Dogs Decoded

Hey everyone,
There is a crazy-cool PBS program called "Dogs Decoded" that is available on Netflix under the "Watch it Now" feature. The show tries to explain why dogs are so different than other animals and the bond between humans and dogs. If you're a dog lover, watch it simply for all of the adorable puppies!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/dogs-decoded.html

Mason Jars

I love walking at night. I feel like almost every walk that I blog about is at night, but there's just something that I suppose I'm drawn to, something that is much deeper to understand, something that I myself don't even understand. Tonight's walk was brief, however, it got me thinking about so many things, I don't even know where to start. Lately, the ground feels different under my feet, it's becoming harder and doesn't cradle my step the way it used to. The night sky looks fuzzy, clouded by droplets of percipitation that sparkle and dance in the artifical street lights shining down on the empty street. The night air feels dense and heavy, the coldness burning my lungs like fire. I exhale and my breath is white, something that always has fascinated me since I was a little kid. The night is quiet and everyone is hiding somewhere, and I am left standing in the middle of an empty road, my teeth chattering, my bones shaking inside a sack of pale and delicate flesh. I must have stood in the middle of the road for what seemed like forever, staring at the sky, wondering who I am in the vast emptiness of the world. I was alerted by the headlights of an oncoming car and shook my head to bring myself back to reality. I walked away and checked the time, surprised that no more than three minutes had past. I had completely lost myself in those few moments that felt like an eternity, thinking about who we are, where we're going, what's going to become of us when we reach this end that we all seem so diligently working to acheive.

The question of eternity and what is to become of us has been a question that has had me hooked like a fish since I was old enough to understand that one day, inevitable, we will die. I have read many interpretations of life after death, watched lots of movies, listened to many people, but no matter what, I am never satisfied with the answer. I think it is safe to say that the idea of death is an idea that scares me like no other, resulting in the fact that no answer can ever be given as to why this occurs, it's just something that we must accept. I think our inability to understand the passage of time is what presents a big flaw in my understanding of life and death. I feel like our "invention" of time is our way of making sense of change, of the things that we don't understand. We know that we come into this world, we live and grow, some of us have children and get married, and hope to live long, successful lives and in the end, we return to the ground where we came from. We all have a past, a present and all hope to have a future. In reality, all we really have is the moment that we are living in. We have no proof of the past or the future; they are merely just ideas. We can't see them, touch them, grasp them. Dillard's interpretation has struck me like no other. She not only refrains from making sense of time, but claims that we are infact terrified of the passage of time saying, "It is the fixed that horrifies us, the fixed that assails us with the tremendous force of it's mindlessness. The fixed is a Mason jar, and we can't beat it open" (pg. 69). Our only one and "fixed" moment in time is the one that we have right now, and that scares us, therefore, we have created time as a distraction and a way to make sense of what we call life. We are appraching the ultimate fixed moment, which is death. Dillard explains life by saying, "It is motion without direction, force without power, the aimless procession of caterpillars round a rim of a vase, and I hate it because at any moment I myself might step to that charmed and glistening thread" (pg. 69). For some, death, or the "charmed and glistening thread" seems intriguing, and for others, it's the scariest and most unexplainable thing that perhaps we are ever faced with. What if we really are just science projects stuck in Mason Jars, experiments being watched and awed at, just test subjects suspended in one long, drawn out moment that seems like a dream? Isn't that horrifying? I think Dillard would say so.

Seeing a Balance in Life

This week, while on a short nature walk, I started to think, in relation to Annie Dillard, on how I really “see” nature and even the world around me. I was walking on my road, in Gorham, which is pretty much surrounded by farms and animals. I saw some cows, sheep, and pigs on the nearby farm and started to wonder how I really see these living things. The majority of the time people do not look at animals as having their own lives, their own world to live but rather they are living in our world and they serve a purpose such as food, clothing, help with work, and even income. I felt sad when I started looking at these animals thinking that the way in which I have always looked at these animals, I have never really “seen” them. Dillard expresses seeing in two ways, one in which people see the world around them, the colors and shapes, the revelation of looking at things for what we perceive them to be. But there is another “king of seeing that involves a letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the two ways of seeing is the difference between walking with and without a camera.” (Dillard pg. 33) We find a separation between our world and the world in front of us, based upon how we “see” things.

But I wonder if this has something to do with an interesting idea that I believe Dillard promotes. She discusses at several points the idea of the horror, the grotesque in the world that we can see, and when we “see” this horror we can’t see the beauty, and vice versa. Dillard says that “cruelty is a mystery and the waste of pain. But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary that sings on the skull.” And se further states that “there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous”. (Dillard 9) The idea of good and bad existing means there is a balance. Dillard speaks of mystery many times, and in relation to horror and beauty, maybe these two things are connected through mystery. This mystery is the result of our inability to really “see” the world or nature around, leaving us with a lack of understanding. Maybe our view of the world around us, of nature, and of me seeing the animals is like this balance of horror and beauty. We see only good or bad at any given time, with the alternate not being in sight for that moment.

I once saw a snapping turtle on the side of the road to my house, although I didn’t know it was a snapping turtle at the time, and I had never seen a turtle in “real life before (as in up close, although this term is conveniently ironic). I got out of the car and walked alongside the turtle and went to touch it, only before my husband warned me that it could hurt me. My train of thought, at the time, was one not concerning the turtle but the beauty of a turtle being conveniently placed here, at that moment for me to see and touch. I never thought about the possibility of the turtle’s life, the horror of getting my finger snapped off simply because I was too eager and selfish in interrupting the life of the turtle. I wonder if we can truly “see” things in the world, in nature, what this will do to our understanding of beauty and horror in so much as maintaining a balance.

Perspectives

"Terror and beauty insoluble are a ribband of blue woven into the fringes of garments of things both great and small" (27).

I haven't always been the biggest Dillard fan, but over the years I've come to realize that it's been more of a clash of stylistic preferences than ideas. While this reading in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek starts off much the same way as Teaching a Stone to Talk, I tried to unpack the big ideas that Dillard is trying to convey instead of focusing on her scattered observations.

The above quote is what grabbed my attention, and while reading I closed my eyes and imagined taking part in my own experiment. Seems that, without my consent, Dillard's plain yet detailed recounting of her pond-water project had made me envision every little detail as if I were sitting at my own kitchen table, peering into a bowl of murky water, staring at the thin film of unsuspecting amoebas for hours. Then Dillard suggests putting the amoebas into an aquarium and imagines them contemplating their known universe as a rectangular tank, and mentions, "But it could be that we are not seeing something. Galileo thought comets were an optical illusion" in what seems like a completely disjointed thought. But it's not! We could be nothing more than amoebas, seeing for ourselves what we think we know for a fact, when in reality all our assurances don't amount to much. Reading this passage and thinking about all of us humans sitting on this floating rock out in space (which might very well be the celestial equivalent of a two-feet by five aquarium) I was suddenly aware that what I had once viewed as Dillard's scatterbrained retellings and lonely observations had just taken me out of the little comfort zone of my perceived consciousness. Damn, I thought. She got me, all right.

So what to do with this gained insight? Keep it close? Meditate on it every day, constantly putting myself in an amoeba's perspective again? When I walk around town and feel my cheeks going numb under the constant push of a frozen November breeze, that's not what I'm thinking about. The thing is, none of us will ever know for sure the reality of anything we think we understand. My current beliefs dictate that, first and foremost, we have nothing to do but experience the world we've been born into. So when I walk I listen to distant cars and trees and spend some time trying to "see" the way Dillard wants to see things, but I keep my infinite tininess and the path of my limited existence in time in the back of my mind, because I want to appreciate what's in front of me. Dillard quotes Donald E. Carr remarking on single-celled organisms which aren't hard-wired for brains:

"This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is" (21).

Sure, this fact is mournful on some levels, but can you think about what our human existence would be like if we did experience the universe as it really is? How boring! I feel like this is the idea that Dillard is trying to wrestle with. We have been blessed with the gift of an infinite number of mysteries, an infinite number of scenarios with which we can keep ourselves occupied, trying to make sense of it all. We should appreciate that, and go to any length to convey that awareness to others. If we don't, we all might as well just be amoebas in a china bowl.

Insight With a Side of Milk.

I grew up in a small town. Richmond, Vermont is located in Eastern Vermont about half an hour from Burlington. The town was, is, and hopefully always will be a farm town. I grew up on Conant's Riverside Farm. As a child, when I accompanied my family down to the farm, I had 1,000 acres of land to run around on. 600 of those were reserved for crops and were filled with corn during the spring and summer, and pumpkins in the fall, along with three different cuts of hays and grains throughout the growing season. Watching Food Inc. baffles me every time. Because of the farm I grew up on, I was made aware of responsible farming practices. Watching interviews of people who have been sucked into the corporate side of farming makes me incredibly sad. Not only does this materialistic viewpoint hurt our nation's people and animals, it also hurts the environment.

Believe it or not, there is a reason "Riverside" is part of the name of this business. The farm is nestled between the foothills of the Green Mountains and the Winooski River. The Winooski River flows over 90 miles from Montpelier to Burlington, where it empties into Lake Champlain. The land through which it flows is greatly agricultural, especially because it makes for easy irrigation of crops. The only downside to the proximity of the river to the farmland is that runoff becomes a big issue. Responsible farming practices have been put into place by many farms along the river, including Conant's, in order to create a healthier environment. We have worked to put into place vegetative buffers not only along the riverbank, but also along natural springs that run into the river themselves. There is  also great care taken to stop runoff from all barns and feed storage areas. Now we work with a Comprehensive Management Plan that was put into place in order to protect all aspects of the environment on the farm. The plan includes soil, water, and nutrient management for the farm.

Especially after watching Food Inc and seeing how farms begin to disregard the health of their animals after they begin working with corporations such as the Tyson company. For the Conant family, the animals have always been placed number one. We have over 600 animals on the farm at any given time. About 70 more young cows are boarded at a smaller Conant owned farm about a mile up the road. About 20 more cows our owned by the Conants but are housed at the University of Vermont Agriculture Barn for research. These cows are key in learning about how to keep our animals and our food and drinks healthy. The cows at UVM are fistulated. That means they have holes that go through their abdomen into their stomach. The term stomach is used loosely, as cows have four compartments in their stomach. Each chamber has a different role in the digestion process. In order for cows to be healthy and produce milk as normal and in order for beef to grow normally in order to make good meat, they should eat grains and chew their cud. They chew this cud because their bodies have to work extra hard to break it down and extract all of the nutrients. The problem here is that many American farmers have turned to using corn to feed their cattle. When we examine corn feed as it passes through a cow, we realize that much of the food is going to pure fat storage. The lipids are being extracted and the substance is being discarded. There is no energy storage, and the cows are largely being jipped by those that are trying to save money.

The Conants have been selling their milk to the Cabot Co-op for many years. Cabot, for those that don't know, is owned and run by Dairy Farmers. They encourage farms to stay manageable and make sure that they are using ethical and healthy practices for not only their animals but also for the environment. If only all farmers would understand that the impact they have on the earth is as great, if not greater, than the number of people that need their food.

Dillard on Babbling and Seeing

"Annie Dillard. Annie Dillard. Annie Dillard..." Most of my walk consisted of this. Just repeating her name over and over again trying to get some idea about where to start this blog and trying to control the chatter going on endlessly in my head. That constant stream of thought that usually looks a lot like, "Ok, so I'll do this for 15 minutes or so and then when I get home I'll spend ten minutes writing the blog then I will do the 10-12 page paper that is due Tuesday since I will have no time tomorrow because I am working all day. Then I need to do a load of laundry and get some supper. Crap, I almost forgot about that, what am I going to eat?" Right about then I realized that thinking about food was A) Not thinking about Dillard and B) Making my belly rumble. And that was when it hit me. Dillard has a wonderful quote on page 34, "All I can do s try to gag the commentator, to hush the noise of useless interior babble that keeps me from seeing just as surely as a newspaper dangled before my eyes." She is so right! It happens to me a lot when I go on the walks for this class. I head out, determined to be filled with wonder and awe at something, to be inspired in some new way about the text and instead all I do is babble along, in my head, about what I usually babble about, school, work, housework, friends, family, life. What is it about our own tiny lives that has us so enthralled? What keeps us from seeing the things around us, those "unwrapped gifts and free surprises" that Dillard talks about? Why are we so self centered? It reminded me a lot of Leopold when he said that the non-hunter sees nothing.

Maybe Leopold was right, maybe we just aren't trained to see things in that way. But Dillard actively tries to. And the best she can come to is this; "Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness; you raise your sights; you look along it, mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance" (35). Perhaps she would agree with Leopold, only hunters really see.

On the other hand, Dillard is very interested in religion. Something Leopold spends very little time on in his book of essays. In fact, opens her book with a wondering about the bloody paw prints her old tomcat would leave on her chest every morning. She writes, "The sign on my body could have been an emblem or a stain, the keys to the kingdom or the mark of Cain" (3). She is more enthralled by the almost mystical quality of nature than Leopold is. There is a sense of awe that I think is missing in Leopold's hunters. They understand animals in a much more primal way, they are able to get inside of an animals head. They have to in order to hunt them. But I think when you do that, while you are able to see, hear, smell, and sense more. The breath taking, inspiring, mind blowing moments of nature don't seem as extraordinary any more.

Community, Environment, and Mean Girls

I want to begin this post with an apology. I was not at my pedagogical best yesterday for our class. When I dropped my three-year-old daughter of at daycare, I overheard a little girl say to her, "We don't like you, Avery," and then, turning to her friend, "right, Sarah?" "Right," Sarah replied. "We don't like you." All the air was suddenly sucked out of my lungs. I didn't want to intervene -- kids are supposed to settle these things for themselves, or so the parenting experts say -- so I just stood there. Avery shook it right off, found something else to play with, and settled in. I gave her an extra hug and kiss, blinking back tears, quietly told the teacher what I had observed, and walked quickly to my car, and collapsed. 

What's going on here? I remember exclusive behavior. I remember "I don't like you," and "you can't play with us," and of course, later, cool and uncool, invited and not-invited...but I don't remember it in preschool. I thought about how hard my husband and I work to teach Avery the "right" way to behave, the "right" things to say and do, and realized with a flash that she may be learning something very different from her school community. Whose fault is that? The possibilities raced through my mind. Is it the little girl's fault? Her parents' fault? The teacher's fault? My fault for leaving her there, for having a career which means she's in full-time daycare? I spent the day embracing each of these possibilities in turn, getting angry in a way I think only a parent can, utterly unable to focus on anything else.

 Then, last night, I went back to Ceremony, and to the idea of the web of community. After talking to old man Ku'oosh, Tayo becomes "certain of something he had feared all along, something in the old stories. It only took one person to tear away the delicate strands of the web, spilling the rays of the sun into the sand, and the fragile world would be injured."

Later in the evening I spoke to a friend who is a child psychologist. "It's happening more and more," she said of the kind of behavior I'd witnessed, "and with younger and younger kids. Mostly girls." What I had seen, I realized, was evidence of a tear in the web. A community problem. And to address it I'd have to start thinking about bigger issues than "whose fault?"

I can't help thinking that Silko's right -- that the Western (and, as Cassandra's presentation so effectively illustrated, Christian) tradition of morality, in which we're taught to be moral individuals, to mind our individual souls, to do the "right thing" out of a sort of Kantian or biblical sense of duty, is part of the problem. What we somehow need to absorb is that our actions -- all of them -- affect the web of community that is our very life-support system. As Silko's novel so beautifully illustrates, the dangers of thinking we're disconnected, that our actions affect only ourselves, is the source of not only ecological but also ethical disaster.

I don't know what to do about girls being mean at younger and younger ages, any more than I know what to do about the factory farm system, or poverty, or global warming. But I do know, now, that I live in a community, that its problems are my problems, and its health, my health. So tonight, we'll go though the closets and find some old coats to bring to the school's coat-drive, and Avery and I will bring a loaf of homemade bread to my neighbor with the broken ankle, and we'll pick up a couple of strands in our tiny little corner, and start mending.

Rethinking the Fly, Hummingbird and Buzzard

As I went on my nature walk the day before yesterday, I decided to be particularly adventurous and go out in search for more wildlife (since in previous blogs I've mentioned my incredible luck of wildlife finding me). I started to search around Abbott Park, hoping to all of Mother Nature that I'd catch some delicate creature in the act of eating a meal. Or maybe even perhaps some rare bird specific to the autumn season, actively keeping the food chain in motion.

Unfortunately, while purposefully trying to find life; I was unable to do so. Sad days...

However, as I read through Ceremony for today I couldn't help but become amused by how many animals are referenced throughout the book - especially the imagery of Buzzards, Hummingbirds and flies.

At around pages 94-97, there is an intriguing moment in the book when Tayo enters into a bar and reminisces about all the fond memories that he once had in the bar. To him, every inch of that bar carries sentimentality as he looks over little details, such as the old stove, plaster on the walls and the bent floorboards. His disappointment sets in as he realizes that those fine communal days at the bar are over.

The most interesting about about this section though aren't specific just to the bar and the memories that Tayo ties to them, but rather the poem that seems to bookend his feelings.
On page 97 the poem reads that, "Fly started sucking on/ sweet things so/ Hummingbird had to tell him/ to wait:/'Wait until we see our mother.'/ They found her./They gave her blue pollen and yellow pollen/hey gave her turquoise beads/they gave her prayer sticks.

'I suppose you want something', she said./ 'Yes, we want food and storm clouds.'/'You get old Buzzard to purify/ your town first/ and then, maybe, I send you people/ food and rain again.'

Fly and Hummingbird/flew back up./They told the town people/that old Buzzard had to purify/the town. (P.97).

The imagery in this poem really struck me because it speaks to one of the main themes of the book - which is to reshape their once tight-knit community through the land (which is reminiscent of how Leopold conveyed his ideas about community through nature).

The mixture of Tayo's memory in tandem with the poem serves as a way for Silko to stress the importance of creating and maintaining a community. When Silko writes about Tayo's memories first and the poem second, she creates a parallel of how the community was before - a strong one, to a dying community in need of "purification" by way of an old Buzzard. This all seems very similar to how Leopold used the image of the mountains and wolves as a way to illustrate life before and after people turned away from natural traditions (or how his perspective changed from being a trigger happy hunter, to a respecter of the land).

In addition to the communal message, it seems to me that Silko wants the Buzzard to represent the Native American spirit that the people once had and the hummingbird and the fly are the almost powerless spirits that the people currently have; which in turn reinforces the differences between the community in the past to the one in the present

Food For Thought

"At one extreme are those who sound as if they are entirely in favor of nature...at the other extreme are the nature conquerors" (137).

-Wendell Berry

I've actually watched Food Inc. several times, including for my documentary studies class, during which we examined and critiqued the film as a source of information and vehicle for social change. We noted its overall "catchiness" in that the movie itself appeals to the masses. The music, animations, bright colors, and simplistic structure all make it a commercialized product, in many ways similar to the packaged products of industrialization. The health concerns and environmental practices contained within the film are broad and well-known to anyone familiar with the food industry. Who doesn't know that Monsanto is the overwhelming nemesis? Who doesn't know that corporate companies like Tyson use unjust practices in producing mass amounts of food to feed an obese nation? Apparently, more people than you think.

The solutions that the film suggest are broad, as well. Shop locally. Support small farms. Plant a garden. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Been there, heard that.

If it was that simple, wouldn't people be doing it? If individual consumer choices could, in fact, completely change our entire method of production, why haven't we been able to? The answer is: accountability.

Corporations aren't held accountable. The law, government, and money itself sees to it that our economic system continues to rely on this industrialized system where "artificial" replaces "natural." We aren't going to see the change that the hardcore environmentalists would like to see until our resources run out. It's depressing and sad, but it's the truth. Here's why: we've created a system that people are now born into. Children are brought up eating tomatoes grown 500 miles away, wearing clothes made in Pakistan, playing with toys made in China. I was brought up that way. I continue to enjoy a lifestyle that supports these economic relations, even though I do try to buy locally, go to farmer's markets and Maine fairs and purchase fair-trade items.

Our society is so overly-dependent upon these cheap labor systems because they pay off in the short term. However, the long-term effects are far more detrimental than any small, immediate gains. We don't realize the value of these resources until there are shortages.

Then, we complain.

We complain when gas prices go up. We complain when food prices go up. We complain if the power goes out during a storm, if our shower water isn't cold, if our flights are delayed at the airport.

Well, at the rate that our country and world is gobbling up the land, in just a matter of time we won't be complaining about these insignificant inconveniences. We'll be searching for water, food, and shelter.

Why are we headed down this path? Accountability.

You don't have to buy corn from the farm stand down the road, now. But you will.

You don't have to limit your showers to a certain amount of minutes, now. But you will.

You don't have to recycle your cardboard or paper or cans, now. But soon, the only landfill open will be in your own backyard.

So, films like Food Inc. are necessary for people who don't know about these issues. Maybe ideas like the ones presented in it can change or influence public opinion. Yes, I do think that consumers have power. Yes, the Wal-Mart representatives admitted to it in the film. Yes, I think we must go back to the local...in fact there is no other choice.

But until action is mandated, we aren't going to see dramatic change. People, at the end of the day, think for their own well-being and convenience, first and foremost. I'm not saying this to be pessimistic, but rather, practical. It is a reality. Wendell Berry suggests that there are two extremes: the tree-hugging naturists and the nature conquerors. The truth of the matter is that we're all nature conquerors, no matter how kind our intentions are, because of the systematic structure in place, which we all feed from (literally and metaphorically). Until regulations and accountability are instituted for individuals, nations, and corporations, we'll continue to shop our way into extinction.

Pass the potatoes.

The Rain Ceremony

I wished for rain last week. I was having one of those days where nothing was going right and I just wanted the weather to reflect my mood. My mind was cloudy, but I could tell it was full of dark things, too many things… I felt a little bit like Tayo – walking around in the here and now, but not thoroughly a participant. Random objects would recall memories that I’d forgotten I’d ever had… A sign on a door, the color of someone’s shoes, a minor chord played by a stranger on the piano, all these things assaulted me… There was my grandfather hardened like a skeleton after chemo treatments, there was that desperate glint that appeared in my father’s eyes when he yelled and the sound of my best friend’s voice as she said, “I forgot about you”.

I stepped outside and smiled as the rain fell. People were rushing and important papers were getting wet; I enjoyed every minute of it. The rain revived me as I walked and with every step I imagined the darkness that clouded my mind getting washed away, the rain taking it with it and down into the gutter where I didn’t have to see it anymore.

This walk made me think of cleansing and the ceremonies that Tayo undergoes. The rain was a sort of cleansing for me, but I couldn’t help thinking that it could be a cleansing for other people as well, an event that would connect them back to the Earth. As I was reading Ceremony I couldn’t get over the description of the white people’s connection with nature:

Then they grow away form the earth

Then they grow away from the sun

Then they grow away from the plants and animals.

They see no life

When they look

They see only objects.

The world is a dead thing for them

The trees and rivers are not alive

the mountains and stones are not alive.

The deer and bear are objects

They see no life. (123)

As in this description, I too get caught up in the world of objects. I think it’s easy to do here in college. My existence revolves around due dates for projects, papers, and presentations. I breathe in so many words, only to breathe them out again the next day in class. My dreams are about typing my papers and taking my tests. I feel like this is a problem. I think people aren’t thinking about the right things and I know that they aren’t being very observant. They don’t notice that most of the leaves have fallen; they don’t take the time to reassure themselves that the sky is blue. Honestly, I feel like it could be green one of these days and they wouldn’t notice it. However, the rain… The rain they see as an enemy. It makes them cold, and it gets them wet, but the good thing about rain is that it should, at least, for a second, make them forget about papers, tests, and presentations. It should remind them that they are human, and that they can only do so much. It’s a ceremony which many don’t want to undergo, but one that I believe is extremely necessary.

Being Natural

On my walk I did not stray far from town, it was raining and cold. As I am opposed to both of these I decided to reward my self with some Soup for You at my journeys end. As I was walking down Broadway I could smell food wafting out of the many restaurants along the road. While they all smelled delicious, all of the smells were blended together no one smell was unique to a source. As I walked into Soup for You the smell became more unique and the soup as always was superb.

As I walked back to the dorm I thought about the fact that the smell is the strongest of the senses. One sent can trigger a memory from decades before. It is not something that people often think about in regards to things other than themselves, how do I smell? Does my breath smell? Does my house smell good? These are thoughts that people have. And in todays world products are sold to appease these thoughts. We have deodorant, perfume and cologne to cover up body oder. We have mouth wash, mints and gum to cover up bad breath. We even have Fabreez to cover up any left over smells in our living spaces. I had to wonder if anything we smell is natural anymore.

I am writing about this because later as I read Ceremony I realized that the sense of smell( as well as the other senses) was important to the story. "He walked in the evening air, which was cool and smelled like juniper smoke from the old man's fire"(127). In this scene Tayo is walking outside and he is able to smell something natural, juniper. There are many other scenes like this in the book, but as I read this line it occurred to me that I do not even know what juniper is let alone what it smells like. I do know the difference between Clinique's Happy and The Gap's so pink, I can also tell you which one costs more.

My point here is that today in the world we are so busy covering up the natural that we don't see what we are losing. In Ceremony we can see how tied to the land we are supposed to be and how going against nature can poison us. I have to wonder in the future if we will be able to smell anything that is not a processed chemical? I would be sad to think that this could even be a possibility. But I hold out some hope because as I took my walk the entire time is smelled like rain, and though Yankee Candle may have a sent titled rain, the real thing smells nothing like it.

Road Kill, Winter, and Organic Food

The last few days have been horrible for walks. On the days that it is not raining it is incredibly cold and/or windy. I don’t think I will ever get used to Maine weather. I walked down Perham street because the ground was far too soggy to walk in the woods this week. I hate walking in mud and I really hate getting my shoes covered with it.
As I was walking, I noticed how dead the world looks right now and sadly realized that winter is coming. The time right before the first real snow fall always depresses me. Everything looks so grey, cold, and sad. I constantly feel like I’m in a Stephen King novel at this time of year. The only good thing about snow is that it covers up all of the death.
Unfortunately, I see a lot of road kill when I walk down Perham street. It’s a little gross, but if you walk by the same road kill every day you get to see it slowly disappear. Animals slowly pick away at it, a car might run over it again, and it also decomposes on its own. I know it’s gross, but I can’t help but think it’s a little interesting to see. Without death there cannot be life, so in a way I guess destruction is necessary to live.
While I looked at and thought about the road kill, I remember a passage from Ceremony that seemed relevant. The section in which Tayo smashes a melon ends with bugs infesting the “remains.”
“Tiny black ants were scurrying over the shattered melons; the flies were rubbing their feet on the fragments of pulp and rind. He trampled the ants with his boots, and he kicked over the seeds and pulp. He watched the flies buzz in circle above the burial places” (61-62).
I wondered at first, why did he not want the bugs to be in the guts of the melon? Perhaps the melon is not just food to him, but rather a living thing that is closer to human. Maybe the guts and the destruction reminded him of the war and the corpses that resulted from it. I wonder how Tayo would have reacted to the dead, insect covered bunny on Perham street.
I do need to write/think about the Food Inc. movie that we had watched in class last week. I do understand that some animals live in horrible conditions and this ends up being negative for the consumers (us). However, how many people inhabit the earth now? How many people live in the U.S. alone? Would it be possible in any way to feed all of those people with organic farming? I do not think that it is possible. What requirements must a food meet in order to be considered "organic" anyway? I'm currently doing a little research on organic food because I am now interested. Here are some links I have found so far:

http://www.green-blog.org/2009/08/05/penn-teller-claims-organic-food-is-bullshit-fails-to-mention-that-their-expert-is-paid-by-monsanto/

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/organic.html
Once I find some information I will write another blog on it.

Walking Against Traffic

My walk this week may not have been alone,and it may not have been in nature, unless one counts High St as nature. I guess it could be, if only you consider the clusters of apartments full of college students as colonies of some particular animal, and the road as the one connecting path and the cars as predators, but I digress. Now about this not walking alone bit: I realize that we're supposed to walk alone so we're silent, and I was mostly silent, listening to the drunken burps and noises and misplaced adjectives of my mostly inebriated friends as we looked for someplace to go. (DISCLAIMER: we were not on campus and all persons were of age) There was stumbling, swaying, and all the usual stereotypical drunken walking you can think of. I don't know what was talked about. It wasn't in any recognizable language or syntax, yet everyone understood one another. There was drooling. There was clumsy affection. There was loudness and lewdness.All that mattered was the road and walking beside it, not on it; there is the occasional car at 1am.We were animals. We were the animals of High St. This relates, bear with me.

So while reading Ceremony, I thought a lot about all the Native American literature I've read and how this compares or doesn't. Tayo is a fairly depressing human being to read about. The few rays of sunshine are the moments when he remembers happy times. One such moment, "Josiah said that only humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind."(24). Well, yes, of course we resist. We don't want to die, so we have medicine. We don't want to rebuild after natural disasters, so we create walls and complex machinery to protect us. We don't want to accept that it happens on purpose, that Nature has a cycle that we can't see. We think we need to see everything to be above it. Wanting to be above and not part of requires separation; separation requires resistance.

Oddly enough, I remembered my drunken walk down the street with friends. We weren't human then, we were animals and unthinking. Is that why we were enjoying ourselves? There was no thinking about stress, or wondering where the next meal was coming from or trying to solve world hunger. There were no machines to rage against, only the alcohol that brought us to that baser state. Resisting is hard work, and we didn't work against anything that night. Did we sway like the wind, and become part of it in our drunkenness?

Sometimes I think human beings would be happier if we didn't try to think all the time. Most people, when looking for an escape, look to something that wipes out their brain: hard liquor, drugs, physical sports, adrenaline rushes. Berry wanted us to work with our hands so we could see and feel the end product. See and feel, not think about. We had to think to invent the factory. We had to think to make war. We had to think to globalize. We have to think to resist. Do we have to think to survive?

Efficiency or Enjoyment?

As I have said before, I prefer to take my nature walks towards the end of the day. Whether or not this is because the end of the day is the only time that I have to do any walking, I still find it personally enjoyable because of the overall experience that I get from finding a nice quiet place to pass the remaining hours of light in the day. This week, I found a nice inconspicuous spot at the base of a tree in the thinning (and by now leafless) woods near campus, and I sat down to write a little bit about other similarly quiet moments in my life. I'm not really sure how I got into this habit, but writing or thinking about past nice calm moments during present nice calm moments has been a sort of saving grace for my sanity this year.

Anyway, an important realization that I came to was that the extent to which I could write depended entirely on how much sunlight I had left before nightfall. I was deep enough in the woods that as every minute ticked by I had less and less light to work with. Soon I felt as though I was racing against the clock, trying to condense my ideas enough that by the time the sun went down I could come up with something that didn't seem to end too abruptly. I noticed, however, that the race to take advantage of every last ray of daylight wasn't too stressful. The whole time that I was concerned with finishing my little entry, I had barely noticed the quickly fading light, and by the time I had finished, I was completely in the dark.

Later, I thought about Berry's fascination with the "Old school" of thought, and the conflicts with functionality and enjoyment that he raises when describing his conversations with his farming friend, who preferred to use horses on his farm rather than tractors. I thought Berry sounded a bit like Thoreau (at least the cynicism is there) when he describes the farmer's use of his tractor:

"Last spring he used his big tractor only two days. The last time he went to use it, it wouldn't start, and he left it sitting in the shed; it was still sitting there at the time of our visit" (155).

Here, I think that Berry is trying to outline what he doesn't like about the advent of quick, labor-saving technology by showcasing this particular incident, where something that might be completely practical could also be entirely impersonal. Not only does the farmer apparently have a hard time justifying its use, but once it proves unreliable, it is unable to be improved upon, and is thus left alone to rust in his shed. While I think that Berry is far from the point of despising technology to the extent that Thoreau might have, he makes a compelling inadvertent statement about the importance of the enrichment of one's own life over the practicality of modern advances. Berry says,

"At year's end, his bank account will show a difference that the horses have made, but day by day his reason for working them is that he likes to" (155).

I felt as though this passage connected with my sense of enjoyment and understanding of practical application when it came to writing things down in the dark. For me, the focus was the enjoyment that I got out of writing about something. Whether or not it entailed more work or became less efficient, at the end of the day, I didn't fuss about whether or not I was able to fill two whole pages with something brilliant and concise. That wasn't at all the point. The point was that I was happy with the way I chose to work. While I think that it might be a stretch to expand this little scenario to the economic extent that Berry brings his farming examples in "A Good Farmer of the Old School", for me the good economic sense was of personal satisfaction. After all, I don't have to worry about selling anything I write to make a living. . . well, not yet anyway.

Turkey Farming

I know this isn't a nature walk, but I found it to be so fitting for this post, so please bear with me while I try to make my point. I am currently taking an enviormental philosophy class in which we are talking about such things as the benefits of vegetarianism, genetic engeneering, and the not so humane treatment of animals in most conventional farming practices. We recently took a trip to the local turkey farm, located in New Sharon. Everyone loves a break from the classroom, so we all took much appreciation in the fresh air, sunny sky and seeemingly beautiful day. When we arrived at the farm, we entered the store where customers purchase their holiday turkeys and all seemed well, aside from the lingering smell of freshly killed poultry. This is where we met Bob Neal, lead farmer and owner of the turkey farm, which has been in operation since the 1970's. A great guy from the git-go, Bob seemed very passionate about his line of work, warning us that it's not always pretty. From here, we were instructed to put plastic booties over our shoes so that we didn't infect the breeding grounds because germs can travel through the soil, infecting an entire lot of turkeys. From here, we went outside and right to the breeding grounds. Unlike conventional turkey farming, the birds were out in the sun, running around and greeting us with loud turkey noises, gobbling if you will. Bob talked to the birds, introducing us as if we were all on the same level of intelligence. I couldn't help but giggle to myself, but I came to find that Bob might've been one of the most humane and honest farmers I have never met (not that I have met many, but I have heard horror stories of farming practices gone wrong).

Bob was proud to inform us that his farm composts almost every organic material that they use, do not use genetically modified feed, do not inject their birds with antibiotics or artifical flavor chemicals, and try to give the birds the longest life possible. Bob then compared his ways to that of conventional farmers and I'm sure almost half of us were ready to puke by the time he got to the issue of killing the birds. Ironically, while listening to his comparison, we were standing right next to the kill house, were they just happened to be killing their quota for the day. Bob explained that his methods were the most humane and despite the shrieks from the doomed birds, I admired Bob for his honesty about his work and his willingness as well as want to find and use the most decent approach when it comes to farming turkeys. Unfortunately, Bob is the only farmer in New England that doesn't use genetically modified feed and one of the few who actually cares about the well-being of his birds.

I feel as though Wendell would applaud farmer Bob in his efforts to find the most humane and beneficial methods when it comes to farming animals for human consumption. I really enjoyed Home Econimics as a whole, but especially enjoyed the last section of reading. Lately, as a result of both this class and my philosophy class, I have become so worried about where my food is coming from and quite frankly, have seriously been considering becoming a vegetarian. I do understand that we as humans have a biological desire to eat meat, however, I don't in any way feel that we have the right to impose pain and terror, as well as discomfort and torture on animals that we are raising and killing merely for our own consuption. Call me ridiculous, but I feel that animals are entitled to a somewhat decent life, even if the end is met by the chopping block. I feel that Wendell would consider farmer Bob as what he calls the "good worker," one that, "loves the board before it becomes a table, loves the tree before it yields the board, loves the forest before it gives up the tree. The good worker understands that a badly made artifact is both an insult to its user and a danger to its source" (pg. 144). Farmer Bob understands that a poorly treated turkey is not only an insult to him, but also an insult to the environment, as well as the humans that are consuming it. It also becomes a sign of ignorance, one that shows just how much we as humans only care about the production and quantity, not the process and the quality. I found Wendell criticizing the human race for this ignorance, and found myself slighty ashamed, knowing that I have a part in this ignorance. According to Wendell, we view nature and its resources as 'means that can be used to advantage' (pg. 134). Our carelessness has lead us to be what Wendell feels is wasteful, even though we try to claim otherwise. He then goes on to say that, "Our great fault as a people is that we do not take care of things...Labor is expensive, time is expensive, money is expensive, but materials- the stuff of creation- are so cheap that we cannot afford to take care of them" (pg. 128). I couldn't agree more and the more I find out where my food comes from, the more I frown on our race for our abuse of the things that nature lends to us in what we like to think of as endless quantities. The real truth is that we are not only abusing the privilage of using the environment, but we are using the environment as a mere means and not having the deciency to give back what we take. Granted, if more conventional farming companies turned to more humane and traditional methods, our food would be more expensive, but wouldn't it be worth it? Perhaps we could then actually call ourselves an intelligent race, one that could feed the whole earth while still having appreciation for where our resources come from and learn to take care of them, cause after all, I'm sure nature is itching for some payback.

This week my walk took me to the bank to cash my paycheck. Though it is not a walk “in” nature it still allowed me ample time to think things over. With a 13-instrument jazz/funk band playing in my I-pod I set out for Bangor savings. Although I have been travelling high street for years I rarely walk it and with headphones. I decided I would let my eyes be my judges and look at the same walk in a new perspective.

On my walk I thought about Berry’s essay Economies. I thought about how he believes that plants and animals can, “live within the Great Economy entirely by nature, whereas humans, though entirely dependent upon it, must live in it partly by artifice.” (p.58) As I walk I realized it is true these buildings are manipulations of nature as well as the Gardens (although dying or preparing for winter) were cultivated to look pleasing to the eye. I look around at the trees, the bushes, peoples yards, tufts of forests nestled between neighborhoods and I couldn’t help but think how I’m going to miss this town when I move away. Here, at least it seems, people live more with nature than even southern parts of Maine or well many places. I couldn’t imagine looking out my window and being unable to see the trees or nature in as natural beauty as we can actually see it.

Where does all of this lead? It leads to something I have always noticed here, the strong division between the college and the town. Economically they are intertwined, come summer time when college is out this town is pretty dead (with the exception of tourists over 65!). But the people are two very separate communities. As much as this town is involved with the college, it is the least college-orientated town I’ve seen. So I asked myself the same questions as Berry did in his last essay, “Is community necessary…can “community values” be preserved simply for their own sake? Can people be neighbors, for example, if they do not need each other or help each other?” (p.180) I say unfortunately yes. It is what this town has become a division of communities.

I realize this has turned into a bit of a rant but it is something that has always bugged me about this town. I love it here. I like being able to walk to a store and buy anything I need. And although I went to high school not far from here and have lived in Maine for the last decade it seems that when I go into these stores I’m still looked at as a college student, a UMF’er. There aren’t deals within the Farmington community that promote to college students. There are no “college” nights at the bars, there isn’t even a local restaurant frequented by college students. But anyway this is what happens when my thoughts and eyes roam to the buildings around town, I get slightly off topic.

My last thought, well of any significance, was that I would have loved to have lived and gone to school at UMF before it was commercialized. From talking to old alumni who have gone to school here it seems that the town had been much more of a community before modernization really took over. And reading Berry really did feel like he wrote it recently, not almost 30 years ago. A particularly strong examples is presented on p. 186 when he states that, “The way that a national economy pres on its internal colonies, is by the destruction of community—that is, by the destruction of the principle of local self-sufficiency not only in the local economy by also in the local culture…change from goods once cheap or free to expensive goods having to be bought.

Wilderness Re-reconsidered

This week I went hiking with my friend Sarah, who is a bonafide outdoorswoman, a veteran of the Appalachian Trial. I actually had the privilege of picking her up at the end of the trail, near the foot of Mt. Ktaadn in Baxter State park, many years ago. I remember thinking that the experience had changed her: she looked lean and impossibly muscular, and also seemed calmer, quieter, less scattered.

Anyway, Sarah was in town, and I had a couple of free hours, and we decided to hike Bald Mountain. In once sense, it was plainly not a solitary walk. In another, it was the most solitary I’ve been in months. As we neared the summit we could see mountains in all directions -- our own Mt. Blue the closest of a series of frozen waves that receded, green to dark and then lighter blue against the sky. We stopped there and were quiet for a while, and the silence around us was a kind of small electric shock that went on until we spoke. There was just the wind, the bare rock face of the mountain, shrinking, like all the mountains of the east, which are among the oldest in the world, at its mountain pace. No meaning, no words, just the mountain being a mountain and a world being a world, no need for us, no need for interpretation. After a while Sarah said, “Wow – no road noise, You hardly ever get that anymore.” We could see road, snaking down along the foot of the mountain, obscured in places, but we couldn’t hear it.

Berry, like Cronon, is suspicious of this experience, the awe we feel at the top of a mountain, the vastness of the landscape around us – he is more interested in the way the human and the natural world can live together. Cronon’s critique of “Wilderness,”  which Berry shares, runs like this:

This, then, is the central paradox: wilderness embodies a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside the natural…To the extent that we celebrate wilderness as the measure with which we judge civilization, we reproduce the dualism that sets humanity and nature at opposite poles. We thereby leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical, sustainable, honorable human place in nature might actually look like.

And, yes, I think, yes . As the ecocritic John  Elder  insists, the best hope for our future as a species lies in finding that “larger grammar in which the words culture and wilderness may both be spoken.”

And yet. Isn’t there something essentially salutary in making the effort, at least on occasion, not to speak the word culture? To try to stop hearing, at least for a moment, its endless vibrating ringtone -- even if it such efforts are doomed to failure (the road, afterall, was still there, and would have been even if I couldn’t see it)? Is the feeling of what I can only call spiritual health that I have at the top of a mountain really only cultural conditioning, as Cronon suggests, or does it go deeper? I certainly can remember having it as a child, when my conditioning was presumably much less complete: this sudden and overwhelming sense that who I thought I was, my “identity” -- comprised as it was and is of petty achievements and failures, complicated relationships, all the typical human stuff – was, in the larger scheme of things, wonderfully and terrifyingly irrelevant to the wild, slow receding of the mountains and the wild, slow turning of the earth. 

Landscape- Where are you?

This time, instead of a nature walk, I decided to be a total hypocrite and do a “nature drive” which isn’t really being with nature at all, but when I need a break, this is what I do. I choose to drive around Farmington and into Jay to see what I could “find” or just “see” in nature. I was driving down a large hill when I saw the scene that is to the right. I stopped and took a picture because I found myself becoming a little depressed. I took this drive to get away, a little break to feel better, and I find this “industry” right in the middle of the most beautiful view. I found myself wondering what Berry would think of this sight, seeing a plant, or whatever it was (I think it might have been the paper mill- making this all the more ironic with what we have read on the cutting of the trees) and finding it right in the middle of what little nature is left. I think of our industry today, our need for more, and our willingness to destroy one thing to create another, meaning cutting down nature to build a plant in the middle of it to produce more things that we as a society and economy want but don’t really need.

Berry states that “American agriculture is fantastically productive, and by now we all ought to know it. That American agriculture is also fantastically expensive is less known, but is equally undeniable, even though the costs have not yet entered into the official accounting. The costs are in loss f soil, in loss of farms and farmers, in soil and water pollution, in food pollution, in the decay of country towns and communities, and in the increasing vulnerability, of the food supply system.” (pg. 128) I realized when re-reading this section that the car I was in, the road I was on in addition with this plant that was in front of me all contributed to the loss of nature. I was smack in the middle of being upset about losing nature but contributing to it at the same time. I wonder then, with Berry’s ideas and suggestions about finding balance in nature if we will ever really find that balance, which scares me for the future. If my children’s children drive, bike, hike, walk, etc. down this road in the future what will they be looking at? Will this plant be here, will more be here, and will nature be here? I wonder how much we will “consume” before we realize it’s too late.

People or Land, Berry?

Doing the reading for last class made me angry. Wendell Berry made a lot of sense right up until he started bashing education for luring people away from their communities. That was when I became uneasy. And then he took it further by saying that school has no purpose or usefulness when it believes its job is to prepare people for careers and when he said that choice only forces people to fail. I expected this time to be angrier still with the ending of his book. But I wasn’t. I really enjoyed the essay “A Good Farmer of the Old School”. I liked reading about Lancie Clippinger and how he manages to make his farm productive. The value both Lancie and Berry put on independence and thinking for yourself really made sense to me and I started to understand what Berry was getting at a little better.

On page 166 Berry writes, “As the price of work has gone up, the value of it has gone down, until it is now so depressed that people simply do not want to do it anymore.” This makes sense to me. I think he is absolutely right. Working in retail I see a lot of this. If you can’t meet the sales goals then you get yelled at and in many companies if this continues long enough, you get replaced. People are not valued and people do not value their work. They work so they may have money so they may continue to buy the things they need. I think to some extent Berry is trying to assert that big scale farmers are like this. They have too much work on their hands to do themselves so they hire others to do it for them. Others who have no love for the land or for the work and who are merely there because it is a living.
In many ways though I still disagree with Berry. He values families remaining in a place for generations. I understand why he values this because it does mean that families eventually gain knowledge of their land and people gain value and recognition in the community however it is very limiting. It allows for no one to ever be something else.

I see it like this. My dad works at Hannaford as an assistant manager. If I was to follow what Berry is suggesting, I would go to school to get an education that would be useful to me as a manager at a retail store. Then I would return home and get a job. I don’t like retail. That is a major part of why I am going to school. I am here at Farmington to get an education that will allow me to do something that I really enjoy. This is something that Berry advocates for. He writes that, “... the present national ambition of the United States is unemployment. People live for quitting time, for weekends, for vacations, and for retirement; moreover this ambition seems to be classless, as true in the executive suites as on the assembly lines. One works, not because the work is necessary, valuable, useful to a desirable end, or because one loves to do it but only to be able to quit” all of which is a product of the industrial economy creating small tasks that gets rid of all thought. If I were to go into the “family business” mainly retail, would I not be doing the same thing? I would be doing a job that I did not care for, I would be doing it mindlessly and I would be longing to be done. Does not small family farms that are owned generation after generation condemn some of their own to this fate? Some who would rather be doing something else with their lives? So which is it Berry? Should I do a job that I love or should I stay in one place my whole life, doing what my family knows?

Maybe small family farms cut out more choices than you think. I imagine those farms can’t afford to send their children to schools that would give them a superb education. How much choice do these families have between farming and a different kind of life? If being able to choose our own lives makes us more healthy in the terms of the ability to use our brains and enjoy our work which is more important, the health of the land or the health of the people?

To Text, Or Not To Text

(OLD BLOG, FEEL FREE TO SKIP!) :)

"Talk of Heaven! Ye disgrace Earth". What an incredible line. I love not only the majestic use of 'YE' but also the thought provoking statement about how when we liken all natural things to the majesty of Heaven or Eden that we forget that which we are talking about is here, tangible, tastable, non-celestial and perhaps more sacred and holy because of it.

On my walk this evening I thought a lot about social interaction, and about visitors. One thing that always strikes me on the walks I take for this class is the loneliness of walking alone in the woods, where everything is interconnected and humming with life, where the trees tower over me and the lake stretches out almost past where I can see. You cannot help but feel that you are small and insignificant, but that you are also small and insignificant with every other human being on Earth, adding almost a kind of kinship and camaraderie to the loneliness you feel. I think that even the most powerful or most physically domineering of people cannot stand beside the ocean and think themselves it's equal or lord over it, and that is how I feel in the woods, and it is both humbling and empowering how the majesty of nature knocks us all, great or low, down a few pegs.

The loneliness of a nature walk got me thinking also about what Thoreau had to say about his time in the woods and the visitors he received, and about how "fewer came to see me upon trivial business". I know that this was written many years ago, but I think the idea is still applicable today. I think that with the era of cell phones that our worlds are not only smaller, but that our interactions with each other have suffered as a result. When you had to set up a visit and go see a friend in person, or when you had to hand write a letter that would reach someone days later, we took more thought and were less likely to socialize for the mere sake of socializing. I feel that our connection to each other is much less thoughtful now that we can call for any reason, and exchange texts and pictures at the drop of a hat. In an era where we can avoid social interaction all together by checking facebook pages for changes and events in people's lives, what would it be like if we all just put it aside for a while, got land-line phones and answering machines? I imagine the result would be much like what Thoreau describes, and we would find out then who was worth keeping in contact with, who challenges us, and who we would go out of our way to contact.

Smelly Ponderings

(OLD BLOG, FEEL FREE TO SKIP!) :)


My walk this week was one that I won't soon forget. The walk I go on is actually (GASP!) through the local Kennewatha park, which has some paths but actually has a lot of woods that are local enough to feel safe but secluded and large enough so that I think it counts as an authentic wilderness experience, or as close as I can get. I went on my walk and was still lacking in any real juice to start writing my blog. I decided that I would go towards the actual park and swing for a while to get my thoughts flowing. I slowed down and just sat on the swing taking in the sounds of nature around me, when a heard a rustling in the bushes nearby. Out walked a skunk, and my heart pretty much jumped into my throat. My first thought was of getting sprayed and how I would convince my roommate to let me back into the house to shower off the stench. My second thought was how I could possibly get out off the swing without scaring the skunk into spraying. The skunk walked out in front of me, and just stared at me, looking timid and uncertain. I don't know much about rabies, but I was pretty certain that at this skunk was a-ok, just uncertain. After a few moments, I started slowly swaying on the swing, thinking that if I was going to get sprayed maybe a little height on the swing would help the least amount of spray get on me. After a little while, I was just swinging normally, and the skunk was watching me with a bemused expression (if a skunk can look bemused), and then went on his way.

This whole situation really got me thinking about all the preconceived notions I have about nature in general. When I saw the skunk, I immediately assumed it would spray me, when I knew on some level even at the time that the skunk would only spray me if it felt threatened. Leopold said that he "once knew an educated lady… who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well-insulated roof. Is education possibly a process of trading awareness of things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers". It stands to reason that the less time we spend in nature, the less comfortable we would be in it… But at what point do we actually toss everything we know to be true about nature out the window because of our discomfort being outside our homes? When nature becomes uncomfortable and alien to us, everything within it becomes strange and unpredictable in our minds. Maybe a few more walks into nature and I'll be confident enough to deal with nature the next time I encounter it.

Point A

I was pleasantly surprised when my nature walk did not require a jacket or even a scarf, but instead warranted only a hoodie! Although the seasons I feel are what makes Maine a unique and beautiful place to live, there really is nothing like those few days in Fall and Spring that jump out and surprise everyone with nice, warm weather. I find that in the bitter winter months here in Farmington I find myself wondering how it was possible that I ever left home without a jacket on, that the air could possibly ever have been or ever will be warm enough so that I won't see my breath when I exhale.

This fall has been a particular shock to my system because for the first time in my life this past summer I lived in a state other than Maine. In North Carolina, you literally NEVER go outside in the summertime until nightfall, because it is so hot and the sun is so scorching that you can get a sunburn in no time at all (at least for my pale Maine skin) and the air you breath is so laden with heavy, hot moisture that you have to struggle with every inhale. The drive down to North Carolina for the summer was one that I will never forget in my whole life, because it was the first time I had ever been out of New England. As I drove down I-95 every new state I crossed over into was a new experience and a milestone in my life. As I was out walking tonight, I thought about how in the past year my world has gotten exponentially smaller, from my hometown of Kittery seeming like it was light-years away to understanding that it only takes one 5 Hour Energy shot to get to Washington D.C. where all the greatest decisions in the country are made.

In the past year I also had my first experiences with air travel, flying to Buffalo, New York to see Niagara Falls and also flying down to North Carolina in the Spring. Berry says that for him, "air travel always has about it an insistent feeling of unreality", and I find that I agree with him totally. Flying to North Carolina initially (only my second time on an airplane!) and then driving the same distance were two totally different experiences, as when I drove the distance I felt more of an ownership over the states that I crossed through, the sights that I saw. No one ever says, "Oh yes, I've been to New York City. I flew over it going from Boston to Florida". When I left from Farmington on my drive in may, it was 40 degrees here. When I got to North Carolina, it was 105 degrees. I was able to see the changes in the landscape, watch the pine trees disappear, see the land flatten out, watch the grass grow from green and full of life to brown and scorched. I was able to see the sunrise from the George Washington bridge, and see the differences the air pollution made to the colors. When we fly, we lose the most essential part of travel, which is the experience of going from one place to another. To appreciate the distance point 'A' is from point 'B' is part of what keeps our homes sacred and familiar, and with simply flying over the obstacles (like rush-hour traffic and Jersey drivers) we lose that sense of the journey, and our connection to the places themselves.

As I walked tonight in the woods of Maine, I breathed in deep the smell that only this state has, and was able to appreciate that I now know, for the first time in my life, what ~Maine~ smells like.

Moderation

For tonight's nature walk, I decided to take a stroll over on both Perham and Court St today. My mind abreast with the thoughts of Leopold and Thoreau, I decided to actually stop walking for a bit and invested some time into looking under rocks and trees. Maybe I could possibly make the same astute observations that the two nature writers did in hopes of make my own mind blowing philosophies.

Unfortunately, the only philosophies that I gathered about nature writing is that not everybody is capable of doing so. Why is that though?

Maybe it has something to do with maintaining a proper balance between that of pure nature and that of pure humanity at play. This new revelation is due large in part to the new readings of Wendell Berry's Home Economics.

Just in the very beginning of his book he talks in about how in reality (which I think speaks the most to our times) most people can't actually give up everything they're used to, to live in nature.

On page 7, he brilliantly lays out some main principles of his book by stating that, "People cannot live without nature; that is the first question of the conservationists. And yet, people cannot live in nature without changing it. But this is true of all creatures; they depend upon nature, and the change it... the making of these differences is the making of the world." (Berry, 7).

Now Leopold illustrated this idea near the end of his book A Sand County Almanac, but not so clearly defined as the words of Wendell Berry. In getting back to my observations of trying to record nature, I believe I was unable to do so because I think too much on the pure side of humanity. But the even bigger problem is that when I try to think of nature, I think too much of it on the pure side of nature as well.

As Berry mentions, we are people who must change nature within nature to be able to adhere to human nature. This very idea by itself frightens me, because as he also points out in later parts of his essays that we humans have a tendency of destroying too much, or rather do things that are beneficial to us and us only; hence leading to an environmental imbalance within nature. However, my concern is that if it is in our nature to take and alter nature, then what can nature do to take and alter us? Regardless of all the readings that we accomplish, it seems that reaching that verdict is never fully achieved. The idea of an intrinsic act to obtain an intrinsic good rarely seems to be outlined.

As I continue to read on in Berry's book, I hope to stumble across a new way of acting intrinsically good towards nature and maybe even gain a better understanding as to why nature --after reading the works of Emerson, Thoreau, and Leopold -- seems so puzzling to me.

In Defense of Higher Education (and Other Sundries)

Before I launch into this post, I need to ask you guys to bear with me, as I have no idea where this is going to end up and I'm formulating my thoughts as I go.

I have no walk I'd like to expostulate on first before gracefully tying in my observations about Berry's text we read this week; instead, I'd like to jump right in and begin head on. I heartily disagree with a lot of what Berry has to say. His prose is hard for me to wrestle with in general, but none moreso than that found in his essay "Higher Education and Home Defense." And the most offensive and egregious to my sensibilities is a two paragraph passage and quite lengthy for the blog, but I would like to quote it here.

"The second requirement for entrance into the class of professional vandals is 'higher education.' One's eligibility must be certified by a college, for, whatever the real condition or quality of the minds in it, this class is both intellectual and elitist. It proposes to do its vandalism by thinking; insofar as its purposes will require dirty hands, other hands will be employed.

"Many of these professionals have been educated, at considerable public expense, in colleges or universities that had originally a clear mandate to serve localities or regions--to receive the daughters and sons of their regions, educate them, and send them home again to serve and strengthen their communities. The outcome shows, I think, that they have generally betrayed this mandate, having worked instead to uproot the best brains and talents, to direct them away from home into exploitative careers in one or another professions, and so to make them predators of communities and homelands, their own as well as other people's" (51-52).

Um, excuse me? There are so many things wrong with this passage that I barely know where to begin. The smug authoritativeness with which he pens his opinion is one point. Another is the scathing, broad generalities that are busy demonizing public higher education. Nevermind that education is one of the most precious things that a person can gain in his or her lifetime on this planet, that it helps broaden intellectual and cultural horizons, breaking down prejudices and intolerances. Nevermind the fact that the freedom to choose to attend a respectable school, to be taught things and learn, is currently denied to an uncomfortably large percentage of the world. No; instead, let's make generalities about the career choices that college-minded individuals entertain, that every person who decides to leave their community for school or after is driven purely by monetary and corporate interest alone. Let's paint public education in the worst light possible to prove an already murky point, in a time when obtaining an education is possibly the most important and life-impacting thing an individual can do for oneself and the world at large.

Berry's words here betray his backwards and selfish view of the higher education system. Yes, I definitely agree with him that the commodification of education is not the route we should be taking; that instead of putting a premium on schooling, we should be exposing as many people as possible to it. But to attack it in such a broad way, under the guise of criticism for corporate negligence for the local sphere, is something I definitely disagree with and oppose.

And what of the personal choice of students that he so blatantly ignores? He's hypocritical to espouse the rights and will of local community members, and then disregard the fact that those students who choose to not attend school locally are intent on never serving their communities with their newly-gained education. I chose to finish my formal education on the complete opposite corner of the country for many reasons, but I'm pretty sure none of them involve plans to sell my soul to a corporate, impersonal job for the further exploitation of fellow humans.

The bottom line is, Berry is unfair, unjust and just plain wrong in his generalizations and nigh demonization of higher education, and I am not okay with it.

Fluff and Complaining

My walks have gotten increasingly chilly and require more layers. I find this fact to be parallel to much of what is occurring in nature at the current time. While the trees are shedding their leaves animals all around are beginning to put on their winter “fluff”. While I don a sweater and a fleece, they bulk up on fur and eat a few extra nuts and berries to get ready for the harsh New England winter. As I plod along the leaf-covered trail, however, I begin to get a little warm. Luckily, I am able to unzip a layer or two to feel more comfortable. What, pray tell, do the chipmunks, squirrels, and other critters do when they get too warm? They can’t shed their fur in a moments’ notice, for they will need it later. (Perhaps later that day according to New England weather patterns). What would I do if I had to be stuck in a coating of heat trapping substance? I’d probably just sit around waiting to get cold. That theory probably doesn’t work for animals. Especially ones that are likely to get eaten. In lieu of this option, I would probably complain. I would complain a lot. Now, I know that wouldn’t make me any cooler or comfortable but I suppose in my mind, it would help a little.

Thinking to Wendell Berry’s Home Economics, I am reminded of the “Irish Journal”. On page 32 Berry is speaking with a couple of ladies in Suffolk. He notes that the “neighbor had been to America, where, she said, a lot of young people go and do not come back. She said that. During the first part of her three-week visit to Chicago, she had wondered why anyone lived anywhere but America. But then she had begun to be bothered by the noise and the crush of people and development and had wanted to get home to Ireland”. This passage spoke to me on various levels. The first being the “vacation” level. I love going on vacations. While I live in Vermont, my family has a camp in Maine, and we also go camping in Maine and Vermont quite often. I suppose there’s little I love more than pulling a sleeping bag out of the closet and heading out into the woods and sleeping under the stars. I love vacations that aren’t necessarily nature oriented as well. I enjoy doing things that are out of the norm. The only thing about vacations is that after a week, or however long you are gone, there is nothing better than the moment you come within view of your own house, you take a shower in your own bathroom, and you slip between the sheets of your own bed. Why is it that we put such a perfect view on that which we don’t have, in order to come back home and be relieved to be back in our tiny little bubble? I suppose that we become so accustomed to what surrounds us that it is uncomfortable to go into a place that seems to belong to another person, state, or country. Do we get attached to our own slice of nature where there is less noise, fewer people, and less development? Yet in the same vein, what about people who leave their homeland? My grandmother left Ireland for America when she was a small girl. Essentially running away, she hopped on a boat and ended up in America. She made a conscious decision to leave her homeland and begin life anew. At the time, she had the same view as everyone else: America is the place to be. Today, however, all she does is complain. Healthcare, manners, taxes, the shape of the cars, color of the grass, street names, you name it, she complains about this. I can’t be sure if this is due to old age or if she is just really disgruntled with American society. Can you really be that way if you chose to come here? If I were to consciously go out into the woods for an extended amount of time, I would tell myself not to complain. If it’s not going to help, and you chose to be there, what’s the use? Probably none at all.

When the Luster Dulls...

As I write this, I sit contentedly in the meadow adjacent to the Sandy River. Ice clinks in a Nalgene filled with tap water, Smart Wool socks snuggle happy feet, and a soft flannel shirt warms my shoulders. I am at peace, lounging upon yellow-green grass that in the next couple of months will soon be covered with a blanket of snow. I am happy for two reasons: it is my favorite time of the year and I just purchased my first pair of Carhartt pants.

After departing Reny's with my guilty purchase swinging at my side, I raced to put them on and proceeded to call my sister who works for the Utah Conservation Corps and wears the pants every day. "Rachel, I am on Cloud 9," I exclaimed. "These pants are life-changing." I was--and continue to be--ecstatic.

So, looking across the meadow with my new dark brown pants that accompany my tan Carhartt jacket, I'm incognito among the colors of this landscape. It is the transition time between fall and winter and there are truths billowing about these days. Unlike the sweltering summer, the air is breathable, fresh, raw. The brilliant oranges, fire reds, and blazing yellows of peak leaf-peeping season have passed and the deciduous trees now turn to one another, slightly embarrassed in their awkward transition phases. Where have our clothes gone? they question. They'll be neglected by locals ad tourists alike until next spring when green chloroplasts rub their fingers together for the magic of the vernal painting.

But I love these stark trees, the dark green conifers interspersed among twiggy ash grays and beige trunks and the small tufts of crimson and gold holding their breaths until they too will be swept away by late fall's winds.

It's a landscape that does not lie, has nothing to hide. We are able to see her faults, her insecurities, her vulnerabilities. Few write longingly about trees without leaves or dustings of snow or red ripe berries, but I can't help but view their situation as admirable. Nostalgic for their past days of wonder, hungry to wear winter's evening gown, they wait in limbo, the shy girl in the corner, wanting to dance but lacking a partner.

Scattered milkweed wisps bounce across papery leaves, wilted weeds, and the last of the dandelions. It's a scene that wouldn't make the front cover of a brochure, wouldn't invite foreigners to play with this kind of Maine. But I'm allured by the grit and gray, the solitude and quietness that pervades hours such as these.

Wendell Berry observes that "Even the ugliest garden weed earns affection from us when we consider how faithfully they perform an indispensable duty in covering the bare ground and in building humus. The weeds, too, are involved in the business of fertility" (9-10). This makes me think about what in nature is "valued" by society. The first things that come to mind are postcards, snapshots, slices of scenery that provide awe and admiration. What I'm referring to can mostly be placed under the broad category of the pastoral--the idyllic fantasies of harmonious relationships as projected onto nature by humans. Of course, art in association with nature must at all times be revered and used as a tool for understanding, but over-simplified art, which distorts reality, can be detrimental to the environmental movement.

Berry asserts, "We must not go there to escape the ugliness and the dangers of the present human economy. We must not let ourselves feel that to go there is to escape" (18). "There" refers to nature and his analysis suggests that by distancing ourselves from nature and dubbing it "other," humans further deepen the chasm held within the statement man vs. wild. He proposes we adopt a new way of thinking: man with wild.

I can't lie and say that I don't view my little escapades to the meadow as escapism. I'm a dreamer as much as the next guy. But through incorporating everyday ventures such as these, however small, I'm in effect breaking down the "vs" and including myself in a continuing conversation with the landscape in my own backyard. In recognizing the importance of transitions, when nature lacks a so-called conventional beauty, we can begin to recognize the complex web of ecological relationships responsible for creating the world in which we live.

Small Town, Big World

I always enjoy walking through downtown in the afternoon, in the fall and winter I carry coffee to warm my hands. The streets at this time are always busy, something that is rare in Farmington. There is a real small town feel at this time of day, I always run into someone that I know. Which makes my vow of silence hard to keep, not having my cell phone in my pocket helps. I can rarely ignore a ring or a vibration, I want to know who?When? And why?

I am very much a child of a the modern age, I have a facebook, a twitter, I have a cell phone with a full keyboard, so I also text. I am very connected, so it is not that big of a leap to guess why I have this drive to know who, what, where, when, and why. I am programed to do this. After reading Wendell Berry, I realized first of all that he would hate me. I love technology, and I enjoy the convenience of globalization. Berry is leery of technology, he does not even approve of air travel. "for me, air travel always has about it an insistent feeling of unreality. I feel that I am where I do not belong...I feel that I am going too fast - incomprehensibly fast"(22). Berry thinks that as the world turns more and more to technology we end up moving faster and faster.

The faster me we go the more removed we get from our communities. Wendell Berry is big on community. He thinks that being local oriented, he thinks that staying small and knowing your community and its needs. Berry shies away from progression, he is wary of it yet he knows that it needs to happen. Berry tries to find a balance, yet it seems to me that his balance is hard to achieve.

Farmington to me seems like a community that tries to think locally. I am probably wrong in this idea, but I have always felt like the town tries to support its own. I to try to think locally but it is hard to do so, when buy local products is almost always expensive. Also, it is hard to think locally when I need to buy technology, there is none that is produced within the state. I like Berry's idea, of being local and thinking small yet, it is hard to enact as the world has already gotten so big.