Amanda DeSalme, Sunlight

I was walking back to my room yesterday when all my classes and rehearsals were done, and I noticed the sun. My favorite place for the sun to be in the sky is just before sunset, just before the sun breaks against the edge of the earth to bend the light into an explosion of firey colors. It is still full in the sky but low, casting long beams sideways onto the earth and elongating the shadows to make everything seem dimensionally deeper. This is especially glorious in a forest, creating long beams of light and darkness, like light coming in through a windowshade. As I walked I went in a zig-zag-like pattern, catching the beams of golden orange light on my face and avoiding large patches of shadow. I love seeing peoples' eyes in this kind of light. They seem much more alive than under the artificial light in classrooms or dormrooms. This lighting makes me more aware of beings and life and the rotation of the earth, for some reason.

I noticed the sun today also, on my way to class in the morning. Thy sky was filled with dark clouds, threatening to erupt any moment into a downpour of tears, but one small patch of holes in the thick layers of clouds let beams of sunlight reach through. This is another glorious sight, because the particles of water make the actual rays or beams of light more visible, so it is just like the sun a child draws, with lines reaching from the smoldering circle of yellow-orange. Looking at the cloud coverage and light peaking through, I pictured God or some higher being pulling away a patch of clouds to look down at us through the small opening. It was beautiful and almost like a calendar picture, the way the sun was breaking through. Seeing the various playings of the light, I thought about impressionists, and their great attention to light. It is a beautiful thing to capture.

I know large amounts of sunlight can cause skin cancer, but I do believe small doses are necessary for our happiness. I have noticed that in the winter, when I stay inside more often because I'm a wimp who can't handle the cold, I am a little more subdued, saddened almost, and once it is warm enough to ly in the sun like a lazy cat, I am energized and happy to be alive. We really depend on the sun. The vegetables that I love so dearly to eat have their own delight in eating sunlight.

I have realized now why many religions or cultures have a sun god or goddess, or worship the sun in general. It is beautiful, powerful, warm, glorious, life-giving, and wonderful.
All hail the sun!

Amanda DeSalme, Dillard: Trees

From Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

“I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can’t think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and, in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach” (Dillard, 88).

When I think about the way trees extend in both directions, up and down, I cannot help but think about the way a singer’s voice develops and grows, extending up towards the sparkling clear tone in the upper range like sunrays or stars and at the same time delving deep into the rich lower range with a tone of earth and soil, thick and moist like cake. Both the tree and the voice extend up and down, and most of the time, all that we see and acknowledge is the blossoming and branching upper range. We often forget about what is not staring us right in the eyes. I nearly forgot until I read this passage that trees take root deep down into the soil as much as they reach for the sky. It is a very grounding thought. What is the top without the bottom? What would the singer’s voice be like without the solid base, taking root in the breath to blossom outwards? A mirror image comes to my mind, a tree reflected in a placid lake, branches reflecting in the water, almost unveiling the truth of the roots digging deeper underground, out of sight. A Yin Yang also seems relevant. The bottom roots of the trees are necessary for the top to blossom, just as opposites are necessary for anything to exist at all. How can we comprehend happiness if we do not know the feeling of sadness? How can we acknowledge beauty if we have not seen a certain ugliness elsewhere? What is light without darkness, day without night? The juxtaposition of these opposites defines everything we know, just as Gary Snyder first defines “wild” as everything it is NOT in his book The Practice of the Wild. My belief is that we have to accept the opposites as they are, delve into each to understand the other, just as debaters prepare themselves for a debate by learning possible arguments from the other side. I was never one to take sides on arguments between friends or family members because I could honestly understand both points of view and just accept it as it was. Why can't people stop being stubborn and open their eyes to the unseen? We must all remind ourselves to open our eyes, see the full picture, and enjoy life as it is, with all of its trials and tribulations. I now view trees as old and wise beings, watching creatures scramble around on this earth not fully seeing, not catching the present. They watch and whisper truths, and if we're still and open enough we can catch on to some of life's mysteries, just listening to the trees.

Amanda DeSalme, Dillard and loopiness

From Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

“It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale” (Dillard, 70).

Natural bodies of water have always fascinated me, especially the flowing currents of rivers, streams, and oceans. It is as if the water is alive, constantly churning, washing and carrying things along for the ride. Annie Dillard says that the creek is new every minute. This is true; it is new every second, but still the same. If you watch one spot continually, the water surrounding that area is new every second, each particle rushes on to new territory. But the whole body of the stream is so connected and smooth that it is all the same. Each particle eventually comes back around to where it was originally, if there even is a starting point to pinpoint. The water reflects the world, a murky mirror chopped and tumbling on towards eternity, cycling onwards like life and time itself. Thinking back on my life I have gone through numerous cycles, revolving around to find myself back where I started, yet still new and more mature than I was in the past. There have been calmer trickles in my life and also rough rocky currents, an overwhelming surge and tumble of life. It is all essential. It is all new and all relevant. “Time is the continuous loop” (Dillard, 77), and streams are one aspect of nature that illustrate this beautifully. Dillard also compares the creek’s eternal newness to a closed book, continuing to whisper its tale. It is interesting how a snapshot of time can be captured in a book, a piece of artwork, or a musical recording. We look at these snapshots and sometimes the beauty will speak to us as if it is a new revelation, and it is new to us. We have a revelation in the present using this artifact of the past, creating eternal beauty and connecting the two time zones to create one big loop. I’m not sure what to do with the loop now, but everything in life seems to correlate to this loop. All I can manage to do is to point out every connection and loopy illustration I can find and marvel at its horror, beauty, and wonder.

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.