Zack Mahiques - Prayer for the great family

In this poem, the author is giving thanks to the things that make up our environment and allow us to live. He first thanks the Earth for her soil and richness and allow everything to grow and live on it. He also thanks it for the night and day, giving us peace at night. Next he thanks the plants for their beauty and their ability to withstand nature and he also thanks the air for being our song, or allowing us to breathe. Wild beings are next, who are our family or brothers, because their share with us their secrets and freedoms and teach us ways to be brave, self-complete, and aware. Water is next because without it we could not survive. The last thank you goes to the sun, for without it, nothing could grow and no life would exist. He calls the sun the one who wakes us and thanks it for warming caves where snakes and bears sleep.

Zack Mahiques - Control Burn

This poem in Turtle Island describes how the indians burn the brush to enrich the soil and allow the manzanita seeds to grow. He remembers how the indians used to do it so they could grow crops, and then describes the landscape. The manzanita crowds the bushes and prevents other plants from growing. The only way to remove the manzanita is to burn it using a controlled fire. He calls the fire an old story, reminding him of how the indians used to use it to clean the land. Should the forest be burned again, the manzanita will be removed and the land will be restored to how it was during the indians time.

Blake Gillespie--earth jazz

My favorite analogy of Eisenberg's was the use of music, especially jazz, when it comes to the cohabitation of earth. He was point on in his explanation, because not only are jazz musicians talented, but they also have the ear for it. I feel like we do not have the ear for listening and adapting, and that is something that is imperative for change. Likewise, the listening ear is important in everyday life as well. We don't listen enough. We don't slow down enough and listen. The walk-abouts the aboriginals perform in Australia is a perfect example of listening and doing. They become one with their surroundings through singing and listening to nature. We need to replicate that from time to time.

Zack Mahiques - Babets Feast

I remembered the movie we watched one day in class about the French woman Babet. When she was forced to live in another country, not being able to communicate with the townspeople forced her to change. While she did change from cooking spectacular feasts to rehydrated bread and soup, she also incorporated a little of her style into her new cuisine. Going to a new place is always hard, and its even harder to fit in. Sometimes in order to fit in, people change their lifestyles in order to look and act more like the local crowd. Although this may seem like a good thing, its important to keep your individuality because thats what makes you who you are. Babet demonstrated this when she was able to order the fancy ingredients to cook the townspeople a feast, of which they were afraid of. Once they saw that it was not a witches dinner, they became comfortable and got to see first hand what Babets old life was like.

Zack Mahiques - Managers vs Fetishers

The fetishers are the people who know that the wilderness is the center of the world, but they still believe we can return to Eden. The managers on the other hand know the importance of the wilderness, but also think they can control it. Nature is the center of the Earth because we depend on nature to survive. This false hope the fetishers have of returning to Eden prevents them from seeing the problems that are being caused. The managers also know how important nature is, but it is impossible to harness its power. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters, and even some animals cannot be stopped by humans. It is this power of nature that we need to respect and understand that we are simply a part of nature, not the controllers of it.

Blake Gillespie--habitat v. habituse

As we discussed early on in the semester, we live in two different environments. The habitat is the place in which we live, and the habituse is the way in which we live in our habitat. I think the habituse can be difficult for some people sometimes. This situation reminds of the movie City Slickers in which Daniel Stern and Billy Crystal are taken from their cushy city lives to live out on the west as cowboys. Though they struggled for some time, eventually they became one with the west. I think some people do not take this time to adapt when in new situations. They are so accustomed to their comfort zone, and fail to realize what else is around them. We need to take time to adapt as well as live.

Laura Harrison-Snyder "The Great Mother"

"The Great Mother" is a very short and simple poem, but riveting nonetheless.

Not all those who pass

In front of the Great Mother's chair

Get passt with only a stare.

Some she looks at their hands

To see what sort of savages they were (20).

As I read that I wonder how Mother Nature would judge me in regard to my treatment of the planet. While I may not actively go out and cut down trees, am I too wasteful? How harmful are my day to day habits toward the earth? Would I be considered a "savage"? I may never know the answers to these questions, but I can at least try to live a more Earth-friendly life.

Laura Harrison-Snyder "Two Fawns..."

Snyder's poem "Two Fawns That Didn't See the Light This Spring" is a rude awakening to the brutality that can occur when humans interact with animals. In the first half of the poem, a hunter shoots a doe carrying a fawn that he thought was a buck. It is very bleak, but the hunter saved the meat anyway.

In the second half of the poem a woman accidentally hit a doe that also had a fawn, it heartrendingly describes the fawn's spots and hooves as it was discovered inside the mother.

In each case it was not the human's intent to kill the doe, but such casualties are more likely to happen as humans spread into "wild" territory.

Laura Harrison-Snyder "Tomorrow's Song"

As a soon to graduate political science major, I loved the first few lines of this poem:

"The USA slowly lost its mandate
in the middle and later twentieth century
it never gave the mountains and rivers,
trees and animals,
a vote.
all the people turned away from it
myths die; even continents are impermanent (77).

With all of America's natural beauty, it has no way of speaking for or defending itself. The trees and animals can't register and show up at the polls on Election Day, therefore it is up to us the voters to speak for them and send signals to our elected officials that the natural environment has its rights too.

Later in the poem Snyder writes the following:

We look to the future with pleasure
we need no fossil fuel
get power within
grow strong on less (77).

This is what the current push for clean, environmentally friendly energy is trying to do, "grow strong on less." I hope we can manage to do just that, because if we continue on our current path we are only digging a grave for ourselves as well as the planet we live on.

Laura Harrison-Snyder "The Dazzle"

As I sit here sneezing and coughing--hopefully from allergies and not the swine flu--I am reading Snyder's poem "The Dazzle." The first half of the poem is very appropriate for the season as my blue car looks green under a film of pollen:

the dazzle, the seduction the
design
intoxicated and quivering,
bees? is it flowers? why does this
seed move around.
the one
divides itself, divides, and divides again.
"we all know where that leads"
blinding storms of gold pollen (65).

It is quite amazing how life always finds a way every spring after the dead of winter. Sometimes overnight trees and the ground go from being barren to sprouting leaves and flowers. As beautiful as the return of life is, it becomes hard to enjoy for those of us with allergies. As I watch the pollen float through the air I know that the earth's natural beauty is being spread, but does it have to provoke my lungs so much?

Laura Harrison-Snyder "Control Burn"

Snyder's poem "Control Burn" describes a time when the Indians would control nature and help it thrive at the same time by burning the brush, allowing trees to grow freely. As I read this poem the news on the TV is covering raging wildfires out in southern California. Today we view fire as a threat as it encroaches upon multi-million dollar homes, most likely owned by people who are wealthy enough to have more than one house.

Snyder's poem with the Indians uses fire as a more friendly means of helping nature's cycle of death and rebirth. It is interesting how perspectives differ so greatly.

Blake Gillespie--Shepard on freeing animals

I feel like Shepard contradicts himself once or twice, (or more) in Tender Carnivore. One part is near the end when he calls us to release domestic animals into the wild, because they are "surrogate people--264." Earlier in the book however, he claimed that the hunter is always in need of an animal companion as a pyschological edge over their hunted. Also, when he mentions domestic animals as surrogate people, he says they are nonsensical and it is just a romantic-humanitarian concept. I feel like domestic animals are a necesity. One example of this I have seen recently is when I watched the film "I am Legend." Will Smith's character, as one of the last men on earth, has a golden retriever named Sam who is his only companion. It seemed like he flourished around Sam, but when he lost him, he was also lost. I feel like companionship is a necessity, and not a burden.

Blake Gillespie--Managers and Fetishers

I like Eisenberg's description of both managers and fetishers; the managers as the ones who control what can be changed but don't do so, and the fetishers, the minority who want change but hardly have impact on it. But is there a middle ground? Are their people in the middle who believe change needs to happen, but realistically know that only a majority can change something? I feel like i fit in this category when it comes to managers v. fetishers. I try to be knowledgeable, but at the same time, I feel like sometimes it is a losing battle unless more are knowledgeable.

Blake Gillespie--Kelly and Mt. Fuji

I especially enjoyed when Kelly came in to talk about his trip to Australia, and the detour he took in Japan. The vivid descriptions he gave of the pain he went through when reaching the high altitude reminded me of a trip I took last summer to Egypt/Israel. As we traveled through the Sinai area in Egypt, my family and I got to take a trip up Mt. Sinai, where they believe Moses received the 10 Commandments. I can relate to Kelly so much on my trip when it comes to the high altitude hiking. By the time we reached the top, (which was just before dawn) I could hardly breathe, and it was nearly freezing outside even though it was the middle of an Egyptian summer. I was hardly dressed for the occasion, so suffered even more. But I think the struggle with nature made the sunrise we climbed to look at even grander. There was definitely a connection with nature and the people who stood on top of the mountain that morning, even though no one talked about it.

Zack Mahiques - Tender Carnivore

Shepard talks about the changes that came when Agriculture replaced the hunting and gathering in societies. Ever since man has moved away from our hunter gatherer background, we have lost our touch with nature. Shepard says that when Agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, it allowed for stationary cities to be built, because the "tribes" were no longer required to migrate. With our new technological advancements in science, architecture, medicine, etc, our perception of nature has changed. Now our idea of nature is industrialized products and domesticated or artificially created livestock. Also, with the advancements in medicine and technology, weapons distructive to nature have been created, more deadly than ever. We have come so far from nature that now we are destroying it.

Zack Mahiques - Wilderness

In Turtle Island Gary Snyder discusses how we must reincorporate the wilderness into our lives. He says that the people that inhabit the realm are animals, people and varoius wildlife. According to Snyder we must include other people into our government before they revolt against us. I agree with what he says in this piece because he talks about losing nature. He also mentions some of the rituals that are performed for various ceremonies, uniting the participants with nature. Even more impressive is his friends tribe the Pueblo. He describes that the tribe only hunts when necessary and have the idea that if you make yourself available to the deer then it will present itself to you. Each part of the deer is used so that nothing is wasted, demonstrating how important nature is to the Pueblo.

Elizabeth Roy - May Moon

May Moon is over, and it was COMPLETELY amazing! Spring celebrations are definitely my favorite - in an earlier entry I talked about Ostara. May Moon celebrates May Day and Beltane. It's a combination of many different worldwide pagan holidays. Perhaps what is most appropriate is the camping. While completing all of these rituals and doing all of these things that relate to the Earth, you're living closer to nature than usual. It makes everything a little more meaningful, in my opinion. The drum circle at May Moon was absolutely mind-blowing, the sheer energy we raised was amazing. I loved dancing in the fire circle and feeling the power raised by the drummers flood my body. People who haven't tried it really should, it's a wonderful experience. And it's not like anything terribly embarrassing could happen that hasn't already happened - I mean, I completely faceplanted while dancing!
Another thing I loved was being allowed - encouraged, really - to run around barefoot all weekend. Much to the dismay of my mother, I've always loved being barefoot and having that kind of physical connection with the earth. I find it a problem that most people aren't comfortable with being barefoot, although it's really not their fault - there's so much litter it's almost inevitable that you'll hurt your foot at least once. I've gotten injured from my tendency to run around like a dirty ******* hippie, but it's worth it to me. I like gardening (on a small scale) and I almost always do it barefoot and with my hands as much as possible. It feels more satisfying, more fulfilling. There's something a little spiritual about taking care of plants and putting that much emotion into it. Plus, I really just like playing with dirt :P

Elizabeth Roy - End of the Semester

Since we’re at the end of the semester, in between the drum circle and now I’ve been thinking about why I was in the course, and whether I got out of it what I wanted. I think I chose this course for two main reasons: firstly, I wanted to take a religions course this semester that presented me with new ideas. I had definitely never thought about the intersection of religion and ecology. If that translates into my goal for the class being to learn new ideas and concepts, then I definitely achieved that. A lot of ideas we discussed, particularly from The Tender Carnivore, were completely new to me. I don’t agree with all of them, but they were all interesting. Secondly, I actually really wanted to take a class with Dr. Redick, since I took my admissions day ‘class’ with him and hadn’t been able to take a course with him since then. I’m glad I did – he’s definitely a different style of teacher, but he has a lot of interesting experiences to share. Overall, I suppose I’d say that the class has been a success for me. I definitely look at both religion and ecology different, and have formed some opinions on the issues where the two intersect. Not only that, but I'm interested in actually learning more.

Elizabeth Roy - Prague

And now, to blog about what’s in the front of my mind (well, at least immediately behind papers and exams). PRAGUE! I’ll be going to Prague next semester for a leadership study abroad. Besides the fact that the classes, workshops, and programs are amazing, I’m interested in the culture. I wasn’t really excited about the location itself at first, mostly because I know little to nothing about the area. But the more I learn about it, the more excited I am. Plus, it’s only a short ways away from Dresden, and within traveling distance of Budapest. I’m hoping that I have time to visit those places and also to visit museums and landmarks about the ancient history of the area. It’s still interesting to think about how very new we are as a nation. The influences on the culture of Prague and the Czech Republic go all the way back to ancient times and the Germanic and Slavic peoples (bamf!) It would be odd – and, very powerful in a way – to be living in a place that had been inhabited for that long of a time. I’d also love to go to the Mucha museum. As the icing on the cake, Prague was also the site of massive IMF/World Bank protests. Who knows, maybe I can find someone who knows someone and I can get involved in that movement while I’m in the city! I’m incredibly excited.

Elizabeth Roy - Drum Circle

We just did a fantastic drum circle for class at Lions Bridge. I think it was an effective way to bring home some of the concepts of the course. We raised some good energies and it was well-timed; I felt much better about all my work after participating. Although I’ve been to several drum circles, I’ve never actually done drumming for them, so this was an interesting experience. I felt a little awkward, mostly because I don’t think I really knew what I was doing and I certainly am not as competent of a drummer as many other people I know. It felt great, regardless. I think I might have gone into a little bit of a trance state, because I definitely didn’t realize how badly my fingers and hands hurt until we stopped drumming. Despite the fact that we raised some nice energies, I feel like some people were not willing to participate fully. In general, I think that our society places an excessive emphasis on control, which prevents us from letting go when we might want to. Also, I’m curious to know whether anyone was reluctant to participate because of the view of a drum circle as pagan. Interestingly, it isn’t only a pagan practice. Drumming is used in syncretist Christian churches in Africa. I wonder if reassurances to the class that it wasn’t a pagan ritual per se would have led to heartfelt participation across the board?

Elizabeth Roy - Masdar

I've always been a little bit of a closet fan of the UAE - Dubai seems pretty awesome. But now I've been reading about a UAE project that definitely rivals the miniature earth island: MASDAR. In an interesting moderately large-scale application of modern eco-friendly design and ideas relating to Eisenberg's writing, Abu Dhabi is building a city that is supposed to be entirely eco-friendly. Some of the features include:
- complete reliance on solar energy and some other renewable energy forms (like wind)
- car ban: excellent mass transit and personal rapid transit systems instead
- multiple recyclings of water (greywater used for crops, etc)
- the largest hydrogen power plant
- low- or zero- waste: biological waste will be used as fertilizer

There is a lot of skepticism about whether this is actually a step in the right direction. For example, many of the people who work in the city will have to commute there. Although the city itself will have energy-efficient transit, the workers will still have to drive to the city itself. Furthermore, the city will be an island in a sea of eco-disastrous venues, such as a theme park and an aluminum smelter.
I, however, think that it's a great idea. For one thing, I think that there is still a lot of doubt in the back of peoples minds about whether or not we can really rely on other sources of energy. Also, this will be sort of a large-scale test: problems with running the eco-friendly city can be smoothed out for future use. I think that this is definitely a step in the right direction!

Elizabeth Roy - The Jester and the Between

After our class at the Lions Bridge, I had an interesting small discussion with Dr. Redick about the Jester, the Fool, and the Trickster. In our society, we've lost touch with these characters. They represent a space that we're not comfortable with - the between. In today's world, we like facts and we like to know where we stand. When we're put in (or forced in, usually) a situation that is not clearly defined or one in which we don't have a hard standard set of rules to follow, we are incredibly uncomfortable and even hostile. Dr. Redick discussed our discomfort with schizophrenics and those who are 'god-touched' but I think that the phenomenon is much more widespread. We avoid ambiguous situations like the plague - we want to have as much knowledge about something as possible in order to handle it in the most acceptable way. Unfortunately, 'between' is where we grow and experience the most. In a mundane example: sitting in the same seat with the same people every single day at lunch might be comfortable, but going out on a limb and sitting with someone you don't know as well is when you can form new relationships. This is the reason that I think teenagers and adolescents are so important - that time of life is inherently a between, and there is so much personal growth because of that fact and the subsequent experimentation and change. I think that we need to make a concerted effort to experience things that we aren't completely comfortable with. So although I'm sure Eleanor Roosevelt didn't have Jesters and the between in mind, remember: "Do something every day that scares you"!

Elizabeth Roy - Fish heads ftw?

I recently had an interesting experience that relates to what we discussed after we watched Babette’s Feast at the beginning of the year. [On a side note – did you know that conservative Catholic bookstores promote the movie because of its supposedly Eucharistic themes?] I went to my favorite Chinese buffet place in Newport News with my friends. One of them got the head of a fish for sheer entertainment value. It started me thinking about how we discussed the presentation of food in our society and the dissociation between animal and food for us. I realized that, despite my enlightenment on matters of religion and ecology, I still am not at all interested in eating that. It simply does not look appetizing. Ironically, I would definitely try it if the fish was presented in a Western fashion – no skin, cute little garnishes, no head, and certainly no eyes. Even though we might realize that our society norms and reactions are irrational and a little strange, changing them is much easier said than done. And you know, I was going to be brave and try that fish head, but it got thrown away before I could… By the way, if anyone can find me the Far Side cartoon making fun of Babette’s Feast, I will be eternally grateful. I can’t locate it online.

Elizabeth Roy - The Dead by the Side of the Road

Besides The Bath, another Gary Snyder poem that affected me was “The Dead by the Side of the Road.” I definitely wouldn’t say I liked it, but it was powerful. For me, seeing roadkill is always heartbreaking and appalling. I drive a lot, but no matter how many times I see it, the sight of roadkill makes me cringe or even makes me nauseous. It’s not really the gore – I took a vertebrate anatomy class that was entirely dissection and was fine. It’s more how unfair and wrong it seems. We move in, take land from the animals, kill them, and then run them over repeatedly until they’re mush. It’s completely repellent to me. It’s especially painful to see hawks and other birds – I’m an avid birdwatcher and I feel a strong connection to hawks in particular. A hawk is the first animal that Snyder writes about in the poem. The poem has an interesting twist – instead of just being about animals dead by the side of the road, it’s about utilizing their bodies for food or tools, and turning something horrific into a gift that requires thanks. I don’t really know how I feel about this; I’m not sure I could do it, personally, but I suppose it’s in keeping with my values and beliefs. However, this might be where my ingrained societal norms about food and sanitation have a stronger hold than my beliefs about not wasting!

Elizabeth Roy - Passover Seder

We did a mock Passover Seder in class. While I’m a huge fan of Passover foods, especially haroseth, I was very uncomfortable with doing a ‘Passover Seder.’ I’ve read that many Jews, especially Orthodox Jews, find it offensive, and that makes sense to me. It’s a ritual of faith, and we don’t have the faith, nor do we have the background to appreciate all aspects of the ritual meal. Most Christians would be uncomfortable with a class doing a mock Communion, I think. I was discussing this with my dad, who is a devout Catholic, and he suggested that perhaps having it led by an Orthodox Jew would make it more acceptable. I’m not sure that even that would suffice. I think what is disrespectful is performing the ritualized meal with only the action component and not the emotional and faith components. I think that what would make it more acceptable to me would be studying and partly experiencing the personal content of the Seder for an Orthodox Jew. Not simply ‘what do they do’ or ‘what does this symbolize’ but ‘what does it really mean personally for a Jew?’

Elizabeth Roy - Ostara

Ostara is a pagan celebration and ritual of springtime. It’s timed around the end of March, and for this year PESO had a ritual and potlatch at Anna, Kelly, and Eve’s house. I absolutely love Ostara. I think it has something to do with just the time of year. Springtime to me seems more meaningful than any other time of year. It feels like anything is possible and like it’s a new beginning. It makes sense to me that the early Christian church chose to place the Easter celebrations at Ostara (the word Easter itself comes from Ostara) because it’s a time of rebirth. I think it would be wonderful if Christianity reconnected to nature during Easter. There is already a strong connection there, but I don’t feel like anything is done intentionally to relate to nature. My church at home has started to have a stronger connection with nature – at Easter especially, the altar is positively overflowing with flowers and plants. Also, a meditation trail was just made through the woods next to the church. I think that this is an example that most Christian churches should follow. Perhaps the reason this doesn't happen more is because Christianity is associated with countries with a higher level of development, where there is inherently less of a natural connection. Perhaps if Christianity was a religion of hunter-gatherers or even an agricultural society, that relationship would still be a major part of the Christian religious experience.

Elizabeth Roy - The Tender Carnivore and the Female Role

While I definitely find Shepard’s ideas interesting, I don’t particularly like his ideas about women. Shepard says that women are equipped more for gathering and that they are not meant for hunting. I find this a vast generalization. I think that there are definitely a lot of men are not well-equipped, physically or emotionally, for hunting, and a lot of women who would be better hunters than gatherers. I did enjoy Shepard’s point about women being political administrators – if we accept as true the premise that men are traditionally hunters and would be out hunting most of the time, then women, as those left behind, would indeed be running the society politically. Despite this and Shepard’s assertions that he is not a misogynist, he seems convinced of women’s shortcomings and rather doubtful of their abilities:

"For a million years under conditions of the hunt women lived – and because of biology still live – geographically more circumscribed lives than men. They have a poorer sense of large-scale spatial relationships and direction and are not good throwers or runners. They probably have superior social intelligence and inferior strategic cunning than men. These differences are genetically controlled and are part of the personality of all living women, taken as a group." (119-120).

In addition to this, I do not at all agree with his assertion that women’s place in society, specifically how they live geographically more circumscribed lives than men, is biologically based. What nonsense! It has more to do with the culture we live in and our social norms. I wonder, would there still be a difference in male-female spatial skills if women drove around on dates, to work, and other places as much as men did? If they were expected to know how to get places and therefore had as much practice with these skills as men did? After all, what Shepard says is rather contradictory – gathering requires just as much knowledge of directions and large-scale spatial relationships as hunting, perhaps more. In hunter-gatherer cultures, the gatherers have to have excellent senses of direction because they must know the location of specific gathering places. Personally, I’d like to see some research that backs up Shepard’s ideas, and I’d like to NOT be taken ‘as a group’!

Elizabeth Roy - The Tender Carnivore, via the Doubting Game

In the course of our discussion of Shepard’s The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game, I’ve decided that I’m not convinced that Shepard’s ideas are something I agree with. Much of what Shepard says is based on fact and also makes sense, but that does not of course make it right. I’m even more skeptical because some of what he says is blatantly not true (according to other sources I’ve found). For example, when talking about heart attacks, he says that women are less prone to them than men – which, according to the CDC and AHA, isn’t true at all. Shepard takes an evolutionary standpoint, saying that men are meant to and created to hunt, thanks mostly to evolution. He believes that in deference to that, we should still be hunters. However, why shouldn’t we go the opposite direction? If Shepard is right, many times in the past we would have ‘decided’ (whether consciously or not) that we want to hunt. Because we hunted, our bodies changed. Now, however, it seems as though we’ve decided that we don’t want to hunt. What’s wrong with deciding not to hunt and changing our bodies using technology in a way that will fit more with not hunting? We’re already doing that to some degree with heart and blood pressure medications, not to mention surgery. And much though Shepard and others would say that we shouldn’t use those, at a certain point almost everyone agrees that they’re good for society and individuals. So what’s the benefit of going backwards, and going back to hunting society? Shepard argues that our violence, aggressive crimes, and teenage-parent disagreements are all because of our innate hunting aggression. But why go back to hunting instead of trying to weed out and get rid of our aggressive tendencies? All of the organized efforts to do this seem to have been terrible human rights violations (anything from our eugenics movement to fictional portrayals like the Pax in Serenity) but if Shepard is talking about a complete overhaul of society anyway, why not create a society in which there isn’t any need for aggressive crimes instead of trying to go back to being hunters? People with aggressive tendencies kind of take themselves out of the gene pool anyway; those with hostile Type A personalities (which unfortunately includes me) are much more likely to get heart attacks and have other health problems. I just don’t see why Shepard thinks that hunting is necessarily the answer.

Elizabeth Roy - The Bath

I’ve been reading Gary Snyder off and on all semester, and I really enjoy it. I wish we were going to have more time to discuss it in class. Almost all of his poetry resonated with me, but some made me actually think. In particular, The Bath made me think a lot. It’s such an odd poem, I think because it’s not very Western. It’s at once sexual and sensual, loving and chaste. To me it seemed especially odd when he was talking about his son’s genitalia. In general, if someone started talking about a child’s genitalia, we’d call Social Services and slap a pedophile label on the guy. But that also is a rather Western way of thinking. We view sexual organs as a potential for sex, for kinkiness, and for perversion. We don’t view them as instruments of creation or as products of a creator. We don’t regard them with wonder. But they are, in fact, rather wonderful – having the potential to create new life, to create another person, is a mind-blowing idea. But we also see them as mostly perverted and dirty. I think a lot of that is societal, because you don’t really get the same ideas in semi-nudist cultures. In addition to viewing genitalia in a negative way, we also objectify children. A lot of people, when they think about having a child, think about how much it would cost, what other people would think about it, and what kind of concessions they would have to make because of parenthood. It seems strange to me that most people don’t think about the actual person they might create – until, of course, they actually have a child.

Elizabeth Roy - In the Light of Reverence

The video we watched in class, called In the Light of Reverence, gave me a lot to think about. It was an excellent documentary, in my mind, because although it was definitely biased in favor of the Native Americans, it showed both sides of the dispute over Devils Tower. In fact, I was offended by things that people from almost every side of the dispute said. I personally believe that a sacred space cannot possibly belong to anyone in particular. The Native Americans may have been there for centuries, but their own traditions (in general, I don’t really know specifically about the Wintu people) don’t include land ownership. By wanting to keep everyone out but themselves, they’re effectively saying that they own the land. How can you possibly own a sacred space? Of course, this goes both ways. I also definitely agree that churches should allow in people of different religions – athough, most people of other religions wouldn’t want to go in a church. But an SCA (read: mostly pagan, or at least certainly not Christian!) group used to meet at my church during the week. I think that’s the way it should be. You might not get to that point in some places, but I think the ultimate goal is for sacred spaces to be tolerant, open, loving places where everyone is welcome.

As a pagan, I was rather offended by the portrayal of the pagans as the ‘bad guys.’ In fact, when I looked up the article on Wikipedia, it mentioned how New Age practitioners want to use the land recreationally. Recreationally?! Since when are our religious practices recreation when Native American religious practices are actually considered spiritual and religious? I was also a little offended at the implications that the New Age pagans ‘stole’ Native American practices. It’s not really any of the New Age pagans’ faults that they weren’t born with Native American blood. That doesn’t make the fact that the rituals speak to them any less legitimate.

And I’m sure I seem easily offended, but I also really wanted to wring the necks of the people who outright said that it was impossible that the Native Americans had been there longer than they themselves had. I wish I understood mindsets like that. How can they believe that sort of thing over fact and every kind of evidence?

Elizabeth Roy - Can Humans Grow Roots?

While reading The Ecology of Eden and working on our group presentation, I have been most influenced by what is actually a rather small part of one of our chapters: in just a little over three pages in Reclaiming Arcadia, Eisenberg talks about whether or not we really can or are meant to grow roots and stay in one place. Unlike some other things in this class, this didn’t immediately speak to me. My reaction was “of course we belong to a specific place, we’re not meant to be nomadic” and I moved on. But later I started thinking about it. Eisenberg notes that even our gardens are nomadic in nature – they’re meant to be walked in. Maybe not all of us have the need to be nomadic, but I think a lot of us do. In particular, we all love to go on vacations. From my daily personal experience, the need to be nomadic is also apparent. When I go to the park, I’m not at all interested in just sitting there; I want to walk on the trails. But more so than that, I want to move to a different ‘place’ mentally and emotionally. Eisenberg doesn’t explore this in depth, but I wonder if our urge to be nomadic, to move and see different places, is perhaps partly satisfied now by the world coming to our door in some ways. I don’t think that it’s sufficient, but maybe some people fulfill their urges to experience new settings through T.V. or the internet. Shows like Planet Earth and channels like Discovery are hugely possible – can this be part of the reason? If it is, I still don’t think it’s good enough to satisfy our nomadic souls. It’s akin to memorizing class material instead of actually understanding the concepts. On the surface it might seem adequate, but it’s not really. I think we actually need to physically interact with new places and experience new settings.

Robert Burroughs- Narcissism

I was reading an article, maybe two weeks ago, about how our generation is being called “Generation Me.” It was about how we are in a narcissism epidemic, the cause of which is bad parenting (the intention being good parenting, of course) and the media, both of which promote self-love to an unhealthy point. Without getting too personal, I looked at myself and realized how true this is. I looked to those close to me, and realized how true this is. We are so narcissistic, and it’s getting to a point quite dangerous.
To relate it to religion and ecology, narcissism promotes materialism, and materialism is killing the planet. We are wasteful, specifically in America. Everyone has heard it, and yet we are so narcissistic that we think we can keep on doing what we are doing, as long as it makes us happy, and we’ll let others deal with the problem. The really bad narcissists would have you believe that they aren’t the cause of the problem at all; they like to point the blame elsewhere. And as we continue to raise more and more narcissists, we are in danger of creating a very destructive culture. We all need to become aware of the problem, and quickly, if we are going to be able to stop the monster before it’s out of our control.

Robert Burroughs- The Tender Carnivore

The Tender Carnivore presented a very interesting take on how we should view ourselves since we clearly are animals. I love Shepard’s look at what we have in common with other primates; to me it makes it obvious that we are animals whose brains just happened to evolve to a larger state, allowing us the capacity for language and higher thinking.
As to what this means about how we should act? Well, I think we need to figure out what nature intended for us, in terms of balancing us against everything else in the world. What is our job?
Surely nature couldn’t have expected that we were going to take over the world and use its resources to create the types of technology that we have. Not that nature has a mind; I don’t want it to sound like I mean that. And maybe we do fit right in. Maybe we are the natural evolution of where Earth was going. But if that’s true, then we can only think that we are on the course toward being destroyed. If we are just animals, then we had better become animals in space, and fast, or else our time will quickly be up.

Robert Burroughs- Gaia Theory

As for the Gaia theory, I can’t help but think that it would be right if we couldn’t think for ourselves. Humanity is the point where the Gaia theory becomes a train derailed. If all of Earth were really one big organism, at least in a sense, and it made sure that it was always taken care of in terms of temperature, number of species, etc, then the only way that could work would be if each individual piece that made up the larger organism was on some sort of track, much like most of the organisms on Earth are. When animals are only worried about surviving, as they are programmed to do, the Gaia theory can exist because everything on Earth remains predictable. But once we started to think, we left the Gaia theory behind; we became unpredictable, and the Earth doesn’t know exactly how to respond except to try and kill us off.
We, as man, should most likely just be out hunting and gathering and having sex, like all other animals. We should do what we need to do to survive and not much more. If that were the case, then everything else on Earth may be able to incorporate us into the larger scheme, whatever that scheme is. But we have culture, an we have technology, and the two together propel us much further, much faster, than an unthinking organism such as the Earth can keep up with. At this point, our only chance of survival seems to rely on our ability to understand that we have removed ourselves from whatever it is that is natural. We need to learn, quickly, how to try and reinsert ourselves into the natural order of things before Earth decides to do its best to weed us out and get the program back to normal.

Robert Burroughs- Eisenberg and Science

I love Eisenberg’s look at humanity as no different than a bacteria that has taken over the refrigerator during a temporary power outage. It rang very true to me that we aren’t a special organism that has been granted some power over the Earth. I don’t believe that God ever entrusted us with the Earth. Rather, I think we are animals that somehow evolved until our brains were able to think, to feel, to reason, and this led to our trying to understand the world around us, which in turn led to religion as we didn’t understand everything around us.
If science had existed as long as man has existed, I’m convinced that there would be no religion. We wouldn’t have ever explained a lightning bolt as being thrown by a god, but rather we could have discovered the truth behind it, as we know the truth behind lightning and weather today. But language, in those early days, opened up something intangible for us; we were feeling things and thinking things that couldn’t be described by these animals who previously only knew how to eat, sleep, and have sex. Once intangibles started showing up, people wanted answers; religion seems to be the block that they decided to fill the hole in with.
I don’t know how we should live today. Should we totally get rid of religion? It seems to me to be a huge flaw in culture, which I’m not totally sure is supposed to exist either, but we clearly can’t just rid ourselves of something that is absolutely hardwired within us from birth. But while culture can’t go, religion may be able to, if people could separate themselves from their fear of the unknown and come to believe as I do. Not to say I am right, of course, because I could be wrong, but it just doesn’t make sense that if there is one true religion, such as Christianity, then there would also be so many different religions, all created and shaped around their particular lifestyles. I love when Eisenberg looks at the Canaanites and then also looks at the Israelites, and says that they seemed to think they were special for some reason. It felt like a sweet smack in the face to religion, which certainly needs a sweet smack in the face. God only made them the chosen people in so much as every other god made every other religious people the chosen ones. These particular people just happened to take over half the world the last couple thousand years, and so they seem to be “more right” than everyone else. But where I’m standing, science doesn’t really seem to support this idea. While there may be things we don’t know through science yet, I don’t think that warrants a stubborn belief in religion, which of course can never be proven wrong (at least until we die, but at that point it’s too late).

Robert Burroughs- Why Us

I’ve been reading Why Us which is a scientific book discussing what we have learned about the origins of humanity through science and what we can and can not infer from that information. A big part of the book actually discussed the limitations of what we know. Sure we can map out the human brain and test how it reacts under different circumstances, but we still can’t seem to figure out how little electrical surges firing off in the brain end up computing in our minds everything they do. Where does language come from? How did we go from ape to man?
It also discusses the double helix and how we can look at it to hopefully trace humanity back to our origins. There is a lot on Darwin and the survival of the fittest and our evolution, etc. But a big point here is that we don’t seem to have a really good grasp on our exact evolution because there are pieces missing. Our evolution just seems to make jumps that can’t be explained, as opposed to a gradual evolution in which we had fossilized evidence to support the whole climb.
But why does this all matter? I think it’s important to figure this all out if we have any intention of figuring out what is the right way for us to live our lives. The purpose of man is encoded somewhere in our past, and I think that we have only lost sight of it as language complicated our lives. It may very well be simple survival of the fittest; aside from staying alive and reproducing, maybe nothing else truly matters?
Tonight I read on a theory describing the survival of the fittest and how altruism seems to play against it. Why do humans, unlike any other animal species, feel that it is so important to save everyone? I suppose it doesn’t fit to say all humans are that way, but in modern times with the universal human rights and all, it seems that we are trying to protect life that potentially shouldn’t be protected, if we are to look from an animal perspective. And something about how it was described that only rich, wealthy, well-bred people should continue to breed made me think about the spread of resources currently, with a very small percentage of the population holding very much of the wealth, and it made me think that this may not be too far from the truth. To start, we are approaching the breaking point regarding over-population. Second, there are far too many people that can’t afford to take care of themselves and a family. My hypothesis is that far too many people are having children, people that aren’t equipped to take care of a child on any level rather than a very basic physical level, and we should start to decide who can and can’t have kids. Maybe there should be some sort of license or something. I don’t want to be elitist, but I think we have to be realistic, and everyone can not continue to have children. If altruism is actually some gene within us to aid our survival, the survival of the race over the individual, then subscribing to the idea that not everyone should have children is really for the better of the race. Also, it would free up time for the majority of people to pursue other avenues in our all too short lives. I love the idea of not having to give up my life so I can take care of a child. We must be able to derive meaning in our lives from some other function.

The Tower in Eisenberg

I have been a little confused over the significance and importance of the tower in Eisenberg's writings. I understand it as a the metaphor for where we view life from, above everything else, from chapter 11. The mental home, as he calls it, is not really our home at all, but built by someone else. Does this mean that we are destined to live in this tower, and can't change our destiny, or is he stressing that we need to change our destiny from the tower, and look from the mountain?

Blake Gillespie--Eisenberg's take on global warming

I especially liked Eisenberg's chapter Hot and cool, which was prefaced with a story about his cat. His cat doesn't know what global warming is, and he doesn't care, he is just a cat. Though he did not relate this sentiment to human beings, I feel like it is a good example. Some human beings know that global warming and its terrible effects are occurring, but they act like Eisenberg's cat in that they don't know or don't care. Better education needs to be spread about its terrible effects, and what we can do about it. I feel like public high schools and secondary schools do not stress conservation so much. Better recycling habits and better water conservation are simple ways to help the earth.

Stephen Fellows- Tangerines

In his book Thich Nhat Hanh discusses one of the first ideas we explored in class. The idea that people should be mindful of their food and where it came from. The women in the movie ate food that came from the local enviroment and so do many people around the world. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about passing tangerines around to children and meditating on the origin of the fruit. That is came not only from a tree but also the blossoms of the tree. The begining of the fruit as the blossoms fell off the tree. And that someone had to pick the fruit before they recieved it. He describes how each bite of the fruit was taken while thinking about the food. The taste the texture and where it came from. This sounds alot like the experience that people miss out of today. Many people do not take the time to think about what they are eating. Maybe its because if we did we would lose our appetite. Who wants to think about proccessed chiken or spam. But to think about fruit and vegetables and realize that they were growing living organisms is what Thich Nhat Hanh is talking about. He says that to eat this way you can see the whole universe and that to take the time to just sit and eat your food while being mindful of it is a pleasure.

Stephen Fellows- Peace is Every Step

Thich Nhat Hanh the buddhist monk speaks about peoples interaction with nature. He says "we have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serentiy on the Earth..." he says that people need to "be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth..." He goes on to say that people have caused destruction to the world and it is now time to help the earth. While he is probably speaking about being more enviromentally conscience and not destroying the world the quote also means much more. When people are going out for a walk how many people are aware of where they are walking? Do they think about the people who have walked there before them, or think about the earth that they walk on and what it has provided to them. Early in the semester we talked about being aware of our food and where it came from. This is a similar idea. We should feel the earth as we walk on it and think not only about the things around us but where we walk as well.

Stephen Fellows- Shepard

Paul Shepard's book the Tender Carnivore attacked the rise of agriculture as one of the worst events to happen to both man and nature. While this may be true in modern times it is surely not true for the majority of Human History. Eisenberg proved that Indian tribes in the rain forest were able to support themselves by a slash and burn technique. Native American tribes were able to practice agriculture without adversely affecting the environment around them. Agriculture is not necessarily a bad development. His other ideas are interesting especially his idea about the way people should live in cities of only 50,000 people along the coast. While it seems ideal it is also unlikely. It requires people to give up alot of their individuality and independence and requires even those people who are enviromentally conscience to live in cities.

Stephen Fellows- Native American Movie

During the semester we watched a movie discussing the importance of nature to various Native American tribes. These tribes felt that these specific areas were sacred and considered them their churches. These tribes are now fighting to protect these areas from encroachment by tourists and businesses. Some of the businesses have tried to accommodate them but they have not done enough. And the American government has not helped or supported the Native Americans in their attempt to protect their sacred sights. These Indian sights are in danger of being destroyed, but at the same time some of them are evolving. New people are visiting them and viewing them as sacred. While the Native Americans do have a claim to these sights as sacred places there are also many other people who visit them and get a religious experience. There is a growing connection with nature on the part of many Americans. Even if there are those who ignore nature and the sacred landscapes there are many who are discovering a connection or spirituality that they previously did not feel.

Stephen Fellows- Civil Action

The book A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr follows the true story of neighborhood that has an unusually large number of Leukemia cases. They hire a lawyer who discovers that three companies, one of which is a small Tannery, are responsible for dumping chemicals into the water supply for the neighborhood. The book was later turned into a movie by the same name. During the movie there is a scene where one of the workers at the Tannery is on the stand. He is being examined as a witness to chemicals being dumped into the water. This worker's family used to own the land that the Tannery is on. During the course of the examination he is asked a question as to whether he cares about the land. The worker becomes emotional and says that he cares about every bit of the land the Tannery is on. The only problem I have with this is that he is responsible for dumping chemicals onto the land that cave caused severe health problems for children but also caused a pond on his property to catch on fire. The move is a very good look at the affect that large corporations have on nature and the surrounding populations.

Stephen Fellows- Conquering Nature

In his section entitled the Mountain and the Tower Evan Eisenberg discusses the attempt of men to conquer Nature. One of the myths that he retells is the myth of Gilagamesh and Enkindu. Enkindu is the wild clone of Gilgamesh who Gilgamesh has to tame. This myth discusses a theme that I find very important. In the last thousand years the Western world has viewed nature as something that needed to be conquered. Many Europeans believed that God had given them the world to do with as they please. When they came to the America’s they believed that the Indians were not using the land so they had no claim to it. Many people have a love hate relationship with the land. They love the idea of having it, working it themselves but at the same time they want it to be developed the way they want and in many instances destroy it

Tony Pasquariello - Religion and Ecology

I really enjoyed this class and the way it was setup. The trips to the Nolan Trail, the guest speakers, the slideshows of Europe, not every class was set up to be boring and repetitive, it was setup to engage the students and excite them about the course material which I really enjoyed. I’ve learned a lot about how bad our economy is going, and have done a lot to change the ways I act towards protecting our planet.

Tony Pasquariello - Appalachian Trail

I have been very interested in walking on the Appalachian Trail ever since first hearing about it last year. Some spend months traveling the whole way, from Maine to Georgia, or vice versa, where as some spend a day, a weekend, a week, a month just leisurely walking. I have learned about Trail names, where somebody gives you a trail name when they first meet you and this becomes your name on the trail, sometimes even for the rest of your life, and trail days where you can dress the part of your name and hang out with everybody that has hiked the AT in Demascus, Virginia. I am planning to backpack through Europe or hike the AT after I graduate from college; hopefully I have enough money to explore Europe and upon my return to the United States will be able to hike the AT on a low budget. The beauty of the AT is that it is away from all of the cities, traffic, headaches and stresses and shows you the beauty of nature, meeting people who are just like you, trying to get away from all the hassles and problems of society and finding your own spirituality.

Tony Pasquariello - Walking

This economy is obviously not in the best condition it has ever been in. There are many things that we are doing to the world that are harming it, possibly ruining it, without even knowing. In this sense, there are many things that we could be doing to help better it, possibly even saving it. One major problem is the overuse of automobile’s we have as lazy human beings. Not only does it harm our ecosystem, it is harming us, socially and personally. Socially speaking, if we are walking around everywhere, whether it be from your house to the store, or on a trail, you are more inclined to speak to people surrounding you, whereas on a plane, train or automobile, you usually keep to yourself wearing headphones listening to your Ipod, laptop, or reading a magazine or book, all of which hinting to those around you that you don’t want to be bothered. Physically speaking, it is obviously better for your health to walk, jog, run, bike to your destination than it is to sit in your car

Tony Pasquariello - Evolution...Buisnessmen

Derrick Jensen explains an advertisement he saw for the University of California Berkeley Extension. It is a picture of a man sitting at his desk, hands on top of his head with his feet resting on his desk, dressed in a white shirt, black tie, business pants and shoes. Next to his shoes are four footprints, a bird print, a small mammal’s, a bears and closest to the man’s shoes a bare human footprint. The caption read: “Evolution…doesn’t have to take a million years.” He explains that this advertisement implies through a million years, through birds, mammals, all creatures; evolution has been leading toward businessmen, and more broadly toward this culture. All of evolution has taken place so that we can wear uncomfortable clothes and sit at desks. This doesn’t sound the least bit enticing to me, and it is a bloody shame that it is the truth. I have friends that have graduated last year, and are on the verge of graduating in a few weeks, and all they are worried about is finding a shitty job in this poor economy, to get started on living on their own and settled in with a boring career. I have no intentions of wearing a suit to a 9-5 job sitting at a desk right after I graduate, if ever. This world is massive, and beautiful, and I have explored but a small slither of the east coast of the United States. There is much more out there for me to see, witness, explore, learn, and there is no way a shitty job with a nice pay check will stop me from doing so.

Tony Pasquariello - Why Civilization is Killing the World

In Derrick Jensen’s endgame, he starts this section of with a few short quotes. “We’re fucked. We’re so fucked. Not in the good sense of the word.” “A reasonable definition of insanity is to have lost one’s connection to physical reality, to consider one’s delusions as being more real than the real world.” This is basically how we are killing the world, we are insane, we seem to see our delusions more realistically than the actually real world, which is the one being harmed.

Tony Pasquariello - endgame

My older brother has just recently introduced me to Derrick Jensen. Derrick Jensen is an author, teacher, activist, small farmer, and leading voice of uncompromising dissent who tours the nation stirring auditoriums with revolutionary spirit. I am currently reading his volume 1 of his book Endgame; The Problem of Civilization. I think this book relates to this class in lots of ways, focusing on our re-imagining of our world through major provocative premises, such as the needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of any economic system and love does not imply pacifism. He is a very interesting author, and his work relates to this course in many ways.

Tony Pasquariello - The Drum Circle

I really enjoyed having a drum circle on the Nolan Trail towards the end of the semester. It was a very relaxing, interesting, great time that I wish I could experience in all of my classes. I was reading one of the blog’s already posted, by Andrew, and its cool to see that he’s reading a Mickey Hart, maybe the same one, book just like myself, and was able to relate it to the drum circle class and the statement Kelly said about shamans, very similar to what I did. One of my favorite quotes from Mickey Hart’s book is about Shamans and drums. “This, I think, is the drum’s function. Its rhythms set up a ripple in time, ensuring that the shaman can find his way back from the timelessness that is mentioned in almost all accounts of the other world. The danger to the shaman who has ridden the drum out of his body is not so much being lost in space as being lost in time. In a sense the drum functions as an extension of the heart that is beating in the shaman’s empty body, back here in human time. An instrument of time travel. A beacon when he is out of his body.”

Tony Pasquariello - Follow Your Bliss...

I have been reading Mickey Hart’s book Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion, a book that can relate to your teaching, and came across a quote by Joseph Campbell that Hart claims to have lived his life according to; “Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before...” I find this quote, or principle, to be very motivating, especially coming from somebody who’s been able to make a fantasy living doing something that he loves and wants to dedicate his life’s work to. If you follow your heart, and what moves you spiritually on the inside, you will find that everything has a way of working itself out in all the ways you could have ever dreamed of.

Tony Pasquariello - Turtle Island

I enjoy reading Gary Snyder’s poems, all of which focus on the vision for a rediscovery of this land and the ways by which we might become natives of the place. I also enjoyed reading his Plain Talk section at the end of the book, where he just speaks his mind on world issues and shares some experiences he’s encountered in the past. In the part entitled “Energy is Eternal Delight,” Snyder talks about the addiction the US, Europe, Soviet Union and Japan has with heavy energy use and abuse of fossil fuels. He explains that there are many nonmaterial, nondestructive paths of growth, in which we should be paying more attention to for the sake of keeping out planet as healthy as possible.

Tony Pasquariello - The Tender Carnivore & The Sacred Game

Paul Shepard presents an account of human behavior and ecology in light of our past. In this book, he contends that agriculture is responsible for our ecological decline and looks to the hunting and gathering lifestyle as a model more closely in tune with our essential nature. Shepard advocates affirming the profound and beautiful nature of the hunter and gatherer, redefining agriculture and combining technology with hunting and gathering to recover a livable environment and peaceful society.

Tony Pasquariello - The Ecology of Eden: Bebop

“Nature has taken on in our minds the frozen perfection of calendar photos, or the streamlined motion of television specials. Living in the Tower that is modern civilization, we see nature as an object to be manipulated or a view to be admired. We hear nature hardly at all.” This is a concept I’ve never really taken into consideration, the sound of nature. I really enjoyed the drum circle class we had, especially after reading this section of The Ecology of Eden, because one of the most spiritual motivations is the power of rhythm, which everybody needs to take the time to appreciate, and where better to do so than in nature.

Tony Pasquariello - The Ecology of Eden: Hot and Cool

The Ecology of Eden: Hot and Cool
“We would chip away a little at this problem, a little at that, and as more and more of us applied our chisels the shape of a sane planet would emerge. But now the solid material we had been working with seems to melt under our hands. Our problems multiply, ramify, run in rivulets of unpredictability.” This is the section I was assigned to in our group presentation, and although I have done minimal research on global warming in past classes, I am glad I was able to go more into depth in this course, writing my final research paper on the subject of global warming. It is a very serious issue that I believe everybody needs to be made aware of, and with just the minute changes in our everyday lives, we as a whole are able to save this beautiful planet we live on, and hopefully our grandchildren’s children’s children will be living on as well.

Tony Pasquariello - The Ecology of Eden

This is a book about humankind's place in nature, real and imagined. There are several reasons why such a book should find its center in images of paradise. First of all, those images show our muddled feelings about our place in nature: our guilty pride, our snug discomfort. They reveal our sense that something has gone wrong somewhere down the line. By imagining a time or place of perfect harmony between humans and nature, they indict the discord we feel here and now. Whether the harmony they imagine is, or was, real is a good question, but in a way beside the point. The discord is real enough.

Lyndsey Walker - Fertilizers

I recently visited the new "Movie Tavern" in Williamsburg, off of Richmond Road. It was raining when my flick let out, and I was ushered through the exit and introduced into the falling drops. I was enjoying the way that the cool water felt coming down from the thunderous sky, when my eye caught a sight of the runoff. There was a green ooze seeping through the water, being pulled by its movement. My first thought was, "Ah, anti-freeze?!" But I quickly saw that it was not originating under a vehicle, but instead coming up from the muddied dirt. Water was collecting fast, pooling and flowing off of the freshly remodeled terrain. My friend who works for Cinter Construction said that this was a result of "hydra/hydro-seeding". When I asked what this was, he told me that it was the "greenest" way that the government has found to renew the growth of grass and other plants. I searched online to find a bit of information on the subject. Wikipedia states that this method "utilizes a slurry of seed and mulch", "transported in a tank or truck and sprayed over prepared ground in a uniform layer". Although it is said to promote quick germination and inhibit soil erosion, the source also expresses that the slurry contains other ingredients including: "fertilizer, tackifying agents, green dye, and other additives". I have heard some people around campus saying that CNU has been spray-painting the grass to make it look greener for orientations. Maybe this is what they're actually putting onto the ground? I haven't seen it applied first hand on the lawn but what I saw in the Movie Tavern parking lot was enough to make me reject the idea of it completely. As I witnessed the chemicals exude from the ground and drain into the water systems, I was saddened. Learning about the depletion of soil nutrients and the hasty employment of harsh fertilizers from Ecology of Eden has opened my eyes to the expansive reaches of this problem. Even if the hydro-seeding technique is better than the rest, from the looks of it there is still much improvement to be done in the area of fortifying Earth's crust.

Lyndsey Walker - Drum Circle

I've always been interested in drumming. When I was younger, I had an eight piece set that was a beautiful candy apple red. Unfortunately nobody in my house understood the concept of a "learning curve" and I didn't have any lesson hook-ups, so I gave it all up. However, in the last few years I've gotten into deeper realms of spirituality and have been able to appreciate drumming in a much more ritualistic way. Since I'm from Newport News, the Lion's Bridge/Noland Trail area has always been a sacred place. I have memories of sledding, exploring, hiking, canoeing, and now drumming.
I loved the aspect of creating a special place by walking around the circle three times. I've researched numerology in the past and the number three is essential to our life in the third dimension; it is said that we must do things in threes to manifest them into our physical realm. Three signifies creative power, overcoming duality, individual expression, and completion. It is past, present, and future. It is the holy trinity. It is the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. It is the Celtic triad. It is the Hindu Trimurti. It is referenced in every religious and cultural tradition. And, it served as the portal to our communal energy exchange.
Although the point while drumming was to focus, it was difficult to miss the living world around me. Seeing the eagle was great at the beginning as a sort of totem, but the yellow-bellied birds were who kept my attention. They moved above and around us like a swarm of air-fish. They were naturally/innately expressing nature's elegance. They granted me access to the Earth as I explored my surroundings, entranced. There was one specific time when the drumming had died down. Kelly picked up the pace and the force of his drumming, looking around at everyone. As people joined in, following his lead, I could feel the energy of everyone meshing. We became a collaborative whole. In our merging was reflected the same sentiment of the birds flying above. This was my highlight. I smiled because I knew that I was experiencing something true.

For anyone interested, I recently heard that the local Universal Unitarian church offers a drum circle. Check out their website for more information: http://www.uufp.org

A Critique of Shepard

In The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game, Paul Shepard traces the human story and presents a suggestion for living a truly meaningful human existence. Shepard argues that the hunting lifestyle is the only one which lets us be truly human. This element was criticized in class because it appears that an agricultural lifestyle can be meaningful. Shepard has a point when he criticizes our destructive and demeaning form of agriculture, that critique does not necessarily apply to all agriculture and does not prove that hunting is the "natural" way for humans to live. Daniel Quinn makes a big point of arguing that there is no one way for humans to live. I tend to agree with him and would prefer to see cultural diversity rather than only hunters or only agriculturalists.

It seems somewhat ironic that Shepard would like to pick and choose elements from existing culture. He wants to drop agriculture in favor of hunting, but would like to continue using civilization's advanced technology. While it's erroneous to say that technology does exist for pre-agriculturalists, the highly advanced nature of our technology is possible only through agriculture. Do the ends (a techno-cynegetic society) outweigh the means (our destructive agriculture)?

-Tyler Wake

Stephen Fellows- Nolan Trail

As was discussed in class the other day walking is a way to bring people closer together and allows for more communication than driving. I thought that this was a very good idea. Since it has been nicer outside the last couple weeks I have been running on the Nolan Trail rather than in the gym and I have seen a lot of people out walking or running together which proves that walking is one way people will bond. However, I also saw that technology is invading the walk. While on my way b I noticed a couple walking towards me both were wearing headphones and carrying iPods and vitamin waters. If they had been running I would not have found this odd but because they appeared to be walking at a leisurely pace I thought it was interesting that people could go out on a walk with each other and not actually speak during it.

Stephen Fellows- Control Burn

Gary Snyder’s poem “Control Burn” discusses the advantages to using fire as a way of preserving nature. This is a theme echoed by Evan Eisenberg in his book. Both authors prove that the Indians used fire to help the forests around them grow and flourish. The Indians in the rain forest use fires to grow crops but over time they allow these areas to become overgrown which turn into wild gardens. These areas become havens for both humans and animals. Snyders’ Indians use fire for crops and also to burn away the underbrush which protects the larger trees from forest fire. These are contrary to most modern ideas. Smokey the bear tells us that all forest fires are bad. People are constantly telling children not to play with fire. And the slash and burn technique that most Westerners are familiar with is the one used by the Europeans who were just trying to clear land for fields. People do not think that fires could be useful in nature. Maybe Snyder is right in calling for a hot clean burn.

Stephen Fellows- The Way West Underground

In the poem The Way West Underground Gary Snyder is talking about traveling from East to West and the loss of nature that seems to accompany it. This has been a common theme for a while the idea that the Western world is civilized and nature is conquered. But the most interesting part of the poem for me is towards then end when He talks about the “elder goddess reborn-will race the streets of France and Spain with automatic guns”. It seems less like nature is completely gone but changed and evolved with the growth of “civilization”. He says that the cave paintings are the underground nature. I felt that this was an intriguing idea since these cave paintings could be considered the beginning of civilization and the end of nature in the West. But at the same time they are the closest people can come to nature in Europe.

Stephen Fellows- Drum Circle

The class this Tuesday was, as I am sure most are not surprised to find out, my first time taking part in a drum circle. I was surprised to find out how relaxing it was to actually take part in the experience. While at first I was a little self conscience once we entered the circle I felt that everybody was really just trying to get the most out of the experience. Since I have always felt I have no rhythm I chose to pick up a simple shaker so that I would not have to drum. But when we passed the instruments and I was handed a drum I found myself beating on it and even if it was without any rhythm it seemed to fit in with the rest of the music very well. I was also surprised at the effect the drum circle seemed to have on the people around us on the Nolan Trail. The one couple gave us a case of water to drink and many others would slow down to watch and listen to us for a while. When the drumming ended I was surprised to find out how much time had passed but I felt stressed that I had before.

Stephen Fellows- Mountains

In Religion and ecology Eisenberg is always talking about the mountain as a bastion for nature and the tower as man’s attempt to triumph of the mountain and nature. Today we had a speaker come into class and discuss his journey up Mt. Fuji. However, his story sounded a lot like it mixed Eisenberg’s tower and mountain. Mt. Fuji has become a tourist’s mountain. People are climbing it to experience a religious or spiritual feeling but many climb it just to climb it. They have industries that make money off of these peoples’ attempt at a spiritual experience. He even said that during the peak climbing season the line to the top moves like a roller coaster line. The mountain is supposed to be wild. Eisenberg says that Mt. Sinai the mountain that Moses climbed is supposed to remain wild. Nobody is supposed to climb it. While I can understand that people want to have a religious experience climbing a mountain and being close to nature is it worth doing if it has been commercialized. How is it that people while climbing Mt. Fuji can throw trash on the side of the path and not realize that they are destroying the idea that the mountain is wild? Or that by making money they can preserve the pilgrim experience. Throughout history people have gone on pilgrims and many times they are supported by the kindness of others during it. Or they are rich and give generously. But why is it that in modern times even pilgrimages are turning into a commercial opportunity to make money.

Stephen Fellows- Religions and Ecology

Today in class we were talking about the idea that the environment affected the development of different religions. Especially the number of gods that people worship. The desert leads to monotheism and the southern mountainous regions near the sea the polytheistic religions of the Greeks. Or the Northern Woodlands that lead to the more spiritual and nature oriented religions. This was an idea I was thinking about earlier today. When looking at the religions of the ancient Greeks it is easy to see how their environment would lead to the development of the Greek pantheon of gods. Individual city-states developed along the same lines separated by mountain ranges. Communities would find certain springs or groves holy and believed they were the homes of gods or other spirits. As different communities communicated they would share their storied and since each area had a home for their god it would not make sense to say that everyone’s god was the same. The idea of the desert leading to one god makes just as much sense. People traveling in always see the sky. There are very few groves or springs but the sky is always there. And even if people worshiped a single god by a different name it makes sense that they would agree that it was the same deity. This was interesting to me because it was the first time that I had ever heard of the environment directly affecting the development of religion.

Zack Mahiques - The Ecology of Eden

In the Ecology of Eden Eisenberg discusses how humans have strayed from their hunter gather instincts and formed industrialized communities in cities.  As we have strayed from our ancestors lifestyle, we have progressively been isolating ourselves from nature.  Eden is our paradise, our first natural home, and since we cant go back to it, we have drifted away from that environment.  In order to restore our relationship with nature, we have to strive to change our new environment back towards our ultimate goal; Eden.  By relating different problems with the economy and the environment, Eisenberg demonstrates what steps need to be taken in order to restore Eden.

Zack Mahiques -Walking

As we discussed in the other class, walking seems to link us to our environment. With how fast our lifestyles have become, it is no wonder we have lost touch with nature. With the invention of cars, trains, boats, and other modes of mechanic transportation, it is hard to slow down and notice our surroundings. Rather than striving to reach our destination as fast as possible, we need to slow down and sometimes walk. Walking also puts us in touch with ourselves, and by taking it slow we notice things that would normally pass us by.

Andrew Deitrick - The Ecology of Eden

Evan Eisenberg writes, "It is dangerous to forget that we are a part of nature, but equally dangerous to forget how different we are".
I feel like this quote illustrates some of what I've come to realize through this course. Eisenberg makes the point that while we are a part of nature, in a sense that, we sprung from the earth, we are also incredibly different from the other things around us, in that we have been able to trump the laws of ecology. With this, our ability to live in nature, relies heavily on the effects we have on nature. With this I have come to realize, that our decisions should be based on the effects they will have on the earth, rather than what is natural to the earth, for everything is natural.

Andrew Deitrick - Tender Carnivore

Paul Shepard writes, "this view holds that the development of agriculture made it possible for people to abandon the nomadic and uncertain life of hunting and gathering, and that they gladly did so, becoming sedentary. Human well-being was improved and society was stabilized by increasing man’s security from starvation, disease, poverty, uncertainty about the future, and the danger of wild animals, storms, and other natural forces".
I thought it was interesting how the discovery of agriculture had such a large scale effect on humans. We often only associate the rise of agriculture as only a benefactor for easier access to food. The other effects, however, are probably much more influential in how we have evolved. Agriculture has allowed us to worry less about the fight for survival, which ultimately increased our desires for creating things around our lives. It is also interesting to think about the different ways in which we have hurt our agriculture. Our fertilizers and chemicals are harming our soil, ultimately weakening agriculture.

Andrew Deitrick - Drum Circle

I really enjoyed the drum circle the other day. I am currently working on a research paper about rhythm for my Religion in the Arts class, and I was able to experience first hand, the drumming experience. Here is a quote I've come across from Mickey Hart, "Playing the drum has stimulated certain changes in my consciousness - my body awareness starts to fade, time disappears, instead of blood it feels like some other juice is pumping through my veins".
I also thought it was interesting to see the bald eagle before the drumming began. Kelly was explaining how shamans often led their drumming rituals. Siberian shamans often adorn eagle masks during their ceremonies to pay respect to their creation myths, in which the eagle is involved in. This being said, it was interesting to see the eagle around.

kara walling. last day in class discussion

On the last day we were talking about the differnce between cultural exchange and economic exchange, if one at all. Dr. Redick was posing, if you take home souvenir from another country does that mean you've had a culture exchange. I would say no. A culture exchange is something much deeper that shares meaning from both sides. Simple sitting in an AC room, and taking a "representation" of something of that country, I dont feel would count as a cultural excahnge. That is solely economic because it has no true meaning behind it. On the ohter hand, if you're around a village, or passing through and are offered a homemade blanket or some traditional artifact from someone of that country, that is cultural exchange. It has significance and meaning. It is something you experienced. I guess just generally I would prefer a cultural meaning than an economic (artificial) meaning, and that is how I see the difference.

kara walling. the tender carnivor

I really liked the example of how the hitman connect with one another. Also another example we talked about is the person who takes the photograph. The reason I find these two concepts so interesting is because the only way you can embrace nature and the feeling of sensation is to become a part of it. This is how the hitman example comes into play. It absolutely blew my mind how when "the game" was finally over, the other hitman got taken out right in the eye. So you know for a second they both saw each ohter. There is no other way you can endure such a sensation unless you become part of the process. Taking a photograph is merely imitating nature, but being a part of it. I think after takin this class I realize the difference, as to before I probably would have thought photography of nature was participating.

kara walling. "walking"

I feel like walking is one of the main reasons humans have such a distant relationship with nature. When you're walking you can embrace and take in the natural world around you. This makes you feel connected to nature and what surrounds you. When you choose to drive however, you're losing this connection and natural feeling of enlightenment. People now days would rather drive two blocks away to campus, instead of just enjoying the nice fresh air and going for a walk. It is almost a reliance to drive around everywhere, and if you have to walk it is an inconvenience to humans. I think walking is a great way to have new experiences, connect with nature, and better yourself in a sense. It shouldnt be seen as a chore, but as a pleasure.

kara walling. the tender carnivore.

I have always thought that there was this unfair status between women and men. I wouldnt call myself a feminist or anything, haha lets not go that far, but I guess I just think equal rights is important, but it must be manifested in the right way. In the tender carnivore it actually talks about how this serperation came about. Besides the fact that it talks about women not being able to plan devious acts or having a bad sense of direction, a good point is actually brought up. Women bear children, and men cant. This right here affected everything. Women werent able to go out, so men would go out, and eventually those were the stereotypes that were formed. I just thought it was very interesting to show how women and men seperated certain tasks, and that it was a biological reason, as to a gender reasoning.

Kenneth Tappan- Living Machines

Eisenberg talks about living machines in his book the Ecology of Eden. He talks about John Todd's living machine in which he put all natural sources to purify sewage. Todd used all local plants and other living organisms to clean the water. He modeled his living machine after the salt marshes up north. Todd's living machine proved to work better than man's sewage plant and it was less costly. This instance showed me that nature has so much power, and that when we attempt to re create it in our own terms we can never match up to nature. After reading this i wonder why we do employ these techniques regularly. Maybe for technology the greatest inspiration can be right in front of us, maybe in our own back yards.

kara walling. ecology of eden.

Habitat vs. Habituce
I really like how you can distinct the difference between these two terms. When you think of habitat, you think of the place you live in or that you feel most comfortable in. Habituce on the other hand is through language. Language animates the world and makes u wonder, which allows you to connect with things and feel emotion. So what I thought was so interesting is how we live in a habituce becasue we can use language and see and feel things. Animals however are the habitat. For example: dogs. They dont think, but live off certain urges, and act off those instincst. Also Dr. Redick brought up the "wasp and worm" I think it was...where it would continue the same circle till death b/c it didnt stop its mission to eat. It doesnt feel or think, it just works off of its instinct. I liked how you could see the difference in human and animal actions and reactions.

Kenneth Tappan - Koyaanisqatsi

The film Koyaanisqatsi literally translates into life out of balance this movie fits perfectly into our class. The movie starts out with an ominous picture of a rocket taking off, and then it shows several moving pictures of magnificent scenes in Nature. The scenes of nature are captivating and they let the viewer know that nature is truly powerful. Then the movie shows humanity. The scenes depict us and equate us to packaged hotdogs and the show how are cities resemble circuit boards. When the pictures of humanity show up it shows how far we have come when it comes to leaving nature behind. Koyaanisqatsi shows how we have become a monster and how we have abandoned our natural roots. At the very end the same rocket that was taking off in the begining is shown blowing up. This in my mind shows that man can never defeat nature and that our goals and ambitions will always be second to the laws of Nature.

kara walling. ecology of eden

Abstraction
This was something I found very interesting. Abstraction is when you pull away from something. We live in a world full of abstraction through cause and affect. An example of this is the #2. If someone asks you how many cookies are on the plate (lets say there are "2") so you say 2. but in reality you dont have 2 cookies, you only have cookies. The number 2 is simply one of the abstractions we live by through this method of cause and effect. I honestly would have never looked at it this way, if it wasnt presented to me in that way. It's really interesting how we choose to live our lives so strategically, instead of naturally. I just think abstraction is another way that reinforces us to stay just how we are.

Caitlin Nelson - Nature Walks

this summer at my summer camp, I decided to have a nature club. In high school I had taken field biology, so I thought it would be cool to go on nature walks and attempt to teach them some things. Not only that, but I wanted to get the kids outdoors because I don't think they get enough of it. So one day me and this other counselor decided it would be fun to go on a little nature walk in the woods surrounding the school. Bad idea. As we were walking the kids got more and more ancy. I asked around and to my dismay found that some of them never even played in the woods. They were scared of the sticks of the plants of the bugs, of everything they came into contact with. I felt as if I was traumatizing them because they were acting like it was the end of the world. most of them had never been stung before, had never had poison ivy, had never gotten scratched from running around in the woods. Halfway through the walk they were begging to go inside because they hated it so much, so we had to cut it short. the point of my story is that I never realized how out of touch the upcoming generations are from nature. it was really upsetting to me to see these kids completely unsure of how to interact with the outdoors. I kept thinking back to my own childhood where all I wanted to do was run around outside, and build forts in the woods and catch bugs. I got poison ivy constantly, ticks were no big deal and neither was getting stung. It was just part of being outside. And I loved exploring and playing in the mud and sticks and woods. And todays kids don't know what to do, once you take them off of the playground they are miserable. reflecting on it now, i am seeing how much of a bad influence society is on itself, and how much it encourages limited interaction with nature. And when they do encourage it, it should be fenced off and tame nature, not just the woods. The experience made me more determined to make sure that my children appreciate the outdoors, because I don't want pansy kids who don't know how to urvive without airconditioning, TV, and video games.

Kenneth Tappan- Tsimtsum

Eisenberg's idea of tsimtsum really intrigued me during our reading of the Ecology of Eden. Tsimtsum is the act of stepping away from nature to let it breathe. I thought that this idea was a great one. How true is it, we humans are encroaching on Nature everywhere there are just a few spots in the world that have not been touched by the hand of man. I believe that if we gave nature a few spots to breath and fluorish that it could help change our present situation. Even in urban environments it is feasible. The vacant lot could be a oasis in the sea of asphault. Nature is certainly a resilient entity and if we give it space it will conquer our non living materials. We should let this happen in certain areas and not destroy it becuase it does not look good. Maybe the ugly un shaped yard is what we need today.

Caitlin Nelson - Bees

I keep reading about how the bumble bee population is at an all time low, and how that is dangerous because obviously they pretty much are in charge of pollinating everything. I guess this reflects how the things we put in the air, and the way we make nature unwelcome in certain areas is having a negative affect on our lives. We hate bugs, we kill them without a second thought because we know the population is so great that it won't matter, I know I do. If I see a bug in my house I don't usually consider saving it, I usually just smush it because I don't want more bugs later. But now as a result of our quickness to destroy bugs, we are now finding ourselves without some that are rather important to our survival. I think it just goes to show how you don't realize how important and crucial something is in our lives, in the food chain, until it is gone or in danger of being gone. I work with children throughout the year at an elementary school, and everyday when we go on the playground I go over the playground rules. One of the things I have to do is go over the rules before they can play. As a result of what I have read about the decreasing bee population I have now added a new rule to my list, no squishing bees, or bugs in general. One of the kids favorite things to do outside is to run in the field and step on the bees that are pollinating the little weeds and flowers. They get so confused as to why I get upset at them when they are smushing the bugs, and they definitely think its weird that its a rule. But I figure if I save a few bees maybe that will help, and maybe me telling the kids about it will somehow help them learn to respect nature.

Kenneth Tappan- Outside Experience

After our last class we talked about the act of walking. I have always felt walking is a very therapuetic activity that can just let you unwind. Besides being relaxing i now realize that the simple act of walking is a way we can be intuned with nature and the world around us. I thought to my self that when we walk especially bare foot we are part of the earth. The earth is running through me as a walk across the soil. Usually in life we drive and ride, there is a disconnect with the Earth. Also when we walk we take notice of life even if it is miniscule. Life is appreciated more without the rush of cars and schedules.

kara walling. Babette's Feast.

This was one of the first films we watched in the beginning of the semester. I found it interesting how groups of people can live thier lives in such differernt ways. Before Babette got there they were constantly finding ways to preserve things, such as bread, eating utensils and plateware etc. When Babette wanted to make this fabulous meal, she wanted everything to be fresh. I liked howt his brought about the idea of how humans share a "connection" with the food they take in. Babette going to meet the boat right at the water, right as the fish were caught is an example of her forming a connection. Here are the connections i found: She met the fisherman, so that was a connection between herself and him. Also, her interaction with the fish, the way she talked to it and held it up, formed a connection. These connections make you feel that you are one with the animal and that you appreciate it and view it as more than a piece of meat.

Kenneth Tappan- Babett's Feast

In the segment of the movie Babett's feast that we watched in class it was obvious to see that humans do not always have a connection to what we eat. In the scene in the movie the older ladies and men were at first scared to eat such foriegn foods but as they savored the flavor of each dish they grew closer to one another. People sharing food together can be a special event it brings people together and puts everyone on the same level. When I watched this movie it made me realize that i do not usually have a connection to what i eat. I do not kill the animal that i eat and i do not grow my veggies either. I believe this has made me more alienated from nature in this respect. I believe it is important to be conscience of what you are eating and knowing where it came from. If we do this it would bring us closer to our roots and to our environment.

kara walling. Ecology of Eden.

Natural World vs. Human World
I found this aspect in the book to be very interesting. When I think of the natural world vs the human world, it makes me feel like instead of us adapting to the land, we make the land adapt to us. I guess a good example of this is how over time we have domesticated the dog, which was once a wolf. This process went as followed: take scraps from tribes, become less afraid of humans, breed with some type of wolve, become a different type of wolf=overtime a dog. We have also done this wtih other animals by creating them into a domestic animal which is only for eating. All of things are changes that define the difference in the natural world and the human world. We take away the natural instincts of things to fit our scheduled lives. When I think about it, I kind of feel like crap actually. I mean, I feel like creatures of the earth should not have a limit, and neither should we in a sense. We should all be free and allowed to explore our own natural instincts. I wonder how that would look, haha....but its interesting to ponder and think about.

Kenneth Tappan- Eisenberg's idea of Earth Jazz

In chapter 26 in the Ecology of Eden, Eisenberg talks about Earth Jazz. This idea to me was very interesting. Eisenberg argued that Earth Jazz was a way to model our activities. In nature there are many components and each of them are equally important. Each component has its own distinct sound and they all inter mingle even though it may not seem that way. As humans we should do the same. We must be cautious about how we interact with nature and each other and we should not value any one thing over another.

Caitlin Nelson

One of my favorite movies, one that my friends make fun of me for, is the Fifth Element. I've been sitting trying to think of things that I have read or seen. This movie depicts mankind in the future. There are no trees and no land. The main character at one point ends up hiding near the ground, because it is so polluted that the air is practically impossible to see through. It's like the smog that we have to deal with today, except far worse. The point I am making with this, is that in the movie the vision that the writer(s) had was a future with no nature. If man continues on the same path as he is on now, will there be nature left in the future? The Fifth Element shows a world in which technology is abundant, but unfortunately the world is not a beautiful place. It is full of metal and machinery, TV screens and flying cars...is that the future we want for ourselves? If we continue to block out nature, to confine it and continually make it smaller and smaller, is it not possible that we could end up with some version of what was depicted in the movie? And if that is what we achieve, I don't think we'll be truly happy. We'll be surrounded by all of our technology, but the beauty of the world will be lost.

Caitlin Nelson - Babette's Feast

the snip its that we watched from Babette's Feast was interesting. I was surprised that it made me hungry even though the food was strange and foreign to me. I liked the emphasis that she placed on the tastes of food, that it is important to enjoy the product. Food evokes memories, and emotions, it shouldn't be just some tasteless thing. I loved how the general, would just keep talking about how the food reminded him of things. Babette placed so much time and effort into what she made, it was a source of pride for her. It made me wish that I could think back on some meal that was just mind blowingly delicious, but I don't have one. I've had lots of really good food, but nothing that truly stands out from anything else that I have ever eaten.

Kenneth Tappan- Outside Experience

The other day i watched the movie Watchmen, this movie in my mind tied in to our class. There is one character in particular that caught my eye when it came to our class. The character that i am speaking of was Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan is a super being who has extrodinary powers. Know one knows how powerful he truly is. Throughout the movie Dr. Manhattan finds himself alienated from life and earth. He is drifting further and further away from humanity. In one part of the movie he abandons the earth to dwell on Mars. He enjoys Mars because there is no life and therefore it was perfect. No conflict, no death, Dr. Manhattan could no longer understand life, he fell in love with the non living. In my mind Dr. Manhattan can be a metaphor for humanities strengthening technology. With each new step in technology we drift further away from the natural world. Towards the end of the movie Dr. Manhattan realizes that life makes things worth while, he realizes that what good is non living material like metals if no one is there to use it are appreciate it.

kara walling. mariners museum

When we went to view the art at the mariners museum, I found Ansel Adam's work to particularly go along with what we talk about in class. He takes photographs and edits the shade. To me that can totally change what the nature in the picture is meaning or portraying to an audience. I feel like each photograph by Ansel Adams was what he was molding nature to be, so I was never able to fully connect with the original form. This relates to class because we talk of how humans are constantly molding nature to take the form we want so it can benefit us. I think Ansel Adams does this in his shading...if he shades a certain part, he will sell more work, and therefore get more materialist things (aka money). I personally think nature is a piece of art on its own, and any alteration will just conform it to being how we "think" it should be.

Kenneth Tappan- Mt. Fuji and Sacred Journeys

In one class we had a guest speaker who spoke about his journey to Mt. Fuji. His experience was very unique and it taught me alot about how humans go on spiritual journeys to be connected to nature. He described how Japanese culture and the Mountain were very much part of each other. He also described how there was a rush to see the sunrise on top of the mountian. This was very interesting to me. As humans we are attracted to the most simple things in nature. We are amazed of how beautiful something can be, even if it is something as simple as a sunrise. Sunrises and sunsets are daily occurances but when we take the time to take notice they are truly special times. It is almost like a page in your own personal book being written or being finished at each moment. We live our lives based on these events and spiritual they provide great proof of a higher power.