Parks Stewardship Forum

I wrote this song from the perspective of a dandelion seed germinating under asphalt as I consider how our imaginations have been curtailed by colonial systems, where nature and society were separated by false notions that have created ongoing violence towards animals, the water, Indigenous people, and the other entities we share this planet with. I explore in this song my own indigeneity, the part of myself that extends back to a time before systems of supremacy posited that I, as a human, was somehow more worthy than a plant or a microbe. In my work as a physician, mother, healer, artist, I seek to dismantle that delusion, to reimagine life where we are situated back in a web of healthy relations, the web that has been damaged and continues to be damaged by the mindset that brought colonialism and all its harmful structures. We are not separate from nature. We are her. [A YouTube video of the song is linked from the article.]