Please note: there are many spellings of fairie/fairy/faery, but "fairie" is how Spoutwood has chosen to spell it, so that is the form I have used throughout.
----------
On the first weekend of May, I attended a most remarkable event. Nestled into a peaceful corner of York County, PA, near the borough of Glen Rock, is Spoutwood Farm. Most of the year it quietly produces fresh, organic-quality vegetables from its community supported agriculture gardens, honey from its hives, and grapes for a local vintner. It also hosts educational programs related to sustainable agriculture, simple living, and the environment.
Once a year, however, this sleepy farm is transformed. Like Brigadoon coming out of the mists, it becomes the site of the annual May Day Fairie Festival. The Fairie Festival was the brainchild of Rob and Lucy Wood, owners of Spoutwood, and began 16 years ago as a party for 100 friends. Last year, 2006, some 12,000 people came through the gates over the three days the Festival ran, and this year, the number was closer to 15,000. Patrons came from as far away as Japan, and performers from as far as Scotland.
Why do they come? To "celebrate the beginning of spring and the return of the nature spirits to the warm world," according to the professionally-produced program. It is a participatory celebration of the spirit of nature and of the springtime, and judging by the expressions of joy and wonder on the faces of patrons both young and old, the enchantment runs deep.
To be sure, the Fairie Festival is not for everyone. I think the reality is that what one sees in the Fairie Festival is, to a large degree, based on what one brings to it. If you bring a desire for order, structure, and normalcy, as society understands these, you may be disappointed. If you're looking for creativity, freedom of spirit, and openness to difference, change, and transformation, you'll find it, in vast and indeed bewildering variety. For some, it can be an experience of sensory overload -- even, perhaps, intimidation.
Yet the spirit of the Fairie Festival is a spirit of whimsy, play, and celebration of the mythic imagination. Fairies, sprites, and pixies, dryads and Green Men, brownies, gnomes, and elves, and maybe even a sleepy dragon are among the mythical creatures found represented there, by performers, presenters, and patrons alike. Fairie wings and pixie dust abound, along with Maypole dances, the throbbing rhythms of drums, the skirl of bagpipes, the haunting melodies of Celtic music, and the driving beat of world fusion.
Music and dancing is in many ways the heart of this embodiment of the Fairie Realms here on earth: a celebration of the growing light and warmth of spring, the re-emergence of the life of trees and flowers, plants and animals -- and the re-awakening of human beings, too, as we throw off our winter torpor and embrace the springtime pulses that flow in our veins. In the drums and penny-whistles, bagpipes, fiddles, and guitars, the human spirit soars and leaps with the spirit of the season.
Food and drink (of the non-alcoholic variety) abound as well, as do rows of booths where merchants sell their fairie-themed, and usually hand-made, wares. Whether your taste is for ceramics or leather goods, jewelry or wood-carving, decorative ironwork, textiles or other visual arts, you can find it among the stalls on Frodo's Hill, Glimmer Place, Rainbow Court, or elsewhere throughout this temporary fairie village.
The Fairie Festival is about more than merriment and mythical imagination, however, important though those are. It is also about reawakening a sense of wonder and appreciation towards nature. Fairies, after all, are generally conceived as spirits of nature, of the elements -- earth, air, fire and water -- and of the Earth herself. While evoking the "Otherworld" of the Fairie Realms, the Festival also seeks to evoke love, respect, and care for this world, in all its imperilled beauty and wonder.
A particular theme of the last few years has been zero-waste, and while that ideal has yet to be fully realized in practice, the Festival generates far less waste than any event of comparable size I've ever intended. In part this is because of a policy that requires food vendors to offer serving containers and flatware, even cups, made of recyclable paper or compostable corn, soy, and potato-derived materials. Nearly everything that could be waste is compostable, recyclable, or both.
"The fairie and May Day themes," the festival brochure continues, "go back to ancient times in almost all cultures, especially to the Celts of the British Isles who had a festival on the first day of May called Beltane. It was a time of great rejoicing at the return of the earth's abundance in spring and the impending bounty of summer. The Celts celebrated the spirits of nature by honoring not only the plants that they could see and smell but also the unseen beings of the fairie realms."
So, on the first weekend of May each year, do the thousands of people who pass the portals of Spoutwood Farm for this mythical, mystical rite of spring.
Showing posts with label Ecology/Environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecology/Environment. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
No Child Left Inside
Okay, you know about “No Child Left Behind,” but do you know about “No Child Left Inside”? In case you've been sleepwalking through the last five or six years, No Child Left Behind is the propaganda… errr… umm… excuse me, public relations name given to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (EASA), and was signed into law in 2002. It is controversial, and justly so, for subjecting students and teachers alike to a regimen of standardized tests in the name of “accountability.”
The No Child Left Inside Initiative is in some ways almost the polar opposite of ESEA. Signed into law on April 21st -- John Muir's birthday - by Washington state governor Christine Gregoire, the initiative will provide $1.5 million a year to outdoor education programs working with underserved youth in the state, according to a press release by the Children and Nature Network.
Nor is Washington the only such forward-looking state. New Mexico's legislature passed, in March, the Outdoor Classrooms Initiative, an effort to increase outdoor education in the state through the use of state parks, federal public lands, ranches, nature centers and other locations, again according to the C&NN (not to be confused with CNN, the cable news provider).
Martin LeBlanc, vice president of C&NN and national youth education director for the Sierra Club, was quoted as stating that “In pursuing a national Leave No Child Inside movement, our goal is to secure this level of support for all children in every state.” That is indeed a worthy goal. But it's sadly ironic that government support is needed to get children outside to play.
I clearly remember my own youth, in which “go outside and play” was a commonly-heard refrain, often coupled with “it's too nice a day to be indoors.” And go outside and play I did, often and for extended periods.
Either alone or with friends from the neighborhood, I built forts in the woods, climbed trees, explored (and splashed, and occasionally fell) in the streams, and created whole worlds of fantasy and imagination -- just the sort of self-directed, unstructured free play experts now hail as essential for psychological and emotional development in children, not to mention the development of an ecological consciousness.
Free play in the outdoors is the absolute antithesis of standardization and cramming for tests. Perhaps that's one of the reasons it may seem threatening to some educators, government officials, and even parents.
From “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” I am struck -- and not positively -- by the way in which 21st century Americans have become willing to let the government make their decisions for them, in effect almost live their lives for them, dictating everything from how subjects are taught in schools to what kinds of food we can and cannot eat.
The much-quoted ideal that “that government is best which governs least” seems to have been left lying wounded somewhere along the road to a plasticized, idealized, technotopian future.
One of the ways in which governments can provide a positive impetus, however, is in funding opportunities for children to get out into the wider world of nature and play. If the so-called “learning” and “educational” opportunities are not themselves too structured -- remember the wise dictum that “the work of children is play” -- these kinds of programs can provide a healthy (in every sense of the word) counterbalance to our increasingly inward-looking, indoor, virtual, and regimented future.
But come on, folks: we don't need to wait for the government to fund our children's play. In fact if we do, we're just buying into the system again. All we really need are parents willing to encourage, if not require, that their children get out from behind the PlayStation or X-Box, up from in front of the TV or DVD player or internet-enabled computer, and go outside to play.
Yes, it may require a bit more parental supervision. But then, any of the aforementioned indoor, technological activities really requires more supervision than it often receives. And anything worth doing requires making choices, and setting priorities.
What is your priority for your children? To be cogs in a well-oiled machine? Or to know and appreciate the beauty, grandeur, and awe-inspiring possibilities of the natural world within which we live? The choices we make, for ourselves and our children, have never been more important, for our future and theirs. Let's choose to leave no child inside.
The No Child Left Inside Initiative is in some ways almost the polar opposite of ESEA. Signed into law on April 21st -- John Muir's birthday - by Washington state governor Christine Gregoire, the initiative will provide $1.5 million a year to outdoor education programs working with underserved youth in the state, according to a press release by the Children and Nature Network.
Nor is Washington the only such forward-looking state. New Mexico's legislature passed, in March, the Outdoor Classrooms Initiative, an effort to increase outdoor education in the state through the use of state parks, federal public lands, ranches, nature centers and other locations, again according to the C&NN (not to be confused with CNN, the cable news provider).
Martin LeBlanc, vice president of C&NN and national youth education director for the Sierra Club, was quoted as stating that “In pursuing a national Leave No Child Inside movement, our goal is to secure this level of support for all children in every state.” That is indeed a worthy goal. But it's sadly ironic that government support is needed to get children outside to play.
I clearly remember my own youth, in which “go outside and play” was a commonly-heard refrain, often coupled with “it's too nice a day to be indoors.” And go outside and play I did, often and for extended periods.
Either alone or with friends from the neighborhood, I built forts in the woods, climbed trees, explored (and splashed, and occasionally fell) in the streams, and created whole worlds of fantasy and imagination -- just the sort of self-directed, unstructured free play experts now hail as essential for psychological and emotional development in children, not to mention the development of an ecological consciousness.
Free play in the outdoors is the absolute antithesis of standardization and cramming for tests. Perhaps that's one of the reasons it may seem threatening to some educators, government officials, and even parents.
From “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” I am struck -- and not positively -- by the way in which 21st century Americans have become willing to let the government make their decisions for them, in effect almost live their lives for them, dictating everything from how subjects are taught in schools to what kinds of food we can and cannot eat.
The much-quoted ideal that “that government is best which governs least” seems to have been left lying wounded somewhere along the road to a plasticized, idealized, technotopian future.
One of the ways in which governments can provide a positive impetus, however, is in funding opportunities for children to get out into the wider world of nature and play. If the so-called “learning” and “educational” opportunities are not themselves too structured -- remember the wise dictum that “the work of children is play” -- these kinds of programs can provide a healthy (in every sense of the word) counterbalance to our increasingly inward-looking, indoor, virtual, and regimented future.
But come on, folks: we don't need to wait for the government to fund our children's play. In fact if we do, we're just buying into the system again. All we really need are parents willing to encourage, if not require, that their children get out from behind the PlayStation or X-Box, up from in front of the TV or DVD player or internet-enabled computer, and go outside to play.
Yes, it may require a bit more parental supervision. But then, any of the aforementioned indoor, technological activities really requires more supervision than it often receives. And anything worth doing requires making choices, and setting priorities.
What is your priority for your children? To be cogs in a well-oiled machine? Or to know and appreciate the beauty, grandeur, and awe-inspiring possibilities of the natural world within which we live? The choices we make, for ourselves and our children, have never been more important, for our future and theirs. Let's choose to leave no child inside.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Westminster City Council's "green" resolution falls short
A journey of a thousand miles, so goes the old saying, begins with a single step. However, I would add, someone who stops after that first step won't get far on the journey. The decision by the Westminster City Council to adopt a "Resolution on Climate Disrupting Pollution" may be viewed as an important first step in joining the battle against global climate change, but I hope it won't be the city of Westminister's last.
As a Times article on Monday, April 9th, pointed out, the Catoctin Chapter of the Sierra Club had asked the City Council to approve and sign the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. The agreement, already signed by some 400 municipalities nationwide, is a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012: the goal set in the much-maligned Kyoto Protocol. This is admittedly a challenge, but hardly an un-reachable one, as the number of cities signed on attests. Seven Maryland cities, including Sykesville and Baltimore, have already signed.
Instead, the Mayor and Council of Westminster decided to adopt what councilman Gregory Pecoraro described as "sort of a homegrown version of how we want to approach this."
As a general rule, I am all for homegrown, local approaches. However, there are times when local authorities need to band together to deal with problems and issues which are beyond what any of them can solve on their own, when the need for unified action transcends the importance of local autonomy. The crisis we as humans face due to global warming is one of those. Furthermore, the U.S. Mayors Agreement is not something being forced on us from above; it is a voluntary union of equals to accomplish something in our common interest.
Encouragingly, the same edition of the Times reported the formation in Mount Airy of a new “green” organization dedicated to "raising awareness about global warming, rising energy costs and other environmental issues.” Sometimes citizens catch on quicker than their elected leaders.
And there's little excuse for ignorance or apathy. The scope and urgency of the problem has been clearly articulated and reinforced by a whole series of recent articles in the Times. On April 6th, an AP article headlined “Experts say natural wonders at risk from global warming” elucidated threats to “natural treasures” from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rainforests due to climate change. Some of the damage may already be irreversible.
An article on Easter Sunday focused on mountaineers and ice climbers worldwide who are firsthand witnesses to "vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations, and flood-prone lakes" as a result of rising temperatures. A report from Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday the 11th stated that continued warming could result in food shortages for 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and cause potentially catastrophic problems in Africa. And we think we have immigration problems now.
Yet still some people refuse to either admit that there's a problem, or take ownership of humanity's part in it. It's easier to say, "oh, it's just natural fluctuations" -- despite indications that without human input, the earth would now be in a slight cool-down -- or complain that the costs would be prohibitive. Ironically, doing nothing will likely prove even more costly, in the long run.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is another group that gets it. According to a Capital News Service report, the Council passed a regional climate change initiative that will unite efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses in the National Capital Region. Maryland faces the largest impact from climate change in the region, according to the Council's Stuart Freudberg, due to the amount of Maryland's land adjoining the Chesapeake Bay.
So again, it is a good and important first step that Westminster's Mayor and City Council have passed a resolution to "work diligently to identify and implement such environmentally responsible practices as may be practical… with the goal of conserving energy and reducing the amount of global warming pollutants generated by City operations." But the Devil is in the details, and this provides few of them. In fact, "practical” provides copious wiggle room.
I hope -- and would strongly urge -- that the Council adopt the higher levels of focus, commitment, and accountability represented by the U.S. Mayors Protection Agreement. Doing so would not only provide specific goals and assistance in achieving them, but would send a signal that Westminster is proactive, forward-looking, and committed in facing one of the greatest challenges of the new century.
As a Times article on Monday, April 9th, pointed out, the Catoctin Chapter of the Sierra Club had asked the City Council to approve and sign the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. The agreement, already signed by some 400 municipalities nationwide, is a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012: the goal set in the much-maligned Kyoto Protocol. This is admittedly a challenge, but hardly an un-reachable one, as the number of cities signed on attests. Seven Maryland cities, including Sykesville and Baltimore, have already signed.
Instead, the Mayor and Council of Westminster decided to adopt what councilman Gregory Pecoraro described as "sort of a homegrown version of how we want to approach this."
As a general rule, I am all for homegrown, local approaches. However, there are times when local authorities need to band together to deal with problems and issues which are beyond what any of them can solve on their own, when the need for unified action transcends the importance of local autonomy. The crisis we as humans face due to global warming is one of those. Furthermore, the U.S. Mayors Agreement is not something being forced on us from above; it is a voluntary union of equals to accomplish something in our common interest.
Encouragingly, the same edition of the Times reported the formation in Mount Airy of a new “green” organization dedicated to "raising awareness about global warming, rising energy costs and other environmental issues.” Sometimes citizens catch on quicker than their elected leaders.
And there's little excuse for ignorance or apathy. The scope and urgency of the problem has been clearly articulated and reinforced by a whole series of recent articles in the Times. On April 6th, an AP article headlined “Experts say natural wonders at risk from global warming” elucidated threats to “natural treasures” from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rainforests due to climate change. Some of the damage may already be irreversible.
An article on Easter Sunday focused on mountaineers and ice climbers worldwide who are firsthand witnesses to "vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations, and flood-prone lakes" as a result of rising temperatures. A report from Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday the 11th stated that continued warming could result in food shortages for 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and cause potentially catastrophic problems in Africa. And we think we have immigration problems now.
Yet still some people refuse to either admit that there's a problem, or take ownership of humanity's part in it. It's easier to say, "oh, it's just natural fluctuations" -- despite indications that without human input, the earth would now be in a slight cool-down -- or complain that the costs would be prohibitive. Ironically, doing nothing will likely prove even more costly, in the long run.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is another group that gets it. According to a Capital News Service report, the Council passed a regional climate change initiative that will unite efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses in the National Capital Region. Maryland faces the largest impact from climate change in the region, according to the Council's Stuart Freudberg, due to the amount of Maryland's land adjoining the Chesapeake Bay.
So again, it is a good and important first step that Westminster's Mayor and City Council have passed a resolution to "work diligently to identify and implement such environmentally responsible practices as may be practical… with the goal of conserving energy and reducing the amount of global warming pollutants generated by City operations." But the Devil is in the details, and this provides few of them. In fact, "practical” provides copious wiggle room.
I hope -- and would strongly urge -- that the Council adopt the higher levels of focus, commitment, and accountability represented by the U.S. Mayors Protection Agreement. Doing so would not only provide specific goals and assistance in achieving them, but would send a signal that Westminster is proactive, forward-looking, and committed in facing one of the greatest challenges of the new century.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The greening of Maryland
Spring is the season of green growing things. And this year, in Maryland, spring seems also to be the season for growing "green" initiatives.
Even as the earth greens up with the coming of spring, so the State House in Annapolis is "greening up" with the combination of an ecologically-friendly Governor with an ecologically-friendly General Assembly. As a recent front-page article in the Washington Post put it, in Maryland this year "it's suddenly very, very easy being green." For those of us who love the earth and care about its welfare, that is good news indeed.
The article delineates a string of eco-friendly initiatives either passed by the Assembly or proposed by the current Governor, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. Former Governor Bob Ehrlich was more of a conservationist than he often got credit for, but certainly the election of a new governor is a contributor to this greening of the Maryland legislative process. So is the election of Attorney General Doug Gansler, who campaigned heavily on green issues. But, the article points out, there are other factors involved which transcend partisan politics.
One is concern over global warming, popularized by former Vice-President Al Gore's award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Inconvenient or not, the idea that not only is the earth warming, but that human activity contributes dramatically to that warming, has captured the imagination and awakened the concern of many in state government and the electorate alike.
The article notes that the Global Warming Solutions bill, which would reduce Maryland's emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, has been criticized by the Chamber of Commerce, "which says Maryland businesses shouldn't bear the burden for a global problem." The problem with that idea is that if everyone says they shouldn't have to bear the burden, no one ends up bearing the burden. Global warming is a common problem, it was created collectively, and it needs everyone working together toward a solution.
Closer to home, the deadline for cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has been set for 2010, a goal which now appears impossible to meet. But the looming nature of that deadline has increased both awareness and urgency to do something about the Bay, and to do it sooner rather than later.
One important feature of this move is a new alliance between environmentalists, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and those traditionally seen as opponents of environmental clean-up, such as farmers and watermen. It is not quite correct that, as the article states, "environmentalists decided that cow manure, as bad as it is, is better than the oil, metals, fertilzer, and sewage that flow downstream after a farm becomes a suburb." While true, this statement doesn't tell the whole story.
I wrote an article on this subject for a magazine called Edible Chesapeake, and the reality is that most farmers are genuinely concerned about the land, and will do all they can to enact conservation measures -- as long as they can pay for them without cutting even further into their already tenuous bottom line. The external pressures on farmers -- low commodity prices, foreign competition, pressure from developers -- make it hard enough to keep on farming, and conservation measures only add to the cost. Since the public is largely responsible for these challenges, it makes sense for the public to help farmers meet them.
The new alliance between farmers, watermen, and environmentalists to clean up the Bay points to the biggest reality of the expanding green movement: common problems require common solutions. We all drink the water, we all breathe the air, we all rely on food from the earth. It will take all of us, working together, to make a dent in the host of significant environmental challenges we face in the 21st century.
If we can rise to these challenges with the same level of ingenuity, innovation, and determination we brought to facing the political and military challenges of the 20th century, we could be in the beginning years of a century filled with promise and accomplishment. If we fail, we'll have a rough row to hoe, moving into the third millennium. The choice is ours - but Maryland, it seems, is off to a good start. Let's keep up the momentum.
Even as the earth greens up with the coming of spring, so the State House in Annapolis is "greening up" with the combination of an ecologically-friendly Governor with an ecologically-friendly General Assembly. As a recent front-page article in the Washington Post put it, in Maryland this year "it's suddenly very, very easy being green." For those of us who love the earth and care about its welfare, that is good news indeed.
The article delineates a string of eco-friendly initiatives either passed by the Assembly or proposed by the current Governor, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. Former Governor Bob Ehrlich was more of a conservationist than he often got credit for, but certainly the election of a new governor is a contributor to this greening of the Maryland legislative process. So is the election of Attorney General Doug Gansler, who campaigned heavily on green issues. But, the article points out, there are other factors involved which transcend partisan politics.
One is concern over global warming, popularized by former Vice-President Al Gore's award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Inconvenient or not, the idea that not only is the earth warming, but that human activity contributes dramatically to that warming, has captured the imagination and awakened the concern of many in state government and the electorate alike.
The article notes that the Global Warming Solutions bill, which would reduce Maryland's emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, has been criticized by the Chamber of Commerce, "which says Maryland businesses shouldn't bear the burden for a global problem." The problem with that idea is that if everyone says they shouldn't have to bear the burden, no one ends up bearing the burden. Global warming is a common problem, it was created collectively, and it needs everyone working together toward a solution.
Closer to home, the deadline for cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has been set for 2010, a goal which now appears impossible to meet. But the looming nature of that deadline has increased both awareness and urgency to do something about the Bay, and to do it sooner rather than later.
One important feature of this move is a new alliance between environmentalists, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and those traditionally seen as opponents of environmental clean-up, such as farmers and watermen. It is not quite correct that, as the article states, "environmentalists decided that cow manure, as bad as it is, is better than the oil, metals, fertilzer, and sewage that flow downstream after a farm becomes a suburb." While true, this statement doesn't tell the whole story.
I wrote an article on this subject for a magazine called Edible Chesapeake, and the reality is that most farmers are genuinely concerned about the land, and will do all they can to enact conservation measures -- as long as they can pay for them without cutting even further into their already tenuous bottom line. The external pressures on farmers -- low commodity prices, foreign competition, pressure from developers -- make it hard enough to keep on farming, and conservation measures only add to the cost. Since the public is largely responsible for these challenges, it makes sense for the public to help farmers meet them.
The new alliance between farmers, watermen, and environmentalists to clean up the Bay points to the biggest reality of the expanding green movement: common problems require common solutions. We all drink the water, we all breathe the air, we all rely on food from the earth. It will take all of us, working together, to make a dent in the host of significant environmental challenges we face in the 21st century.
If we can rise to these challenges with the same level of ingenuity, innovation, and determination we brought to facing the political and military challenges of the 20th century, we could be in the beginning years of a century filled with promise and accomplishment. If we fail, we'll have a rough row to hoe, moving into the third millennium. The choice is ours - but Maryland, it seems, is off to a good start. Let's keep up the momentum.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Pause to welcome the coming of Spring
Winter was late in arriving this year, but it made up for its tardiness by lingering longer than is often the case. Most conspicuously, it made a liar out of famed groundhog prognosticator Punxatawney Phil, who allegedly failed to see his shadow on February 2nd, thus ensuring an early spring. As the saying goes... "Not!"
But now at last it seems that spring is finally in the air. That air seems softer, moister, and is graced with the song of birds: both the winter birds that have weathered the cold and storms with us, such as the cardinals, chickadees, and downy woodpeckers, and the newer arrivals, such as American robins, who have returned from wherever they take shelter from winter's cold.
It used to be said that robins migrated south, to return again in the spring; more recently, studies have revealed that our local robins, at least, often seek shelter in wetland thickets, where decaying marsh vegetation moderates the ambient temperature, and clumps of brush break the wind. Another good reason these wetlands should be preserved.
Other migrants are on the move, too: although many of the geese we see in this area are residents, meandering from pond to lake to farm field, also visible -- or audible -- are high-flying V's of migratory geese. The great conservationist Aldo Leopold considered these the surest sign of spring, writing, in A Sand County Almanac:
"One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence… But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges."
"A March morning," he asserts, "is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese. I once knew an educated lady, banded by Phi Beta Kappa, 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," asked the man known to his loyal graduate students as "The Professor," "possibly a process of trading awareness for something of lesser worth?"
That question resounds through the decades since it was penned, and may well prove fodder for another column. But for now, it is enough to fling open the windows, step out through the door, and open our awareness to the changing season: winter into spring, the wheel of the year turning from the season of darkness, rest, inwardness, and even, yes, death and decay, toward the season of unfolding, opening, blossoming, growth -- rebirth and burgeoning life.
For all our scientific knowledge, the process by which a bulb sends out a shoot that pushes through the earth to become a crocus, daffodil, or tulip, a tree-bud contains the complete essence of the coming season's growth of branch, leaf, and flower, or a seed unfolds to become an herbaceous plant, shrub, or tree, is still something which smacks of mystery and wonder.
Just as mysterious and wonderful are the guidance systems that steer flocks of neo-tropical migrants, our beloved summer songbirds, from their winter haunts in Central and South America to grace our woods and fields, our backyards and even city parks. They are already beginning their journey, and the next month or two will see a veritable explosion of color and birdsong.
The end of winter and the coming of spring may not have quite the impact on us climate-controlled and industrially-fed urbanites and suburbanites that it did on earlier agriculturalists, nomadic herders, or hunter-gatherers. But the tides of spring still flow in all of our blood, if we could but shut off the flood of external stimuli -- traffic, radio, TV, CDs and DVDs, and the internet, among other sources -- that constantly bombard us, quiet the racing of our minds, and open our windows and our senses to the turn of the seasons.
No matter the stresses and pressures of our workaday lives, let's each take a moment, sometime this week, to go outside, stand quietly on the good earth, close our eyes, open our ears and nostrils, and breathe deeply of the essence of spring. I don't doubt that we'll be the better for it.
But now at last it seems that spring is finally in the air. That air seems softer, moister, and is graced with the song of birds: both the winter birds that have weathered the cold and storms with us, such as the cardinals, chickadees, and downy woodpeckers, and the newer arrivals, such as American robins, who have returned from wherever they take shelter from winter's cold.
It used to be said that robins migrated south, to return again in the spring; more recently, studies have revealed that our local robins, at least, often seek shelter in wetland thickets, where decaying marsh vegetation moderates the ambient temperature, and clumps of brush break the wind. Another good reason these wetlands should be preserved.
Other migrants are on the move, too: although many of the geese we see in this area are residents, meandering from pond to lake to farm field, also visible -- or audible -- are high-flying V's of migratory geese. The great conservationist Aldo Leopold considered these the surest sign of spring, writing, in A Sand County Almanac:
"One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence… But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges."
"A March morning," he asserts, "is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese. I once knew an educated lady, banded by Phi Beta Kappa, 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," asked the man known to his loyal graduate students as "The Professor," "possibly a process of trading awareness for something of lesser worth?"
That question resounds through the decades since it was penned, and may well prove fodder for another column. But for now, it is enough to fling open the windows, step out through the door, and open our awareness to the changing season: winter into spring, the wheel of the year turning from the season of darkness, rest, inwardness, and even, yes, death and decay, toward the season of unfolding, opening, blossoming, growth -- rebirth and burgeoning life.
For all our scientific knowledge, the process by which a bulb sends out a shoot that pushes through the earth to become a crocus, daffodil, or tulip, a tree-bud contains the complete essence of the coming season's growth of branch, leaf, and flower, or a seed unfolds to become an herbaceous plant, shrub, or tree, is still something which smacks of mystery and wonder.
Just as mysterious and wonderful are the guidance systems that steer flocks of neo-tropical migrants, our beloved summer songbirds, from their winter haunts in Central and South America to grace our woods and fields, our backyards and even city parks. They are already beginning their journey, and the next month or two will see a veritable explosion of color and birdsong.
The end of winter and the coming of spring may not have quite the impact on us climate-controlled and industrially-fed urbanites and suburbanites that it did on earlier agriculturalists, nomadic herders, or hunter-gatherers. But the tides of spring still flow in all of our blood, if we could but shut off the flood of external stimuli -- traffic, radio, TV, CDs and DVDs, and the internet, among other sources -- that constantly bombard us, quiet the racing of our minds, and open our windows and our senses to the turn of the seasons.
No matter the stresses and pressures of our workaday lives, let's each take a moment, sometime this week, to go outside, stand quietly on the good earth, close our eyes, open our ears and nostrils, and breathe deeply of the essence of spring. I don't doubt that we'll be the better for it.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Re: The Fall of Man and the Neolithic Revolution
My good friend "Roland," over at the Two Natures blog, posted a fascinating essay entitled, you guessed it, "The Fall of Man and the Neolithic Revolution." It is a very good piece, and I encourage you to read it before you read my own thoughts on the subject.
I was particularly interested to read this post, as I have been thinking along similar lines myself, for many years. Since at least my college days, in fact.
I actually had posited the (pre-)historical Fall to have occured earlier, when hominids first came down from the trees and began to walk upright, use tools, etc. -- when they first began to exhibit reflective thinking, in other words, rather than relying on instinct. But some non-human primates (chimps, for instance) and even some birds (crows, parrots) seem able to do some of those things. Does that mean that they, too, have the prospect of being "fallen"? That seems unlikely. And Roland makes a good case that it was when we stepped out of our proper "place" in nature, our natural role in the overall scheme of things, that we ran into trouble.
In any case, I have come to believe that creatures living in a state of nature -- that is, living in accordance with their natures, which is inherently also living in accordance with God's intention/will/plan -- are also living in a state of grace. And that included hominids/humans until, as Roland writes, we "left the garden," e.g., gave up living in "our place" in the natural scheme of things and began seriously manipulating Creation (and each other) for our own ends. That was clearly a "fall from grace," and "expulsion from the garden," as we began using/manipulating/destroying the garden (the earth/nature, or as some would have it, Gaia) to suit ourselves.
I think that is a major reason that earth/nature-based religions have never lost their appeal, although they have periodically been driven underground, and why (want to talk controversial!) I believe that Christianity, important as it is, does not and perhaps cannot serve as a complete answer to the spiritual longings of many (most?) humans. Although it contains within itself (mostly from the Old Testament, but there are also hints in certain of Paul's writings) the seeds of a viable theology of Creation, care for Creation, and dynamic, even ecstatic, union with the rest of (non-human) Creation, those seeds have never germinated in any meaningful way.
Christianity's importance, as I see it, is in addressing a) the problem of mortality, an issue in much (though not all) of the ancient world, and b) the problem of sin, also an issue for a number of the ancients, but especially for the Jewish people. And it accomplishes both through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well and good, so far. But one of the reasons I think Christianity is losing ground in the contemporary world (aside from televangelists and others who present it as a caricature or parody of itself) is that neither of those issues -- for better or for worse -- is a major concern for most contemporary Americans, or Westerners in general, for that matter.
Many, if not most, of those in our generation, and those immediately preceding and following us, tend to accept some sort of continuation of life following the death of the physical body as a given. That may be "cultural capital" from Christianity, or it may be an intuited sense of "the way things are, or must be." In either case, immortality is not a major concern for most folks these days, and people who have been exposed to a plethora of cultures and religions since childhood also tend to look askance at the limited/limiting criteria for entering into that afterlife, according to Christianity.
Things which classical Christianity has viewed as sins -- especially sexual and other personal sins, such as individual greed ("whoever dies with the most toys, wins") -- are very clearly not viewed as sins by most people today (again, for better or for worse), and my own opinion is that Christians can talk about them till we're blue in the face, and we're not gonna convince anybody who's not already predisposed to be convinced.
[That doesn't mean they're irrelevant, by a long shot. Christianity is at its best when it is addressing the many ways we fall short, as individuals, of being the kind of person most of us, in our heart-of hearts, know we could and should be. As author Thomas Cahill cogently pointed out, in his book How the Irish Saved Civiliation, "Saint Paul trumps Plato." In other words, whereas Plato idealistically insisted that those who truly know the Good will seek to act accordingly, Paul more realistically lamented that "the good which I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Romans 7:19, KJV).]
On the other hand, people are looking at things like global warming, pollution of the air and water on a massive scale, widespread species extinction, wars and the oppression of various peoples, corporate greed, and governmental corruption, and seeing that Christianity has little to say -- or little that it's been willing or able to say -- on those kinds of pressing issues, and are becoming understandably disillusioned. Christianity seems to be standing by and acquiescing -- and in some quarters (particularly evangelical protestant/fundamentalist quarters, although I know there are exceptions here), contributing moral support -- to the degradation and destruction of Creation.
I will never forget how appalled I was, and still am, at seeing a poster in my former church picturing the classic view of the Earth from space, with the legend, "Without Christ, it's just a vicious circle." That is, quite frankly, horse hockey -- it's simply not true, on several levels -- but it does an excellent job of encapsulating what is wrong with Christianity, in the minds of many Americans and other Westerners. I think there is an acute and growing sense that, in the words of the old song (was it by Crosby, Stills, and Nash?), "we've got to get ourselves back to the Garden." Otherwise, the human experiment itself might be doomed, and we're almost certain to take a lot of innocent species with us.
So, yes, I agree with Roland that the neolithic revolution -- for all its fascination, benefits, and promise -- undoubtedly was "'the event' that, more than any other, set mankind on a new trajectory that has led to alienation from God, our fellow creatures, and our own nature." The trick is figuring out how to overcome that alienation without a complete cultural, technological and societal collapse that returns a surviving remnant of humans, willy-nilly, to a hunter-gatherer mode of living! Christianity may be able to help in this process, but so far I have not seen a great deal of evidence that it is either willing or able to do so.
Insofar as the "job" of a religion or spiritual path is to give meaning, purpose, and direction to life, and to both express a proper relationship between God, humans, and their physical environment and to encourage/enable people to live into that relationship -- a not-unreasonable set of criteria, I would think -- Christianity has not failed to accomplish this end for contemporary humanity, but it is by-and-large failing, and will fail ever more catastrophically as environmental problems worsen, unless or until it is able to overcome its historical (and rather Gnostic) tendency to define humans as being both over and against the rest of Creation.
We may not want or be able to return to a hunter-gatherer mode of being (although that undoubtedly is the ideal, for humans -- the way of life which is most in keeping with our true natures), but unless we find some way to get "back to the Garden," in the sense of finding ways to live sustainably on this Earth, in communion with Nature and not in competition with her, and unless our spiritual paths assist and promote this transformation, we are probably more-or-less doomed.
As they say on the internet, "imho -- ymmv." *
* "in my humble opinion," "your mileage may vary."
----------
And as I added to another friend of mine, to whom I forwarded both pieces, Roland's and my own:
As far as attaining/maintaining our fullest humanness, I tend to believe that our "original," hunter-gatherer way of life was (and, where still possible, remains) the ideal. Agriculture is next in line, at least agriculture which is human-scaled and sustainable. Cities are pretty much on the other end of the spectrum. It's possible to be human in a city, it may even be possible to be fully human in a city (although I'm not totally convinced of that), but it requires an immense amount of effort, more often than not. Is it possible to reconstruct cities in more human/humane modes? Probably... but again, it's difficult, because you're fighting the very nature of the urban entity itself (see Dunbar's Number, a.k.a., the "Monkeysphere").As the ol' rocker once said, "what a long, strange trip it's been..."
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Polar Bears in Peril (Column: 1/9/07)
They're big... very big. They look cuddly, from a distance. The young ones, especially. The mothers and cubs play together in ways that seem almost human-like, at times. But they're massive and lethal killing machines, especially if you're a seal. Even if you're not, you might find yourself being mistaken for food: they've attacked humans, and human structures and settlements, before. And in order to survive, they need sea ice -- a lot of it.
"They" are polar bears: the biggest, most powerful ursines on the planet. And in a remarkable decision with far-reaching implications, the Bush administration has requested that they be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, on the grounds that their sea-ice hunting grounds are shrinking dramatically due to global warming.
The reason for the requested listing was very specific and categorical; other threats -- including the possibility of over-hunting, oil exploration, and pollution -- were explored, but ruled out as major threats to the bears' future well-being. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior, global warming leading to the melting of sea ice is the issue.
Coming from this administration, that admission is startling, if not stunning. If nothing else, it should serve as a shot across the bows of the few remaining flat-earthers who don't believe global warming is a real problem. And it may well place the U.S. government in the position of being required, by its own laws and regulations, to make a genuine effort to reduce carbon emissions from factories, power plants, and motor vehicles: something it has resisted doing for the last six years.
Polar bears are what ecologists call an "indicator species" -- an improbably large "canary in the coal mine," that lets us know when things are getting dangerously out of balance. And they are. Ironically but tellingly, shortly after this announcement came the news that a huge ice-shelf, 43 square miles in area and 3,000 years old, had broken off from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. We are clearly approaching, if indeed we are not already in, a crisis. In fact, a recent report by British climate scientists suggests that 2007 may be the warmest year yet. It's not just the polar bears, either: warming temperatures could result in a major die-back of northern boreal forests, releasing still more carbon into the air and exacerbating the problem.
Warming trends have appeared in the earth's past, and it is tempting to dismiss the current situation as yet another of these normal fluctuations. But never before in the past have human beings been pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere: mostly from burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal, themselves made largely of previously-sequestered carbon, and also from clearing forests, which would otherwise absorb and neutralize carbon.
Whether we are the sole cause of the problem or not (and there is some evidence that we would actually be in a global cool spell, were it not for human-generated greenhouse gases), it seems clear that we are at least contributing to it. It would be smart to scale back, and do it dramatically: what a recent Washington Post editorial called "buying insurance." "It's worth paying to limit carbon emissions now,” the authors note, "in case the more pessimistic climate projections are accurate."
But CO2 emissions and carbon sequestration are abstract, theoretical concepts for many people. Polar bears forced to swim in open water and drowning, or dying of malnutrition, are a graphic demonstration that something is out of kilter. They are perhaps the ultimate charismatic megafauna: big, attractive animals that direct people's attention to environmental problems.
The peril of the polar bears may serve as a wake-up call, not only for the current administration, but for the human population at large. It should. "The science is extraordinarily clear: global warming in the Arctic threatens polar bears," Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona, told CNN. "We can't save polar bears without the reduction of greenhouse gases."
We are long overdue for a serious national conversation on the subject of global warming, and our contribution to it. Beyond mere conversation, we need to set specific, tangible, and effective goals, and plans for how to attain them. Listing polar bears as threatened would be a good start. That something must be done is plain: the plight of these Arctic ursines is proof, and the Bush administration clearly knows it.
"They" are polar bears: the biggest, most powerful ursines on the planet. And in a remarkable decision with far-reaching implications, the Bush administration has requested that they be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, on the grounds that their sea-ice hunting grounds are shrinking dramatically due to global warming.
The reason for the requested listing was very specific and categorical; other threats -- including the possibility of over-hunting, oil exploration, and pollution -- were explored, but ruled out as major threats to the bears' future well-being. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior, global warming leading to the melting of sea ice is the issue.
Coming from this administration, that admission is startling, if not stunning. If nothing else, it should serve as a shot across the bows of the few remaining flat-earthers who don't believe global warming is a real problem. And it may well place the U.S. government in the position of being required, by its own laws and regulations, to make a genuine effort to reduce carbon emissions from factories, power plants, and motor vehicles: something it has resisted doing for the last six years.
Polar bears are what ecologists call an "indicator species" -- an improbably large "canary in the coal mine," that lets us know when things are getting dangerously out of balance. And they are. Ironically but tellingly, shortly after this announcement came the news that a huge ice-shelf, 43 square miles in area and 3,000 years old, had broken off from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. We are clearly approaching, if indeed we are not already in, a crisis. In fact, a recent report by British climate scientists suggests that 2007 may be the warmest year yet. It's not just the polar bears, either: warming temperatures could result in a major die-back of northern boreal forests, releasing still more carbon into the air and exacerbating the problem.
Warming trends have appeared in the earth's past, and it is tempting to dismiss the current situation as yet another of these normal fluctuations. But never before in the past have human beings been pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere: mostly from burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal, themselves made largely of previously-sequestered carbon, and also from clearing forests, which would otherwise absorb and neutralize carbon.
Whether we are the sole cause of the problem or not (and there is some evidence that we would actually be in a global cool spell, were it not for human-generated greenhouse gases), it seems clear that we are at least contributing to it. It would be smart to scale back, and do it dramatically: what a recent Washington Post editorial called "buying insurance." "It's worth paying to limit carbon emissions now,” the authors note, "in case the more pessimistic climate projections are accurate."
But CO2 emissions and carbon sequestration are abstract, theoretical concepts for many people. Polar bears forced to swim in open water and drowning, or dying of malnutrition, are a graphic demonstration that something is out of kilter. They are perhaps the ultimate charismatic megafauna: big, attractive animals that direct people's attention to environmental problems.
The peril of the polar bears may serve as a wake-up call, not only for the current administration, but for the human population at large. It should. "The science is extraordinarily clear: global warming in the Arctic threatens polar bears," Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona, told CNN. "We can't save polar bears without the reduction of greenhouse gases."
We are long overdue for a serious national conversation on the subject of global warming, and our contribution to it. Beyond mere conversation, we need to set specific, tangible, and effective goals, and plans for how to attain them. Listing polar bears as threatened would be a good start. That something must be done is plain: the plight of these Arctic ursines is proof, and the Bush administration clearly knows it.
Living on the Earth (Column: 1/2/07)
Our children are taught many things, in school and out of it, these days, but with rare exceptions, they're being taught little about how to live on this earth. Oh, sure, they're being taught -- formally and by immersion -- all about how to live in our contemporary techno-industrial society, but that is by no means the same thing.
In fact, our present society does not help us live on the earth; rather, it insulates us from the need to. It helps us to live off of the earth; that is, to exploit and subdue the natural world, to consume resources faster than natural processes can replenish them, but that is something entirely different from living on the earth.
In fact, in many ways, in our climate-controlled buildings and vehicles, our synthetic-fiber clothing, eating industrially-grown and processed food and drinking artificially flavored and sweetened drinks, we are like space aliens on our own planet. Destructive aliens, at that.
We are not the first human culture to exceed the carrying capacity of its environment; many fallen empires can be traced to this recurring human tendency. But we are the first to do so on a global level, and the implications of that are truly frightening. There is an old saying that goes, "if you want to dance, you have to pay the piper." We've been dancing at a dizzying rate in recent decades, and it's starting to look like payment's coming due.
This is reflected in the realization that global stocks of oil and natural gas are not inexhaustible, and are nearing -- if indeed they have not already reached -- the peak of their production, worldwide. Declines will surely follow. It is reflected in worsening weather conditions, melting glaciers, and other indications that the climate is out of whack, and that this is due in large measure to human activities.
It is reflected in phenomena like desertification, extended droughts, crop failures and famine abroad, and increasingly, wars or threats of wars over scarce water and fuel resources. Overpopulation in the developing world is part of the problem. But consumption overpopulation in the developed world, where each individual uses many times the energy used by people elsewhere, is an even bigger contributor to the current crisis.
Although the specifics are different in every case, the root cause seems the same: we have forgotten how to live on the earth, instead of living off of it. It's a lesson we must re-learn. Obviously, we can't become intimate with the entire earth; it's too big. But we can become deeply acquainted with our own particular piece of it: our own bioregion, as it is called. Here are some questions from "A Bioregional Quiz," available online, which can provide a sense of how well you know that portion of the earth on which you live:
Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.
From which direction do winter storms usually come in this area?
Where does your garbage go?
How long is the growing season in this area?
Identify five edible plants native to your area.
And here's a bonus question -- consider it extra credit: trace the runoff of rainwater, and the sediments and chemicals it carries, from your downspout or driveway to the Chesapeake Bay.
Now give yourself a grade: 5 right is a 100%; 4 right is 80%, 3 right is 60%, and so on. How well (or otherwise) did you score? If you got three questions or less correct, including the bonus, ask yourself: am I truly living here in Carroll County, or am I just happening to exist here, temporarily? And is that what I really want, for myself and my family? To be a visitor, a stranger, an alien?
Douglas Wood, writing in his book Fawn Island, said it well: “At rock bottom, either we belong here or we don't. Either the smell of crushed pine needles, forest breezes, sweet clover, rain, and moist earth is the smell of home or it is not… Either we identify with this world of tree and star, flower and desert, stone and water and belong to it or not... If not, we are essentially aliens, refugees on our own planet.”
Let's make it our resolution, this New Year, to overcome our alienation from our earthly home: to learn more about the bioregion in which we live, and how to live more lightly and respectfully within it, and on the earth itself. Our planet, and future generations, will thank us.
In fact, our present society does not help us live on the earth; rather, it insulates us from the need to. It helps us to live off of the earth; that is, to exploit and subdue the natural world, to consume resources faster than natural processes can replenish them, but that is something entirely different from living on the earth.
In fact, in many ways, in our climate-controlled buildings and vehicles, our synthetic-fiber clothing, eating industrially-grown and processed food and drinking artificially flavored and sweetened drinks, we are like space aliens on our own planet. Destructive aliens, at that.
We are not the first human culture to exceed the carrying capacity of its environment; many fallen empires can be traced to this recurring human tendency. But we are the first to do so on a global level, and the implications of that are truly frightening. There is an old saying that goes, "if you want to dance, you have to pay the piper." We've been dancing at a dizzying rate in recent decades, and it's starting to look like payment's coming due.
This is reflected in the realization that global stocks of oil and natural gas are not inexhaustible, and are nearing -- if indeed they have not already reached -- the peak of their production, worldwide. Declines will surely follow. It is reflected in worsening weather conditions, melting glaciers, and other indications that the climate is out of whack, and that this is due in large measure to human activities.
It is reflected in phenomena like desertification, extended droughts, crop failures and famine abroad, and increasingly, wars or threats of wars over scarce water and fuel resources. Overpopulation in the developing world is part of the problem. But consumption overpopulation in the developed world, where each individual uses many times the energy used by people elsewhere, is an even bigger contributor to the current crisis.
Although the specifics are different in every case, the root cause seems the same: we have forgotten how to live on the earth, instead of living off of it. It's a lesson we must re-learn. Obviously, we can't become intimate with the entire earth; it's too big. But we can become deeply acquainted with our own particular piece of it: our own bioregion, as it is called. Here are some questions from "A Bioregional Quiz," available online, which can provide a sense of how well you know that portion of the earth on which you live:
Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.
From which direction do winter storms usually come in this area?
Where does your garbage go?
How long is the growing season in this area?
Identify five edible plants native to your area.
And here's a bonus question -- consider it extra credit: trace the runoff of rainwater, and the sediments and chemicals it carries, from your downspout or driveway to the Chesapeake Bay.
Now give yourself a grade: 5 right is a 100%; 4 right is 80%, 3 right is 60%, and so on. How well (or otherwise) did you score? If you got three questions or less correct, including the bonus, ask yourself: am I truly living here in Carroll County, or am I just happening to exist here, temporarily? And is that what I really want, for myself and my family? To be a visitor, a stranger, an alien?
Douglas Wood, writing in his book Fawn Island, said it well: “At rock bottom, either we belong here or we don't. Either the smell of crushed pine needles, forest breezes, sweet clover, rain, and moist earth is the smell of home or it is not… Either we identify with this world of tree and star, flower and desert, stone and water and belong to it or not... If not, we are essentially aliens, refugees on our own planet.”
Let's make it our resolution, this New Year, to overcome our alienation from our earthly home: to learn more about the bioregion in which we live, and how to live more lightly and respectfully within it, and on the earth itself. Our planet, and future generations, will thank us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)