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).