: Recognizing the agency of teeming microbial worlds humbles the human ego, positioning us as "holobionts" (entire organisms) that are constantly "intra-acting" with a multitude of other life forms.
: It is frequently used in descriptive or literary contexts to emphasize an overwhelming, almost chaotic fullness.
The Vital Swarm: Reimagining Teemingness as Ecological Bioinfrastructure teemingness
: Rooted in the Old English teman (to give birth), teemingness was originally associated with fertility and pregnancy.
2. Teemingness as Bioinfrastructure: The Soil and Virosphere : Recognizing the agency of teeming microbial worlds
Reframing the world through the lens of teemingness challenges dominant "anthropocentric" narratives.
: The planetary "viral cloud" represents a mind-boggling scale of entities (estimated in the nonillions) that constantly infect and change the nature of other life forms. This "teeming swarming" of viruses refuses to sit still as stable individuals, instead existing as fluid genetic makeup. 3. Ethical and Aesthetic Implications This "teeming swarming" of viruses refuses to sit
Teemingness provides a vital conceptual tool for the Anthropocene. By shifting our focus from the "abundance" of resources to the "teemingness" of active, swarming life, we can move toward a more inclusive and ecologically grounded version of human existence—one that acknowledges our existence as "unique moist packages of animated soil".