mermaidadjacent

fiction-only reader turned nonfiction-only reader trying to find balance between those two extremes

347 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Womanist Midrash, Volume 1: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Reading...

49%

To Ride a Rising Storm (Nampeshiweisit, #2)

76%

The Jewish Dream Book: The Key to Opening the Inner Meaning of Your Dreams

25%

58%

Davening: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Prayer

51%

35%

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

88%

For Times Such as These: A Radical's Guide to the Jewish Year (Title Not in Series)

22%

Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care

26%

42%

mermaidadjacent is interested in reading...

22h

The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic

Lindsey Stewart

The Conjuring of America tells the epic story of conjure women, who, through a mix of spiritual beliefs, herbal rituals, and therapeutic remedies gave rise to the rich tapestry of American culture we see today. Feminist philosopher, Lindsey Stewart, tells the stories of Negro Mammies of slavery; the Voodoo Queens and Blues Women of Reconstruction; and the Granny Midwives and textile weavers of the Jim Crow era. These women, in secrecy and subterfuge, courageously and devotedly continued their practices and worship for centuries and passed down their traditions. Emerging first in the American South during slavery, these women were thrust into the heart of national conflicts over generations of African American life. They combined ancestral magic and hyperlocal resources to respond to Black struggles in real time, forging a secret well of health and power hidden to their oppressors. As a result, conjure informs our lives in ways remarkable and ordinary—from traditional medicines that informed the creation of Vicks VapoRub and the rise of Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix, to the original magic of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (2023), and the true origins of the all-American classic blue jean. From the moment enslaved Africans first arrived on these shores, conjure was heavily regulated and even outlawed. Now, Stewart uncovers new contours of American history, sourcing letters from the enslaved, dispatches from the lore of Oshun and other African mystics. The Conjuring of America is a love letter to the real magic Black women used, their magic Black women, their herbs, food, textiles, song, and dance, used to sow rebellion, freedom, and hope.

mermaidadjacent made progress on...

To Ride a Rising Storm (Nampeshiweisit, #2)

Moniquill Blackgoose

76%

mermaidadjacent commented on lilcoppertop's update

lilcoppertop TBR'd a book

Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration

Tao Orion

Invasive species are everywhere, from forests and prairies to mountaintops and river mouths. Their rampant nature and sheer numbers appear to overtake fragile native species and forever change the ecosystems that they depend on. Concerns that invasive species represent significant threats to global biodiversity and ecological integrity permeate conversations from schoolrooms to board rooms, and concerned citizens grapple with how to rapidly and efficiently manage their populations. These worries have culminated in an ongoing “war on invasive species,” where the arsenal is stocked with bulldozers, chainsaws, and herbicides put to the task of their immediate eradication. In Hawaii, mangrove trees (Avicennia spp.) are sprayed with glyphosate and left to decompose on the sandy shorelines where they grow, and in Washington, helicopters apply the herbicide Imazapyr to smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) growing in estuaries. The “war on invasive species” is in full swing, but given the scope of such potentially dangerous and ecologically degrading eradication practices, it is necessary to question the very nature of the battle. Beyond the War on Invasive Species offers a much-needed alternative perspective on invasive species and the best practices for their management based on a holistic, permaculture-inspired framework. Utilizing the latest research and thinking on the changing nature of ecological systems, Beyond the War on Invasive Species closely examines the factors that are largely missing from the common conceptions of invasive species, including how the colliding effects of climate change, habitat destruction, and changes in land use and management contribute to their proliferation. There is more to the story of invasive species than is commonly conceived, and Beyond the War on Invasive Species offers ways of understanding their presence and ecosystem effects in order to make more ecologically responsible choices in land restoration and biodiversity conservation that address the root of the invasion phenomenon. The choices we make on a daily basis—the ways we procure food, shelter, water, medicine, and transportation—are the major drivers of contemporary changes in ecosystem structure and function; therefore, deep and long-lasting ecological restoration outcomes will come not just from eliminating invasive species, but through conscientious redesign of these production systems.

mermaidadjacent TBR'd a book

Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration

Tao Orion

mermaidadjacent commented on a post

A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places

lilcoppertop

Thoughts from 65% (page 207) Invasive settlers and species

The people who urge the strictest policing of invasives often, it has been my impression, do so in a way that is wrapped up with conceptions of social class and the weird way that gets expressed in supposedly classless American culture. The way it is so often highly educated middle-class white people advocating the doctrines of ecological purity makes it feel sometimes as if the eugenics many of our grandparents and great-grandparents advocated for the human race got transferred to the plants that we live around. At a deeper level, perhaps more subconscious, it is often the people whose forebears were the earliest European settlers of these lands who get the most caught up in restoration efforts that aim to bring back the botanical ecologies that were here before, as if to atone.

This resonates with me. And it brings to mind Robin Wall Kimmerer's chapter "In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place" from Braiding Sweetgrass. Here, she talks about some of the plants that have arrived with settlers and colonizers to Turtle Island. Many of them act like colonizers themselves--stealing water and nutrients, taking over prime growing space and edging the indigenous plants out. But some, she notes, find ways to fit in and work WITH the ecology around them instead of trying to dominate it. Like the plantain.

Ages ago, some Scottish sea captain who made his home somewhere in British Columbia got homesick and brought over a bush with cheery yellow flowers and brittle black seed pods to plant in his garden to remind him of Scotland. Today, his weird bush covers nearly every hill of disturbed earth on Vancouver Island (maybe the rest of BC? I've never paid attention to that when I'm on the mainland). I don't know what used to cover hills of disturbed earth, but it's all broom bushes today! Many attempts have been made to eradicate it over the years, but it's determined to stay.

Are there ways to navigate curtailing the expansion of invasive species without going to the extreme of complete eradication? Ways to encourage and facilitate naturalization instead of colonization?