The Land Shifts, and So Do We

On February 22nd, ten string players gathered in my living room to read one of my latest pieces, The Land Shifts, written for high school and undergraduate string orchestra. It’s a piece inspired by land restoration, written in a year when I awakened to the rhythms of the natural world.

Writing The Land Shifts was an earthly prayer for me, a way to articulate my observations, wishes, and work with the land. While the conditions for this piece began to form in early 2024, I didn’t write a single note until July. I've shared much about the piece itself, but after spending the last month mixing recordings and updating the score, I’d like to reflect on the journey from February to July before closing this chapter in the creative process.

***

In 2023 I sought ways to reconnect with the soil, even amid the city’s endless concrete. I found the Prospect Park Alliance, and on February 7th, 2024, I remember mulching trees and muddy paths across from Chuck Schumer’s apartment, just before a rally against his complicity in the Gaza genocide. It was chilly, but someone once said that the cold is a clarifying force we should invite in, to transform us. It was a humble and bright day.

Several weeks later, my roommate and I became “Brooklyn Married,” which means being dual members at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Our first visit was in March, eager to watch the grounds transform through the year. Though mostly dormant, a field of crocuses—one of spring’s first flowers—burst forth. At the time, I had no idea the extent of what I would witness, take part in, or how it would change me.

The crocuses gave way to magnolias, daffodils, and cherry blossoms in April. I began to recall my first memories with each plant: the daffodils by my childhood apartment, the first magnolia tree I noticed in 2010, stunned while walking home from school, capturing it on my Kodak camera. Each time a new plant appeared in the garden, I spent the day giving it the attention it deserved, really learning its name and behavior.

For years, many had urged me to read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. Last April, the audiobook began in my headphones as I watched sunlight move across my bedroom floor, illuminating my houseplants. Robin told the story of Skywoman falling to Earth with such humble reverence. Her still and thoughtful demeanor became the gentle air around me, unfolding timeless lessons on reciprocity and being in the world. Listening to this book over two months, as the earth blossomed into spring, was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life.

***

On to what was easily the most impactful day of 2024. As I write this, I’m shocked to find that May 9th is where we are headed. This day holds such a special energy for me, marked by several anniversaries I can only honor and witness. In 2012, it was the day my mother attempted suic*de, left town, and we lost contact, all just before I wrapped up and graduated high school. May 9th is also the birthday of the first violin student I ever taught, just six years old when we met in 2014. On May 9th, 2024, I had committed to return to the Prospect Park Alliance, where we met at the park’s wetland peninsula.

This was my first time in this section of the park, a 15-minute walk from the nearest entrance, over a specific set of bridges and paths. The peninsula’s forest was thick with the scent of wet soil and new growth. A dense canopy cast a commanding shadow over the wetland, while plants, scattered with tiny white flowers, glowed faintly like hundreds of motionless fireflies. It was almost as if everything was underwater, with the level of moisture in the air that day.

We were a quiet, focused group of ten volunteers, waiting for our assignment. “Today, we’re pulling garlic mustard,” said the volunteer lead. I recognized the plant’s name from Braiding Sweetgrass. They explained that garlic mustard is invasive—a biennial plant that carpets the earth in its first year, only to stretch toward the sky in its second, each plant scattering hundreds of seeds before its brief life comes to an end. It releases toxins that outcompete native plants, and you have to bag it up to prevent any seeds from being left behind.

I worked in a triangular patch near the pond, pulling plants easily by their taproots. When a stem snapped, I returned for the root, even though it wouldn’t resprout next year. The thought of it releasing toxins as it decomposed kept me pulling.

As we worked, I began to see our collective resistance strategies mirrored in the soil—just ten people pulling thousands of plants, adapting, failing, finding our rhythm, meeting the landscape where it’s at. Potentially ignoring the “root” of a problem, and considering the consequences. The land teaches us so much, often so quietly; these are lessons for our work with our human communities.

As the triangular patch cleared, I crouched beneath a larger shrub to check for more. Sure enough, ten or so sprouts were hiding there, and I began to recognize the first-year plants. Their spiky-edged leaves formed an unassuming yet toxic ground cover. The more I looked, the more I found. And the more I cleared, the less would be waiting for us next year.

I moved to another patch, tackling the first-year plants when I could, justifying the extra task with a string of excuses to myself: “I’m just grabbing these with one hand while the other keeps pulling the larger plants” or “I’m just grabbing a few before heading in another direction.” Soon, I discovered that if you grabbed a second-year plant at the base and pulled horizontally toward you, it came out by the root more consistently.

I took a break, to help pull multiflora rose from a tree stump. We struggled, carved, and tugged. At last, with a forceful tug, part of the stump’s weathered bark peeled away, unveiling a tender, fleshy interior. It felt as though the stump itself still lived, and I stood there, torn between awe and sorrow at the sight. (Later in the year, this stump became an important reference point.)

I moved to a nearby section of wetland, where the garlic mustard was the thickest I had seen all day. I must have spent half of our allotted time there. A volunteer lead worked nearby, explaining how to remove Star of Bethlehem, another invasive with white flowers that spread on long runners. I began to wonder which plants were meant to be here, if the garlic mustard hadn’t taken over? Was there even a native seed bank left in this overrun place? Could I see this place with different eyes in that moment—what it looked like before this, and what it might look like afterward?

Soon, the volunteer leads gathered and said, “Alright folks, ten more minutes, then we’re done.”

I looked at the remaining thicket. So much was still before me. In those last ten minutes, I pulled and pulled, feeling overtaken by the size of the problem. Three hours earlier, I had been charmed by these plants and the firefly-like glow of their flowers. Now, I understood their life cycle and impact, and for the first time, I felt a deeper awareness that every plant has a function and story. Beauty does not equal balance. A fierce sense of responsibility to the land crept into my heart during those final ten minutes, like a fire.

Our time ended. I looked at the remaining plants, and the bare soil left in front of them from my pulling. I remember saying aloud, “I will be back for you, and help make this right.”

The next day, like a shmuck, I came back to the park. It was a quiet, rainy day under the trees with Robin’s audiobook, and I felt a deeper connection to the land. The bluebell fields bloomed at the Botanic Garden, as college campuses surged with solidarity for Palestine. In many ways it felt wrong, waking up to our purpose as living beings in this form, during multiple genocides. Yet, embracing my responsibility to the land has only deepened my commitment to the visions and actions of Indigenous sovereignty movements, like Land Back and the fight for a free Palestine.

A video of an armed Palestinian came across my feed yesterday, who said in Arabic: “We will be here, as long as the thyme and the olives are here. The occupation will end.” Those who are Indigenous to land steward the olive groves, while those who colonize it raze them to the ground with machinery. The remaining bare soil is offered nothing but the mass graves of entire family lines, and flammable non-native European trees planted over the ruins of old Palestinian villages. Loving the land affirms that colonizing and owning it is not possible; the idea that it is for sale or something to conquer is a man-made construct. When we reject the ideas behind these false errands, our spirits and sense of reciprocal purpose is preserved.

Reflecting on May 9th and its anniversaries, I labeled it 'Species Kinship Day'—a reminder that our connection with the land can mirror, guide, and clarify our healing journeys in this lifetime.

On May 11th, I finished Braiding Sweetgrass, just after meeting garlic mustard, and that night, a friend treated me to John Adams’ El Niño at The Met.

At the end of May, I sang the Brahms Requiem at my church job—my fourth go with one of my favorite pieces of music. I felt invigorated with such purpose, awareness, and curiosity during this time. My spirit felt like a cat who’d just discovered a sunbeam—warm, abundant, and completely satisfied.

By June, my focus shifted from hands-on work to more intellectual engagement with the land. The garlic mustard had withered, and my research rabbit holes began. I wanted to know which native plants could outcompete garlic mustard. I spent countless hours studying its toxins, listening to people who’ve worked with the plant, and researching the soil composition of the wetland.

The Prospect Park Alliance decided to leave the wetland soil bare after we removed invasives. I wasn’t going to wait for them to address it, nor for the wetland’s balance to be outsourced to an entity with more power. I learned this sense of agency through studying abolition and Black feminism: outsourcing—like calling the cops or donating to nonprofits—shows we expect the most impactful change to come from others. Abolition, safety, and care are things each of us must shape. In May, the wetland asked me to love and listen to it, and as a student of abolition, I honored that request.

I also discovered a wealth of information on prescribed fire, an Indigenous land management technique of burning small portions of land during the cold, wet season. This reduces flammable ground cover, preventing larger wildfires in summer while nourishing the seed bank beneath with nutritious ash. Kyle Lybarger's videos, especially his tiktok playlist, were invaluable—watching them in 2024 deeply shaped my understanding of the subject.

As summer came, I found myself steeped in string music. My June ended performing with the International Pride Orchestra, an ensemble recently disinvited from performing at the Kennedy Center. July marked the tenth anniversary of my teaching at University of Rhode Island’s Summer Music Academy, and I was amazed at how much of the landscape I could now identify and differentiate for the first time, driving back and forth to campus that week,

Yet one of the most established plants there escaped me. I noticed a dense, viny ground cover along the highway, appearing charred and burnt at the top. The more I saw it, the more I wondered what it was—and worried if our warming climate was to blame for its condition.

By the end of my week at the string academy, it clicked: the ground cover was an invasive species—maybe Knotweed or Kudzu. Instead of being pulled or burned to make room for native plants, someone had sprayed the top with chemicals to prevent it from spreading onto the highway. The climate wasn’t drying it out; it was an act of land mismanagement.

This perspective shift gutted me.

It became a key inspiration for music that would eventually become The Land Shifts, which I hurriedly sketched on a friend's keyboard on the final day of the academy.

Growing up, I always thought global warming was to blame for summer wildfires. In adulthood I learned that Indigenous people routinely introduced fire to the landscape for its benefit, and when millions of them were taken from these lands, the ground-cover was not routinely burned, and the flammable material on the forest floor was not maintained.

2024 shaped me in ways I never could have anticipated. From July to November I worked on The Land Shifts, translating my experiences, insights, and new perspectives into music. With this piece, I wanted to create space for a large ensemble of people to see their role in Land Back and land management—as if the score was a packet of seeds passed from place to place.

And since prayer alone isn’t enough, I committed to volunteering weekly at the park. I reached out to prescribed burn associations, asking for more information about becoming certified. I organized a guerrilla gardening brigade to weed, fertilize, and replace the garlic mustard I pulled with native alternatives. This past Tuesday, the tiniest bloodroot sprouts were poking through the soil at Brooklyn’s Native Flora Garden. It’s nearly time.

Today’s Minor 9th

There are plenty of Minor 9ths in The Land Shifts, though two of my favorites are in the finale, where the music begins to mimic the regenerative metamorphosis that unfolds when prescribed fire is introduced to a landscape.

The first is at 2:46 between the violas and cellos, and then in the viola’s pizzicato (ms. 88 and 90, D4 and Eb5). The second is at 3:24 in the violins (ms. 112-115, A4 and Bb5). Listen through the whole movement one time, for context:

I’d also be remiss not to mention this Minor 9th the basses sang on Ash Wednesday, in Parce Domine by Feliks Nowowiejski (1877-1946). It’s one of the most unassuming I’ve encountered in context, but no easy feat to sing: B2 to C4, following a tritone leap…

You can watch us perform the anthem here. The minor 9th is towards the end, at 1:06:51.

Recent Consumptions

Visual Media

Yintah - If you're looking for examples of Land Back and resistance against the state, this film about pipeline construction on Wet’suwet’en land is a must-watch.

Stokely Carmichael said “We define to contain.” Oppressors and those in power try to limit our imagination, defining the struggle in ways that suit them. When they claim, "This is our land," and we spend all our energy arguing "No, it’s not," they’re already off and running with it while we waste our breath trying to prove them wrong. If the land isn’t being given back, regardless of the means, they’ve successfully contained any resistance to their actions.

Yintah presents some of the strongest rejections of these “definition containers” that I’ve ever seen, and shows how our liberation struggles have seasonal rhythms. I think about this documentary daily—the way it implicates the viewer in the ongoing history of land theft and sabotage, as well as in the wholeness of being alive. Its final moments will stay with me forever.

Small Interventions

-Taking our boycotts further - breaking up with genocide
A global economic strike was called on February 28th, offering small doses of class solidarity. This helps newcomers explore one of our most powerful protests: withholding our money. One lesson from Apartheid South Africa—the context that birthed Elon Musk—is that we have to make oppression too expensive. Money talks, especially its absence.

The Boycat widget and app are just incredible. They automatically flag products and barcodes from companies linked to Israel’s economy, explain the connections, and offer alternatives. I’ve stopped buying staples from Olay, St. Ives, and Nature Valley, all thanks to this tool. It’s almost entirely pulled me away from Amazon.

We might feel discomfort at the potential lack of convenience, or the slower shipping speeds. Personally, I don't miss Amazon's illusion of choice—a sea of nearly identical products, repeated over and over in search results, all designed to break after just a few uses. As YK Hong said last month, unlearn what you’ve been told is a “good app.” “We’ve been taught to recognize it, we’ve been taught to be dependent, and we want to unlearn all of that.”

As we seek alternatives to the ways oppressive systems manifest in our lives, this principle of unlearning and relearning what we think is "good," endures.

Lighting a Candle 🕯️ 

🕯️ “Listen more often to things than to beings. Tis the ancestors’ breath when the fire’s voice is heard. Tis the ancestors’ breath in the voice of the waters.”