Technology and Evolution, by Ernie Stanley

In relation to Kelly’s previous blog and with the “technological tether” dancing in mind I approach one of my semester theses. However, my agenda with technology is a bit different. I do not yet accept that ‘technology’, and the tethers we develop through it have shaped us determinately. Rather I think something much simpler and universal has shaped us. I find no rational explanation to separate man from Nature and its “laws”. Technology is most certainly not a concept that can afford justification to the “unnaturalness” (if one wishes to make such a bold claim) of man and how we have developed. In fact, I present that technology has NO place in a discussion outside of the realms of Nature and the natural, and supposing of otherwise is agent against truth. Technology is, in fact, a matter of the natural.

Largely influenced by Radovan Richta and his work presented in Civilization at the Crossroads, a compilation of discourses on human-technological relationships. Richta claims that we as humans have reached a stage in evolution, one alongside technology, which provides for contrast between man and the rest of nature (which for the most part remains unconscious of technology). Personally elaborating on his claims, I would say that man in fact came first rather than second in the techno-human relationship. There is a catch though, technology also came first (as conscious developed so was technology revealed). I find that actuality of technology is that it is a mode revealing of survival which is universally accessible rather than a contrivance of man.

However, I ask what has brought man away from what I call “the primitive” and into this mode of survival? I find semblance of understanding in Lewis Mumford’s (in his work The Myth of the Machine ) description of the development of man and his unique identity in nature:

There was nothing uniquely human in tool-making until was modified by linguistic symbols, aesthetic designs and socially transmitted knowledge.

This claim brings forth the idea that man’s mind is what seperates him from the primitive. Without man’s mind, we would find ourselves unconscious of the evolutionary branch that technology brings forth. It is man’s increased capacity that has allowed him to consciously recognize the concept of survival, and thus brought forth the discovery (NOT INVENTION) of technology. And I also find that technology is simply a logical mode, determined by evolution itself, through which the human species continues to ensure its survival, and it is not unique to our species but rather simply unachieved in magnitude by other conscious beings (However, I will note that several primate species have developed relatively advanced tools as a means of survival).

Simply: To consider technology anything other than a metaphysics governed by natural laws to be an absurdist notion at best. Considering technology as otherwise would force the ignorance of other tool-using species, and any recognition of these other species would eliminate the tangible separation of man and the primitive, a logical paradox which renders the argument: technology as the human determinate, false. However, instead of continuing to argue (I have a term paper for this), delving into the relation spirituality and creativity play in technology as a field of nature/reality, I will instead pose a question: Under what conditions could technology be considered not part of the natural world?

"Technological Tether" and Intelligence, by Kelly Moody

Even the most in tune have 'technological tether.'
I was thinking about the term that Dr. Redick used in class today that was coined by one of his former students referring to our need for technological extensions to venture off into the wild. This made me think about a lot of facets in my life surrounding this idea of 'need' that humans have given value to objects, instruments, materialized comforts (like journaling, poetry, that form of communication) etc. In my Human Adaptation class, I am having a hard time not questioning the phylogeny of the hominid marked by obvious morphological differences but also by the hominid's use of instruments and the development of forms of consciousness alluded to by cave art signifying archaic religion or flowers found in a grave signifying mourning of the dead(and also religious beliefs). All of these archaeological finds are glimpses of the past where vast assumptions are made about large numbers of people over a large amount of time. I've discussed this more in a last post. But back to the 'technological tether.' This technological extension, aid, limb, whatever you want to refer to it as, is considered in anthropology a sign of intelligence! Dependency on inanimate objects to survive, the ability to materialize and transform things separate from ourselves, to record things, making our esoteric ponderings exoteric material expressions that we can attempt to transmit to others. My problem with this is the information lost in translation is crucial to our existence. Our minds get too much for us, we must extend those thoughts and functions with 'technological tether' in order to communicate with each other. Okay so it morphs our communication skills, aside from the debate that this technique is an object of increased intelligence and consciousness, how about the implications of this dependency in a modern sense. This is a constant subject of discussion in my Technology, Self and Society class. We have molded our technology to the point that it is reciprocal. Technology molds us too, and on and on..we are technology now. Just like the hiker realizing his need for extensions when his pack breaks--we can't live without these things. Are we more intelligent, or better off with this technological tether, like most anthropologists believe? Or are we disabled by our dependency? Even the poet Han Shan, years and years alone in the woods on Cold Mountain, a wise secluded Bodhisattva, wrote down his poetry on rock faces and caves. Even he, immersed in nature, had his own technological tether to keep him sane in the wild in the form of poetic expression.

deader than a water bottle by Kelly Moody

so this weekend, instead of diving intensely into research i needed to do, and instead of going to parties that i don't even want to go to, i stayed in and read a lot of books i didn't even need to read.
well before all the reading, a trip into the woods in the middle of the night, laying in ivy for awhile with the Frog and some other friends sparked some kind of manic zen epiphanic mode for a few days, and i am falling from that now. that walk was a bit surreal, with the moonlight on the leaves and the water, laying in the ivy observing the trees as reaching for the sky, all existing for a moment in time, space really being time mediated by different wavelengths. i was there on a wave for a moment and the trees existed then too, all only temporarily, all something and nothing at once, and it was phenomenal. Looking at the reflections in the lake, infinity reflecting infinity, i was at awe. (no godflesh involved, just pure being-- with maybe some red roobis)
The next day I got up and wrote a bunch of these reflections down, all if it really reminding me of my mystical philosophy class from last year. At the time, the information i was learning about was separate from me, ideas that i half-heartedly grasped, and suddenly, it all made sense. I was this knowledge. You suddenly know when knowledge becomes being. I pulled out all of my Sufi literature and read all of the things i didn't understand completely before but completely understood in the moment. I read Dharma Bums all day from front to back (gained a new perspective on Gary Snyder). Dove intently into this amazing book called "Time, Space and Knowledge" by Tarthang Tulku and its been blowing my mind since. Started writing poetry which i never do. Suddenly everything around me connected. I have a picture of a cup stuck in a tree that i captured once and i have it pinned on my wall because it is kind of symbolic for a lot of reasons. Even this class, the tower and the mountain, man and nature, 2 forces, a Styrofoam unnaturally colored cup stuck in a beautiful tree. Anyway, i was looking at it, and thinking about time, how the cup will eventually not exist, probably at a slower rate than the tree even, but everything will take another form eventually, and the beauty of that cup in that tree at that moment in time, is symbolic of how we exist at every moment in infinitely microcosmic and macrocosmic ways. The cup, is chaos in disguise. We take a bunch of particles, shape them in a specific way to hold water so we can take a sip for a moment, and then that cup has no use anymore. We divulge almost too much in these temporary moments, creating indestructible towers that live longer than we do. The cup--chaos disguised was imposing/sharing space and time with a tree, who was existing in its own chaotic order and their wavelengths cross for just a moment just like me laying in the ivy in the middle of the night on the Noland trail contemplating the time of me and the trees above me.
Today, my friend Mike, the Frog and Eve were discussing an indestructible water bottle. Apparently, these kinds of water bottles can resist just about any kind of shattering, even a bullet can't penetrate them. It made me think: this bottle is more alive than we human are. It will last much longer than we will. Everything around us that we create, the Styrofoam cup, the indestructible water bottle is our way of immortalizing ourselves by creating objects of the 'tower' world that will age at a different rate and wavelength than we will. What use will that water bottle have when we're dead? What about the water in the bottle? It is only temporarily alive, just like we are, and the point of it all is that moment you take a sip and unionize with that water. Pouring the water out on the ground is the same thing as any one of us dying. We're already dead, we are deader than that water bottle is, and that is interesting to think about in that way. We are deader than everything around us that we create.

Bees and bees nest

Dr. KIP REDICK
RSTD 337
LE, KIM-CHI
Date: January 17, 2007


Bees and bees nest



On second day of my class Religion and Ecology, we learn about bees, our professor brought into the classroom one bees nest. That nest was very pretty I have never seen before. The smell was very sweet like honey.
We learned about the bees working in their life. This is very good to know about them. Bees have their life very organize. I would like to know more, so I search in Internet. I saw ‘’2003 first place essay: Colonial Beekeeping from Shannon Grant ‘’. I copy some of her essay to share to my friends.
There are “3.2 million honey bee colonies, maintained by 211,000 beekeepers, are currently thriving in the United States. Aside from the production of honey and beeswax, these bees pollinate the crops that make up one-third of American food production[7]. Despite the cultural and economic importance of the honey bee, little is known about this creature’s humble beginnings in the American colonies”.
The true honey bee we can use “for food, preparing beverages, making cement, preserving fruit, medicinal purposes, and concocting furniture polish and varnish[6]. Because of unreliable roads and storage difficulties, these items were traded only locally[“10…
The European honey bees to touch mainland North America were sent by the Virginia Company in 1621. As of 1985….
There were a limited number of ways in which the bees could have traveled. Honey bees of this era were kept in a hollow logs, wooden boxes, pottery vessels, or skeps[3]. As long as the openings of the hives were covered, the bees could survive inside for a least tow to three months….
There is no doubt that honey bees were precious to the early Americans. In 1868, a single imported Italian queen bee was valued at $20[7]. Compare this to prices in 2003, where a queen can be had for $14[11]. Since $1 in 1868 is equivalent to $11.77 in 2003, that queen bee would have a value of $235 today[4]. Additionally, six states elected to make the honey bee their official insect[2]….
Our nation has benefited from nearly 400 years of the honey bee’s labor. Regardless of the time period, this fascinating creature has contributed to the welfare of the human race, and will continue do so while the apiarian art survives….
This is very interesting and would like to know more. Then I will share it with my friends. Shannon Grant is very deserving to win first place essay ‘’Colonial Beekeeping’’ in 2003. She lives in Rathdrum, Idaho.






































nDr. KIP REDICK
RSTD 337
LE, KIM-CHI
Date: January 17, 2007


Bees and bees nest



On second day of my class Religion and Ecology, we learn about bees, our professor brought into the classroom one bees nest. That nest was very pretty I have never seen before. The smell was very sweet like honey.
We learned about the bees working in their life. This is very good to know about them. Bees have their life very organize. I would like to know more, so I search in Internet. I saw ‘’2003 first place essay: Colonial Beekeeping from Shannon Grant ‘’. I copy some of her essay to share to my friends.
There are “3.2 million honey bee colonies, maintained by 211,000 beekeepers, are currently thriving in the United States. Aside from the production of honey and beeswax, these bees pollinate the crops that make up one-third of American food production[7]. Despite the cultural and economic importance of the honey bee, little is known about this creature’s humble beginnings in the American colonies”.
The true honey bee we can use “for food, preparing beverages, making cement, preserving fruit, medicinal purposes, and concocting furniture polish and varnish[6]. Because of unreliable roads and storage difficulties, these items were traded only locally[“10…
The European honey bees to touch mainland North America were sent by the Virginia Company in 1621. As of 1985….
There were a limited number of ways in which the bees could have traveled. Honey bees of this era were kept in a hollow logs, wooden boxes, pottery vessels, or skeps[3]. As long as the openings of the hives were covered, the bees could survive inside for a least tow to three months….
There is no doubt that honey bees were precious to the early Americans. In 1868, a single imported Italian queen bee was valued at $20[7]. Compare this to prices in 2003, where a queen can be had for $14[11]. Since $1 in 1868 is equivalent to $11.77 in 2003, that queen bee would have a value of $235 today[4]. Additionally, six states elected to make the honey bee their official insect[2]….
Our nation has benefited from nearly 400 years of the honey bee’s labor. Regardless of the time period, this fascinating creature has contributed to the welfare of the human race, and will continue do so while the apiarian art survives….
This is very interesting and would like to know more. Then I will share it with my friends. Shannon Grant is very deserving to win first place essay ‘’Colonial Beekeeping’’ in 2003. She lives in Rathdrum, Idaho.






































M. Blum: Makes me hungry! /Aug.23, 1995

Rain Zach Fauver

All my life I have hated rain. If I woke up in the morning and it was raining outside, my day would be ruined. When I was younger, I played outside whenever I was not in school. We would go exploring in the woods, do different projects like build tree houses and elaborate forts for turtles we would catch. But rainy days would force me to stay inside all day, bored out of my mind.
As I grew older I continued to despise the rain. Waking up to a warm, sunny day brings joy and excitement. A rainy day is filled with gloom and depression, making me tired all day, even if I got plenty of sleep. When forced for some reason to be out I the rain, I always run to wherever I’m going. My friends tell me that you get more wet when you run in the rain, but I tell them, “I don’t care I just want to get out of the rain faster.”
This summer on a three week backpacking trip to Scotland, I had a major perspective change about rain. I expressed my rain hatred to Dr. Reddick and he made some positive response along the lines of “oh no rain is wonderful, it brings life and color to the earth.” So for the rest of the trip I made a conscience effort to have a different outlook on rain. The first came early in the trip. It was early evening when dark clouds began to role in. Soon after we where in the midst of violent winds and sheeting rain. Simply experiencing the magnitude of the power that the rain had gave me a spiritual wonder about the power of God’s creation. The second and more significant experience came at the end of the very last day of hiking. I was a little les the a mile away from the hotel where we would be getting on the bus, and knowing that I was early I stopped to take a nap. I found a plush mound where I closed my eyes and fell asleep. When a woke up, a light rain that three weeks earlier would have been completely bothersome to me, was beating down on my face. Instead this rain brought me peace and joy. It was a beautiful moment where for the first time I loved and appreciated rain for what it was, and not as an inconvenience. Since then I can not say that I love the rain the same way I did that day, but I certainly look at it differently then I did before.

Food and Life

Dr. KIP REDICK
RSTD 337
LE, KIM-CHI
Date: February 12, 2007


Food and Life


On February 12, 2007 I watched the film “The food and life” in my classroom. It was a wonderful film. It reminded me about my mother.
My mother is an economic teacher, she repeated to us many times: “Food is very important to life. We need to have a delicious and healthy food daily because it will make our life healthy. Food makes energy, a capacity to do work; if we don’t have delicious and healthy food we don’t have enough energy to work well and we will not have a good life. For that reason I expected all of you to join in my class to learn how to cook a delicious and healthy food.” She also said: “All the good occasions in our life, we always need food.”
On the film, from the beginning to the end, they talk about the food for every day life: Food in festival – food in ceremonies – Food in wedding – Food in market – Food in restaurant etc…Good food makes people happy in all occasions.
When the film was finished I regretted I did not join in my mother‘s class, but maybe I was hesitant do to the gene that. I inherited from my mother. I cook fine, and my family was surprised that I won “Cook of the year” on 1981 at the cooking contest in Newport News. I was very happy, but if my parent were there at that time I would have been ecstatic.







































M. Blum: Makes me hungry! /Aug.23, 1995

My favorite thing I like to do

Dr. KIP REDICK
RSTD 337
LE, KIM-CHI
Date: February 12, 2007


My favorite thing I like to do.



My favorite thing to do is cooking. The reason I like to cook because we have to eat daily; everyone needs healthy food, delicious food, and fancy food also.
The first step of cooking is we need to know what course we will cook, and then we have to prepare enough ingredients for that course.
The second step is to prepare – to wash, to cut, and to season.
The third step is to cook. We need to know how long and at what temperature to cook.
For example: This is how I cook a very simple bean thread soup:
The first step is to have one hand full of bean thread, a half of a chicken, two green onions, salt, black pepper, and clear water.
The second step is to dip the bean thread in the clear water, to clean and cut about five inches, to wash and cut green onion about two inches, to clean the chicken, cut small piece and season.
The third step, we need a clean pan and pour one liter of water to cook at 400 degrees until water has bubbled up then put a seasoned chicken in the pan. Cook for 30 minutes then put the bean thread into the chicken pan. Then put salt, depending the person’s taste and then wait about five minutes.
Finally, we take it out to the bowl and then we put green onion in and black peeper on the top of the bowl. Now the bean thread soup is ready to eat.

My mother - LE, KIM-CHI

Dr. KIP REDICK
Religion RSTD 337
LE, KIM-CHI
January 27, 2007



My mother and her activities



My mother is a Vietnamese lady. She had a good education in her city. She was very delicate and active. Most people in the city knew very much about her.
She had grown up in Sadec, a small city in the Southwestern part of the former Republic of Viet-Nam. My mother has repeatedly said to us: “Sadec is only a small city, so don’t have any opportunity to performing what I want to do.” My grand parents sent her to Saigon, former Capital of South Viet-Nam, in order to pursue her study at a famous College there. After accomplishing the college degree education in Saigon, she then returned to her home city to organize and open a private elementary school and a home economics school of which she has run by her self. She was very successful with her schools. The registered and attended in those schools is progressively up and up while in the public school it lessened and lessened. After few years, the mayor of her city invited her to join (her talented) the city to run school together. She refused. Finally, the mayor forced her to close her elementary school. Then she could only run the home economics school. I remembered on one day, she taught how to prepare the ‘LE HA” boneless chicken to a class of about ten students. Each of them had prepared stuffing ready and put it in each separate bowl, then placed a fresh hen with intact skin in front of each student. My mother also had one. She held up the chicken and showed it in front of the class, then step by step she explained to students how to work to debone the hen. Students listened took notes. Then she started from the body and cut off each leg at thigh joint. With short sharp pointed knife, she makes an incision the length of spine, cutting through both skin and flesh. She holds the tip of knife as close to the skeleton as possible, she pushed back skin and flesh as bones are loosened. From the shoulder blade, she cut from side to side until she reaches the center front breast bone. Now the bones can be removed easily. Then she took all the bones out. Now, she holds the deboned chicken and said start. Her students started then she went around looking what they were doing. Some of them did very good job, but some did very funny that tear off one leg, one wing, in front, in the back etc…This was a very interesting class, I like it the most. Then were stubbed in their chickens and baked. After they were done, the chickens which were not torn look very pretty. The ones which were torn look very funny.
In the home economic class my mother used to wear pants and blouse with short sleeves, limited jewelry, little make up, she look very strong. When she taught in the elementary class, she wore a Vietnamese long dress, plenty jewelry on. She is very thin about 111 lbs., 5.5 feet high. She has dark brown and shining eyes. Her forehead is large. Her nose is delicately flared. Her lips are rosebud. Her beautiful smile with perfect white teeth lit up a room like the rising sun in an early summer morning. Her hands are long with tapered fingers. She looks very strong on her yellow skin. Her hair was black and long, she made her hair like a flower which made people admired her.
My mother was very intelligent and courageous. She took care of her children very careful. My father died when she was very young, but she didn’t marry again and stayed single until the last day of her life. She died in 1972. I will miss her forever.

The problem with written history and reality, Kelly Moody

After all of these presentations on The Ecology of Eden, I have been reflecting on the nature of our view on our world. I know that things are going to shambles, and we're caught in a place trying to figure out how to fix the problem, but is it as bad as we make it seem? I just feel like our perspective, our relative place in time allows us to see this as the end of times, the dark ages of ecology, that its all exponentially leading up to some prime point of destruction or ultimate end. Are we seeing the truth of the situation or are we merely shaped by the things around us that give us facts, numbers, images of the past and present? Because we can see the way we do unique to the modern condition, does this mean we are seeing the truth in the situation? The biggest difference in the way modern society sees their world versus before, is the act of written history, which wasn't something practiced until only recently in the way we understand it today. It seems that everything is exponentially leading up to something big that we are getting closer to because we have this skewed view shaped by written history, and of course you can write down more about what has recently happened because you have that capacity, and the capacity keeps growing. What enables you to communicate to the future generation what you want them to know keeps it in this cyclic progression, and with that progression is the image of some kind of faster and faster growth. I noticed this the most in my Human Adaptation class, how things from the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene times were ordered in MILLIONS of years instead of hundreds or tens of years like they are now. This happens because of the medium we use to understand time, and history, we write it down. In that time, there wasn't such a technology so we are applying ours now to that time. It's hard to have a clear picture of a time that wasn't ordered the way it is now. We have archaeological evidence to order what we can, and we try to write it all out but it is all great generalizations and great assumptions and moldings into the way we want to see things. I have a feeling that the way we see history is GREATLY skewed so i try to see through a lot of things we learn in that class as just mere assumptions but not truths. Paul Shepard talks about this in The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game also in his section on "On the Significance of Being Shaped by the Past."

"History as we know it has declared that what was not written was of little importance. It has compared primitives unfavorably with ourselves or patronized them. It has discovered heroes only in terms of the state. And it has subordinated its essential functions, invading life and being by ideology and ecological apartheid." (Shepard xxviii)

Though I am concerned about our environment, and I see that there is a significant problem we face, I also think that our view of our times against the past is a product of the specific mechanisms that currently mediate our existence. It is only natural really for there to be this bias. In 100 years it will be the same way. This sense of fatalism is not as immediate a concern as we always like to think. There will always be issues, even if we solve these, more will be created, and they will seem worse because of the mechanisms of that time enabling it so. The mechanisms of the time bit the best with the understanding of the problems of the time. Maybe we should all look at the world in the light of deep evolution, holistically, and maybe independent of our relative time for a moment to see how the past and future are all really the same. We're just one point in time, on an infinite scale, trying to make sense of our place on this scale.

"A different experience of self--of history--truly explores the bonds among men and between them and other life and non-life, even to the rocks and seas, recognizing that the genesis of these connections belongs in time and that they function only in continuity. The perspective of time is the only clue to our identity and, in its transforming realization, the hope of our ecological maturity." ( Shepard xxviii)

Zach Fauver Wonder of Creation

“We get so preoccupied with ourselves, the words we speak the plans and projects we conceive that we become immune to the glory of creation. We barely notice the cloud passing over the moon or the dewdrops clinging to the rose leaves. The ice on the pond comes and goes. The wild blackberries ripen and wither. The blackbird nests outside our bedroom window. We don’t see her. We avoid the cold and the heat. We refrigerate ourselves in summer and entomb ourselves in plastic in winter. We rake up every leaf as fast as it falls. We are so accustomed to buying prepackaged meats and fish and fowl in supermarkets we never think and blink about the bounty of God’s creation. We grow complacent and lead practical lives. We miss the experience of awe, reverence, and wonder.” –Brennan Manning
Our American society in general has lost is sense of natural wonder. People are so wrapped up in their plans and in gaining power and success that they pay no mind to the incredible world around them. I spent the past weak in Newark New Jersey, and a day in NYC. We worked with inner city kids the majority of the time, helping them with school, and just giving them much needed attention. It saddened my heart to know that some of these kids will spend their entire lives in this dirty, smelly, trash filled city. They will go to school here get a job here and fill another space in the projects when they are old enough, possibly never even seeing what is outside the city borders. They could go their whole lives and never experience the wonder found in Gods creation.
Others chose this life apart from wonder. They are the money hungry entrepreneurs in NYC. They may once or twice a year go to a fancy resort on the water in the Caribbean, but sill won’t truly get a sense of wonder. I would imagine that at the end of a life lived only for a carrier and prosperity; one will lay on his death bed wishing he had experienced more wonder in his life.

Gary Snyder's "Cold Mountain Poems" By Kelly Moody

After reading "Turtle Island" I became pretty infatuated with Gary Snyder and bought "Back Country" as well as looked up many more of his poems online. I went to New Hampshire over Spring Break to stay with a bunch of beatniks, artists, crazy hippies where The Frog was present for awhile and I was tossing around Gary Snyder and Zen literature when someone lent me "Rip Rap and Cold Mountain Poems" by Gary Snyder, which i had not read yet. I read it in a day and in that context it was amazing. I was in the snowy mountains, in the middle of nowhere, and i felt that I could relate to the poetry so much better in that environment. I would have never understood it quite the same reading it in Newport News. Nonetheless I became pretty obsessed with Gary Snyder's "Cold Mountain Poems" which are really remakes of another poet's verses he had written while living alone on a mountain around 627-650 A D. His name was Han-Shan. He wrote these poems in caves and random places that people found over the years. It was interesting to see the kind of world he noticed, the kind of reality that may have been revealed to him while he was living there alone, and without the same kind of social constructs that shape our world outside of solitary nature. The person that gave me "Rip Rap and Cold Mountain Poems" actually told me that he had tried living out on a mountain alone for a few weeks and was unsuccessful because of the monotonous that world gained, and the overwhelming lonliness he began to feel from transitioning from our world based on social interactions with other human beings as a basis for our own individual meaning and value to a world of a completely different order. It scares me how much we depend on each other to stay sane. How Han-Shan lasted out there(at least 30 years, and he died there too) baffles me. I feel as though he had to have had some kind of realization about the world around him that made him feel not so alone and that he belonged there. Me and my friend from New Hampshire who gave me Rip Rap began to talk about the communication you can gain with nature when being sumerged in it. You feel so alone but you realize you're not. He talked about from his own experience, a bird, nearby in a tree that was feeling the same heartache he was, for other people, for interaction, that the bird called out to its mate every day and from that they gained a bond. Looking at it from retrospect, realizing that you are not alone, that all creatures (trees, birds, fish, squirrels, whatever) share the same basis condition of procreation, just in differnt forms, therefore we must care about some of the same things. Realizing that shared emotion allows you to understand that you are never alone. Maybe we all need that kind of submersion into the wild at least once in our lives to realize so many things that we wouldn't realize otherwise in the world we can be so blinded by with structure and money and other people. The Native Americans do it, many other cultures do it too. "Cold Mountain Poems" has greatly affected me and Gary Snyder rewrites them very well for a Western mind to relate to. I just bought a big Gary Snyder Reader and I have been neglecting work for the rest of Spring Break reading all of the different things he has written.

A few exerpts:
"In my 1st thirty years of life
I roamed hundreds and thousands of miles.
walked by rivers through deep green grass
entered cities of boiling red dust
tried drugs, but couldn't make immortal;
read books and wrote poems on history.
today i'm back at Cold Mountain:
I'll sleep by the creek and purify my ears.

--

I settled at Cold Mountain long ago,
Already it seems like years and years.
Freely drifting, I prowl the woods and streams
and linger watching things themselves.
Men don't get this far into the mountains,
White clouds gather and billow.
Thin grass does for a mattress,
The blue sky makes a good quilt.
Happy with a stone underhead
Let heaven and earth go about their changes.

Christopher Carter - The Ecology of Eden: Chapter 13 - Arcadia

3/11/07
I’ll start this off with one of the series of chapters I’d like to talk about in the book “The Ecology of Eden.” I found these sets of chapters to be incredibly fascinating, considering they are about a topic that I have a profound interest in; Arcadia. Specifically the myths and legends revolving around Greek society and history. Arcadia is “paradise”, but it is also the realization of a pastoral Eden on Earth.

However, it is not just paradise, it is filled with many bad thoughts and ideas, mainly the realization that there can never really be a paradise, which hurts especially when you have come so far. Melancholy in Pastoral is found in inevitable change, unrequited love, and death. However, the book states that “never before have so many people tried to live in Arcadia” p.145. Now, in Suburbia, we have our new found Arcadia, described in the book as “smooth shaven; chemical splashed lawns [that] replace grassland and brush”. I want to know how many people in American society actually think that Suburbia is close to Arcadia, or how many people are satisfied with Suburbia itself. I don’t think many would agree with the fact that Suburbia is “nice”. I think most people would imagine a lake house, or something of that sort.

Ecology of Eden - Nature simply "is"

3/11/07
The “Cloister and the Plow” was my favorite chapter in the Ecology of Eden. The chapter talks about Byzantium Monks that lived in cells around a central garden. Many people that witnessed these spectacles said that they “looked into a prefigured heaven”.
According to an account from the book, the St. Benedict monastery had “all necessaries” to be found within cloister walls. I think this is an amazing thought. To think that everything was found in these beautiful “Echoes of Eden” makes me want to actually make one of my own.
Many people thought that these were so perfect geometrically that they were heaven itself. Many people that I have talked to in my church relate to the fact that everything in nature is symmetrical and “planned”. Our body parts and many objects in nature are symmetrical and perfectly the same on both sides, many which say is a “miracle.” These phenomenon are natural, but many would say that the gardens transcended these things and brought us into an entirely new plane.

The Plow section of the chapter talks about a chain reaction that was brought about by the invention of the plow. Now that horses and work animals could plow fields, oats could be fed to horses and animals, which could in turn, pull the plow, which led to the stiff collar harness, which led to the iron shoe. These inventions led to the invention of many other inventions.

Aliens, Ghosts, and some self-involved babble -- Amy D. Ouypron

So I'm at home, back in "rural" Greene County, VA... I just stepped back inside from getting some fresh air and a nice gaze at the landscape and consequently, will now enjoy sharing some insightful babble.



When I was a little kid I was often left all alone for a good part of the night while my dad was off working at one restaurant or another. If you already don't know, I live in a somewhat rural area below the Blue Ridge Mountains where a number of fields connect that float up a not so large, but still significant, mountain. I remember when I was little I would entertain myself one way or another, and if I dared, I might go outside to attempt to play basketball and work on my nonexistent skills. Sometimes, no, often, I would miss and my wonderful glow in the dark ball would end up rolling down the hill behind the court--how architecturally ingenious! Well damn; that was it. Either I go back inside and watch my fathers collection of classic Elvis movies (indeed an Asian thing) or suck it up and enter the woods. Well big deal, it was only trees and dirt right? Well eventually I would gather the courage to carefully journey into the woods, my heart pounding and my eyes set on my trophy. However, as soon as I reached the ball I would quickly snatch it up and then sprint as fast as I could back up to the lit porch, or maybe even into the house first. Why? Well duh-- there were like witches and ghosts in the woods! I mean maybe a childhood of cheap independent horror flicks didn't aid to this reality, but for the most part, during the day the woods were a place of "pretend Narnia" and enchantments, but at night... at night when I sat downstairs with the two huge uncurtained windows no more than five feet away, who the heck knew what could be staring in at me! Anyways, an interesting childhood indeed!

Another oddity that was apart of my imaginative mind was the idea of aliens. I used to dream that something would come and invade our lands, that suddenly I needed to gather my favorite pets (god speed to the rest of them!) and escape from the "crazy alien lights" that were flowing over the land in search of human prey! So as in my dream, in reality I always thought that if ever such an event did occur, I would either run deep into the hay fields (I was not so tall then) and lay flat on the ground letting the plants engulf me and shield my body from the lights. Either that or I would hike deep into the woods and find a cave under a large rock and live there, my pets to keep me warm. Luckily, none of these events are yet to have happened.

So what does all of this have to do with our class? (I understand that egotistical ramblings don't really correlate with a significantly relative post.)

Well while I was outside standing in my driveway, staring off my moonlit view, I realized something or rather some things. First, I wasn't scared. No, I didn't feel as if a witch would pop out behind the barn and eat me, nor did I think that some wolf-like creature was going to... well I guess the same thing! Ha. Today, it's not like that. I can and currently am sitting in my lighted basement--still two large windows-- and I feel perfectly fine... EXCEPT, for people. Crazy people... human people, because this is the 21st century. Many crazy people have over history, and excessively in current times, exist throughout our fine nation and the world (probably more in our fine nation though). While I do believe many find, good people overpower the number of whack-jobs out there (who I'm sure have their reasons) how wonderful it is to be all alone on my country estate with no fear at all but the minute possibility of some crazed being from the woods doing some crazy things! Ok. Sorry--how negative.

To further my negative insights and to address my alien concerns, such is another realization I came upon just earlier. While I do believe some other beings must exist somewhere (I mean jeez, outer space is HUGE!), my concerns do not involve any other beings than the ones that currently reside on this fine planet, Earth.

It all started while I was looking out at the mountains... spaceships, lit orbs of light were simply floating across the mountain backdrop like we were the fucking Jetsons or something! Actually, to my dismay, over the years I've consistently noticed the surprise presence of new lights popping up here and there across the country side. No the moving ones were not the Jetsons. Even worse, they were cars. Consistently more and more people are beginning to invade my lovely world (yea, mine, right?) and each time I come home from college it's as if the aliens really are coming with their lights; coming closer; moving in; soon they will be here!

So that's my point. If any aliens truly exist in this world-- they are us. We are them. Fucking aliens... who invaded nature and while many did honor its fine presence, now I along with the rest of the world, topple over it as mere dominos falling over, trees crashing down, a large human foot in its place.

It is true, I think. Each generation has some eclectic group of beings who think "What a shitty world. What kind of people are we to care so little for our environment? et cetera." We're all guilty of it, but it just sort of sucks sometimes.

Final point being: Try as best as you can to love the world, but don't over think everything and try to enjoy your time here. At least it's a better place Now than it will be later.