overwhelmed

it's almost noon on a sunday, and i am still nursing the cold coffee that is left over from breakfast this morning. simon and garfunkel are singing in the background "every day is an endless stream of cigarettes and old magazines..." i have approximately eighty nine pages of reading to complete before class tomorrow. i have a stack of academic articles more than one inch thick that i need to read for thesis. i have a list of almost a dozen farms that i need to contact to begin my thesis research. there's laundry waiting to be moved, groceries to buy, and a kitchen that needs to be cleaned; letters that are long overdue to friends near and far.

these days it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by everything in my life. i handle it all pretty well on a day-by-day basis, making small decisions, trying not to think ahead more than a few hours, and rejoicing when i crawl into bed each night still all in one piece. i linger over meals and coffee and conversations, because those moments help keep me grounded in the midst of a constant onward flow--one that propels me forward endlessly and without regard to my opinion. some days (most days, really) it excites me, to think of all the changes and possibilities that are so rapidly approaching. i enjoy the sensation of being propelled along like a leaf that landed in a stream swollen by fall rains... the helplessness is empowering, in an odd sort of way. maybe it is the notion of surrender that i like most.

but not this morning. i know that i just need to get started. i know that once i do, i will feel one hundred times better. but, over the last grainy sips of this mug, i feel overwhelmed. perhaps i will make one more cup and move that laundry before i settle down to the task at hand. two steps at a time gets you there faster than just one... you can't pause for too long in between, but you don't end up running either.

b

sunset and sunrise

((it's been a long time since i have tended my blog... sorry everyone. this is mainly because what i have wanted to share is in image form, and i lost my camera cord for a long time. images have come much easier than words these past few months, so here follows the start of my summer's image recovery.))



in the middle of july erik and i were able to take a weekend off and spend some time at the coast. we enjoyed delicious weather, taffy, and each other's company--all far, far away from the daily summer reality (and frustration) of work.

the part of our trip that i most enjoyed was seeing the starts and ends of days... there is something so reassuring, and at the same time un-centering, about meditating on the movement of the earth under our feet--rather than the movement of those feet across the earth.

sunset, pacific city (1)

(2)

sunrise, glacier rock (1)

(2)

(3)

b

pieces of my summer so far

my back yard

garlic braided and ready for storage

first garlic harvest

beautiful cabbage my mommy grew

say hello to the chickens!

line dried laundry

beautiful bridge on opal creek trail

above opal pool

inside the old sawmill

flowers along the trail

the peace of old, old beings

b

boxes and roots

and so i've moved again. in the past year (really 9 months), i have moved my crap around more times than i have in the previous 18 years of my life. moving is a strange thing to me, maybe because it is always when i am finally feeling settled in somewhere that i move again, but something in me resists pulling out those boxes.

this term at linfield, i only ever halfway unpacked. i don't know if that is because in the back of my mind i knew i would be re-packing in just a few months, or if it was an acknowledgment in myself that my life is transient right now. things i used every day escaped their cardboard confinements, but things i pull out more occasionally--craft supplies, old journals, camping gear--remained tucked away. my photos remained in their envelope on my desk all term. i think i actually sat down at that desk only once in all those months. melissa and i never got around to putting things up on our wall. it seemed silly, kind of, knowing that we were moving on so soon and would just have to take it all down again.

moving has its good points. for one, it forces you to carefully evaluate every thing that you pack into those boxes. as i repacked all my stuff, i made three piles: things i need now, things i will use later, and things to get rid of. being so transient has forced me to slim down what i own, in no small part because moving it all around is a pain. also because moving so much forces you to prioritize: what do i really want to own? clothes. books. a journal. photos of friends. a deck of cards. several frisbees. a bike. kitchen equipment. camera. computer. good backpacks. i don't need five sweaters: two or three will do just fine. which ones do i keep? the ones bequeathed by friends. the bright colored ones. the rest are going to goodwill.

otherwise, moving is challenging for me. dislodging myself from what i come to know and enjoy; from my routine, from my daily patterns, from those who i love... is hard. i crave roots. and at the same time, i am glad to be living the life i am so lucky to live. i also know that this is the way that life is probably going to be for a while: busy, full of changes, exciting, and... transient. my stuff will spend a lot of time in boxes. i'm not going to unpack for a while. i'm going to be stuck in the inbetween space for a bit: between boxes and roots. the best i can do is take things as they come, and enjoy each period of my life for what it is, for what it offers and what will be lost, when the boxes come out again.

b

an article you should read

i've been reading so much about sustainable agriculture in the past few months, that i can scarcely formulate my thoughts anymore... but luckily other people can! this is an interesting article about the choice to eat ethically (read: sustainably, locally, organically) that you should all read.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/04/25/pinched_ethically/index.html

sustainable agriculture is rapidly becoming my passion, and it is one that i am sure you will all hear more about in the following months, especially as i start doing thesis research on CSAs (community supported agriculture programs). if this article piques your interest, i also highly recommend browsing katie and casey kullah's blog: their farm, oakhill organics, is in its fourth season here in yamhill county, and their blogs are a wonderful combination of farm updates, recipes, pictures, and commentary on sustainable agriculture.

read and think about your food!

peace,
b

something i wrote recently

it isn't often that i write anything that i actually am proud of, but this paper from my nature writing class is one that i wrestled with a lot and that i am really happy with. it addresses a major theme that we have been investigating in this class--the paradox of horror and beauty that is in nature, and our methods for negotiating that paradox. if you have some time, take a read, and let me know what you think. i know it isn't exactly short or an easy read...

peace,
b
__________________________________________________________

On Faith and Finding an Environmental Ethic in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

It seems that it is in the presence of nature, the edges of the ocean for example, that humans gain an intimate sense of the awesome. Coupled with that awe and wonder though, is often a sense of horror, for the world can be beautiful, and beautifully cruel as well. The necessity of reconciling the horror and beauty in nature finds company in a perhaps unlikely realm—that of religion. Religion negotiates this juxtaposition of awe and horror using a curious path: that of faith. Faith is a belief in something that is not guaranteed to be true. Is it possible that the possession of such faith can be an effective approach to the natural world? Moreover, could such an approach be a path to more than mere acceptance of the realities of the natural world, but a deeper love and appreciation for it—even the foundation of a new sort of environmental ethic? Throughout Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard negotiates the paradox of horror and beauty in nature, using faith to glean meaning from it, and in doing so provides the basis for a novel environmental ethic: one that is shaped by faith.

Understanding Dillard’s concern with and conclusions about the horror and beauty that she sees in the natural world first requires an examination of her worldview. It is clear that hers is one that is deeply shaped by religious belief, as illustrated by her obvious knowledge of theology. She frequently utilizes Biblical metaphors—ranging from Cain, to the fall of Adam, to Moses on Mt. Sinai. This is evidence of her worldview in an explicit sense, but there are more subtle and implicit references as well. The deliberate framing of the world of Tinker Creek in such religious terms suggests a significant relationship between the natural world and the divine. It is also interesting to note that Dillard characterizes nature with the same reverence as “creation” or “Creator”—creating an alignment between them that allows space for the application of religious ideals to nature, and visa versa. An idea that comes up often in the novel is that of “creation.” In her observation of the natural world, often on the minutest levels (the insect world, for example), she frequently remarks on the character of the Creator and of creation. Descriptions of creation range from being “made in jest” to “one lunatic fringe” to “beauty inexhaustible” (7, 144, 139). Similarly the Creator is variously “a generous spirit” and one who “stops at nothing“ (135). A religious approach to the natural world highlights the extremes of horror and beauty, and thus throughout the novel Dillard finds her religious view of the world challenged by a seemingly traitorous natural world. This novel is the depiction of her struggle to reconcile that conflict.

Perhaps because Dillard sees such an intimate connection between nature and creation, she has difficulty reconciling what is observed in the natural world with her interpretation of creation. In her observations at Tinker Creek, she is struck again and again by the paradox of horror and beauty in nature (in creation). This paradox is highlighted in the recurrent images of the giant water bug and the mockingbird. The water bug is a fearsome creature not for its appearance (as the locust is), but for its method of gaining sustenance: it bites a frog, injecting poison that kills it and liquefies its insides so the bug can suck them out. Dillard writes, “Soon, part of his skin, formless as a prickled balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing” (6). Certainly the world of the water bug cannot be the same as the creation spoken of in scripture, for a loving and merciful God would do no such thing. Or would he? For he who creates the water bug, also creates the mockingbird—a creature of exquisite grace:

The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating… [and] [j]ust a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care… and so floated onto the grass. (8)

Dillard’s religious view of the world is undone by this paradox that she observes in the natural world. It suggests that God is indifferent in a way, for he creates things of horror and of beauty, seemingly with no preference shown to what humans would deem “good” or “beautiful.”

But Dillard does not turn away from God or nature in disappointment—instead, she embraces it fully, horror and beauty alike. She explains in the chapter “The Horns of the Altar” how she comes to peace with the paradoxes she finds, showing how the presence of horror does not inhibit one’s ability to feel love toward this world. “Can I say then that corruption is one of beauty’s deep-blue speckles…?” she asks: “It is very tempting, but I honestly cannot” (242). Dillard sees that she cannot love the world by denying the horror or by calling it something else, because she would be loving a world that doesn’t exist. But neither does she say that she loves the world because of the horror. This world is anything but perfect, but that imperfection only intensifies the love one feels for it, as Dillard explains:

I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along… I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about in a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them… (242)

In this quote, Dillard is pointing to grace; the fact that it is enough that beauty persists, that the world possesses a sort of wholeness. That there is such an inexplicable goodness and beauty in that whole is cause enough for love. It is possible to love fully, without full understanding.

Dillard possesses more than a love for this world, however; she possesses a deep and abiding faith in it, illuminated by her understanding of its nature, and fed by the world’s constant, small instances in which it reveals itself (as illustrated by the mockingbird). Faith can be described as belief without guarantee of benefit, without certainty of protection or comprehensible meaning. For Dillard, the faith she has in the natural world is born out of her struggle with the reality of nature itself: that which constantly rubs up against her deep, visceral love for it. Struggle plus love equals understanding and care, and out of that comes faith. Just as belief in God requires love and trust, so does the love of nature. Neither offers guarantees. And so, the relationship of the individual to nature becomes one that is deeply religious. This is where Dillard steps beyond the deconstruction of previous notions of the world, and lays the foundation for a new environmental ethic, or way of being toward the world. She is saying that to love the world makes the individual implicit in it. Each body belongs to the world, turns to it for sustenance, for joy, for meaning, and therefore has an obligation to it. This obligation is to do well by it, to preserve the grace and beauty that provide for each of these lives. Indeed even to preserve the horrors, for without them it would not be the one that so provides for us. And so, a religious approach to the world evolves, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, into the foundation of a necessary ethic towards it—one that recognizes how beholden each life is to the natural world, and therefore commits itself to its protection. The reason for this ethic arises fundamentally from the grace of the natural world, and the recognition of this grace is an admission of faith.

The wonder is… that all the forms are not monsters, that there is beauty at all, grace gratuitous, pennies found, like the mockingbird’s free fall. Beauty itself is the fruit of the creator’s exuberance that grew such a tangle, and the grotesques and horrors bloom from that same free growth… This, then, is the extravagant landscape of the world, given… given in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. (146)

One must recognize the running over of the world—the beauty freely given, and further recognize that to partake in this grace requires one to act gracefully in its presence.

Dillard embarks on a journey in this work. It is a journey from a preconceived understanding of the world, to entirely novel one. It is a journey run through with complications, losses of hope, the burden of new understandings, and with joy inexpressible. She begins looking out at the world through a relatively rigid religious framework, which is constantly challenged by the natural world; she emerges from the tangled, messy, glorious paradox of reality with a new faith that is well informed and grounded in the immediacy of this world and which revels in the very qualities that once made it shrink and cower. Dillard is able in this book to address a concern that arises in the minds of many, who walk through the world, and witness horror at one turn, wonder at the other. What can one do in the face of such a world? The answer turns out to be fairly simple, though it is no simple task to live out: love the world for what it is, and rejoice in its grace—the fact that beauty remains even in the face of horror or pain or death. What is offered to us in this book is not only a deeper understanding of the natural world, but a path forward. If each individual can come to a similar understanding—that is, reconciled to but also in love with the world and all its complexity—it would be possible to do something real to save what is left of this natural wonder. And with such an understanding it is possible to step forth, and as Dillard writes, “and my left foot says ‘Glory,’ and my right foot says ‘Amen’” (271).

after a drought... a trickle

...and no that isn't in reference to the weather, but instead my long, long absence in the blog-o-sphere. i'm not sure how to explain why i haven't been writing lately. a lot of it has to do with being caught up in the busyness of life at linfield, a lot to do with having other outlets than this two dimensional one, a lot of it is having a brain chock-full of new and exciting ideas and plans... and no idea how to start processing them. it's a good time. :)

as i am writing this it is blowing cold rain outside, and i'm finding myself wishing that i could fall back into those cozy winter patterns of tea and books and cookies... instead of the harried late spring patterns of coffee and textbooks and homework. life is really good right now, but just so FULL. i rarely have time to take a breath it seems, or a moment (or more, because an hour is the minimum for me to really get down to writing anything) for reflection. so, here's endeavoring to be more reflective. it may be a bit of a cop-out, but here's a list of things (i like lists, as erik rightly observed the other day) that have been bringing me much pleasure of late, as well as some that i have found draining. let's hope i can get back to some real reflective writing soon.

pleasures:
--riding my bike
--working at the community garden
--spending a lot of time volunteering
--rain
--reading for and talking about issues in my environmental sociology class
--reading for my nature writing class
--talking to people about the ideas that are consuming me lately
--rediscovering/finding my (new) niche at linfield
--looking forward to distant friends coming hoooooome!
--reading the oakhill organics blog from start to finish
--cooking kale and cabbage
--thinking about the future

drains:
--thinking about the future (it's coming so fast!)
--nasty weather
--surface level class discussions and narrowness of vision
--long to-do lists that only grow no matter how many things i cross off
--planning for senior year (making sure i can fit everything in)
--not enough sleep

and in closing... a poem. not one of mine sadly, because writing poetry takes me even more time than stream-of-consciousness-reflection-mushy-ish does. but, wendell berry, as ever, continues to bring me comfort and inspiration. when i read his words, my heart resonates with the deep, rich tones of his prose and the ideas that they propose.


The Want of Peace

All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman's silence
receiving the river's grace,
the gardener's musing on rows.

I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.


... okay i lied. there's one more...


The Wish to Be Generous

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods and the hill and the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

so that's me lately: wanting and wishing... hope you are all well.
peace.
b