Abigail Thomas, A Continuous Harmony: Notes from an Absence and Return

“I haven’t been conscious before of how invariably when I have sensed or imagined the life of another creature, a tree or bird or animal, I have had to begin by imagining my own absence—as though there was a necessary competition between my life and theirs. I looked upon my ability to imagine myself absent as a virtue. It seems to me now that it was an evasion. I begin this morning to feel something truer—the beginning of the knowledge that the other creatures and I are here together.” (55 Berry)

At the top right-hand corner on the back cover of these books, there’s a label that’s designating the subject of the books. Wendell Berry’s A Continuous Harmony is designated as ‘Literature/ Ecology’ and I think this is one of those passages that really support that title. And it can do it by itself, it’s not a paragraph that holds just part or is one collaborator in a group of paragraphs that are cumulative support passages. He relates to ecology as he describes his recognition of his place or position in the system of the environment, and his interaction with his fellow biotic factors. Then the literature aspect of his book is throughout, even as the book is proper or formal sentences and essays, his writing really reads like poems. It has a course that may read at different rates, variation, I want to say its musical in a way and overall there’s flow that keeps me connected but there are maybe rocks that confound the flow here and there because they demand more attention for interpretation.
He allows his absence and in that way he finds definition of his existence, with everything else in the environment or habitat or community by what it’s not (him not being there as he is). This is like me reading what wild means from Gary Snyder by his description of what the wild isn’t. I’m not sure what he means though by it being an evasion (a dodge, or escape) though. But the best I can do is that he must be escaping from a lower truth of black and white of his world to a new dimension of realization in color and more truth. He’s “invariably” (always) seen the world around him as he has which is a truth (his invariable reception) but then he’s finding and understanding his relationship with what he sees, which heightens truth. This is a good lesson to share to people because without realization of personal relationship with environment, it lessens perception of what else you could have seen but missed a stepping stone of realization, and also it makes it harder to tend to your environment (and you, and you and your environment).

Abigail Thomas, A Continuous Harmony: Think Little

In A Continuous Harmony, Berry tells of his concerns for more recent attention to the environment as is described as the ‘Environmental Movement,’ and that it may just be another fad like he said the Civil Rights Movement and Peace Movement were. I think it has kept up through the years although maybe not in the way that he would have loved. For instance he described that ends of the Movements’ fads were because periodic public talks in the media that were inflated by organization conflicts and politics, that those would fade, and that public involvement and concern would fade as not as many were so personally involved.
But the environment has definitely not faded form the public’s mind. And part of it I think has to do with how gas prices go up as there’s less gas, and for the public this has to do more with personal involvement that’s in the interest of self preservation. This self preservation as oppose to what I imagined Berry thought of personal involvement as spiritual, a person’s own disposition or experience that motivated them to a cause , organization, or project. The public’s concern is more related to affording and having resources to travel by what must be the most convenient way, by car. But this idea of self preservation is good in that to preserve ourselves we must preserve our resources which resources in their entirety to us is this whole planet and the systems of it.

Abigail Thomas, Anne Dillard: Three

I like how she’s figured out a way to describe what I notice and have noticed but was seemingly unable to define in a way that if someone asked me what I’ looking at I would have to give an unsatisfactory partial answer that seemed to only touch on 1% of what I was looking at. And 1% of not just what I’m looking at but by seeing it, the entirety of my response and attention.

The passages: “much later in the day came the long slant of light that means good walking.” And “If the day is fine, any walk will do; it all looks good. Water in particular looks its best, reflecting blue sky in the flat, chopping it into the graveled shallows and white chute and foam in the riffles.”

I see the “long slant of light that comes later in the day and that means good walking.” Our laundry room, kitchen and my room catches the noon till westerly light that comes in. And the sky will be blue and bright and sunny or will have at most half the sky with white clouds which contrast the blue very well. Most mornings now at home during breaks from school are spent inside. I’m in the house I wake up and move towards the warmer places of the house where the heating is hooked up, which excludes my bedroom and the room that I tend to sleep in the most. I’ll be in the kitchen drinking coffee and throughout the morning, be going through very lazy and slow motion morning rituals. Then the afternoon and with it the sun to the west and I’ll perceive the fields, and trees are in good lighting and I’ll go out for a walk or just sunning where I can see birds and where I can’t see the road or other houses.
Also the fewer times I’ve gone to rivers, or to Lake Anna or its reservoir and had moments were I’m on the banks, or boats and its very beautiful, I don’t want to move, but I feel the change ongoing (rotation continuing day into night, regardless) as I stand, more so than ever at any other time. During those moments I see “water particularly looking its best, reflecting the blue sky, chopping it into gravel shallows and white chute and foam in the riffles.” And I just though of something: that’s my screen saver that I haven’t brought myself to change.

from The Practice of the Wild: Good, Wild and Sacred

The first part of the chapter is Weeding out the Wild and the outcome of this section pointed out people supporting the preservation of the sacred and wild places verses the seemingly overwhelming push of people that take and consume these places for profit. He connected his own experience as a person who inhabits where the Southern Maidu used to dwell. They were overcome by gold rush miners. The Southern Maidu had sacred places and lessons from their land that Snyder is confident he can find again.
Snyder presents this tradition of weeding out the wild also known as “spiritual cultivation.” The example of the pigs and cattle, and holy men have their wild weeded out to become more civilized but for cows and pigs this proves to be only a human beneficial scheme because when the wild is tamed and bred out of them more, the more harmful it is to their fitness. Civilized meat animals are easier prey which is ideal among people, where more civilized people are to have more ideal relationships and standing (or class) among people.
Another reason he mentions that adds to why the wilderness gets pushed out by people is that “good” land in agricultural terms may not take into account whether the land is to be left alone for the sake that the land is wild or sacred. I like his analogy that the wild is what “keeps flying, creeping, burrowing in” despite peoples’ taming and culturing.
But at the end of the section there is consciencousness of what’s happening and he refers to it as an “European phenomenon: A reaction against formalistic rationalism and enlightened despotism.” He also said that older traditions and cultures lent help in preserving sacred and wild in both human understanding and the preservation, observation and worship of land. Then a detailed account of help from a politician...
Not only is the conflict from using resources for people verses preservation but also taking into account religious values of different people. Native American churches verses founding fathers’ church (81)
Snyder’s next section is Waterholes. To me the waterholes represent an oasis in the desert. Oasis represents relief; relief in of harshness in a harsh place is powerful and important, and sacred. The waterholes are sacred to the Aboriginals that Snyder visited and studied with.
He experienced a modified tradition that was to suit their mode of travel when Jimmy Tjungurrayi is telling Snyder indigenous stories at high speed while they are in a truck rather then being told at a slower pace when these stories would’ve been told along days of walking.
The section is really an example of one of the older cultures that were mentioned in the first section about how older cultures hold better, tradition to their wild and sacred places. The Aborigines had much oral tradition, and visitations to their land and sacred places. Another oral tradition was their singing that they would have to practice and rehearse with each other.

The Practice of the Wild, Noah Ryan

Gary Snyder makes a good point when he says that the world is sharp like a knife, and the sharper the knife the cleaner the cut. He is being a bit poetic, but it is important to realize that the universe does not tolerate BS. Natural selection does not produce perfect beings, but it quickly cuts things that do not work. When a bubble is blown, it forms a sphere for the same reason, it moves with the flow of the universe and the path (shape) of least resistance. It is not cruelty when the sick and old deer are eaten, it keeps the herd strong. The knife of the world may seem cruel, but it is ultimately a harsh and necessary teacher.
It seems to me that our culture attempts to play god, to decide who will live and who will die (this is related to the first part, I swear). We have decided that all humans live, and that it is merciful to our people that our populations will increase as long as we can feed them, and all animals deemed unwanted or unnecessary will die. We work every day for all the years of our life just to survive in this culture. Our culture does not live in a way that follows the grain of our nature. We deny our biology, we even try to transcend it as if we were better then all other biological beings. I believe that this is a great folly. The community of life does not tolerate any population growing infinitely, nor is it possible for us all to "just love each other." or hold and and make peace. We will never get rid of hate and selfishness, nor should we try. I do not look forward to world peace, for it will never come in any meaningful manner. I look forward to a time when we live according to our nature, in a way that works for us, where suicide, school shootings, mental illness, etc are not widespread. The world is a knife, and this culture will change or it will be cut.