EcoLit 313

Many of you probably saw (if you didn't, please read!) the lead article in this morning's NYTimes, Power, Pollution and the Internet, which makes it clear that our thinking we are being "green" in this class, by being paperless, is worse than an illusion; what we are actually doing, as we meet virtually each weekend, is helping to waste vast amounts of energy: "what’s driving that massive growth" is "the end-user expectation of anything, anytime, anywhere.”

As was visible from class on Wednesday, I was pretty frustrated with the Bohm reading and our conversation about it.  I interrupted a bunch which is immature.  I am sorry.  I thought about Wednesday’s class when I was at my sit spot yesterday evening and into today.  I think I’ve figured out two causes of my frustration:

Musical Ecology:  Sonic Preference or Prejudice?

There is a chortle out the early morning window that draws me outside. Any creature laughing, or even approaching a giggle or a chortle, has my ear.  The robin with its eager uneven step, deliberate always, allows us to think it has a jovial disposition because of its call, its cocky head, its ruddy-breasted hope.

Against an ostinato of crickets, their thick insistence blanketing the morning, one crow sounds as angry as the robin is jovial, that is to say probably not at all.  Still its raucous dark persistence from that branch grates on my attuned ear.  My ear is well-tuned to a well-tempered scale not a crow’s ill-tempered screech of simplistic percussive rhythms.

The tuning system of the well-tempered scale, like all tuning systems, is a system that is arbitrarily devised based on the choices of a particular culture.  What sounds harmonious to my ear, the particular pattern of whole steps and half steps, the chromatic increments that sound pleasing are what I have been taught to find pleasing.  “You have to be carefully taught.”  (Of course that song from “South Pacific” is about being taught racism.)

While approaching my site to make my observations, I realized it was difficult to at first recognize the exact tree I had in my memory. I wanted to sit under a particular cherry blossom tree, but in finding it, I had to locate it by looking at the surroundings, and remembering which tree others were sitting under, what view I had of the fence, etc. This time, of course, it was not in full bloom with floating cherry blossoms, so I had to use other methods to recognize it. On my way down to the tree, I had taken off my shoes because it was easier to descend the hill that way, and when I finally sat down, it felt more comfortable to keep them off. I wanted to make sure I was using as many senses as possible, and so I wanted to touch my surroundings with both my feet and my hands.What was very apparent to me was the amount of animal sounds I could finally pay attention to and hear. There was some thudding from the tennis courts to my right and some light conversation from the window behind me as well, but for once, the major sounds I heard were of insects. There was a squirrel jumping from from post to post on the fence in front of me, and since I was sitting still, it came closer. I noticed the pond was looking very full today, probably because of the rain, and it had so much greenery within it's waters, small growths were covering the top of the water, clover-like. The marshes were partially in the shade, partially in the sun, as was most of the pond.

Screeching along its tracks, the R100 is visible looking from the rooftop, chugging along as it carries passengers, burdened by their weight. The clouds are whispy and the air is cool. Air, moving along underneath them, carries the condensing dust and water particles in the same direction that the train races. Tops of smoke towers, peaking out above trees along the horizon, hinting at the factories to which they connect, foreground the sun as it sets to the west and begins to bleed the sky. Philadelphia sunsets are beautiful. Before coming to the city, there had never been another sunset on par with those particular to the Philadelphia area. Maybe LA is just too smoggy. The smoke is constantly clogging the sky, invading and changing the chemical composition of the clouds, turning sunsets bleak black-grey. The temperature grows colder. Galloping starts, it's the cat racing across the roof --THUD-- pouncing on a flittering bug. Is it a stick bug? A praying mantis? Should it be saved? Are they not endangered? Off pops its wings. Chewing disappears its thorax. Swallowing. It's done. Ethical crisis averted.

Today was my first observation period at the Stephen R. Miller bench, located in the North West corner of Haverford’s campus. The bench is located on a hill in a section of the campus/Haverford Arboretum known as the Ryan Pinetum, and provides an excellent view of the Pinetum’s field and the college Nature Trail. As I was settling into the bench I began to debate by myself of whether the spot would be considered an isolated section of campus or not. There is plenty to suggest that it is relatively accessible, including a trail leading from the Nature Trail that passes right by the bench on a loop of the Pineteum’s field, the occasional hiker and jogger passing by (including one who had left his running shoes on the bench while he ran in the field), and the Haverford field hockey field being 100 feet behind the bench. But at the same time, there existed multiple signs that contradict the notion that the bench is not isolated including, the overgrown weeds and plants surrounding and beneath the bench , the great distance I had to walk from the main part of campus to the bench and the pine trees surrounding the bench which blocked the bench from view from most angles. Besides debating the question of whether the spot was peaceful isolated or not, I also took in how the sights and sounds that I was able to perceive at the current moment might not be there as autumn progressed.

I began my first observation this morning at the Conservation/Wildflower Area by simply observing what I could see right in front of me. But as the hour wore on I began to think more about two things- the rheomode that we talked about in class yesterday, and the multitude of sensory input that I was getting, just sitting on a bench by the garden. I decided to try to use the rheomode and to play with the idea of the five senses. I only realized later that by using the five senses to describe my experience I was negating a big part of the rheomode itself by being so anthropocentric. I also noticed that when I’m trying to write in the rheomode, it’s easiest for me to use passive voice. Anyway, a poem in the “rheomodist” style:

Streaming, inviting, bright morning light looks warm

Sounds of moist, chilly dew

Ugly, grating sound of traffic

Vibrant, bright colors of flowers feel beautiful

Open, inviting, exciting, the taste of the view from the platform

Cold, smoldering with damp, the sound of the air

Rough wooden bench smells of mold

Sounding warm and damp like bells- the flowers

Whooshing, swaying, verdant breeze

Tasting the sparkling light

Seeing the hulking lawnmower- an intrusion on the scene?

Flying, fluttering, turning like tops- freedom of birds

Rough and sad concrete platform

Dark, inviting, peaceful shade

Interacting with the bright morning is good for the soul 

At the end of class today, I asked each of you to write--in the "rheomode"--a description of "what was happening" (then, there). Here is what we wrote, and then read to one another...a collective poem:

delving converse deconstructing familiarity

crawling across the chairs are the ants

rustling trees make hearing hard

making this area cool, the shade

sitting, enjoying with intentions for learning

the blowing of the breeze is moving the trees and rustling papers being written on by students

talking is going on

air moving

rethinking thinking know

circulating

re-communionate

writing, intending to disorient

negotiation and re-negotiation and irre-negotiation

breathing