make that 401k so that you just have a net." Right. And I knew that it was like alluding to just like, you know, that sense of security. And I also am in a place where is that really what I want to aspire to, you know?

Gerald:

Right. Like, is that really meaningful? These are rhetorical questions for me, but I'm in a place in my life where I do know with clarity that I want to live a principled life. That is true to me. And I do also want to do that community. And I think that is so important to me in thinking about the relationships that I want to be rooted in. So, there's clear things that I'm thinking about. What does redistribution look like? My goal, I remember like making it, "oh, I need something big to put in my savings account. Like five or four digits." I remember that was a goal for a really long time and I knew that was like part rooted in a place of scarcity.

Gerald:

Like there's not enough to go around. So I got to make sure that I'm good. Does that really give me meaning in a real way? I'm thinking about the ways that I'm putting into practice right now. Moving away from the abstract, because I know that Book Club can offer space for really getting into the intellectual rigors. But I also like really trying to challenge myself and getting more concrete, so something that's coming to mind is going back to this story. My mom would say, go over to so-and-so's house to grab some eggs. Like the notion of sharing, communal sharing is a thing that we can do here now. Even the notion about being more plant oriented and even if you grew up in a city, so I grew up in a city, I used to have the thinking of, "oh, I got to go out to like nature.

Gerald:

I got to go out into the woods." Like I had to leave the place. But even that rhetoric or that language really creates a distancing already from the land that we already are on. I think this is why we're seeing such a cultural resurgence or like, reframing about like, when we introduce ourselves, right. We're saying gender pronouns, right. How we introduced yourselves, we make reference to place. And even being able to adopt in our everyday vernacular, what land do you occupy? Right. Unless you were like native to this land, each of us is like in one form or another, or were brought over here. And this is why, this notion of being aware. What is the space that I occupied and am I taking the time to go look into that? I'm going to pause there, to the notion of what land you occupy. I'll put this in the chat, but look up the app, "native app," which is made by native designers. And you can just put your address and you'll just get a dataset of what native land that you're on anywhere. Specific to the U.S., as a resource here. But those are just some of my free thoughts. On the fly.

Yahdon:

I appreciate something that you brought up was about this whole notion of like native. And I remember I'm trying to, I'm actually looking for it right now. I'm going to have to come to you, Alejandra Kate and then Connor. Um, but there's a notion of when even Robin calls to it, I think it's in the learning. I think it's in the chapter of "learning the grammar of intimacy," or maybe it's a chapter before I'm going to, I'm going to continue to look for it. But what I know about the language is that she talks about the fact that native is not about ownership. It's about, do you take the responsibility of the gift that the land has given? What makes you a native is not, if you were born there that has to do with nation rights, which has to do with property rights was, has to do with a lot of the things that we were already trying to dismantle. Native rights is about do you take the responsibility of the gift that the land has given you? Do you feel responsible for what's around you and who's around you? Um, and that even like, it's interesting, like I've also been grappling. This is the last thing I'll say. I've also been grappling with like, so before the pandemic I lived in "bedstuy" black neighborhood, I grew up in for most of my life. I moved there at six and the way that community operated there is very different than where I live now in Carroll Gardens. So for example, there's a whole foods down the block from my house and there's this refrigerator in which you can put food into. It's a place you could put food into and people could take food and things like that.

Yahdon:

And yet the people in this community don't say hi to one another. I walked down a block and I'll say, hi, and people will look at me like, "why are they talking to me?" And yet in Bedstuy, there is nothing like that refrigerator. And yet there's still a sense of people feel more comfortable in that community to reach out in ways that make them really vulnerable to another person. And I've been grappling with what it means to move into a quote unquote, what we considered to be a quote unquote, "better neighborhood", where there's more resources and there's more access to organic food and fruits, and there's this notion of a community, but then there's really not the feeling of one versus there's the feeling of one, but there's not all these performances of one. And all of the things I've been working through is once again, the word of the day for me is reconciling all these different things that I've been navigating. Which is what? As opposed to, there has to be this sort of binary of black and white, but I'm trying to make sense of. What this book is giving me is language in which to understand how I understand community and my connections to things, to people and persons around me.

Yahdon :

 Alejandra and Kate and Connor.

Alejandra:

So I was struck by Jackie's comments. And I just wanted to build on that real quick. Robin wrote about the way that sustainability and health has been packaged and message has been packaged to us by industry and organizations. And, that kind of came up in the "honorable harvest," you know, on page 190, when she was talking about, her friend, Carol, the Algonquin ecologist who was seeking permission from her tribal council to go to a sustainability conference. And they're like, "what do you mean?" Like, what is sustainable development? That sounds to me, like they just want to be able to keep taking, like they always have, it's always about taking. That's really how I feel like the language of sustainability and how we talk about conservation and climate change and global warming.

Alejandra:

And all of that is really like how can we feel better about doing what we've already been doing? That's what I feel like sustainability has really become. It's become this commercialized thing. I think about this all the time. We're not going to just shop our way to like a more sustainable and equitable world. It's just not going to happen. And Robin talked about one call to action and what she refers to as a piece of the puzzle is voting with our dollars buying local. That's important, but I just love the way that Robin wrote this book, where she weaves in these, the calls to action into how we're supposed to fundamentally live our life and change who we kind of are and how we relate to one another and the world and the earth, fundamentally. Not just, "here's a step that you can take towards living a more sustainable life." It's like, you have to change who you are and how you see the world and how you engage with it and teach your children that. Then she also talks about like being more active civically and politically, that's also a really important piece of the puzzle. And I feel like the same way that someone might prioritize, like going to the gym. Like we have to prioritize showing up in our communities and building those relationships in our communities. Have that cohesive narrative, that we're all working towards. Robin has given us the language to all collectively articulate what we want this world to be. Who we should be to each other and to one another. I want to see more of that message and that narrative everywhere. Has anyone like put this book down and couldn't walk into a supermarket for a week? I couldn't talk to someone who hadn't read this book for awhile. Cause it's just completely changed the way that I see the...okay, bye existential crisis. Bye.

Yahdon:

That's the best way to describe it as an existential crisis. Kate then Connor and Kenny

Kate:

I wanted to build on what Alejandra was saying about supermarkets and what Robin says in the book about buying locally and tie it back into the questions on having a 401k and being able to leave something for your daughter. And I think all of these things, we can look at the local market economy, right. The food pantries and what this stuff does to a community. But then when we start looking at 401ks and we start thinking about our kids, it's where is your bank investing its money? No matter how little amount of money you're making it matters to Wells Fargo or Chase. They get to put that money into building a pipeline through indigenous territories right now in Minnesota, they're doing it. So pull your money out of the bank that on a larger global scale is impacting our environments. We have that power and that's the thing I feel myself doing. I will not be buying water ever again in a plastic bottle. That's just not happening. I'm not buying non-organic fruit. And if I have money left over, it will go into a 401k that is invested in exchanges that are environmentally friendly and supportive of community in both global scale.

Yahdon:

Can I ask you a real quick question, Kate, before we go to Connor? Define The concept of your money? Cause I find it like, it's almost like an oxymoronic, like it's "your bank," right? Because it creates this false notion of that we own the bank in which we put quote, unquote, "our money in", when we, I know that I don't own the bank.

Kate:

You influence the bank.

Yahdon:

Right. What I'm saying is what is the language that reflects influence as opposed to ownership? I'm not asking you to come up with it right now.

Kate:

I'm trying to understand the question, I guess.

Yahdon:

I think that what I'm asking is, when you say like one of the things you said that like made my antennas stand up is when you said the thing about "your bank." And I'm recognizing that I see the type of agency that you're describing is not reflective of the reality in which...

Kate:

In a collective way though. Don't you think it becomes reflective of that? If, then "we" can have that bank

Yahdon:

I agree in the abstract, what I will say is I grew up on section 8 welfare. I grew up going to check cashing places more than even a bank. The concept of a bank is new to me. So, I'm really grappling with, I came into sort of benefiting from capitalism at a time where I'm learning language that this ain't the wave. So it's kind of like getting into a party that you just heard is ending in 30 minutes. But I just got here. So I'm really honestly just expressing what I'm navigating a lot right now.

Kate:

No i get it, I opened my first 401k this year. I understand. Like where's the money going when this money is growing and I'm not looking, what is it growing on? I'm thinking about her Sweetgrass idea. If we pull our money out of the banks that are overgrowing. Chase, Wells Fargo, like you can reduce their power by putting your money in ally or else, into stocks and exchanges. I mean, unfortunately capitalism is the system that we live in and if we're going to move it closer to socialism, which is my hope about moving, spreading the money around.

Yahdon:

Yeah. Yeah, this is a conversation that extends beyond Book Club. I understand that. Connor, Kenny then Cherelle.

Connor:

Yeah, I just wanted to pose, I hope this doesn't derail the discussion. So if anyone wants to answer, I guess just feel free to post this in the chat, but, some of the stuff that you had mentioned Yahdon about, how the struggle of like trying to align our principles of what we do in our everyday lives. And I know others have touched on this as well. It got me thinking about a quote. That's on the end of the second paragraph on page 152, where the author is talking about, what's, what's the responsibility of those of us who, who read and write, you know, how, how do we reconcile what, what has been given to produce this book or produce the paper in our hands and how do we give back to that? It just got me wondering, for those of you here who consider yourself to be bibliophiles or writers, has this book changed the way in which you, you view the act of reading or the act of writing? And has it altered or at least made you think about "how do I give back?" How do I appreciate what was used to produce this, but also give back in a meaningful way.

Yahdon:

Let me ask you for you kind of like when you think, when you, how do you, how do you unpack the word meaningful for yourself personally? Just like when you think about meaningful, what becomes a meaningful way in which you're grappling with giving what that looks like for you?

Connor:

Yeah, no, that's a fair question. I'm not someone who considers myself to be a writer. I mean, I guess I'm a bibliophile. I enjoy the act of reading, but to be honest, I am trying to kind of weigh in my own mind. How is there a way that I can repay I suppose, or give back? I don't know because I look at the book in my hand, right. And it's like, well, this book is made from trees right. You know, as with the stack of books that I have next to my bed on my bookshelf. And it's like, how can I give back to that? And frankly, I'm, I'm struggling with that. Cause I don't really know. I feel like if maybe I were a writer and I was actually producing something, the answer may come a little bit more easily. Right. I almost feel a little guilty because I feel I'm just consuming. Right. To answer your question, I'm not sure yet, I'm still trying to figure that out for myself.

Yahdon:

I appreciate that. This is a space where I don't necessarily ask the question because I want an answer. This is a space where I'm like, you see, I'm all messed up in the game. I'm all lost in thoughts. I'm trying to figure everything, not even to try to figure things out, but trying to record, and make sense of what do I do, with what I have and what I understand now. That's really the hardest part.

Kenny:

I can say, well, I am still trying to figure things out. I will say that looking at the list, reading the book, trying to get these lessons and that reciprocity really, really rung with me. So, you know, wherever I am, and I guess the point is, he fact that taking and taking and taking just leaves in case of the plants, the place barren. So the fact that reciprocity for me is really big. I have to say, I guess the "Thanksgiving address" I think was everything for me. The other day I was out, it was a wooded area and I'm looking at the trees. I'm trying to figure out if this was black Ash, and I'm looking at Google and looking at the leaves and trying to see if it's black Ash. And I'm like, yo, this is so cool. I mean, it was really cool. So when I look at the "Thanksgiving address " and I say to myself, you know what it has to be habitual, but thinking in this way, I look at it more as like a model for the way that you look at this earth that I live on and how do I address it? And if I can at least think about this, when I make these daily decisions, then you know, I am positively impacting the planet and you and I, our future and teach that to my son. And if we all are doing that, this is a big chorus singing. You know what I mean? The same song in our own way, we may not all agree, but eventually from the capitalism and the way that we consume hopefully will change, in my idealistic way. So that's it.

Cherrelle:

Just building off of everyone's comments. This has been really inspiring the conversation and the book was just gorgeous. So I'm Cherrelle she/her, based out of Washington, DC. So one thing that came to me when I read this book, it was just resonating in so many ways, because my whole life I've always thought, growing up that everything had feeling, so I would hit the wall. I'd be like, oh, no, I hurt the wall. And then I would run into the dresser. I wouldn't be like my foot and be like, oh, I hurt the dresser. And then you learn as you grow up that, oh, those things don't have feeling, what's wrong with you. Why are you worried about the dresser? Worry about your foot. And so it's been, a beautiful journey just to continue growing and developing as a person to relearn and unlearn things that were just untrue, in this book as I'm going through it, as a test, as a testimony to that.

Cherrelle:

And then, in my own practice now, things that I practiced are, I think that someone mentioned gratitude, practicing just the law of attraction, abundance, and meditation. And so grounding in that principle that there is when you believe it always more than enough, and the things that you want are always coming to you. It was just something that helps me feel grounded in this book. The last piece I'll say is just like the responsibility of all of us. Personally after reading this sort of like what to take away. And I think someone mentioned like, "we can't like shop our way out of this problem." And then I heard someone else mentioned "I won't drink out of a plastic bottle." And so I do think it's interesting, just the responsibility that we all take. Everyone is their personal lives, mothers, fathers, representatives of various organizations, corporations, et cetera, and all can make so much impact out of the decisions we make and the sensitivities that we share and communicate with one another. And so I'm inspired Yahdon, thank you for having everyone to read this so that we can all reflect and, act personally on what that responsibility means for each of us.

Yahdon:

Absolutely. And I want to add before I go to Amina and Leba, one of the things I love, one of things I appreciate about creating Book Club, is that what I've been challenged with and faced with even operating in an industry, the literature industry is like resisting this notion of talking about the selfish individual. And so what constantly comes back to me is like, well, "what can I do individually?" What I've been challenging myself is to ask, how do we collectively even arrive at what notion of we? because there's always that, "I don't use it, plastic bottles." "I don't invest in that." I mean, if it was that simple, the world would look different, but it's actually more complicated than what individuals decide to do individually. Right. And that's when it still then comes back to like, I, Yahdon Israel have to do what? One of the challenges I'm faced with is doing the work of like, how do I create community around these initiatives and grapple with these things? Cause it's quite easy to say, "well, in my family, we recycle." What's hard is how do I get the person next door? Not to recycle, but how do I get them to consider what it means to recycle like that then? Cause that means I have to make myself vulnerable to them in some ways. And I have to open myself to them so much, and possibly hear "shut up, get out of my face. There's a lot of humility that comes into that, but that's also what nature is. Right. It's humbling yourself to a forest larger than you. Amina then Leba.

Amina:

So, yeah. Um, so the, the assimilation thing, cause I liked how, as she was talking about nature and the native plants, she was talking about native people and when the settlers came or when the Europeans came in and even the story about the fire and how the language. So when I learned about the assimilation since I was a kid, two things that always bothered me growing up was when I learned in history was when people's culture is stolen. Knowing another language and having my own culture and the foods and everything. And to be denied that, just touches my heart. I feel that in every inch of my soul. You miss your grandparents so much. And then when you went home, you were so brainwashed that you couldn't even go home and talk to them in their language.

Amina:

And then she talks about how she tries to speak her language even now, but it's such a, it's becoming a lost language. Going back to Betty says as being that angry and that just taking people's language and culture and stealing the land. Robin even talks about like the hunter gatherer thing. So this is what our history books tells us a hunter gatherer thing. But if you notice, she says the way that the natives set it up, even though it looks like they were hunter gatherers, they actually set up the land so that the animals will come to them. So they wouldn't like set up areas like crops. Like we do, like other civilizations had done. The natives, what they did was they would grow things in different areas like freely, so that the animals, they will lure the animals to them.

Amina:

You know what I'm saying? All those things were stolen from that culture. And that reciprocity to the land is now being lost because you're stealing culture and you're stealing plants and like bringing new plants or just bringing this, the whole Colombian exchange thing. Like it was just, it was just very disturbing. And I feel that same anger that Betty feels about how now you want people to pay for something you stole or people that you've stolen. You want them to pay for that? Still?

Yahdon:

You know, what's ill about the language of stealing? And this is something I had to grapple with even the narrative of like black liberation movements, right. To read books that were pre-colonial about tribal nations in precolonial west Africa, there's this common rhetoric from black liberationists is where they talk about, "when the Europeans came, the Africans had the land, the Europeans had the Bible." Europeans gave the Africans the Bible and said, let us pray. And they look down and they looked up and then the Europeans had the land, the Africans had the Bible. And then the whole nature of the language is constantly about the theft of land. But the theft, if I was to articulate the trajectory of what happened with these indigenous and tribal communities of land, and then I articulated, the values of Western frameworks, what I am doing is redefining the power structure for which I'm trying to undermine by which I'm saying, if land was stolen, then I'm saying that land was owned.

Yahdon:

And so even in creating a radical or liberation, like some sort of alternative framework for how to think about power and agency and subversion. If I'm using those words, I'm actually not being subversive or radical as I think I am. The one thing I realized I wanted to say was there's a term in Black American communities that I was thinking about. Cherelle when you were talking about sensitivity. And I remember how much of a liability and like Black American households, it was to be sensitive. There's a term that I remember growing up hearing. I don't know if it's even used anymore, but it was called touched, which was also a way to kind of signal like somebody being mentally ill was like, oh, "she's touched." Right. Or like "she's sensitive."

Yahdon:

Or she has a, what? It was another frame. Maya Angela used it in "I know why the caged bird sings"which is like, she's like "soft hearted." Like it was all these terms at which to be vulnerable, to be sensitive, to feel was a liability. And it's all these different things that I'm thinking about now, not even so much how we arrived here. Cause I get it. It's almost like the way in which there are scholars who talk about hyper-masculinity and I don't know what it's called, like a hyper defense mechanism against allowing ourselves to be touched by the world. And to describe someone being "touched" as a vulnerability, as a liability in this country, which in its most immediate sense, this is the thing I'm grappling, right.

Yahdon:

In the sort of tangible, immediate life that we live on this earth. That's like I could live for 20 years. I could live for 50 years. None of us decide that. Touched is like if I describe what I'm trying to do as a Black American person in this world who has a kid or has a family, I'm trying to prepare them for the hardness of a world in which white supremacy has created. And I'm trying to help that kid navigate that world, if that kid or myself or anybody who has been raised to sort of navigate this world, we've been prepared for a world that almost doesn't really exist, but we've been prepared to navigate a framework, which I think what this meeting is showing, that many of us are questioning even. And it's like, what do you do when so much of how I can say for myself, the last thing I wanted to ever be described as a sensitive or touched and all these different things. And so much of what this book is challenging me to do is to be in touch with things. And I'm like, "ah," like, it's just like, once again, "oh man." It's not even, how do I undo what was done because I can't undo it, but it's how do I reinvigorate myself with the world in which I'm surrounded by? And that's what I'm really grappling. That's what I really have difficult with. Eggie said "Listen to X-Factor." Leba it's on you.

Leba:

I just wanted to share, um, something that Syreeta and Gerald shared. They both shared about honorable harvest values. I wanted to say something really specific about it. So I took a year long herbalism class and this idea of asking permission before taking. At least the way I learned it's a literal thing. Like you literally ask the plant, can I pick you? Can I take you. And I don't know. I just wanted to add that, when we were talking about like personal things that we can do, like, it so struck me that it's like actually talking to the plants. And another thing we learned was meditating with plants and asking "what is the medicine that you have to share?" I think it's such a good value, but we could do that with humans too, obviously, but this idea that the plants have wisdom, but we have to know how to ask and be quiet enough and patient enough to like, get the answer.

Yahdon:

Right. And I think that the note you leave on is a great note to end on. So as you see, this is a conversation that like one, I've definitely got to thank Camille, who's been listening, but I think without working with her with this new book, I don't get this book, which is a way of saying like, these are the type of books that I don't arrive at as an individual. These are the types of books that I only pick because of communities that I'm in and around. And I think that once again, I have a really, I am negotiating when to use I and when to use we. And as the language we have is inherently limited in what it can describe as Robin Wall Kimmerer describes in this book.

Yahdon:

I think that the last thing I'll say is about on page 51, the learning, the grammar of animacy. I think about that page, that section, when the elder is telling a joke and all of the people who were trying to, like all of the younger generation is trying to learn the language and they're looking around and all the elders are laughing. And then the elder says, "what will happen to a joke when no one can hear it anymore? How lonely those words will be when their power is gone, where will they go off to join the stories that can never be told again?" I think about that constantly of like anybody who is like a person of color in a predominantly white space, making a joke and no one laughs and being like, oh, okay, this is not the room for that.

Yahdon:

Or just being the only one of your kind in which you make a joke and you realize you are not in a community, but you are alone. Like one of the things I appreciate about the community in which we talk to, I think, I think one of the things I marked our community by is how much we are able to laugh with each other, because it marks the fact that we have a community in which we understand each other, even if, necessarily we might not agree with what another person's notion of the world is. The fact that we can laugh together, speaks of a language that we're all building and sort of formulating together. So as always thank y'all for arriving at that. So this was this Braiding Sweetgrass. Once again, I just can't be thankful enough to you, Camille, for providing an avenue for me to not only find new language, but to introduce language to a community of people that without a community, we don't have language, right.

Yahdon:

Because community is not cultivated in a vacuum. So this is yet another book that allows us to communicate with each other. So, um, are y'all ready? So Littest member of the month, there's Connor who left, I think Gerald who touched base, Leba, Alejandra, Kate. Eggie, man, the connection with Robin Wall Kimmerer to Hip Hop. I think you need to do like an Instagram page where you do a nature writing with Hip Hop albums. Like what plant is DMX? Like? It's almost like...just take us there.

Eggie:

I'm actually, I'm actually glad that you asked it's actually on page 14 and he's definitely going to be the Pecant for sure. And I'm giving you the quote right now and you're going to know the bar. I promise. This is, uh, Robin. Robin says "we can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual" and DMX has a song called "stop being greedy," right? Where he raps about wanting to starve, wanting to feast with the people that he started with. And that's the whole theme for "It's Dark and Hell is Hot." So DMX is there for a pecant.

Yahdon:

Littest member is definitely Eggie. Yo, I'm going to hit you up on the backend. It gotta be at nature in Hip Hop, Hip Hop in nature. The N.A.T.U.R.E. Man. Y'all ready for the next book for next month? So I got it. You know, usually we do this genre at the end of the year, but it's a new year, so it's a new way of approaching things. It just won a Pulitzer prize in poetry. Uh, we gonna do Natalie Diaz's "Postcolonial Love Poem" for this year. Um, usually I do poetry, but at the end of the year, because it's like, it's a wind down, but I want to do poetry where it's almost like the hottest month of the year.

Yahdon:

And the fire that Natalie Diaz brings with the language and poetry is something I want to honor, in one of the hottest months of the year. So we're going to read Natalie Diaz's "Postcolonial Love Poem." One of the things. So this is something I don't know if you've been following the story of the Pulitzer and what's happened to Natalie Diaz's book. So Natalie Diaz lives, I think in a town near Phoenix, Arizona. I know she lives in Arizona for sure. But there is no bookstores in the town in which she lives. After she won the Pulitzer, the liquor stores in her town started buying the book. So people were going to the liquorstore and were getting handles of Jack Daniels with poetry. Think about the type of world in which people are getting lit and then getting lit. I just thought it was a beautiful thing. And I think that the "Postcolonial Love Poems" is not just the poems in this book, but it's the poetry of what happens in a town when you don't have a bookstore, right? It's about finding a poetry collection in a liquor store and people buying it. Let me get that. Let me get that. Let me get that, you know, Dusse. Let me get that "Postcolonial Love Poems".

Yahdon:

I'm learning every year. And I think Gerald is one of the people who can attest. Anybody who's been in this Book Club, know I have never lied about my relationship with poetry which has always been a difficult one. But what anybody in his Book Club can say is that, I never shied away from the challenge of continuing to read it. There are people for whom that struggle with it, that stay away from it. What I constantly do for all of us is, not that I'm going to quote unquote, "get it," but I recognize that poetry is a language of a people. So no, there is no better way to honor poetry than reading it with my people. Y'all are my people, this book is coming to y'all. So be on the lookout because it's going down, we're going to get this poetry on July and what come on.

Yahdon:

Think about it, "Postcolonial Love Poem" on a month of America's birthday? Come on. That's some subversive shit right there. Right? That's just come on. Let's talk about, let's just talk about, so this is coming in, in the mail before we leave, can we get our group picture of the book, everybody put your book into the, into the camera. 1, 2, 3. Come on. All right. And then I'm gonna go to page 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. Okay. All right, now, so thank you all before we end. I want to thank everybody for coming before we, and you know, last month I started this initiative and it was actually a dope initiative and I want to just keep it going before we leave. Anybody got any good news? They want to share, you know it, Betty, anybody got any good news? They want it.

Randy:

Yeah. Nuratu's birthday is tomorrow. Happy birthday.

Nuratu:

thank you. Thank you.

Yahdon:

Any good news to share with the group?

George:

So I'm a part of this amazing group of entrepreneurs and we've, closed our first equity raise on a social impact fund that is focused on helping low and moderate income families get affordable home ownership. We're very excited about it. And the impact to the less fortunate it's going to be tremendous. So I wanted to share that.

Yahdon:

Before we continue can we just applaud that, that is incredible. Who want to share some good news?

Kate:

I'm only going to share, cause I don't think I'll be here at the end of next month, but I have a book coming out in paperback, August 3rd.

Yahdon:

What's the book? What's the book? What's the book? Share with the people. You got a community!

Kate:

It's called "Kept Animals" and it's a novel and it launched like three weeks after lockdown. So was not great timing. Everything was canceled, but it'll be out in paperback in August. I'm really happy that my publisher is backing it in paperback.

Yahdon:

We gotta, you know, we gotta hit the bookstores on that one. So please Kate send the information so I could send it with the Book Club email, because you got a community. So we gonna mobilize that.

Kate:

Thank you all. Thank you.

Yahdon:

Who else? Who else? Who else got some? The good news they want to share Syreeta.

Syreeta:

This is super random, the most random of all time. And this is probably the only intentional community with this many people that I've been on that I've shared this with. But if you're not doing anything next Tuesday, I will be on Lego masters on Fox channel five. Yeah.

Yahdon:

Syreeta has lived in New York, her whole life. And I love how she acted like Fox aint, channel five. You know what channel it is. That's what, you know, somebody got to stunt. Like I think I'm a millionaire. That's dope.

Eggie:

Yo, hold on. Are you building Legos? I just want to be clear.

Kenny:

Watch Lego masters every Tuesday with my son. So we see you.

Yahdon:

Does she, did she drop the news and dip? Is that what she just pulled up? Now? You got to say that to the room.

Cherelle:

Oh, I am a consultant with the Brooklyn based group called Maestra creative social impact agency. And we're working with Fiverr to launch Fiver's first initiative for black owned businesses. It's a $24,000 grant.

Cherelle:

The application closes Friday. I dropped the link in the chat and would invite all black business owners to apply with one caveat. They're requiring that you've purchased gigs on Fiverr.

Yahdon:

All right now. So you know, if you ain't purchase a gig, you purchased the gig first and then you apply like right after like five minutes after you. Anybody else got some good news, they want to share it. Don't gotta be like professional. It could just be like, yo, I took a walk around the block today. The rain came in and it cooled down.

Amina:

I finally finished two books since March. I was not finishing books. And I finally was able, I finished week two, which I put in the chat already and I finished this one. So that was like an accomplishment I'm finally able to read again.

Yahdon:

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Tsahai:

Oh yeah. I want to share. Um, so I got another short story of mine published in a little lit mag out of London. International feels good. It feels good. Right? Well, you got to share that in that you got to share that in the group.

George:

This is such an esteemed group. I must admit like I'm honored to be amongst this group. Oh, Diana is on you.

Diana:

Oh, family news. I just became an aunt a few weeks ago. My sister gave birth.

Yahdon:

congratulations. Congratulations.

Diana:

On night duty shifts. I don't know how people survive with more than my 10 people in a house to watch a child. I was cracked out. I'm like on one hour of sleep, but it's a great experience.

Yahdo:

you know, what's beautiful about, I think of all the things Randy, you can speak to this too. Randy is the person who came in with the necessity for a prompt. I can say that this good news has been one of the best initiatives we came up with in a long time. And it's contagious. It's infectious. Anybody else before, we end for the evening? Randy, you got more news. Okay. Well talk to it.

Randy:

Uh, for those of you that don't know our very own you Yahdon Israel is the special guest on Milkshake Scholars. It's a Milk Shake interview series on Instagram. And he's talking about food folks, not books. Just food.

Yahdon:

I definitely talk about how to season steaks with just salt and pepper. Um, it's a transformative experience for me. I might be laughing, but one of the things that I share and you know, Randy, Tsahai asked for the handle. One of the things I learned during this pandemic was the necessity of people in my family to season with season salt came from the fact that most of the food in which the people that I have come from in this country have had access to inferior meat quality. So if salt enhances the flavor, you do not want to enhance the flavor of inferiority because you're going to taste the real good slab of unquality meat. So when I was looking at these different recipes and I'm going to be frank, I'm like, "why white people always want me to just season it with salt and pepper?"

Yahdon:

But then when I started buying my steaks from like whole foods and like Paisanos if, you know, if you live in Brooklyn, if you especially live in Carroll gardens, you know, paisanos is the that fire. I realized it had nothing to do with white and black. It had everything to do with the quality of the meat. So when I realized that, salt enhances the quality, I was like, wow, I don't need adobo and sazon for this. This elevated meat. And it's literally transformative for me because I'm like, I could just season this good meat, pause with salt and pepper,

Yahdon:

You know, Betty, I'm not trying to attack adobo. No worry. Don't do that. That's not what I meant.

Syreeta:

We gotta take you uptown to meet the homies from ghetto gastro, man, we got to take you round the homeys.

Yahdon:

I ate with them. I know what it is. What I'm saying is for my own food journey, what I arrived at as is an understanding of the disparities in food access. what I assumed was just the way in which things had to go. I realized that there was an alternative way to cook. That's all I'm saying. And so it just gave, all I'm saying is this pandemic gave me a different way to imagine food. That's what Randy and me talked about in that episode, was just like the sort of liberation that I've experienced in food. I'm going to send some food pictures. I've been making pineapple fried rice. I've been making, like Randy came by, like I had like a baked red snapper, garlic with the lemon linguine, with the spinach. I've been doing all types of things. Before the pandemic. I had four recipes on a Sunday before the pandemic. I got 16 recipes for breakfast. So the pandemic taketh, but it gave me recipes. I'm not mad at it. And I appreciate it. So anybody else,

Gerald :

We got to do a cookout, like book club. I get the fine. Let's just do it

Yahdon:

You know what? Gerald End of August, let's do it. Let's book it. Like I can't, I'm not going to do book club. Cause I ain't trying to get in trouble for nobody getting sick. Well, we can do it and we can do it in a, what is it? A voluntary waivers. We are not reliable. I am not reliable for you. Get a cold, I don't want no emails.

Eggie:

Waivers at your barbecue. I'm leaving my, g. I'm gonna turn around and I'm gonna go home. I do want to let you know that, that the waiver is going to stop me at the door.

Yahdon:

But yeah. before we adjourn for the evening, anybody else want to sit and want to share something also before we leave? So I want to highlight, you know, Brandon has taken the helm of editorial and content. I want us all to just acknowledge the work that this gentleman has been doing to bring content to the website and to the Instagram page. On the subject of community, everybody who knows me intimately know I've been doing a lot of this spinning a lot of plates with two hands and nothing has made me not just happier, but nothing has been a better relief, then the bringing of more people in the community and also being able to close my eyes and trust what another person is doing. So like, if you can give a round of applause to Brandon for what he's been doing with the content, please, please do so.

Brandon:

Thank you, Thank you

Yahdon:

You see how Brandon lowkey? Now if I said his content was trash, he would have wanted to have a whole diatribe about how he's working hard. But when you give this man his flowers, it's "I don't even like flowers." Don't give him his flowers. He going to be like, "yo, my mother called me and she said, she wants to know like, y'all gonna give me my flowers."

Brandon:

Thank you to anybody that has taken time to look at any of those pieces, even if it's just on Instagram. I appreciate it. Thank you to so far, Randy, Jake, Tsahai, anybody who has sat with me for any of those interviews, for some of the stuff that you guys have come across. So anything else yall wanna see on the site or on the IG account? Like let me know. Alright, appreciate y'all.

Yahdon:

Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, I, you know, I, this is not new. This is, this is not fake y'all I love y'all and the community that we built together. Cause I can't build a community by myself. This is the community we've all built. So thank you all for constantly helping me build what it is that we all have. This is the gift that Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about. Y'all have reciprocated and let's continue to reciprocate. I see y'all next month.