Subversive Genealogy
“The truth about who you are lies not at the root of the tree but rather out at the tips of the branches, the thousand tips... To practice subversive genealogy means to forget the idealism of a singular forefather and remember these thousands. With that remembrance you must multiply the sense of who you are, multiply it until it disappears.”
When we speak of our family tree, we might at first be referring to our immediate family, but that denies the deeper truth of who we are beyond those known few: we are all descended from the same common ancestor - from the universal Mitochondrial Eve. How, then, has it happened that we have lost so many of ourselves, so much of ourselves - or, more accurately, have allowed so many and so much of ourselves to be lost?
In 2019, the number of global refugees surpassed 70 million. This figure doesn't include those who are still in their homes and being driven out by the climate crisis, by war, by being told they're unwelcome, or denied the citizenship they were born into. In our midst are people whose government - ours, theirs, someone else's - seeks to deny their connection to the rest of us, or to the place they live. It also seeks to deny us our connection to them, and therefore to each other, and we are all diminished by the loss.
It doesn't include people like my friend, Ali Abu Awwad. He's a Palestinian nonviolent peace activist who says, "I am a citizen of a country that does not exist." His family's compound is in the West Bank, near Bethlehem. It is surrounded by Jewish settlements and Israeli army checkpoints. Though they are subject to Israeli laws, Palestinians cannot vote; cannot enter Israeli territory without a permit; cannot work or study there, or travel beyond Israel's borders. The thing is, he's right. But Israel isn't a country, either. In truth, no country exists. They're all a deadly delusion.
Importantly, these refugee numbers do not include the billions of insects and animals also driven from their homes, or whose homes we are burning or melting.
And so, we wander, and wonder what to do. We say we've been uprooted. That we're transplants. That we've gone out on a limb. Perhaps the trees can help us: when forests are cut down, it is often the case that the root community remains intact. In West Africa, over the last thirty years, more than 240 million trees have regrown, simply by pruning them carefully and tending to the intact roots of their underground forest.
I wonder, then, if those communities of roots are being sustained and led by the remnants of Mother Trees, whose role in a forest is to protect and nourish young seedlings and saplings by sending them extra nutrients in times of stress, and messages of warning when in danger. Even forests that are heavily logged will survive and thrive if the Mother Trees are intact.
In India, there's an underground forest that has emerged above ground, flowering and bearing fruit: thousands of Muslim women have taken peacefully to the streets to decry the new laws that would retract their citizenship and exile them from their homes. Read the article. It will lift your heart. You will see a young girl carrying a sign that says, They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds.
In the UK, where the original Bramley apple tree seems to be dying, there is a woman who has been listening to Her wisdom. As it turns out, the tree has quite a lot to say. She and the world's elder trees need help, and we humans are being asked to step in to assist them to communicate with other Mother Trees and with the guardians of trees, to maintain the ley lines that crisscross the globe in order to keep ancient wisdom and healthy energy circulating. At first, we may seem an unlikely choice, or even a choice of last resort. But perhaps there is a larger pattern at work here: maybe this is the moment for us to become both more deeply human and, at the same time, to evolve beyond our human limitations to become trees so we can take our rightful place in the global forest. Roots. Heartwood. Blossoming.
