Multispecies Imprints No. 1-2, 2022.

May our multispecies interconnectedness bring us all home because we are earth. Should we yell it louder for the people in the back? We’re earth!

When I asked my dear friend, who is from the Coastal Pomo Tribe in Northern California, that I wanted to learn more about the Native history of "Napa," he suggested, "a good starting point is the oak tree." Despite the saturated grape vineyard images and European people holding wine glasses that show up for "Napa Valley" in a Google search, oak trees, like Indigenous humans, have continued resisting colonization since 1823. Before my research, I was unaware that oak trees were also abundant in my motherland, where about 160 diverse species arch their vein-like branches all over México (Denvir 2016) [1]. As it usually happens, I know about my inner world/self in seeking to learn about the outside world. My relatives, the oak trees, have been calling me home.

Since then, I've learned to identify oak trees whenever I'm roaming in nature, verified by the abundance of diamond-shaped shiny brown acorns lying on the ground. Thus, I birthed "Multispecies Imprints" to showcase how oaks traverse throughout Turtle Island (North America), connecting me to my respective homelands. Tending to oak trees nearby is an extension of caring for our relatives farther away in what we call Mexico. Given that the oak's fruit, acorns, are an integral food source for Native people in Napa, I've also begun to develop a relationship with them. Decolonizing my diet with Mesoamerican foods now means familiarizing myself with Indigenous ingredients here too.

Behind the oak map in my image are literal multispecies imprints to symbolize our inherent interconnection. On a walk with Quilla, a large piece of tree bark caught my attention, whose swirling lines looked like the veins in my hands. Quilla patiently waited as I took pictures of this magnificent rough skin, which I later used to trace its imprints. I added Quilla's paw pads (a difficult feat with all her hair) and my handprints to encapsulate how we are always interconnected. The rosemary is another abundant plant I lovingly embrace on our walks, adding its scent to my nose and heart for protection. This leathery green herb is used to increase memory, and may it help us remember how to have what Adrienne Marie Brown calls "planetary integrity" [2] with all life forms. May ancestral (re)connection to land bring us home.

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[1] Denvir, Audrey. “Celebrating and Protecting Mexico’s Amazing Oak Diversity.” Published on October 13, 2016, https://globaltrees.org/news-blog/celebrating-and-protecting-mexicos-amazing-oak-diversity/.

[2] Brown, Adrienne Maree. “We Are Earth,” 2022, Atmos. https://atmos.earth/adrienne-maree-brown-we-are-earth/