notes from readings #2 Dart

LEOPOLD 2

WINTER

JORDAN

Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature

William R Jordan III

University of California Press

Berkley/ Los Angeles/ London

Ch 8 Conservation and Community: restoration, the enviro and environmentalism

something about if we saw shame as a pathway to beauty, we would better understand the concept of community, diversity and change without trivializing people. and we would actually have those values rather than trying to beautify things without a reality.

beauty being the "master value-- the "value of values" as Fred Turner puts it. who is this guy?

(195)

Knowing how to conserve classic landscapes and wilderness areas through restoration may the answer because it "provides a way around this impasse... a context for confronting and dealing productively with the shame of our encounter with nature as other-- or given-- at the level of landscape, the ecological community, or the ecosystem" ** (195)

The paradigm consensus 196

1 nature is creation. it gives birth to everything

2 this creation "is not orderly but chaotic and violent,

3 "though chaotic, creation tends generally toward an increase self-awareness"

4 --- "shame being the emotion that arises from a reflexive awareness of limits" birth and creation create differences and limits he says,

5 the human experience of shame does not suggest or represent a "discontinuity with nature"; "it is rather a natural response"

right, and according to Swimme, nature has a kind of trial and error approach to evolution, and as they believe self-realization. awareness.

6. we deal properly with this "reflexive awareness of shame" by imagination and through the technologies of symbol, myth, and ritual

7. limit of the enviro movement has been their skepticism of the above technologies

8 how to deal with SHAME effectively and holistically? we are ashamed because we have a limited grasp of reality and the modernists as well as the dominant human force in the last 500 years has been pushing a dogma of "I know everything! " and I will kill you, because I "KNOW" it is right. But energetically and psychically we are understanding that that worldview and perspective in itself is limiting and constricting. All things want to be free.

psychologically coherence. healing through visions, imaginings and actions. the Love that wants out is everywhere. It is.

He says (197) that this kind of soft revolution, if you will, "needs synthesis and integration" rather than "the rejection of old ideas" *** whoooa

This will emerge as the dominant paradigm. YEs allah yes (197)

modeling "artificial systems on classical systems" that is the only way to integrate past reality into the present and future. As this happens, large areas will be returned to natural ecosystems *** "which will be given an new economic as well as a new esthetic, spiritual, and ecological value by their working relationship with the human economy" 197

believes rituals are needed. ceremonies with the land and people. this is communion.

Quote: 198: "This will begin simply-- not with the creation of the high rituals of theatre and church, but with he self-conscious development of low-key rites, the protocols, etiquette, ritualized division of labor, and small celebrations that emerge from the practice of restoration, as from any work reflexively undertaken, and that reflect the rhythms and patterns of the work and the interests, prerogatives, values, and insights of those will carry it out."

"performative traditions such as world renewal and initiation."

leads through shame to community, meaning and beauty.

this give and take mentality. recognizing both sides of the coin, the positive and negative. the growth and burn..

Interesting take on the future of weddings: in their union, they receive special privileges that come with a responsibility to take care of some landscape. in return they get special access and use.

Death: bury their dead in "restoration parks" [ happening in South Carolina, called Memorial Ecosystems]

His dreams and visions: people give up their private ("destructive and elitist") luxuries: mountain cabin, traveling to remote wilderness preserves, and take hand in restoring their immediate environment

occasional visits to the pristine areas

(200)!!! Leave from hate, theifts and jealousy

"Such areas will never again be understood as an ontological frontier radically other or separate from humans" second paragraph down

profoundly influencing the politics with the new generation. the children who are brought up with a deep sense of love for nature and the fluxes of life.

upgrading landscapes. learning, achieving intimacy and creating community

offer access to the values that give life meaning and purpose

Intichimuma (203) "a way of linking the interests of the natural landscape with the interests and ambitions of human being who are, as the Aborigines realize and express in their myths and rituals, responsible for its beauty and well being."

confronting shame, learning, celebrating. his solution

Fred Turner poem Genesis science fiction, colonializing Mars in the 21st century

MILLS

Mills, Stephanie. In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land. Beacon Press, Boston (April 1997)

p. 204 "the fact that a person can get used to almost anything is a problem of our species"

205 there was abundant and genuine, wholesome nourishment. ME too "there was (IS) an uncommon amount of freedom for me to set my own rhythm of work and rest, with no one I had to answer to." !!!

205 the thing about a big injury -- physical or psychic or ecological -- is that a organisms are not the same after - Mills quote. Is that so? How does she know so certainly? her experience. What are her studies around ecology?

"The question is whether or not one admits the fact of things being different now , and how one wear the difference." 205

She says the land will never be the same (as complex) as it was before. IT has scars and trauma is the implication. She says the role we humans have played is TRAGIC

poetic symbol "where ecological selves can make themselves at home and reproduce psychologically, if seldom physically." 207

"The transformative power of the great romance-- be it with an admirable mate or a noble cause-- remains marvelous." 207 Romantic at heart, trusting that love does transform the world. (given the least advantage)

208 "if only we can dare to belong to one another, and to our land."

RECAPITULATE THE HISTORY in order to heal the land and self in the "light of truth"; "we can only be abettors" not inventors pushing our agenda.

209 go out from the garden and into the wild