"...with being human, everything is praxis.” (Wynter 34)
How do we actually do it? I want to actually do what I am talking about.
I want to make something for you. The thing itself is not novel — I found 1000+ ideas for making this thing on Pinterest. But while I make it, I am thinking about you, and about me, and about all the material and imaginative and intellectual resources I am using in a particular way, with the hope that when I give you this thing, it will be something you want to keep, or give to someone else, or make yourself. I like to imagine that my effort, my thinking-as-I’m-doing leaves a residue on this thing, charges it up with an investment of care, specificity, and openness. So, to externalize and put into practice the tenets of our intellectual Community Garden, I give you a study buddy, a traveling companion, a terrarium with a budding Mother of Millions. I invite you to take care of it, to tend to it, and see if it can be a part of your knowledge worlds. This something for you is one way to actually do the kind of companionship the seeds in this garden plant.
“What if we imagined intellectual life as a peasant woodland, a source of many useful products emerging in unintentional design?” (Tsing 286)
The Mother of Millions (Kalanchoe daigremontiana, also known as mother of thousands, alligator plant, and devil's backbone) planters came to be a part of this project through a fitting set of chances, intentions, and misfires. As I ruminated how to actually do feminist methodologies to draw feminist genealogies, initially I envisioned building a garden in the courtyard of Woods Hall. I scoped out the area, checked to see which aspects of the courtyard got good light. I wanted to create a kind of zen philosopher’s garden, where one goes to ponder big questions by moving though and working with the material aspects of the garden. Time, money, a lack of expertise, a likely prohibition on unsanctioned planting on school property, all precluded this plan from moving forward, but I still wanted to see if I could materialize something that would allow me to do gardening work as a way of thinking about this class, this project. I came up with the idea for a terrarium, having made them before. In previous attempts, I had tried to use them to grow herbs, which did not work, and all my internet research pointed me to succulents, especially ones of the stonecrop variety.
A lesson about proliferation vs. flourishing: when I described to the kind folks at my local Ace Hardware that I needed a succulent that would be good for budding, they immediately suggested Mother of Millions, and they happened to have one ripe with plantlets in various stages of development that they were happy to give away. I was thrilled! I rushed off to tend to the little buddies and prepare their homes, imagining you all taking them to your homes or offices and tending to them. I figured that it would be conscientious to include care instructions, and it was only then that I looked into specifics about this plant. It turns out that not only is it considered a rampant weed—if you grow it outdoors and don’t weed out dropped plantlets, it can take over the landscape—but, it is also poisonous to humans and animals, so keep your furry friends at bay, and don’t try to eat it! They are fiercely generative, dangerous but delicate mamas.
Here are some tips on how to care for your buddy, from www.guide-to-houseplants.com:
