Anthology of an empath

How can we live here together? How can we, human beings (especially those of us not considered as such, historically, presently, or in the future) and more-than-human beings live here together and care for each other? I set out to learn how a pair of permaculture farmers in Southern Humboldt lived and worked with these questions: I attempted a qualitative and quantitative analysis of twenty years of natural history journals that one of them recorded. I was particularly interested in the aesthetics of land tending, affective relationships with more-than-human beings, and disrupting settler colonialism through epistemic reparations to the Sinkyone Peoples. I was also living with the same questions myself on campus, in academia, in Wiyot Territory. As I studied critical theory and turned it into relational praxis in my life, this praxis superseded my work with the journals. I ultimately chose to not publish the note-taker’s personal story on their behalf. Instead I offer a multi-genre anthology. I present the research project as I designed it, with a critical genealogy of permaculture and natural history with respect to colonialism. I reflect on my experiences and positionality––particularly as an empath–– while participating in student coalitions against systemic racism. Finally, I present theoretical insights that I developed: I call for a spiritual conception of more-than-human-beings as part of political ecology, note convergences between systems theorists and Indigenous ethics, and present a framework for considering beauty and aesthetics