Northern Arizona University/Environmental Ethics/Journals/Kristin M' Journal

Entry #1 August 26, 2009

Leopold – Land Ethic As I begin to read I realize Leopold is attempting to set up an analogy of how humans view the world and the “articles” around them – as property. Though the view of what is and isn’t property has changed over time, it has not changed in regards to land and nature. We as humans need a symbiotic relationship with each other to live in peace and harmony, the same is required of humans and nature but unfortunately we don’t view ourselves as having a symbiotic relationship with nature, but a disposal relationship. We view land/nature as something we own to our benefit and can dispose of it (ruin it) as necessary to please ourselves and attain our own goals. We as humans are starting to grasp that what we are doing is wrong, but in Leopold’s time we were still in an embryo state of learning – we had a ways to go. Personally, I don’t believe we have come much further. We like to talk about how it should be, but enforcing that is another aspect we seem unwilling to push for. Personally our family signs up each season for a dead-standing cut card to cut our own fire wood. It is an honor system where you aren’t allowed to cut more than your “share” (4 cords), nor are you allowed to cut live standing trees. They give you an ideal threat saying that you better make sure you are doing what you are doing, because someone can be roaming the woods and check your paper work or catch you. This system is relying on the government to enforce a cut quota and never once have we seen anyone out checking. How many people are acting honorably? Could private citizen patrol the area instead? Is there a deal that would enforce the law but also depend on local people? As I move into the community concept it is structuring a scene of human survival. We are instinctual creatures who strive for a position in our community and the cooperation it takes to maintain that community. On the same level Leopold argues that nature does the same thing. I agree with Leopold, nature (life) is in a constant struggle for survival – the world is full of competition and occasionally working together gets you the better outcome. We as people like to say “hey we are doing what is right” but it is a lie and Leopold calls that out on page 240. We aren’t respecting our fellow neighbors, nature – it is assumed in nature that all creatures must respect each other – to assume something different for humans is not just. We are as much a part of this world as any other biotic organism and need to show respect to them as we would ourselves. The ant is competing for the space just as the human is. We as humans attempt to use science for our own demise of conquering nature and the land we live on. But what Leopold is claiming, and I agree with, the average citizen doesn’t know that science is in the dark as much as they are. Science doesn’t have all the answers – thank GOD! Leopold uses a good example to show that as humans have evolved so has nature, and nature has shaped our human evolution as we have its. As humans are future edged on nature and what it could or could not offer us. Nature however did not depend on us, we actually went in and destroyed and altered natural habitat to our liking. Leopold gives a good example of this on page 242. But this deterioration doesn’t have to occur – we have had and still have (if we chose to use it) the knowledge to live symbiotically (in a good relationship) with nature. To truly live symbiotically though we MUST have the knowledge that is adequate enough to fuel our minds with the correct understanding of what must be done. Empty knowledge, which Leopold touches on in ecological conscience, gets us no where, except in a circle of continuous deterioration. To get out of this circle proper content filled education needs to be in place instructing citizens of the world how to live symbiotically with nature in their specific region. Without the content and proper knowledge they will only do what they know, which got the land ruined in the first place. We can’t ask of people what they do not know. It is vital to our future to have a better education on how our world is changing and what we can do to save it from destruction. Who though decides what is content filled and who doesn’t? Is science working on sharing more information with communities about human impact and what can be done to reverse it? -

Entry #2 August 30, 2009 So I did my journal entry, but after hiking with my family this morning I wanted to add a little more. So hiking brought out a lot of competition, but it contrasted natural vs. human induced. So while hiking it is easy to see species of trees competing for space – generally the pines win out, but there are areas they don’t. Finding those areas aren’t hard, they are general a patch dominated by Oak straining to plant its route in the biotic community. (Below is such a community – it is a small patch of oak surrounded by towering pines.) Trees aren’t the only competing species though, while the boys continued hiking I took a break and enjoyed the quiet. There were bees around me competing for flowers, while at the same time flowers were competing for the attention of the bees. Above these natural competitions though human impact was evident as well. Normally trees compete for sun, space, nutrients… wild fires come and remove those too weak to survive. Some trees fall from age/weight as well they die off and no longer contribute to the future generations. However, when humans come in and mark trees for removal they are inducing a different kind of competition. They are inducing certain plants to carry on, while other plants (which might have survived naturally) are cut and removed so wild fires don’t get out of control. Who are we to say who lives and dies? You are a lucky tree if you bear the blue mark (as seen below)!

Entry #3 September 3, 2009 I was at my son’s school today volunteering and I started thinking about romance and nature. A child walked into the classroom and asked what he was supposed to do with a paper. The teacher told him he didn’t need to keep it and he could get rid of it. So he naturally went towards the waste basket, quickly I asked him to recycle rather than throw it away. He looked at me a little funny and went to the recycle bin. This isn’t a big deal, but it was funny to me because I started to think, “Hey we are in Flagstaff, doesn’t everyone hug trees?” I immediately caught myself and said no, it depends on their education and LOVE for nature. This LOVE of nature though has to be nurtured in children and expand as adults. But to get this true love a child has to experience nature and the romance within it. Leopold asks about romance and the skunk. Is the skunk looking for romance? A connection to nature? Has the skunk been lonely all hibernation season and he is looking for his own kind and the connection he was missing? Perhaps this specific child hasn’t learned a romance with nature. Perhaps an adult hasn’t taken the child hiking or engrained the child with an understanding of how nature can be loved. I think this is what Leopold is getting at. For one to care for nature as one cares for themselves they must love nature as they love themselves. Humans have already evolved (socially) to love other humans, this next evolution is necessary but must first be preceded by an understanding of nature and the love/connection one can/should feel with it.

Entry #4 September 9, 2009 As we are working through the ideas that Leopold presents in the form of the saw, axe and wedge I think and reflect about our own wood chopping. How naive I feel that I have cut through years of information and never took the time to examine what I was doing and what was passing me by in the form of sawdust. Nor did I examine or think about how using a wedge allows you to view all the years of the tree at a single moment. How many times have people gone into the forest to cut firewood for warmth and neglected what the tree stood for and through. I committed this neglecting process and feel ashamed a little about what I could pass over. On the other hand though, I feel good about the next time. For the next time that my family and I go wood chopping I will appreciate not only where my warmth is coming from but how it withstood the test of times and saw years pass as it did. I will think about the story it has to tell, not just my own. --

Entry #5 September 21, 2009 Today’s class was held outside, which was nice and distracting all in the same. It was nice because we got to enjoy all the nice breezes and sounds nature has to offer. It was distracting in that there were tons of noises and sometimes VERY hard to hear the prof speaking. Some stuff I did pick up though was the analogy of the number line. Take one part of the number line 0 – 1. As you take this number and line and break it into three pieces removing the middle piece each time and continuing to break those left over pieces in thirds as well…. How many can you get from that? Well you can get a lot from it, but my thought is, when you think of space like that in the sense of what nature has to offer in the way of space, it looks the same, but is always a little less. So as you take a space and divide it and remove something that was previously there, you always have some left over space, but it is always a little less than it was before. Perhaps it is less due to losing nutrients or perhaps it is less due to destruction. But whatever the case the space is never the same. The book story we heard as well kind of reminded me of the same thing. As you remove your book from the library of life you leave a space to be filled with something or someone else. As you remove this book you scrap the wood, and wear its space. So the space remaining for whatever comes next is still there, but a little less than it was before. So having said all this. As we humans use up our space in the world we need to think about how we leave it. We can leave it as nearly the same as before, taking a little bit, as is natural, and then allowing something else to take our place. Or we can destroy our space and leave barely anything behind for the next occupants. It is our personal choice what we do. ---

Entry #6 September 25, 2009 I am sitting in my living room, half asleep, watching our fire dance in the fire place. It is late Sept and getting cool outside, so a fire seemed like a nice idea to add to our baking cookies time. As I watch the fire lick at the wood pieces I wonder if it is reading the history of the wood or merely tearing through it and allowing a new history to be written in its place, at least that is what occurs in forest fires. Without human involvement fires have been an essential player in the histories of forests, grass plains and many other ecosystems. Fires would start, burn freely until naturally put out, and this eating away at things allowed new things to establish themselves and perhaps new history to be written. Muir discusses the big trees and how they have burn marks, some very deep and crude – yet the tree still stands and has done so for thousands of years. Fire can rewrite some species’ histories, as is natural, and some are too big to let fire conquer them. I have always thought of fire as a neat thing. It cares little for what it is eating at, just that it is eating and living. Perhaps the fire isn’t reading the woods history or the stories it can tell, it is doing what is natural – eating its way through one life to allow a new life to take its place. Unfortunately, nothing will be growing in our fireplace…. But the idea is there. -

Entry #7 September 30, 2009 So someone double parked behind me today and I had to wait to get my vehicle backed out, and while I was waiting I was thinking about something I heard a very long time ago. If no one is in the forest when I tree falls does it still make a sound? The thing that made me think of this was a branch scratching across my front window of my car, I had to park under a tree. So that same person, that made the above remark, might say well if you weren’t in your car would the branch make the same sound. Thinking about that comment kind of made me upset. So why would I, or another person have to be there to hear something? Why are humans at the epicenter of every situation and for it to “be” we must be a part of it. That is like saying if Muir wasn’t in Yosemite at the time of the great storms and floods then the beautiful singing of nature wouldn’t be heard, and I disagree. We are not the only species with ear drums, there are TONS of other beings (creatures) that have ears and react to sounds. Sounds draw them in, warn them away, notify them of whatever is going on – we, as humans, do not need to be a part of that equation to actually have sound or some other aspect occurring. It seems like a silly thought, but I thought of it and thought it was worth journaling. It was funny how I realized that we as humans do so readily place ourselves in the center of all things, but in reality we are only a small player in the great game of life. Life does not depend on us to be there to continue… it would continue after we are gone. ---

Entry #8 October 11, 2009 Our family took a ride today to go cut some wood on the 151. We were driving back and saw some beautiful changing aspen trees, among other things. These aspen trees had something though that our son noticed, writings carved into them that looked very old. So we started taking time to check the aspen’s bark and look for the “notes” that were left by others. These notes were living testament to the visitors that had once been by this place and left their mark. The visitors that had been here though had been here back around the 60’s and 70’s and a few into the 80’s. Each marking their place in the bark of a young aspen. This aspen survived to now, carrying their mark and sharing their “story” with those who saw it later on, in 2009. This reminded me of how Thoreau spoke of visitors to his home who left their mark on leaves, bark or an item laying there – a symbol of their moment in that time. So why do we leave these marks? If we were to go by a friend’s house with them not being home, most would leave a note. Or when you go to the beach leave your name in the sand, although washed away. Some might write their name in the sand and take a picture, to save that moment. These marks could be left as a way to remember that we were in that moment, time and were in a spot that meant something to us. Either it was a beautiful moment (J + K 1982) or a beautiful place that you wanted your name added to (Alex). Just something that carries you with it into time. I wonder if Thoreau’s visitors wanted the same thing, a way to leave behind a piece of themselves in a state that made them envious or they though beautiful. Perhaps they wanted Thoreau to carry them on in this place and be remembered. Who knows – just made me think. I know when I visit a friend who isn’t home I leave a note so they know I was thinking of them and there is a piece of something saying “hey I was here.” ---

Entry #9 October 13, 2009 Reading the bean field made me wonder if I could do it, if my family and I could grow fruits/vegetables and live off the land. I started talking to my fiancé about it and how neat the idea was in my head. He, of course being an outdoorsy kind of guy, was behind the idea. We talked about the costs that Thoreau endured to grow his field and how he “profited” from the experience both financially and spiritually. Financially we are not going to be able to start our own farm and maintain it, it isn’t likely – but we could do our own garden and live off it, if we weren’t in an apt and had a yard to do so with. How neat and liberating it would be to work in the garden and prosper off your own hard work/sweat/toil/etc. My masseuse lives off the grid. Their house has solar power, they truck in their own water, they have their own garden, raise chickens for eggs and food, hunt, raise turkeys for meat and do everything they can off the grid. What a life I told her, I was envious and wish I had that opportunity! She and I had a conversation about money and time/effort put into it. It was amazing the cost that was behind living in a better way for both the environment and yourself. You would think/hope that type of living would be supported financially by the government and cheaper to reach, being that it would benefit everyone as a whole – but perhaps with time we’ll get there. Perhaps in time our family can live a different life that we want to live and not lose our pocket book doing it! Or I could just learn how to build a house and do it that way! Hahaha! 

Entry #10 October 25, 2009

there is one mind common to all individual men (pg 7) all eras in my own mind (pg 10)  every mind must know the whole lesson for itself (pg 10)  at the center is simplicity (pg 12)  nature is full of sublime family likeness (page13)  they belong to man, and are known to every man in virtue of his being once a child (pg 19)   a person of childlike genius and inborn energy is still a Greek (pg 19)  Hard formalist on a young child in repressing his spirits and courage (pg 20)  The mind is one (pg25)

Reading History the above passages pop out of the pages above the rest. To me Emerson is building on all human’s having something in common, the history of being a child. And in being a child there is an energy and simplicity that is lost (repressed by society). At the center of each human is simplicity, why can’t we find it? Our history as we grow is shared by all, hence the one mind he is stating over and over. Overtime as we learn our lessons and write history in our minds we come to discover who we are. We can either maintain our childlike genius or let it go and follow society. I believe in following society we lose the simple answers to the questions that people are posing about how to help the world. My son is 9 and knows of the global changes happening and my views on things. I guess I have impressed on him the importance of taking care of “mother earth”. Now how he sees it is still simple… save one bug save many more (they have babies mom). Turn off one light save lots of energy, turn the water off it helps… simple solutions in his mind. I use these same practices but to me there is a bigger underlying solution brewing in my mind… while in his it seems as though there are baby simple steps to take that are well worth their time. I hope that more of us can find our inner simplicity and the relations we share with everyone and come to unite under one mind of simplicity. --

Entry #11 November 3, 2009 Reading self reliance I am reminded of how special and necessary it is to trust yourself and be confident in what you say and do. Emerson is calling for people to believe in their own thoughts, trust in themselves as they once did. At one time we were young and gave independent opinions without basing those opinions on what others thought or said. It was society that turned that into something negative and forced that we conformed to their ways of thinking. Emerson reminds us how we feel when someone else says the same thing we were thinking, and then the feelings that follow such a situation. We feel envious, dumb or whatever. Those are suicidal feelings – we must be confidant. We must try, we cannot understand something until we try and give it our best. When we give it our best we feel great/relieved (page 30). What a feeling when you know you did something the best you can, even if you failed. You learned from it and knew you gave it your all. Rather than giving it nothing and failing… nothing was truly learned. I think we should still maintain that innocence, as first relayed in History, echoed in Self-Reliance: we must believe in ourselves and not care what others think… do our best, give it our all and hold to our convictions unless WE want to change them!!

Entry #12 November 11, 2009 I was writing my homework today, well thinking about it before I wrote it, and all I could think about was the fact that all the authors that we are focusing on (Leopold, Thoreau, Emerson) creates an idea in my head that we are to evolve backwards towards our childlike state. Not necessarily become children, but come to see the world again as children. Children see the world and are in awe, every little thing inspires them to some great/new idea. My son loves nature and finds the joy in the simplicity of things he sees. To him saving the world is an easy problem that us adults just can’t figure out. When he says his prayers he prays for the world leaders to save the world, as simple as that. I believe that the authors are seeing the world and awe through the eyes of the child, and enjoying what they see – desiring it not to be lost. They are seeking more to turn with them and paint “whim” above their door and set an example of how they themselves are turning. I know as an adult we can get bogged down and cranky over the little things, and in turn we are unable to see the beauty around us through our grumpy eyes. I wish we would all slow down, see the beauty around us, enjoy it a little more, preserve it and feel at peace with nature and within ourselves. Life was not given to us to rush through it at the speed of light, but to be enjoyed and appreciated. I think we as adults can lose sight of that. 

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Entry #13 November 20, 2009 Page 223 of Emerson’s essays has a great sentence or two that I am pondering: “the universe is the externisation of the soul” “science is sensual, and therefore superficial”. Externisation is like an externalization of the soul – our soul is continuous, nature is continuous – it blends together. However science is superficial - shallow, only near the surface, without significance. I am not saying that science has not done a lot – it has, it has shaped our very foundations and altered who we are as a species – but it still can never reach the depths of who we truly are – one with the universe and nature that surround us. It can never dig that deep or give significance to everything – thus it is limited, un-continuous – we just haven’t had that shown to us yet. This reminds me when I was pregnant and reading the books all pregnant women are told to read, the ones that tell you about your growing fetus and how that fetus will come to be a child, and how that child will learn and grow. It says in these books that at a young age (in the months) children see the world around them as extensions of themselves. Their toy is a part of them, their parents are parts of them, their blankets, bottles and such. They don’t begin learning that they are separate from these things until they begin throwing things away from their bodies and learning not everything is connected. When that is the complete opposite, everything is connected, just on a deeper (soul deep) kind of level. As our children grow we must undo some of that very young learning – yes the toy is NOT a part of you, but the world is and what you do the world you do to yourself. So take care of it.

Entry #14 November 25, 2009 Have you heard nature lately? Have you opened your ears? Page 229 is where I am working from. So when we lived in Phx I loved nature and had a great respect for nature, but I am coming to find out I never slowed down to hear her. Moving up here has “opened my ears”! I have facebook, like many, and have found myself being awed by the songs blowing through the trees, being amazed at the sound and fun feeling you have as you crunch leaves or snow. What a great ear a man must have to write this sound into music. I have heard music that reminds me of these moments. Wind, streams, rain, thunder – what an amazing talent that is. Not the high tech talent of putting it through a computer, but using instruments “the old school way” and making the sounds you hear, glorifying nature. I sit here writing this as wind dancing through the pine needles and I can’t even express how neat it sounds. I think all men should be taught to open their ears and take in what is around them. You can see, taste and touch – but slowing down to listen is sometimes not considered.  I hope I teach my son to slow down and listen with open ears – see with open eyes – touch with innocent hands and taste as if it was your last meal.