Nature Literature discussion

Cindy Ann, Sher and John will read In the Spirit of the Earth: Rethinking History and Time from March 15th- April 15, 2021. Others are also welcome to join this read and discussion.

I was able to get a used copy -- seems like there are quite a few out there.

My copy arrived, ready to start reading on the 15th. Really looking forward to this one!

That's good. I will let you know Cindy Ann as soon as mine arrives. I keep looking-- any day now. I hope!

Cindy Ann and John!
My book has arrived, and I was wondering if you would like to begin a bit earlier, because the other book I was reading was cancelled because we found we really did not like the book. A surprise to our small group.

Anyway, I could begin tomorrow at a leisure pace...no rush. I think John may have quite a few books going, so please don't feel pressure.

I just wanted to let you know my schedule changed, and the book is here, so I am ready now.

I'm ready to start today.

Sounds good Cindy Ann. I am only 7 pages in, but I am struck by how the book begins: "Words. I have grown suspicious of them."

"Words reflect the way our minds touch the world about us" (2).

" Words...as forces that mold the space around me..." (2).

Humans are "heirs of...words and...artifice" (5).

So he writes about our use of things particular to humans--language and manipulation through hands and what can be wrought. Have either of you read Harari? Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

This is C1 , so I will wait to see where Martin I going with his assertions.

On an odd note-- I bought this book used, and it is in very good condition except for one problem. I think --possibly- the book had smoke damage or old musty damage, and so they fumigated it with some sort of anti-smell chemical. And book reeks of floral perfume. It is so strong I can smell it from four feet away. I've never had this problem with a used book before. The scent comes away on my hands, and I have to wash my hands after reading. Pretty weird. I had to order another copy, but since this book is older 1992-- it takes a week to get here. Still, I will continue on. Thankfully this is a rare experience related to buying a used book.

I love the story early on about the Cree man returning his power. What a neat concept, that power is only borrowed.

Yes, I've read both Sapiens and Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow and enjoyed them both.

John wrote: "Sher - I have never heard of this before - perfumed used book. I hope it is not off
putting."

Sorry to complain, but it is very off-putting. I finished C 1, but I am thinking of wearing latex gloves while continuing to read. And no I am not a nut case, but the smell is coming off my my hands, and I hope it is not toxic. The smell in incredibly strong! As I mentioned, I ordered another copy...

I am curious if either of are finding familiar thoughts/elements in C 1?

To me the power of song reminds me of the power of cocoa induced visions in tribal peoples of South America or the power of the drum in Alaska Northwest Coastal tribes.

But, to jump into a totally different tradition but an old one, the Buddha is often described as being a "knower of the worlds." A Buddha could understand the animals on this same level of the hunter in traditional societies, and in Buddhist cosmology it's believed there are parallel worlds of other beings that are around us all the time, and that we can speak and sing to them, and they will hear.

Do these worlds feel lost to you?

I know they are lost to so many, because of science and technology, but there are still some of us - even some of us outside the native cultures that feel a cosmic or intertwined connection. Though it is difficult-- to see in these ways...

Also do either of you have any connection with hunting? Can you understand this relationship between the killed and the killer, or is it totally alienating and foreign to you?

Cindy Ann:
The connection I made with Harari's work and this book is the ability humans have to create fiction. Imagination. This ability sets us apart from animals -- if one accepts this definition of difference.

I have mixed views about what animals know - what animals are. I mean if I judge what is real based on what science says or what-- my culture concludes --this white American cultures says, then animals seem inferior (set apart)- but if I follow intuition, observation , and years spent with animals in the natural world, a sense comes forth that is closer to Japasa's or the Eskimo.

John,
Thank you for such a thoughtful response. This book is making me thoughtful, and by chance I am reading it with Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants in another group.

I appreciate your candid response. I am slightly uncomfortable talking about theses issues too since they are sort of outside the Western cultural conditioning. But, this book is calling for that.

I laughed out loud when I read your second paragraph. And that is such a great example of how we feel like we have to defend our awareness of connection to the earth and its beings.

This is the kind of conversation we might have sitting out in the woods with a few close friends versus in a public reading forum, but again this book calls for this sort of reflection.

Like you I spend a tremendous amount of time outdoors. To give a little background my post grad work is in two areas -- Buddhist Studies (Theravada) and Interdisciplinary Humanities - with other degrees on Psychology and World Literature. So, my background is very un-science. I have lived in SE Alaska for almost 20 years, and wrote one thesis on Northwest Coastal native art. To do that I got pretty deeply into the Tglingit and Haida culture, which included their mythological stories. And, I have also done work in West Africa with drumming and dance and become involved in those stories passed down through the griots. And, then there is Buddhist cosmology. But all that to say - it is still all an outsider's view.


And now, in my 50s -- I deeply feel like we are blind. It seems to me there's so much about the natural world we don't understand and that we take for granted things exist in parts when they really are interconnected.

Bringing it to ground here-- an example would be when we make a change in the landscape to try and create a better habitat for quail. Or we kill weeds, so that native grasses can grow, but in spraying weeds how is the soil effected -- when we go into a landscape and do something to it to have an outcome-- we may be thinking of one outcome we want that we think will improve the land. But, how do we know? And, how do we know we haven't influenced a whole series of other beings in the landscape because we want one change. This is something I think about and feel sometimes helpless about, and my spouse who comes from a scientist background doesn't see things in such a wholistic way. He aspires, somewhat to this, but he driven his one goal.

And, the farmer on side of us almost zero view to the bigger picture when he fertilizes, plants and sows.

John wrote: ""Also do either of you have any connection with hunting? Can you understand this relationship between the killed and the killer, or is it totally alienating and foreign to you?"

No not in the hunt..."

John,
This is a really tough one for me. I have a ton of exposure to hunting through my spouse and his family. This family is the closest thing I have known to the indigenous connection. They called it their church-- their spirituality. They hunted the ducks, and they respected the ducks and also were/are active in conservation. All in science, biology, zoology, and wildlife art as professions. For my husband's family the hunting, the respecting, and conservation is all tied together. Even as close as I have been for 30 years with this topic--I have come to believe one cannot really understand unless you pull the trigger and are actually being the hunter. Both men and women in the family hunt. Intellectually I think that "spiritual" connection is there between the hunter and hunted, but I haven't been able to engage. And, here we have another rather taboo subject. Hunting!

I have finished C2. So much in this chapter...

I think I will write about about what has struck me the most. It was interesting to me that Martin was so filled with a sense of alienation and even fear walking in the Navajo country. I've never felt such alienation in any wilderness on that level. But, I have felt deep vulnerability in Alaska --because of bears. I don't mean the idea of bears but actually being near bears and watching them fish or hunt caribou within visible distance. But, I still think that is different type of fear than what Martin experienced. (although not sure). Mine was mortal; his fear seemed more metaphysical.

Why did Martin take the arrowhead? Why did he go around and get advice from various people to tell him what had happened in the canyon? That passage was strange and interesting. He was showing a man who would take something not his and remove it, and then flounder about in uncertainty.

I also-- again -- wonder about this idea he posits-- it didn't happen if there isn't anyone there to imagine it. It doesn't happen if we do not perceive it (26). This seems to indicate our perception is a creator.

C 2 more...
Key ideas neolithic and surplus = containers.

The idea that homo sapiens now will create containers -- seems to coincide with the emergence of a sense of self - of an individual self that has permanent possessions. Once man starts hoarding and containing things, he has something to lose, which seems like would give rise to ambition and competition. and would increase fear- the fear of losing. As he argues it - the neolithic period is a shift in cosmologies.

Before this shift man was part of a group and the individual doesn't seem to have existed == infants were killed-- the very old left to die-- because what existed was the group and the relationship to the resources. These people were more like animals- dispassionate- and knowing.

Later man became knowers and keepers.

John,
I also wondered about whether the fear he described early in C 2 was related to the fear he described as a motivating factor in the need to become agriculturalists. I have been wondering about fear - this is just a theory trying to explain why they became agriculturalists... but how can we know? My modern mind suggests they -the early humans became opportunists. The abundance of resources allowed them to experience what it was like to have an abundance, and they didn't wish that to change, so they eventually found ways to keep abundance permanent. Of course it wasn't permanent, but it felt like it could be.

I apologize for falling so far behind the comments and the reading. I hope to finish chapter 2 today.

Thanks for all your thoughts on this book. It is far more emotionally intense than the fact-based collections I'm used to reading (like Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures), so it is taking more concentration to read.

I come to nature very differently than the two of you, in that I don't own or tend any land. I have a nomadic spirt and live by the old stand by of "take only pictures and leave only footprints". In a sense, I just borrow the land I walk on. My mother was strongly connected to land and being forced to move three times by my father's circumstances deepened some mental unhinging in her. I guess part of me regarded that as a weakness, but by the time I was in my teens I knew I was the restless sort.

I'm retired, but my career was spent in basement computer rooms trying to wrap my brain around very unnatural concepts. Now, I want to make more room in my life for understanding the world that was not built by humans with a penchant for extractive industries.

I have no personal history with hunting, but then I don't often eat meat, either. When I think of the relationship of prehistoric hunters with the animals that made up their food source, I am always struck by the big picture - we ate all those mastodons. I think turning to agriculture was the only option left. Imagine oysters the size of dinner plates (The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell.

The story the author tells about finding the arrowhead and putting it back resonates in that I do believe perception is malleable. To be aware of a thing happens on many different levels, and he sounds like he was opening those levels of awareness in his mind.

I was glad he returned it, too, because I also believe that collecting things is a human habit we need to de-emphasize. There was no reason to pick it up and keep it. (An interesting read on that topic is Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession). "Ownership" is a transient and strange concept.

On to the rest of chapter 2 and a pledge to keep up with the discussion!

Hi Cindy Ann,
Thanks for joining in. It's great to get your background and perspective--make the discussion richer.

I think as we go through this book we are sharing what the ideas are bringing up for us, what we question, what disturbs us, what we are surprised by. And, some of our responses may be different because we each see the book through our lens. And, I appreciate when you suggest other books and have links too.

This topic is familiar to me , but I haven't thought about these issues in years. I find this book really thought provoking. I am still working my way through C 3.

Wednesday and Thursday will be very busy workdays agin here at the farm, but I wanted to share a poem I heard this morning called On Behalf of Trees. I was not able to find a print version, but give a listen if you have 2 minutes. Quite powerful. Performed by Zoe Caldwell. Relates to trees as a gift - and seeing them in a new non-western (Greco-Roman) light.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podc...

I will be back to post on C 3 as soon as I can. I mean soon like tonight-ish.

Thanks John for the article I will check it out after posting.
I found C 3 troubling or a better word is difficult. But not difficult in the sense that I had trouble reading it. The author's bias/feelings/ voice come through very strongly. Already I have found the voice in our book an odd mixture.

And, I am not sure how I feel about it...

But, the idea in C 3 argues agriculture led to gods and the one God idea, and that time became linear, and that time became all important. Although time in a hunter gathering community would also have been very important, because it you didn't time the salmon run, of the oil fish run, or know when the roots would be available, then the tribe would run our of food.

But with the God - humans started to look to a cosmic creator instead of toward the plants and animals around them. This made individuals really important in relationship to this God. I mean the relationship changed.

This ideas of a loss of continual flow seems to really bother Martin.

Perhaps it was in the 90s when scholars became very interested in trying to prove the value of mythic identification. The work of Jospeh Campbell comes to mind, but there were others too. If we were a woman we needed to relate to our inner wolf; if we needed to know how to make choices, we needed to be aware of the trickster, which is SE Alaska was the raven. Something was missing from modern life because we were bereft of myth. I didn't find this solution to modern life very workable. I'll have to think more about this --but ...

I can believe everything he points out--his broad brush strokes about time and history, and I still feel too aware of his voice. Bias. He has already made his decisions about neolithic time and the origins of history. Does that resonate with any of you?

A couple of interesting ideas-- domesticated animals as slaves. Domesticated animals are slaves? Can we give thanks to the sheep like we would give thanks to the wild shot duck? Or is a domesticated animal outside the circle of gifts?

You see the jumbled mix of Martin has influenced my posting here as it seems all across the board.

John,
I think I need to read more of the book before I refer back to Martin's problem with linear time.

He is comparing and contrasting ways of being. I have not decided how valuable I really find that yet. I mean it is making me think and ask questions, but ... I keep feeling like we are informed by the past, but we must work with what we have in the present. Although there are ideas that if we adopted, could make us happier and richer -such as giving thanks to animals and trees. I am grateful to be aware of a gifting economy versus the market economy. That idea is coming from _Braiding Sweetgrass_. And, I immediately realized, I want to find my way into working that perspective into how I deal with everyday life!

But, I find myself pushing back against Martin right now-- let's see where that goes. Our responses and views certainly do change, can change as we work our way through a book.

John-- you are in rest season, and I am just beginning a hugely busy season.

John wrote: "My work at the moment is patchy. It is pouring rain again. Tends to restrict what I can get done, but wonderful for replenishing our drought depleted water table.

I have listened to the poem. Than..."

John-- thank you for providing the link to the Ecologist? Do you subscribe? I just bought a subscription- I'd very much like to read this magazine on a regular basis , and see these world environment perspectives.Plus the magazine seems quite interdisciplinary. I also forwarded the links to those folks reading _ Braiding Sweetgrass_ with me.

Thoughts on the rest of chapter 2 and chapter 3:

I am interested in this book because I am looking for answers (or guidance) to understand if humans can live in a more sustainable way on this planet. When I say "more sustainable" I'm referring to all of the myriad problems we've created with industrialization: agriculture that reduces the health of the soil (along with the nutritional content of the products), animal husbandry that reduces animals to protein and fat, mining (oil, gas, coal, minerals), air and water pollution, and climatic changes.

To try to understand how we began to see nature as simply an exploitable resource, I'm interested in the collision between the hunter/gatherer/early farming societies in the Americas and Australia with the European explorer/colonialists. (thanks for the link to Dark Emu).

How did the Europeans lose their connection to nature? How did they move from losing their connection to nature to become ravagers of nature? (there is no other word to describe events like the slaughter of the Bison in N. America). If there had been no collision of these 2 different views of nature, how would the cultures of these "uncivilized" continents changed over time? (here's that all import time factor). Would this continent still have healthy forests and rivers and air?

So, where Martin's musings intersect my own questions, I am interested to hear his discussion of the evolution of the trinity of sky gods, priests, and time's errands for a chosen people. It sounds like the invention of these artifacts move people's focus away from viewing themselves as a humble and integrated part of nature. Now I begin to see how we created the layers to build abstract boundaries between ourselves, the elements and other living things.

On to chapter 4.

John,
Since you have read this book year earlier, I am interested in how you are finding the book this second go around? What is the experience reading it like now, and do you find new discoveries, or does the message seem stale?

Also, since we are all on C 4 now... I am curious how does this book, which was written earlier compare to Martin's other book, which you finished a month ago?

Cindy Ann-- those are really good questions. I find myself thinking about Harari's indication that what is happening with the our inability to stop consuming and taking - is related to the species- the Homo sapiens that prevailed over the other hominids. Well, and C 4 should give some perspective also. I feel like I know the answer to that question, and I wish I knew another answer. But finding the way to an answer seems a really personal journey--how we process what we learn and how we come to know the answer to the question-- is it possible for humans to live sustainably on the earth?

John wrote: "Yes Sher it is still raining here. I have been sitting here writing a book for my daughter Chloe. It is sort of like a father talking to his daughter about life. My dear girl has a deep ecological ..."

John:
You wrote _Dark Emu_ is instructive -- is it convincing--do you recall?

p.s. The book to your daughter is a tremendous gift to receive from father.

C4
This chapter contains a multitude as they say. I feel reading this book is a very personal experience. I mean that Martin's voice is so strong and deep--cutting really- one cannot help but reflect on how to see in relation to his message. I find few books do that. And, that is especially so with the plethora of books being published now as popular nature literature.

I'm trying to suspend what I know about self-non-self through the Buddhist view and try to connect with what Martin means by self-non-self.

Was it effective to use literature as examples? Obviously these two works made a deep impression upon Martin and fed directly into his understanding.

Gun as the symbol -- the gun as a solution to the fear based on the realization there is a me and there is an other. And, since you are not in me, then I stand alone outside and must protect myself and dominate the other. I get this!

Fascinating to consider I eat you, I become you-- we share through a process of transformation. To put this rather crudely -- and there seems to be truth in this -- I eat the factor farmed cow, so I am the factory farmed cow. Well, in what ways is the answer yes? If I eat the factory farmed cow, I am becoming a part of that market economy and I am participating in factory farm production in all its otherness. I become as unnatural as the mechanisms driving the feedlot.

Diverting -- if the self is separate then there is something (s) to fear. This idea fuels all sorts of thoughts, beliefs, and actions from racism, ...the list is long- just look at the headlines.

Taking Martin's ideas further--technology - the more we use technology as a solution, the more alienated and unlike the natural world we become. As long as this continues -- are we moving further down the road toward depletion of resources and extinction of species.

Diverting- This book makes me want to look at Momoday's nonfiction to see what he has written. And I also thought of Bruce Chatwin's _Songlines_ , which at the moment I can't seem to find.

Martin alludes to our "awesome and frightening powers of imagination" our penchant for telling stories, for making our lives into narrative-- this seems uniquely human, and this skill can be so misdirected - like all human endeavors. I recall one of Harari's arguments -- that humans lacked mental and emotional maturity to coincide with how quickly humans advanced technology. I still find this informative and disheartening.

C 4
It seems we , North Americans, have lost the vision quest. We don't go on quests nor is our upbringing suggesting the quest.

We are given everything, or there is a feeling we cannot get. IN both cases of abundance or non abundance there is the perception of a separate self.

But this abundance or lack of it - just feeds into self -- or non self. Fear of the other -- fear of keeping what we have or fear of not being able to get what we want. The art and soul of discovery is gone. I find traditional Christian religion helps with this too as it gives us what to believe instead of suggesting we go on a quest to discover reality.

We are no longer seekers.

C 4 has made me drill down into these reflections

John wrote: "Sher wrote: "John wrote: "Yes Sher it is still raining here. I have been sitting here writing a book for my daughter Chloe. It is sort of like a father talking to his daughter about life. My dear g..."

John, who do you mean by she ? You hope she will ...?

I saw that some of the sources were reports from travelers -- explorers--, but I wondered about whether the perspective could be trusted, since we are seeing their interpretation of what they saw. I think in this case, I need to get the book. Thanks John....

John,
I really enjoyed your explaining how you come to your second reading of this book. Thank you.

I have begun C 5, but I am off for vaccine 2, so I may be away for a day or so.

More soon.

Cindy Ann and John:
I have finished, and I am so glad I read this book. A 5 from me, because it has been such a thought provoking ride. The book is uneven - a real passionate treatise.

C 5 shows where Martin came from, and it's obvious how much he was effected by that Christian upbringing, and the relationship of the religion to the land he experienced through his father. He takes issue with his father's way.

Martin has such a passionate voice throughout. And, it's poignant that this man dropped out. He left academia- he left publishing - he checked out, and I guess he might be living outside history. What is the best - most skillful way for us to live outside history without attempting to go back in time? I'm thinking about it. Can we live in a more flowing circular fashion?

I'll be starting _Dark Emu_ in a few days.

John:
Have you read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

I was talking to Bruce last night about _Braiding Sweetgrass_ and about _Spirit in the EarthIn the Spirit of the Earth: Rethinking History and Time and the author of _Sapiens_ contradicts what we learn in the other books. Harari argues that wherever throughout geological time that humans have appeared species have declined precipitously. The first wave of extinctions came with the hunter/gatherers, or what he calls "foragers." The second wave of species extinctions came with the "farmers", and the third wave came with the "industrialists." He really slams the idea of native cultures' sustainability practices.

Harari argues that if people could clearly see the incredible harm they have already caused regarding plants and animals on the planet, they might try to change. Really- I think this is his hope, because he deeply argues this is not the nature of the homo sapiens who killed out the other lines of humanoids. To change based on what history reveals is highly oversimplifying--it's not that easy or straightforward. Even though there is more attention to diversity loss and climate change now, it is not widely enough held to stop the disintegration. Still I hate to write that when I think of the book you are writing for your daughter. The species as a whole and the planet may be doomed, but individuals have some choices regarding how to live (my opinion). My husband's opinion is that homo sapiens will survive, but that the experience of living on the planet and what lives with us on the planet will be greatly changed.

I am liking the discussion of history in chapter 5. How we view "progress" in public health is really the remediation of the diseases we introduced by domesticating animals and living in overcrowd conditions. Similarly the "eradication" of hunger (unevenly) that we created by moving from foraging to agriculture.

We really do think way too much of ourselves, don't we?

Cindy Ann wrote: "I am liking the discussion of history in chapter 5. How we view "progress" in public health is really the remediation of the diseases we introduced by domesticating animals and living in overcrowd ..."

Yes, we do I agree. Pretty egocentric. Self.

I also think of the massive numbers of diabetic we know have in the US as a result of such high carb and hi-sugar diets. I took a master food preserver course in Oregon, and they told us, 2/3 of the population would be type 2 diabetic by 2030-- I think they said.

Our medicine and drugs will have to solve those issues. We don't seem to be as good at getting to root causes.

Totally agree on the overconsumption of sugar being yet another example of how far we have come from natural interaction with the earth's food. We don't even know what's good for our own bodies. Don't get me started on the government subsidies to Big Sugar and the damage to the land and water from sugar plantations. Not to mention the horrid working conditions. (breathe, be hopeful.)

We went out to the Chesapeake Bay today to start getting our sailboat ready for the season. I thought about place and connection to the land as I walked about the boatyard and down the docks. The owners of the yard take stewardship seriously in that they have left some large areas as wetlands, all the sidewalks are pavers to allow drainage, and installed duck nesting boxes. It doesn't feel like enough, but it's a start.

I've found everyone's posts on this book so insightful and well worth reading and spending time with. Thank you. I hope we can do read and discuss again together. It's also neat to get to know each other's lives a little better - as we have been good about sharing examples with each other. I am starting _Dark Emu_ today as I would like to explore neolithic time a little more deeply.

Cindy Ann-- we will run a Side Read of _Islands of Abandonment_ would you like to join, June 1 - July 1st.

Sher & John, many thanks for sharing the time to read this book! I really appreciated getting to know you both a bit and hearing your reactions to the reading.

I bought a copy of The Way of the Human Being and will read that in time. It is interesting to explore this author's thoughts against others, like Yuval Noah Harari. I've put Dark Emu on my reading list as well.

I may join the side read for Islands of Abandonment in summer, depending on how our travel plans go. My partner just gave notice at his job that he is retiring (for the second time) and we are off adventuring on our sailboat, after a camping trip from the US east coast to the US west coast and back to see our kids and new granddaughter.

I am very much looking forward to the nomadic life again. Some meager belongings will be stored at my aunt's house and we will be bird watching on shore and sleeping under the stars at sea.

Cindy Ann:
May you treasure your nomadic life -- a wanderer.... I'd have to live another life--well perhaps I will and be a wanderer too. Sounds like such an opportunity ...

I have read Dark Emu. I really liked it and got a lot from the book. I noted the time period he reports on seems more like the anthropocene than the neolithic though. If we consider anthropocene begins 1750. Anyway, I thought his recommendations for sustainable practices for Austraila based on indigenous ways to be the best part of the book. Lots of well thought out ideas that seems to me would work if put into practice. Like eating the native flora and fauna instead of bringing in and cultivating the invasive. Thanks for recommending this book John-- its as excellent. Cindy Ann- I think you would get a lot out of this book!