Katie G 12/17 The Ecology of Eden

As I began to read my chapters in The Ecology of Eden I began to take notes on what I wanted to discuss throughout my class presentation, the main thing that really stood out to me was the part where Eisenberg quotes Henry David Thoreau, "Wouldn't it not be well to consult with Nature in the outset? For she is the most extensive and experienced planter of all (330 Eisenberg)." This is so right on - it's like learning to play a new instrument and not asking the world famous composer sitting next to you. This stirred up a lot of thought in my head concerning different aspects in my life where I try to solves things on my own when really I should be referring to the all knowing, all powerful God that I believe in! This can relate directly to humans on Earth and how we relate and treat the Earth. It is unfortunate that we try to please Earth by our own standards and our own ideas - we know nothing! why not go directly to the source and consult the Mother what is best - the Mother - the most experiences planter of us all.

Katie G 12/12 Manufacturing

The last section in Wagner's text I want to discuss concerns the manufacturing of plants. "Manufacturing is the use of one artifact to make others; it is a universal trait of man (135 Wagner)." Today we may not think of manufacturing as a hand done practice but it all started in the ancient times when everything was done by hand. "Woodworking tools like axes, adzes, and wedges are known from ancient sites and from very simple modern communities (135 Wagner)." "Manufacturing has perhaps always been associated with human dwelling places. The satisfaction of the so-called "primary needs" for food, clothing, and shelter is ultimately accomplished only at the place of consumption (135 Wagner)." "Most human households in the world today still grow or gather most of their own food, preserve it in various ways, store it and cook it as needed (135 Wagner).:

Katie G 12/12 island of Lau

Another text I looked at and read throughout the semester was a book titled "Studies in Human Ecology" by a collaboration of authors. I read a section titled "The Relations of Men, Animals, and Plants in an island community," by Laura Thompson. While flipping through this text, the title really caught my eye and caused me to begin reading. This title expressed the existence of the relationship between the human and the non-human. This is what I really go out of our class - the sacred relationship that exists between ourselves and the land. As I began to read I noticed a section that discussed fishing and the institution of the master fisherman functioning to increase the total catch by protecting the local fishing grounds from over-fishing. (467 Thompson). The authority that has power over this particular island of Lau had a decrease of status and power. Because of this loss of power the various islands had become more disturbed causing less successful fishing expeditions (467 Thompson). I found this section interesting because the practice of power was a benefit in this sense. Throughout most of the readings we have done and other research I feel like that hand of man has only conflicted with Mother Nature and continued to disrupt her. Here, on the island of Lau, the loss of power, or the hand of man has only hurt the waters more... because the waters had been manipulated for so many years by man it is almost as if the waters cannot function on their own - without the help of man.

Katie G 12/12 Work

What is work? Well one can look at the practice of work from two perspectives. the human perspective and the animal, non human perspective. In Wagner's text, chapter six titled "the means of production" he discusses the meaning of work and compares it to that of non human animal work. "Effort expended in the indirect satisfaction of wants is work. It is under social regulation and directly contributes to the maintenance of the artificial environment (89 Wagner)." this relates back to the chapters in Ecology of Eden that I read when Eisenberg discussed the experience Adam had with cultivating the land, it wasn't a chore for him, it was something he wanted to do, something he had to do to receive food and nourishment, something he had to do to provide from himself and eve. Work has developed into something that we as humans find as a chore, because most of us don't garden our own food we find that task tedious and  not enjoyable.

Katie G. 12/12 mans life with nature

Man's Life With Nature is a section within chapter two that discusses the effect nature has on humans. The human body is expressly fitted out with sensory structures that register specific responses to the surroundings. Nature has a direct effect through man's seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and his senses of heat and gravitation (12 Wagner)." We are so effected by our external world, every second of every day. Our senses turn our impressions into images, ideas, and memories. (12 Wagner) For example, right now I am sitting at the Einsteins bar top. I can smell the familiar odor of a aged book that has been on the shelf of the library for years, maybe not even opened for years. The light is just enough to keep me awake and focused on my work but not too strong to make me want to close my eyes or cause me to squint. There is a quiet hum of the freezer in the background a long with the sound of milk being steamed. Students are talking discussing class work and final reviews. I am aware of my body being supported by the tall bar stool and the feeling my feet have finally being rested after a long day on my feet. I can feel the soft, smooth touch of my fingers typing the individual letters on my laptop's computer and the warmth my Einsteins long sleeve collard shit wraps me in.

Katie G. 12/12 The Human Use of The Earth

The Human Use of The Earth written by Philip Wagner is a book that I picked up in the Trible Library early November when I started thinking about what i wanted to write about in my essay. I decided early on that I wanted to talk about the movie Avatar that came out a couple years ago in all the major movie theaters! It was an absolute hit, and incredibly done. I decided to do outside research on how humans use the Earth, the Ecology of Eden obviously has been a huge benefit in my research for this paper and I have enjoyed very much learning and listening to my classmates presentations on their chosen chapters of the Ecology of Eden.
Concerning Wagner's text, The Human Use of the Earth,  is a complex examination of the interaction between man and the physical environment.
Through out the discussion of Ecology of Eden and asking myself over and over again, "Is it possible to return to Eden?" After reading through Wagner's text I believe I can answer with a confident, no. In chapter five of his text, titled Artificial Environments, Wagner says "The essentially social character of work, together with man's comparatively large body size and peculiar feeding habits, make it virtually impossible for any human group, of whatever size, to subsist permanently and exclusively on the natural products of any single place (119, Wagner)."  This quote taken directly from Wagner's text, although complex, gets to the point of the question that we has a class have been asking ourselves all semester; Can we as human beings on Earth today, in her current state, ever return to Eden, or in my words, Ultimate Paradise? Wagner practically answers this question. No! Humans have become far to socially evolved in our way of work, feeding habits and other ways to return to a single place of Ultimate Paradise.

Corey Maiden Chapter 28 Ecology of Eden

Chapter 28 Ecology fo Eden

This chapter is about reclaiming “Arcadia”. Eisenberg here suggests 2 different ways of doing so, one being coupling, and the other being “the careful swain”. I would have to say coupling is probably the most proven method. The pre Columbian Americans and South Americans seemed to use this method, but it could be argued that this only works on a smaller scale than what would be possible here in the United States now. While the South Americans especially had massively populated cities surrounded by wilderness, but even these numbers, which I heard somewhere estimated up to 100,000 aren’t even close to the number of Americans that would have to be crammed together. Not only that but we are dependent on this land to produce our food. It isn’t as thought people are spread out for no reason at all. People use their land to produce the things we need.

Abby Hogge: Outside Source #5

             Job: 38 1-12

“The Lord answered Job…”where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding who determined its measurements – surely you know!  Or who stretched the line upon it? …Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clods its garment and think darkness its swaddling band and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors…Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place.”  

            When I read this passage from Job I cannot help but marvel and be in awe of creation and in the complex and beautiful design that the Lord made. The Lord asks Job if he laid the foundations of the earth, of course Job did not, but this only begins to show the power and the glory of the Lord. Job need not think that the Lord has forgotten him because the Lord was faithful in the smallest and largest details of the earth. We talked about the mysteries of creation in class and this only furthers the idea that there are mysteries of creation that have been explained to us in scripture and others that we cannot understand or fathom.

            This passage is such a clear indicator of the sovereign hand that the Lord has on all the earth. We don’t often stop and think about how the ocean and its waves have come just up to land and no further for the last 100s of years. We don’t think about every new morning and how the Lord has control over each of these mornings as he declares in Job

            These are the little bits and pieces of creation that we take for granted and that we don’t typically acknowledge on a day to day basis. I have enjoyed going over these details and thinking more in depth about nature and ecology through this course

Abby Hogge: My Choosing#4

       Wendell Berry “The Kingdom of God”

             Below is an excerpt of what one scholar suggests through Wendell Berry’s work, “The Kingdom of God”, a mystery that man cannot seem to understand despite all the earthly developments and progress made.  This mystery is between creation and mankinds inability to understand all that is within nature.  Berry notes that humans are limited in their understanding of nature and of creation.  We have to accept ourselves as lower than our Creator and not expect our intellect to reveal every mystery on this earth.

            "To call the unknown by its right name, `mystery,' is to suggest that we had better respect the possibility of a larger, unseen pattern that can be damaged or destroyed and, with it, smaller patterns," Berry writes. When humans rename mystery as "random," they either marginalize the importance of the unknown or they hold out hope for some future understanding. The failure to admit human ignorance, Berry warns, ultimately leads to the exploitation and destruction of creation” (Berry). 

            We want answers and quit answers to just about every mystery or problem that we face. We have so much technology and so much knowledge and intellect that we often find frustration in the things we can’t explain. Nature can be seen as one of these things. Something so beautiful and wonderful filled with many mysteries.  We will create theories, gather evidence and whatever else to try and say we have answers to these mysteries but reality is we do not.  We can only answer so much about nature and maybe this is meant so that we will enjoy what we do not know and soak up the beauty of these mysteries. As Eisenberg writes in Ecology of Eden, we have to be willing to touch nature and not just look. Touching nature gives us an intimacy for this mystery that we cannot understand any other way. 

Abby Hogge: Outside Reading#4

     Counterfeit God’s – Tim Keller ( pgs. 1-10) 


          I have been reading Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller and have found some interesting parallels between his writing and Eisenberg’s Ecology of Eden.  Timothy Keller writes about the gods we place in front of the one true God and creator of the earth. We often settle for the little “gods” of money, sex, power, fame, etc. I think this compares somewhat to Eisenbergs idea of the tower and how much desire we have to be part in this tower that offers all of these materials and little gods. Keller defines our culture to be one filled with idols whereas Eisenberg might call these idols glut or materialism. Ultimately Keller writes that these Gods will of course by no surprise only leave us wanting more and only satisfy us for a few moments. Many of us according to Keller spend our lives trying to make our heart’s fondest dreams come true and this ultimate pursuit of happiness. When the pursuit of happiness becomes focused only on earthly possessions this is where we no longer find our satisfaction but our constant run into failure.

            We can learn a lot about glut and mans harm on nature when we look at all that is happening in our current food industry. So much effort is being made to produce bigger, better and larger amounts and types of food. While this idea seems great and that it would be harmless, it becomes harmful when unknown chemicals and pesticides are being used on the crops and foods we eat on a daily basis. Maybe small amounts of eating these foods will not cause harm, but what are the effects overtime? That is something scientists and researchers are still working on.  Unfortunately for the public, those who make the profit that comes from producing mass amounts of food are not likely to release information or admit to problems that could potentially arise.