#title Plant Absurdity #author Julian Langer #LISTtitle Plant Absurdity #date 10/7/25 #source https://ecorevoltblog.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/plant-absurdity/ #lang en #pubdate 2025-07-10T08:14:42 #authors Julian Langer #topics plants, absurdity, anarchy, mass extinction, poetry, species-queering
for Sascha Engel
It is unsettling and decolonising from puritanical and reductive ANTHROPOCENTRISM to affirm that within the body of EVERY being we call HUMAN lives a personal gut flora a unique habitat of microbiota wild and uncannily YOU and not you eco-egoist paradox of holism and individuation . flora are the plants present in a habitat gut flora are not plants the word flora comes from the Roman goddess of flowers and springtime fungi, bacteria, protozoa and viruses are what comprises gut flora so say scientists but they don’t really know that there are no flowers growing in my gut all things are possible a springtime of daisies, dandelions and daffodils could be my internal flora they don’t know . Donald Trump received a Nobel Peace Prize from Netanyahu so saith the news as I eat my breakfast and drink my tea this morning feeding my gut flora the daisies, dandelions and daffodils live on this destruction of physical presence and hydration and I read Fondane’s essay on Boredom and a couple Rimbaud poems neither of their microbiomes are surviving their gut flora are extinct habitats unlike Trump’s unlike Netanyahu’s there are no flowers in either poet’s gut today what about these politicians? . one of my favourite palaeontological truths is that moss was responsible for the first mass extinction events on this planet basically – there is undoubtedly more to this story the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event more than 70% of species estimated to have been lost moss feels wonderful to touch I love to place my hand upon it growing on trees or rocks or wherever soft and gentle . how soft is the skin of Netanyahu or Trump? I am glad I will never find out! BUT all things are possible, so perhaps I will . pulling out creeper plants that are making their way under the roof of the outhouse I appreciate the disregard for propertarianism shown by these plants and my mind turns to Sasha Engel and that book they wrote on Plant Anarchy . will to life strength to overcome anarchy primal and egoistic I encounter in plants that never fails to inspire continues as I move through this garden I call “mine” what does that mean though these plants don’t care what the paperwork says . opening the book Plant Anarchy which is not plant-anarchy but Engel’s affirmation of the anarchy of plants smiling when reading “no plant has ever obeyed zoning laws” “every plant is a trickster” “every plant growing in the cracks of our pavements is a site of resistance” every plant yes is anarchy of untamed revolt refusing repression embodied dialogic-revolt articulating self-preservation subservient to no Cause, Reason, Idea . every sapling tree is an absurdity only ending in death and decay yesterday I sat in a copse meditating besides a decaying trunk of wood besides several saplings every snowdrop and foxglove is a Sisyphean hero rising up as far as it might only to return the the soil with the habitual rhythms of seasons – I agree with Engel that there are no real repetitions every plant refuses the denial of its possibility which includes the possibility of it’s impossibility . there are industrial monocultures domesticated plants policed by agriculturalists there are miles and miles and miles of crops for the consumption of domesticated animals for the consumption of domesticated humans and for the consumption of domesticated humans which is nonsense as every plant lives for the sake of its living . speak of plant liberation and laughter follows even from many (sentiocentric) antispeciesists . every flower bomb thrown is an embrace of possibility amidst the bewilderness of uncertainty guerrilla gardening a revolt against reductionism . every plant is an anarchy that is an absurdity every plant is an absurdity that is an anarchy . LONG LIVE THE WEEDS . I eat a vegetarian diet inside of me my microbiome my gut flora this habitat that is and is not me feasts upon the flesh of plants I have ingested turning them into shit that can compost and become new flowers born of seeds dropped by naughty anarchists . soil fertilised by bone and blood are ripe conditions for plant growth and I remember that song The Gardener by The Tallest Man On Earth . lavender and mint are good for calming bay leaf can aid digestion and reduce inflammation garlic helps with blood pressure issues and may even reduce the risk of heart attacks and cancer phytoncides released by trees and other plants can reduce stress, boost natural killer cells and also help lower blood pressure none of these plants live to do this these are not their purposes they do not will their lives for these Reasons They live to be who they are . I can imagine myself becoming an oak roots reaching into the soil touching mycelium branches spreading out touching the branches of other trees in a wild forest home to bear and wolf and deer and badger and buzzard and owl and boar and fox and hedgehog and all manner of plants . and moss was (basically) responsible for the first known mass extinction event and Donald Trump and Netanyahu and the political machine of too-fucking-late-krapitalism are intensifying and worsening this mass extinction event and maybe when Trump dies he will become daisies and Netanyahu windflowers and from the wreckage and ruination of the machine forests and pastures full of flowers will spread all things are possible . the sea slug Elysia chlorotica is a species-queering animal who becomes a plant through kleptoplasty allowing it to photosynthesise and the possibility of Kafkaesque Metamorphosis human-becoming-animal-becoming-plants excites the imagination . Engel differentiates plant-intuition from computer-logic I wonder what the elder tree I see from my window imagines stepping outside my door to ask the tree replies to my questions who are you what are you do you imagine what do you want in wordless gestures . intuition as gut-feeling remembering my microbiome co-existing with Engel’s microbiome co-existing with Trump and Netanyahu’s microbiomes my gut flora as a flowering springtime the gut is the first, primal, brain the enteric nervous system . perhaps intuition is born for a plant in their roots, or their leaves or their phloem or their xylem all things are possible I don’t know this feels stupid it probably is . the strangeness of the world is the absurd and the strangeness of a plant is their absurdity the lived experience of being a plant is strange to me in its unknowable qualities and with this an attraction born of mystery . the plant-philosopher Michael Marder (who might not be a plant and also might be all things are possible I haven’t inspected him to see) affirms that dialogues regarding co-existence ecological healing decolonisation must go beyond romantic-nativism and I am of a similar perspective thoughts of garlic growing here as ecological exiles come to mind and I wonder if Sascha has read Marder if I am a good friend I will remember to recommend . a bee nuzzles into the petals of an orange flower in my garden that I cannot speciate butterflies have been dancing around buddleia and lavender here recently also flowering plants are the most diverse group of land plants there are about 300,000 known species and who can say how many unknown species they share a Carboniferous era common ancestor and explosively diversified during the Cretaceous meaning flowers survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event so when a tough guy calls you a “flower” that means that you are a fucking survivor . agriculture is entirely dependent upon flowering plants angiosperma is the technical name angeion the Greek word for container sperma the Greek word for seed all of whom live lives of mutualistic-interdependency with pollinators that agriculture kills off with pesticides and many of these plants will not survive this mass extinction event and new ecological conditions born from global warming so agriculturalists are probably going to struggle to eat . thoughts of lost cities found amidst the Amazon rainforest and Cambodian jungle and deserts along the Silk Road found by grave robbers come to mind . I would rather this global Mesopotamia became lost in forests and pastures than man-made deserts . those jungles and forests that decolonised those cities are under threat from Leviathan still . plants have an intense will to life that continually inspires me plants are revolting anarchies of wild refusal before Leviathan all things are possible their survival and flourishing are possible jungles and flowers are possible and possibility and the extinction of all plants is inevitable death is invariant fuck it though they still will their lives! . Engel’s philosophy of plant anarchy embracing directness as deixis being-before-categorisation pre-Symbolic experiencing deterritorialising encoding in their words “unwriting” and I feel intense appreciation for this affirmation of immediacy and revolt against alienation . Engel is the champion of the Anti-Alphabet which is strange and absurd to me and I love their revolt against Latin tyranny we are different co-existing presences we different perspectives and points of view having different bodies and psychogeographies and educations . I have written this poem for Sascha Engel as a friend to affirm plant anarchy and plant absurdity I am writing this poem for Sascha Engel as a friend to affirm plant anarchy and plant absurdity . their book is in my hand again flicking through pages skimming sentences Sascha Engel is to me is a succulent in a desert of deserting nihilist-anarchists petals black full of psycho-active possibility sharp needles to fend off those who would do harm living in a landscape ravaged by Mesopotamia and I smile imagining them hating and loving my categorising them ambiguity is true and real a tree is a tree and is not a tree a foxglove is a foxglove and is not a foxglove we are living paradoxes and so engaging in mysticism we are both published in a poetry collection titled Flower Bombs this poetry collection is psychic-guerrilla-gardening these poems seeds . you are what you eat the sea slug Elysia chlorotica is a species-queering animal who becomes a plant through kleptoplasty tribal cultures who are the people of the deer salmon, ox, river, forest as they are what they eat queer the species-identity of Human biological classification is less meaningful than direct experience and we breathe air oxygenated through plants photosynthesising we are what we breathe we are the waste of plants this is wonderful and evolution is a process of continuous species-queering changing with habitats becoming different and with mass extinction events dramatic evolutionary changes are likely all things are possible and it is possible that the HUMAN animal will become kleptoplastic become-plant reoxygenated this earth possibly . what a fucking absurd idea! . there is a habitat of gut flora residing within me one within Sascha Engel and that is a strange truth to live with