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All Over Creation Draft

aclark1's picture

 

Arguments include the topics below: 

Displacement 

“But still, imagine you are a seed— of an apple, or a melon, or even the pit of a peach— spit from the lips of one of Lloyd’s crossbred grandchildren, arcing through the air and calling to earth, where you are grounded in the soil, under a heel, to rest and overwinter. Months pass, and it is cold and dark. Then slowly, slowly, spring creeps in, the sun tickles the earth awake again, its warmth thaws the soil, and your coat, which has protected you from the winter frosts, now begins to crack. Oh, so tentatively you send a threadlike root to plumb the ground below, while overhead you pale shoot pushes up through the sedentary mineral elements (the silt, the sand, the clay), through the teeming community of microfauna (bacteria and fungi, the algae and the nematodes), past curious macofauna (blind moles, furry voles, and soft, squirming earthworms). page 3

 

“… these three thousand acres were given over primarily to the planting of potatoes, which means that you, being a random seedling, a volunteer, an accidental fruit, will most likely be uprooted. Just as you turn your face into the rays and start to respire, maybe even spread out a leaf or two and get down to the business of photosynthesizing— grrrrrip, weeded right out of there. Sayonara, baby.” page 4

 

Monoculture 

Quote from Page 57

 

Diversity 

“‘Back of every plant, every shellfish, every burrowing rodent or ravaging animal, and back of every human being there stretches an illimitable and mysterious heredity….’” page177

 

Essential questions: 

Is displacement necessary? 

Geek, “Every seed has a story encrypted in a narrative line that stretches back fro thousands of years… Seeds tell the story of migrations and drifts, so if yo learn to read them, they are very much like books—with one big difference.” page171

 

Why is it so hard?

“The difference is this: Book information is relevant only to human beings. It’s expendable, really. As someone who has to teach for a living, I shouldn't be saying this, but the planet can do quite well without books. However, the information contained in a seed is a different story, entirely vital, pertaining to life itself. Why? Because seeds contain the information necessary to perform the most essential of all alchemies, something that we cannot do: They know how to transform sunlight into food and oxygen so the rest of us can survive.” page171

 

What is love? 

“Until we find a way to now and acknowledge to ourselves the true cause(s) of our repressed wounds, fears, guilty desires, and unresolved conflicts, we hand onto them in disguised, distorted, and self-defeating ways.” page13

Comments

rokojo's picture

I think you have some very strong quote. I'm excited to see how you're going to tie them together. I like that you are exploring displacement and the idea of its necessity. I think moving forward it's going to be important to focus on bringing these quotes together to support a clear statement. I think the question "what is love" is a very big and very important question to ask, although I think there's a possibility that it'll end up being too much on top of the displacement discussion you have going on. However, I do like the quote you have under "what is love?". I think that is an important theme throughout the novel that ties in really well to the idea of displacement and healing. I'm not sure how the quote about book/seed information ties in to the rest of them, but if you have a good idea of how you're going to use it, I trust it will fit in.