Anthropocentric ideologies and the reigning dominance of humans has ushered an era of global climate temperature variation, creating perfect instances for species to migrate. Opportunistic seeds travel on wind, in fur and beneath human feet, these plants are often coded as threatening, labeled “weeds” or “invasive.” What if instead of deeming these plants unwanted and warranted of expulsion, we were able to consider them as part of a transitory continuum, where the cycling worlds of physical space, energy and spirit, combine to uncover an inter-species liquidity? Through an expansive lens of queer ecology, we may embark down winding paths towards softening the rigid cultural boundaries between living beings.

Earth is a series of rocks, now dominated by human-centric realities. From crumbling neoliberal infrastructure to political upheaval driven by social inequalities, humans tend to build and contend with systems for and about themselves. The recognition of this period as the Anthropocene also signifies the possibility of a juncture: the Anthropocene can serve as a moment to begin a deep dive into theories that blend intrinsically human behavior with that of concurrently evolving species; the work of tapping into interspecies magic seems more impeccably necessary than before. In particular, how can we illuminate the most prolific of oxygen-bearing species, plants which some call “weeds,” as embodied outliers? Can we welcome them as entities that help to lubricate the fold between sentient beings and other Eukaryotes? I turn here to Donna Haraway’s instance of natureculture, (Haraway 1) in which the two terms cannot be separated from and are in fact, tied together by the forces of each other. If we use this as a lens to consider plants that exist en masse largely as a result of human interference, perhaps we may begin to uncover the power enmeshed within.

Along dusty urban roadsides and beneath the cracks of seemingly impermeable asphalt, plants thrive in mutualistic conditions amidst fleshless beings, including mycelial networks interspersed with endobacteria that transfer carbon and nitrogen between species. These pioneering plants partner with other life forms to penetrate ruderal physical landscapes, blanketing spaces of transition by creeping into slivers of dirt, emerging year after year beyond instances of their origins. Migration can be described as a “movement of one part of something to another” (Oxford English Dictionary). In Eastern North America, when late summer heat sets in, tiny inconspicuous mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) seeds develop, ripening while bitter compounds complexify within its leaves. Autumn winds sweep through alleyways and empty lots, and the seeds of mugwort are released from their pasts, projected by wind into their potential futures. It is fairly easy for these tiny seeds to find a new home, they carry only the weight of themselves, and need little to thrive; doing so in most soils and light conditions. In some ways mugwort seems to even be drawn to the interstitial spaces between here and there, finding ground that is not already occupied by any other of its kind. Is this true for humans as well, if to be human is to be enmeshed in a series of transitional moments, elements bound up in matter that exist between one space and another? If all living beings are considered part of this transitory continuum, between the cycling worlds of physical space, energy and spirit, are humans all always some type of migrant? We are also all energies that inhabit space in relation to each other, for a time that on some days might seem like forever, but in relation to some ancient species, is a mere instant.

Some species are seen to stand on the shoulders of others, utilizing abundant forces (wind, water, sun, earth) in building communities; grasping chance, and under the right circumstances, becoming prolific. The conditions are a product of whole and symbiotic ecosystems, photosynthetic eukaryotes (plants) which feed and are also decimated by Homo sapiens sapiens (humans), which are continuously being colonized by prokaryotic microorganisms (bacteria). Anthropocentric ideologies and the reigning dominance of humans has ushered in an era of global climate temperature variation, creating perfect instances for other species to migrate. Opportunistic seeds travel on wind, in fur and beneath human feet, these plants are often coded as threatening, labeled “weeds” or “invasive” (Van der Veken 212–216).

Mugwort is often marked by both of these terms, in the Northeast region of North America, to which it is not “native” (Swearingen, 2017). The exact origins of a plant can be somewhat difficult to decipher, some plants have been deemed to be “from” many places. Mugwort is believed to have been found earliest in Asia and Eastern Europe. It carries a habit for vigorous reproduction via rhizomatous rootstock beneath the ground, using lateral methods to inhabit waste places or urban lots and sandy roadsides. It is also a known phyto-accumulator, performing well when employed to remove Cadmium from soil compounds (Rebele, Lehmann 93-103). Mugwort has a longstanding history of widespread usage on the human body; externally for rashes, internally as a bitter stimulant for the circulatory and nervous systems and for the relief of abdominal cramping, but it is also a powerful spiritual and energetic healer when it is dried and burned in an act of cleansing (Fern, 2017). The idea that plants can reach or encourage transcendental spaces moves beyond a place where its phytochemicals are assessed for measurable impact. It moves beyond facts, and towards interspecies experiential storytelling. Having migrated to the Americas by many means, mugwort has been “…introduced to at least six separate locations in North America via ship ballast, ranging from the arctic to both oceanic shorelines, and on multiple occasions in several of these locations” (Barney 8, 703-717). It is not alone in this duplicitous travel: stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) has similarly noted origins in Asia and Europe (Schellman, 2008). In the quest to unpack “origins”—and encircling the idea that everything must come from somewhere—how do species that once shared space, having journeyed beyond those places, experience new grounds and build symbiotic community with new others?

All living things have ecosystem functions; every being serves an energetic purpose in relation to any number of modulating forces. Humans are major players here, but are far from the majority. We are all voids holding space; containers for relationships with species that are not us. In organizing ourselves culturally, we make up a portrait of culture, one that is cobbled atop the colonial forces that cannot be divorced from the drive of human-instituted systems like global capitalism. As humans, we are always becoming but never arrive. Can we ever actually move somewhere else? Assigning functions, actions, and meanings to other species separates human thought from “other.” Or does it actually help humans to biologically relate with other species? We can experience this exchange without opening windows or even forcing something out of the ordinary, but by becoming another immediately. To allow plants like stinging nettle to penetrate this edifice of controlled or neat categories, by welcoming it into or onto one’s body, we are paying attention to it as a force for healing. Nettles have been used for generations in a practice of urtication, or hitting of oneself with the plant for the circulation of blood, quelling of allergies, and simultaneous relief and onset of stinging, burning symptoms (LeBaron-Botts, 2017). It is the irony in this that astounds many; why a human would engage in a relationship with a plant that would at the same time inflict pain as it heals? Nettle carries this enigmatic agenda in its growth habit as well, often reproducing under damp, wilder conditions in stands that quickly tend towards dominating other species of plants.

Or maybe that’s the anthropomorphic speaking; there is always a transition moment. When upon setting out for a walk in the woods alongside a creek, you unknowingly brush by a patch of stinging nettle and your hand grazes its stalk, soon you can’t feel your fingertips, and your human blood starts pumping more vigorously. What if our species is calling us to sit in this transitory space, to observe and listen, letting the desire of ever becoming next fade away? What do the plants want, or, should we ask this of them? Humans seek to integrate “useful” attributes into agriculture, or functions that benefit humans and capital accumulation. Conservationists and foragers capitalize on inherent opportunities of productive “wild” plants, reaping the benefits of prolific species and extracting use value for food and culture.⁷ This interchange allows humans to eat, produce, to heal and build. Plants have been erupting from the soil for hundreds of millions of years, and only in the last 23,000 have humans begun to interfere with their whereabouts (Snir, et al, 2015). How did pre-human beings interact with their co-inhabitants, and can humans listen, observe, and learn without looking to assign human qualities to other species? Plants are actants upon humans as much as humans are shaping landscapes by eradicating plants. Plants transcend “utility” as the ruling forces of the Holocene; their tendencies are to reproduce in abundance, encouraging relationships with other species. What if we let them? One step forward might be in not claiming totality; but rather inhabiting a conscious praxis of decentralization regarding dominant cultural forces, a push to unpack and dismantle environmental binaries.

If we are to sit in the space of twisting binaries and opening doors between worlds, we must look to dismantle forces that control by understanding how they are built. The United States Government defines “invasive” species “as a species that is non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health” (Beck, et al., 2006). Signifying plants as “invasive” enables a cultural alarm for humans managing land—to eradicate. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing speaks of disturbance as a product that lays the groundwork for cultural usage of resources in The Mushroom at the End of the World:

“While I refuse to reduce either economy or ecology to the other, there is one connection between economy and environment that seems important to introduce up front: the history of the human concentration of wealth through making both humans and nonhumans into resources for investment. This history has inspired investors to imbue both people and things with alienation, that is, the ability to stand alone, as if the entanglements of living did not matter.” (Tsing 5).

 Many of these now revered plants were once treasured and cultivated by humans. Forces that encourage plant species to migrate and reproduce are based on ecosystem symbiosis; humans have driven warming planetary conditions as a result of global trade, which has left in its wake a wealth of ruderal lands. Mullein (Verbascum thapsus, reported as an “invasive” by the US Forest Service in twenty states,³ ) is an early colonizer of bare ground, a biennial plant, and one that reproduces only in its second year if it is able to accumulate enough biomass to produce a large stalk that tends often to reach up taller than most humans. According to (somewhat) modern scientific inquiries, “the rate of biomass accumulation by the rosette is influenced by the environmental conditions occurring at the time of growth” (Booth, Murphy, Swanton 256).  Do exclusionary identities help to separate nature from culture, therefore severing a holistic view of humans as part of nature? If symbiosis were a liquid, enveloping all of its inhabitants, volunteer plants are merely performing in relation to other biota. Similarly, the act of citing plants or humans as immigrants merely marks a moment in time. Who, when and what exactly constitutes something, or someone as “native” or “immigrant?” (Marinelli 2016). These terms are signified based on any number of markers, and appropriate acknowledgement of time, place, context, identity and social conditions are all needed to assign any being (human or non-) to an affinity group or category for cultural convenience.

Permaculturalist and former conservationist Tao Orion opens space for the blending of terminologies, when she says “modern research increasingly shows that all native plant communities are, to some extent, the products of human intervention” (Orion 154). Forces of attribution are never sincerely distributed evenly; whether by color or style, or origin; by which no human follows these markers without direct relation to the self. Observation based on sublime reality can be an organizational method for understanding species, (here or there, present or absent;) instead of meticulously assigning identities to plants, animals and microbes. Mullein leaf has been used for centuries as a lymph and lung medicine, for coughs and congestion. Physiomedicalist William Cook called mullein an “absorbent” of “peculiar and reliable power” (McDonald, Herbcraft.org). Can we identify a set of inclusive methodologies that speak across disciplines and beyond known categories in order to reach the power of something considered unwanted; or so to say, somewhere that might work towards understanding the desires of others, which might look something like species solidarity? Timothy Morton calls upon this species-blending transcendence in Humankind, arguing between disciplines and states of thought, “worlds are perforated and permeable, which is why we can share them” (Morton 14). Cellular walls separate plants from animals; these walls help to bind, nourish and regulate growth, providing strength and protection. What can humans learn from these permeable walls between worlds, between species?