A Perspective on the Grass Culture, Ernie Stanley

A few classes ago, during a discussion on the ritualized cutting of grass, a thought struck me and struck me with such force that I found myself revisiting the ideas and the thoughts of that class for days. I even found myself considering the implications of grass and the USA within my research into myths and their ecological connections with humans. It occurs to me that grass may perhaps be one of the most taken-for-granted aspects of the normal American suburbanite’s cultural life.

As the class concluded, I began to consider what grass had meant to me in the aspect of my cultural upbringing. I decided that I had been blind to the enormity of the statement grass made, and had instead, for the better part of 20 years, had simply filed the bladed plant into the position of the default lawn filler. I had always lived in a suburb where everyone had grass, and the pervasive plants grew even where they weren’t supposed to. Not only was grass everywhere, but anyone person who didn’t have a full carpet of grass adorning their house was considered lower than those who did. Those with unkempt, yellowed or browned grass were spared no courtesy in the closed-door gossip as well. And like hair, nails and pretty much anything that continually grew, grass needed someone to sculpt it.

And if my memory holds true, the sculptors numbered in the dozens, and were forever plentiful. They came in the form of the suburban youth and I was no exception. Grass cutting was a ritual of passage. It was a repeating rite of intricate machinery, cutting tools, sweat, and long hours in the sun which once begun easily became part of the routine. Nobody seemed to want the rite, at least at first, but when thrust upon us we took it with stride, knowing that it was an unspoken nod from our elders, who in doing so recognized us as moving on to a higher level on the suburban social chain. Thus it came as a slight relief and somewhat disbelief that when my parents separated my father no longer required me or anyone to mow his lawn (and largely it has not been mowed since). My mother, however, was and still is, adamant that I mow hers. I didn’t complain, after all, it was half the “ritualized” work and I was 16.

Now years later, and after having asked my father why he doesn’t cut his grass in order to gauge just what drove him in his principle I have deduced that it is just not his own laziness. I guessed at first that his attitude was cultural. Now my mother is a 4^th generation American of Anglo-Saxon descent and firmly grounded in American traditions, but my father is a Cuban-American. In fact he was the first member of his family born in the United States and as is the case with most Cubans in the States, my father grew up in southern Florida. I was explained to that in many areas, including where my father grew up, grass is never cut, and never is seen as needing to be cut. However, I proposed that grass was different in Virginia, where my father now lives, and thus the same standards did not apply. And to this my father bluntly stated that it was not about the grass itself and that anyone who disagreed with appearance of the grass in its natural form could take care of it themselves.

I, at first, and for a long time took this as an irrational statement. However, my recent research uncovered a Timucua spoken-word myth. The Timuacas are an extinct tribe of Florida, and have close connections to the Taino tribes of Cuba, of which many Cubans can trace descent from. The myth speaks of the creator Yayjaba and his creation of eternal one-legged ones who were to be the protectors of the land. With his creation of the one-legged ones Yayjaba addresses the plants with a warning for those who disrespect them,

“When they lose that respect, and cast you down before your time, then the breath of Wind will blow the land, and dust will fill the air, and those lacking respect will suffer greatly - Water will roam the land, and to those lacking respect, he will give too much rain, and the land willbe washed away, and the waters will carry away those that lack respect - to others that lack respect, he will withhold his rain giving them none until they dry up and are blown away by the breath of Wind. To any that brings you to destruction, they bring themselves to destruction.”

This warning, which is presented as having been spoken hundreds of years ago, describes the global warming trends we experience today. Could my father unknowingly subscribe by virtue of his culture this warning by letting his grass remain to its natural state, not unnecessarily disturbing the one-legged ones? I would say at least that he portrays irony to the “culturally accepting/culturally assimilating” suburban world to which he refuses to subscribe to. Could the ritualistic grass maintenance be in fact premature “casting down” the one-legged ones around us? I hypothesize that yes, the prevention of grass from returning to its natural state and cyclic progression is in fact unnecessary. I also now begin to question whether the ritual of grass maintenance and specifically cutting has led to the belief that it is ok to tamper unnecessarily with the ecosystem in the name of aesthetics, and human luxury.

Turtle Island "The Bath" Amy Ouypron

I started reading one of our books "Turtle Island" by Gary Snyder. I enjoyed the first few poems I read because they are so in touch with a world that seems so mythical compared to our world of small cities and developed land. I liked how he described the ancient Pueblos or "Anasazi" peoples that were here long before their land was resettled. But I think from what I've read so far of the book, I enjoyed his poem "The Bath."
I started reading it, and at first I didn't know what to think because in the first few stanzas he used such upfront wording, that I suppose as a college student, I should simply be used to. But as I read on, I realized that this poem really meant something-- it really made me "feel." How in the beginning he asks "is this our body?" I interpret in my sense to be the idea that in a world so far from nature in many aspects of our lives, that humans have tried to perfect and morph their bodies into what is suppose to be "ideal" as human beings. We've let go of the idea that just as we are we are natural. We are natural from our smelly feet to our runny noses. But now we fear such things that seem too alike to the world of animals so we have to cover our smells and throw chemical up our nostrils.
But I love the poem because it describes a life that I wish I could have. What could be more human and more loving than a family in touch with their nature and not afraid to be affectionate towards one another. I think if I were to ever marry someone who was so afraid of petty imperfections that he could not be just free with his form or my own... well I guess I wouldn't be happy to marry someone like that. And besides that, I just think the poem is beautiful. Who wouldn't want a sauna out in nature and looking up at the stars?

raw vegetarianism vs. cooked carnivorism

Kelly Moody
The highlight in conversation this weekend among me and my friends was based on what foods are best for our body and our environment. What fueled this conversation was the recent expedition of "dumpster diving" and "foraging" that Dr. Griffin has encouraged us to employ. So Friday afternoon after classes were over, my friend Mike and I decided to try it out. We went to about 4 different location and were very surprised with our findings. Every place we went to (Food Lions around Newport News) had food thrown away from that day in the dumpsters. We were overwhelmed with perfectly edible foods. We collected a whole trash bag full of cakes and muffins, as well as a whole trash bag of different kinds of breads. We also obtained about 6 tubs of sour cream that were not bad at all, as well as a ton of wrapped potatoes, peppers of every color, about a dozen apples and some meat that mike insisted he was cooking for dinner that night. Eating the food we obtained from our expedition was really exhilarating simply from the fact that we were making a small difference in a big food waste problem. The next day, Mike and two others went diving again to see if they could find the treasures (good vegetables, and dairy products). They came back with a WHOLE rotisserie chicken and a ton of potatoes. Needless to say about 10 of us had a feast that night.
All of this emergence into food culture got us talking about nutrition and human evolution. My friend Ted has recently adopted a raw food diet because those foods are supposed to have the most nutritional content, and have the best recycling quality. When we die or produce waste, we are putting out crazy toxic ingredients as a result of our diet like most people do now(McDonald's, high fructose corn syrup, excess of everything like salt and trans fats). We are basically polluting our environment slowing just by what we are eating. We are turning into poison machines. He also contributed the initial start of this trend to the incorporation of excessive consumption of COOKED meat in the human diet(earlier in human history). Cooked meat apparently recycles back with less nutrition and quality than the animal that was originally killed had. I am not too familiar with this process (and the implications and factors of the carbon cycle) but it does make sense. Now, we've adapted to not being able to eat a lot of raw mean without getting sick. Because we don't hunt our own food(most of us don't) the meat has to be cooked because it can only be eaten raw immediately after being killed. He claims that there is no point in eating meat at all if you have to cook it 3 days later to eat it. This reminded me of the movie Dancing with Wolves, a scene from the movie was the buffalo hunt. After they had hunted all of the buffalo they wanted and needed, the Indians in the movie took a chunk out of one buffalo right then and there and offered it to the soldier who also took the raw meet but with reluctancy.
The link from the dumpster diving to the raw food debate besides a conversation starter was that Ted was supplied with plenty of red, yellow, orange, and (unripe) green peppers as well as apples and cabbage to contribute to his raw food diet, complements of dumpster diving. He can thank wasteful human beings and the expiration date culture for that amenity.

Gordon Mallonee - leave things the way they are

I really like to eat food and up until recently I didn’t concern myself with what was healthy to eat and what I not. Eating a varying range of different types of foods is good but there must be a medium for a balanced diet. The foods that Hippy Kippy brought to class were all good things I wouldn’t mind eating. The only thing is about most food that people eat today has been altered in some way or the other. I’m not really sure how I feel about different chemicals being put into the food I am eating. I like to eat all different types of meat but some of them have been pumped full of chemicals that I don’t want in my body. Kelly Moody talked about how there are negative effects with altering our foods. I think that she is right in that we are harming our environment by not having a diversity of plant life in it. There could be some kind of key plant life that holds the balance of a certain type of ecosystem that were think is unimportant and so we allow it to collapse without really understand the full effects of what happens. Such things like this happen all the time with humans. We take actions before we really think things through. An example of this is the Cain Toad in Australia that was introduced to eat the grubs that would eat the sugarcane being grown. As it turned out the grubs would be out eating the sugarcane when the Cain Toads were not hungry and so the Cain Toads did not have the effect that people wanted. Instead they became an uncontrollable problem that had no natural control in the environment. This was because and predator that would try and eat the toad would die from the poison that is part of the self defiance system of the toad. Also the breading grounds in Australia were a prime place for the tadpoles to grow up in without having to worry about being eating so most of the eggs that would laid would hatch and as a result the population of the Cain Toad exploded and they now run freely everywhere. So I really don’t think it is a good idea to genetically alter plants just as some people don’t think we should be playing with the genetic make up of people.

GO GREEN !

º¿º

killer food-- Amy Ouypron

Okay, so today I went to the bistro and ordered a "turkey and brie" (my joking) "hold the brie." Basically, I wanted that sandwich--ettuce, tomato, and brie... just no turkey. Then somehow, time halted and the world came to an end. My friends asked/stated "that's stupid, why would you just get cheese on your sandwich?" I replied, "I try not to eat more meat than I should." They replied with some more typical remarks, of those who have not yet stopped to take a look at the reality that most people in this country eat overly excessive amounts of everything required for a typically healthy life style. And in addition, the women behind the counter just couldn't resolve the issue that this young lady would purposely gravitate away from their salted turkey lunch meat. Well, all I can say is I'm sorry! Sorry for trying to avoid useless products full of nitrates and chemicals I'd rather prefer not to eat... and in the end, I must have confused everyone to such an extreme that indeed, my sandwich become a mass void of anything but cheese and bread.

Anyways, another story... so I went home over break and visited my retired-hippy mom. It brought to mind a subject I had never before put enough depth into. To introduce the topic... think about all the times we go grocery shopping, or even simply go out to eat. Because of technology, technology that is on a constant morph and has grown practically exponentially in less than 10 years, the things we are putting in our bodies are corrupted with hidden ingredients/poisons, whatever you feel/think. Anyways, my mother informed me that she now checks every label of every product she buys and looks for things such as: "High-fructose corn syrup," "hydrogenated" products, or anything inexplicably hard to read. It's the simple fact of the matter that "high-fructose corn syrup" a chemically skewed corn product that is supposedly "driving the economy and helping agriculture alike" is overtaking most products as a base ingredient. I mean jeez, I even bought one of those salad bags with a salad dressing packet, and indeed HFCS was surely in it! It's something that people don't even think about that they are consuming in excessive amounts each day... in their drinks, dressings, sauces, Breads! And it is just one of the many consumed chemicals we eat each day.

Sure, organic stores are wonderful, and it is nice to see certain labels out on the market... however, I learned long ago the depressing reality that buying a few fruits and vegetables will cost about three times the price of a nice bag of chips. Anyways, poor broke college kid... boo hoo.

a christians concern for the environment

Kelsey Anderson

In class this week, not only in Religion and Ecology, but also in my Visions of Christianity class, a disagreement within the Christian churches was brought to my attention. When politics are brought into the church it seems that is impossible to find a united front on any issue and the environment is no outlier.
In recent news it was announced that some scientists and evangelical Christians have come together to fight global warming, however not all Christians want in on this fight. When I heard that some Christians did not find the protection of our environment to be important I began to wonder if an answer to whether or not Christians should care could be found in scripture. Did God tell us to take care of his creation, or can we as Christians take an apocalyptic view towards the worsening environment and take this as a sign that we are moving closer and closer to the end of times, or does it matter either way, is apathy the real answer?
In my class Wilderness as Sacred Place we were told to look up what is sacred. Through many definitions I found that there were three parts to the idea of being sacred. The first is that the adjective implies that whatever it is describing is deserving, and commanding of respect and it is entitled to religious respect due to its association with divinity. The second part is that, because of what the word sacred implies we respond to or interact with whatever is sacred in certain ways. These ways are that we make, believe and declare it to be holy, we honor it and we secure it from destruction, violence, infringement or desecration. The last characteristic of something that is sacred is that it is “often intimately connected with God or a divinity.” After this my next question was “is the environment sacred?”
The first two characteristics of sacred do not tell us how to know if the environment is sacred so I immediately looked at the final characteristic. Is the environment intimately connected with God? My initial reaction is yes, because God created the environment, and on earth it is quite possible that the most intimate relationship is that between a mother and a child. A mother carries a child inside of her for 9 months and then raises that child. The mother however did not get to artistically create what this child would look like and how this child would act and the mother though she may try does not control the actions of her child. However God does have all of that with the environment he has created.
After this I thought for sure the environment must be sacred, however then I thought well God created everything really, so does that make everything sacred? I therefore became slightly skeptical and decided that to prove that the environment was sacred I would need to find another example. I then opened up the scriptures and turned to Exodus and read about the Israelites escape from Egypt and being stuck in the desert for 40 years. In this story I found a new and more intimate depiction of God’s interaction with the environment. I found that God not only created the environment but the environment was a part of him. He spoke to Moses through a bush, he became a cloud during the day for the people to follow, he rained down bread to feed them, and he spoke to them through the thunder and the lightning. After this example I could not deny that God had an intimate connection with the environment.
If we at this point refer back to the definition of sacred and apply parts one and two to the environment, we will find that Christians can not be apathetic nor can they take the apocalyptic view, Christians have to “secure (the environment) from destruction, violence, infringement or desecration.”

genetically altering plants, good idea?

By Kelly Moody
1/23/07, 8:00 PM
Our 1st class we talked about 4 different foods that Dr. Redick brought to class from the grocery store. We discussed the human role in processing and growing of these plants. We are now able to produce mass quantities of the kinds of foods we want by genetic engineering. Essentially we are picking the qualities we want in a plant that we consume or use in some fashion that best fits our needs. This is positive in a lot of ways. We can make one good apple a standard for genetically altering other apples, we can essentially make all apples possess the good qualities that the one apple did. Humans have this power over not just apples but just about ANYTHING you can buy in the grocery store, or anything made of plant materials. More people can get the nutrition they need, because there are more quality foods available. Instead of the chance that some people will get the good of the bunch and some won't, now everyone can get the same quality foods if they buy them at the same place. Also, products made of plants, now can all have the same great quality (cotton or hemp for example) and standard because we can harvest the plants to all grow to the exact same strength.
The downside of all of this is the random negative effects genetically altering foods can have. Though we can genetically alter any plant we want to fit out needs, that plant has the ability to randomly mutate on it's own, or we could alter a plant to the point that it has a negative effect on our bodies later on. An example of this is my roommate. She cannot eat bread because she is allergic to genetically altered yeast. It is almost next to impossible to grow yeast now without it being altered in some form by humans, even the natural plant now is a derivative of the altered form. She told me that some people adapt to the changes made by humans and some people become victims of these changes. This makes me think, what if over time we can't "undo" what we change? We are essentially evolving plants to our own needs, but what if one day this backlashes on us and becomes harmful? Also, if there is not enough variation in the plants themselves, will this have a greater ecological effect? Can we actually be hurting our own evolutionary process while altering what we consume?
Does anyone else have any ideas/examples about the pros and cons of genetically altering plants?