ZoeHlmn's blog

Eco Walk (parody of Macklemore’s Thrift Shop ft Ryan Lewis)

By Zoe Holman and Claire Johnson with special thanks to Roux

We’re gonna grab some leaves

Throw them up in the a-air

I-I-I’m searching looking for a meaning

We are eco walkers

Walk into the forest like what up I see some big trees

Little rabbits scampering around and I see some cool bees

Water on the leaves, man it’s so shiny

All the nature ‘round us seems so damn tiny

Walkin’ in, shoes all laced, headin’ to the wilderness

Dressed IN warm clothes, ‘cept my naked head, that’s a mess

Damn it’s so beautiful, deer standing next to me

Caught a quick glimpse of it, saw it go right by a tree

…

But shit, it’s just the way of life!

Walking in, wanderin’, cannot stop the wonderin’

Saw an old campsite someone else been bummin’ in

So why don’t we just stay the night?

I hope there are no bears in sight

We’re getting lost, falling down, can’t find my way back home

We don’t even got a map, we don’t even got a map

No for real—we’re hella lost—can we get a map out here?

So these are the lessons, we learned here:

From developing our own personal ideas

To sitting alone outside, and writing alone outside

Learned to write English good, learned to speak English good

Hello, hello, my Anne man, my teacher

Solnit, ain’t got nothin’ on our lost game, hell no

Who am I? I have yet to figure that out. My role in the world, the universe, the environment, is still a question mark. Life is constantly changing, people die every day, and rarely do we think our family members will be the ones dying. Life adjustments need to be made as our lives plug further and further along. Rebecca Solnit proposes an answer to this question. In order to find oneself one needs to become lost. Where? When? And how does one go about doing this? Does a structured system such as a college allow us to openly search as Solnit suggests that one must do? Does Bryn Mawr College’s concrete, structured education provide room for what Solnit proposes in her Field Guide to Getting Lost. Which way is the best way to explore the self and can Solnit’s ideas coexist in a fixed college environment?

First semester is just about over, the cold weather has crawled in. The rain droplets posing at the tips of the branches ready to fall at any second when they shatter the silence. Calling, "attention! Attention! Look at me!" But no one is really watching them. They sit there in utter despair until they either dry up or fall to the ground. When that one drop does fall to the ground, it is taken in, abosorbed by the luscious, green blades of grass. As they are soaked into the ground, cared for and sheltered they are spread out to quench the thirst of the starved organisms inside the earth. Feeding the flowers and edible vegetables. They breathe out the oxygen we need and we breathe out the carbon dioxide they need. Who needs who more?

In Coetzee's novel there seems to be the controversy over whether or not animals are on the same level as humans. Whether they have the same type of conscience as us or whether or not they think as we do. Elizabeth Costello seems to think that since we are all beings that we should be able to put ourselves into the thoughts of an animal and understand how it is thinking. This way we can understand where certain animals are coming from and how they think. I do not agree with this. How do we know that animals have a conscience that is simlar to ours? Couldn't they have a conscience except it is structured differently than our own? Are we as humans so closed to other possibilities that animals may in fact actually have a conscience that we just cannot understand. Just because we cannot prove something does not mean it was true. In Elizabeth Costello's speech she proposes that Descarte did not have sufficient information about Apes and Dolphins and was therefore only capable of making his assumptions based on what he had. In the future we may in fact prove that animals have a conscience adn can think, except they may just think differently than us. It is possible that we just haven't prgressed that far to prove it.

After I missed the group botanical and geogical tour, I started to question what was important to me. All the different things that were going through my head at once was overwhelming so I only focused on what was at the forefront of my mind happening right then and there. I forgot to email to let my group members know I wouldnt be able to make it. And that was 100 percent my fault. However, it makes me wonder whether or not we need to focus on the present or prepare and remember for the future. If we never made plans would things in life still get done. In the Bible we are supposed to leave our lives up to God and be able to completely surrender to him and not worry about the past or future only the present. Can we do that with nature? What about the reprocussions of the future? Would we have an enviroment to go back to if we keep destroying it as we do now? It seems to me that living in the moment and not thinking about our actions and consequences would be a negative affect on ourselves as well as on the environment and others.

Today in class it occured to me: What is the main difference between thriving and surviving. Are we starting to thrive as a society and species? Is that necessarily a good thing?  Are all other species barely holding on because we have managed to wipe them out? Do we as a species really have a purpose in the biocentric model? All these questions were racing through my head during todays discussion and I was not really sure what to think about all of them. I would like to think that we can thrive in the environment without destroying itbut usually when something in nature becomes over-populated nature forces it to be cut down and back to size as to not let it get out of hand. The real question is can we as a species thrive and live in a biocentric circle where something dies in order to give back to nature. Is this possible?

How can nature be so cruel? How can it make the leaves wither and die then fall from the sky? The wind knocks them from the trees; sends them flying far from home. The leaves change, they grow from green to red ana orange to brown. Then to be mowed into millions of shreds, the ground now speckled with the remains of leaves. The trees are bare and broken once the wind sweeps away their babies. They stand lonley side by side naked. As if thrown out to die in the cold without a jacket. Only the roots keep them sound, keep them grounded from flying away into the open abyss of nature. With spring comes rebirth. The living and growing of life instead of death. There is always a rebirth, a new life to look forward to.

The cozy corner of the moonbench is its own little haven within itself. Anyone is welcome to sit there and enjoy what it has to offer. The upward view of senior row makes the path toward the moon bench a subtle, natural focal point of beauty. At the same time the moon bench lays empty often. The tradition goes if you kiss your significant other while sitting on the bench you will break up. This does not attract many couples. Plus the bench is also cold an hard like most man-made structures while the bushes bend around it to soften its features and the trees create a cocoon. The simplicity of the moon bench allows it to just sit and be its self. To have a timeless face and never change. Unlike the people and naute around it.

One of the readings that really stuck out to me in particular was Evelyn White's Black Women in the Wilderness. As we can see White's heritage has played a prominent in role with her relationship with nature. I thought it was interesting to see that White was so afraid to go outside, so traumatized by the bombing and possibility of being raped or assulted that she wouldn't even go outside. For me that is difficult to understand because ever since I was little I played in the woods and was never afraid to go outside. It makes me wonder how vivid these stories must have been for White because they had such a profound affect on White's life. I remember when I was younger I watched the movie Jaws and after that I was extremely hesitant to go in the water. I feel like this is a similar case to White but on a dummed down level. Has anyone else had a similar experience to this and grown out of it? Or tried to embrace it like White does at the end of the chapter?

Never did I expect to find myself at an all women's college. Men have always played a huge role in my life whether they were my best friend or my boyfriend or my father. However, now that I am here nothing seems very different. There are still men around there are just less of them. The other day when I was talking to my friend Brian he was telling me that as he walks around Bryn Mawr and will often get prejudice looks from Bryn Mawr women. My father also recieved the same feeling the first time he visited campus as well. Although Bryn Mawr is a women's college and fosters a culture of strong women, is not the point of doing this to decrease the gender gap not increase it in the other direction? Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I know this is less about the environment and more about the culture of our campus but I feel it should be addressed.