Pre-Post week 5--reflections on Pocket Guide and Alphabet of Trees

Anna's Pre-Post week 5--

Responding to the readings--Ecology: A Pocket Guide,

Selections from The Alphabet of Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing

There was immense variety is our assigned readings for this week. Although the essay by John Tallmadge “A Matter of Scale--Searching for Wildness in the City” was a normal essay, his focus stretched my preconceived ideas about wildness. I would say my thinking has been shifting for a while toward seeing “nature ‘right here,’ where we live.” But Tallmadge tells me that is not the same as seeing wildness.

I appreciate how he coaxed us to adjust the scale of our perceptions in space and time—“…step out my (he means his, but I like how it could be mine) back door in search of wildness.” And the Ansel Adams example was quite telling. This fits so well with the emphasis of this course--slow down to see, and see more deeply. The suggested exercises at the end of the essay are creative and could be quite useful.

Mary Oliver’s short piece, “Pen and Paper and a Breath of Air”, was useful in a practical way-–“…record various facts…birds in the spring (like Leopold), addresses, quotes, things people say, shopping lists, recipes, thoughts.” But reading her reflection about the process added a depth of meaning that is missing from just the suggestion of using a notebook. I particularly liked her explanation—“Both the shorthand and the written phrase are intended to return me to the moment and place of the entry…back to the felt experience…It is the instant I try to catch in the notebooks, not the comment, not the thought. And, of course, this is so often what I am aiming to do in the finished poems themselves.” And of course she does it brilliantly!

Birds in the City—A Field Sketchbook was unusual and great fun. The pictures and short descriptions certainly caught my interest. I have seen birds nesting in strange places in the city, too, but the guy’s pants had to be the most unique location of all.

After checking out the sketchbook, I felt completely ready for Sarah J. Rabkin’s essay, “A Great Excuse to Stare—Seeing through the Eyes of a Gifted Drawing Teacher.” Rabkin writes about the parallels between writing and drawing. She based her reflection on her 10 year friendship with artist teacher Jenny Keller. The two friends have co-taught and sat in on each other’s classes. It works Rabkin says because “…we share essentially the same set of attitudes. It is a spiritual stance: a deep admiration for the threatened integrity of land, air, water, and living things, and a desire to help our students cultivate their own passionate relationships with this world.” ( Wow, the same could be said for this course!) And Rabkin does a fine job describing the parallels—“In writing as in drawing, it’s the heart’s resonance with a subject that leads to satisfaction and a sense of vitality in the act of creation.” I personally have never felt like I could draw, so I really liked how Jenny the art teacher says drawing is a “learnable skill.” And I think we can use Paul’s pictures of drawing the bottle he found in Lake Holloway as a successful example of the process Jenny leads her students through. Jenny’s students can do it, Paul can do it, we can do itJ Her admonition to her students doing blind contour drawing is quite helpful—“Usually what stalls us in drawing is getting critical…What does matter is the process: learning to move your eyes and hand at the same slow pace.” She also writes about the value of play—“It’s easier to let go when the assignment feels more like play than work.” I want to take the pressure off—let’s play J

But I totally dropped all ideas of play when I picked up Ernest Callenbach’s Ecology, A Pocket Guide .I have admit every time I read it I learn a ton of new facts, and, of course I’m challenged by his sobering commentary.

To begin with his startling facts about air have me very worried. I already knew we had problems with chlorofluorocarbons, but I had no idea that “…a compound 30 to 60 times more damaging to the ozone layer than chlorofluorocarbons, highly toxic methyl bromide, is widely used in the United States and elsewhere to fumigate timber and also soil for strawberries, flowers, grapes, and almonds. Its phasing out has been repeatedly prolonged.” Ugh!

Algae are good, except when they “bloom” in vast quantities and harm fish and infect oysters.” The good news is “they can already be used to extract carbon dioxide from power plant emissions.” I had no idea, and maybe there is hope they can be used for biodiesel fuel.

When I think of germs, I think of Bacteria, (I should get credit for knowing about the good bacteria in yogurt.) but I learned new stuff “…most bacteria are either neutral or beneficial to humans.” And “…these subvisible beings are the most diverse and fundamental life forms on Earth, and they play a part in every ecological interconnection.” Impressive!

Today’s snack celebrates fungi. The rolls are made with yeast (one-celled fungi) and cheese. (They also have fresh rosemary I picked on Monday night from my friend’s bush—knowing I would chop it up and stir it into the bread I was planning on making for you.) Maybe this is uncomfortable information at this point, but “Subvisible though most fungi may be, they are indispensable experts in planetary waste management; without them, life on Earth would be impossible.”  But so ymmuy in whole wheat rosemary cheese rolls!