Intergenerational Memory of Seeds

Abstract

At Mawachihtotaak 2024 while Sherry Farrell Racette shared her talk, I connected with her stories and teachings. When we listen to storytellers, what gets birthed through our inspiration from their stories are a sort of co-creation. This co-creative process creates community and connection. We may not have full awareness of that interconnectedness, but the web it creates with spirit through us is rooted in who we are, and how we are with knowledge, each other and the land. As a pitoteyihtam (neurodivergent) person, I synthesize knowledge, and my environment differently. One way that expresses itself is through movement. I can make that movement small. As small as moving my hands or fingers, sometimes it translates into making art. This movement is always connected to the environment I'm in, what I'm hearing, and how it feels in my body. During Racette’s talk, what echoed over and over for me, was the phrase "seeded and re-seeded in community". It connected me to all of the different ways we seed ourselves in communities, with our ideas, our care, presence, art, songs, and all of who we are. It connected me to the land through feeling into the ways that our plant kin seed and re-seed themselves. How their ancestors knew our ancestors too, and how the currents of the land share ancestral memories with us through "seeding and re-seeding our communities" with the connections we cultivate. Intergenerational memories germinate when I tune into my body and allow myself to process knowledge and life in this way, instead of the way I am "supposed" to.