Getting to Know Your Neighbors

"Hello black gum tree. It is nice to meet you. I hear you are one of the first trees to change color in the fall. I look forward to seeing that!" I enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting new ones today on our plant walk around Westhampton Lake. "Hello willow oak, sycamore, tulip poplar, river bird, beech, sweetgum and so many more! And you, sassafras, would you have chosen such a fun name on your own? I shall visit you soon for a tea date." Talking about the names of trees on campus today reminded me of a passage from Twelve by Twelve, where author William Powers writes, "Sociologists point out that American kids today can identify a thousand corporate logos but less than ten native plants and animals that live around their homes." He goes on to wonder, "are we, like Gold Kist [a giant poultry production company] chickens evolving in artificially manufactured, rather than natural, ways?" (44). At first glance, the idea that kids can identify so many logos and so few natural things is a bit horrifying. But the more I think about it, it makes sense. We didn't lose the ability to recognize patterns and use our powers of observation, we just use them differently than a hunter-gatherer culture. We pay attention to what is important in our lives. Instead of learning the land and knowing the plants and the animals and transmitting the tribal oral history, we know how to use computers, relate to popular culture, do well in school, keep up with the national and global news, get around the city, buy food and navigate the complexities of modern life. I do not think these are lesser achievements. In fact, an indigenous person might be in awe at the amount of stress the average person endures just to live a modern life. They might also think it is ridiculous.

I don't think being a modern, savvy person is a bad thing, but I worry that when we get so caught up in this manufactured lifestyle we overlook the fact that our human world is built entirely upon the natural world. We forget that the principles that govern the natural world also govern us and our creations and you get the big global mess we are in right now.

Maybe what we are doing in our sit spots is reacquainting ourselves with the principles of the natural world, slowly reeducating ourselves to something we once collectively knew before human hubris took over. Sitting in this one spot, we get to see the constant dance of life and death and the great interconnectedness of all things. Slowly we start to realize that we are just a part of that. As I look around, I cannot help but be filled with gratitude for being a part of this world. I am smiling at the plants around me now. Can they feel me relax and let my heart open?

-Geoff Cox

ASSIGNMENT FOR THIS WEEK: In addition to your journal, discover the name of one tree and one bird on campus that you do not already know using the resources on blackboard (Supplements>Relevant Links>Online Field Guides). Draw and label a picture of both the bird and a leaf from your tree. Use as much detail as possible and include any distinguishing marks or characteristics that aided your identification. Include everything someone else would need to know to identify the species without seeing it directly.

If you are trying to discover the identity of a bird but are not able to be sure what it is for whatever reason (e.g. seeing it briefly in bad lighting), write down everything you can think of that you observed about the mystery bird.

Sense of Place in the Western Desert by Tara Laidlaw

Hello friends! Here is an entry from my friend Tara, who you met in class and on the plant walk. Sections in quotations are from the journal she kept while in Australia with the Martu, an Aboriginal family group in the Western Desert---

Several years ago, I had the extraordinary honor of spending a week with an Australian Aboriginal family group on their land title in the Great Sandy Desert of western Australia, learning as a participant observer in one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies on the planet. This week was the culmination of a seminar about indigenous Australia taught by two Stanford professors who had been instrumental in fighting in court for the Martu – an Aboriginal cultural group – to get their land legally restored to them. The relationship between the professors and the Martu made it possible for 14 students not only to visit the land title but also to stay there for a week and learn from the Martu in traditional ways.

Picture Above: Tara (bottom, with hat) helping pluck a desert turkey

What struck me the most was the incredibly deep connection the Martu have to the land on which they live. Every aspect of life is governed by this land: food and drink; spiritual beliefs; sleeping arrangements; songs; stories; dances; play; interpersonal relationships; coming-of-age ceremonies; death rites. This vast interconnectedness within the culture and to the land gave rise to a staggering sense of time-depth as I learned more and more about these peoples’ lives.

"These people have lived on this land in this way for tens of thousands of years. Doug [one of the professors] was saying too that that vast history is reflected in Dreamtime [spiritual] stories: for example, there are stories that have been handed down through the generations about giant carnivorous kangaroos, and those kangaroos did used to live in Australia – 30,000 years ago."

This is an example of a piece of information about the landscape as it was 30,000 years ago, now reflected in a spiritual creation story – pretty amazing! Nancy, the elder who held the land on which we were staying, called this kind of information “old memory.” As the holder, her responsibility is to

Picture to Left: Lizard (parnajalpa/sand goanna) in the foreground; desert turkey (kipara) in the background (feathers all over the ground and the carcass spread over a spinifex plant just to the right of the shovel)

keep track of this sort of knowledge that catalogues the stories about the land, its features, its inhabitants, and the changes it undergoes through time. This information was presented both to the next generation of Martu children and to the Stanford students alike through Dreamtime stories, dances, and songs, just as it had been taught to the current group of elders. Even though today’s Martu children straddle their parents’ world and the encroaching white world, they still grow up with the same cultural underpinnings and the same remarkable connection to the land as their parents and grandparents have.

"The kids grow up in such a different way [than most children I know] – a month in Parnngurr [the outstation] for every week out at Kurta-Kurta [the field camp], pulling water from a soak via a windmill and sleeping under the most spectacular sky I’ve ever seen, setting fires in extremely flammable material and eating lizard and camel and kangaroo that they’d caught earlier that day."

The children also learn about the hunting and gathering traditions that play a major role in the Martu lifestyle. Children learn by observing their elders and at a young age are capable of pulling witchetty grubs from trees; tracking lizard, kangaroo, and desert turkey; and identifying and collecting roots and tubers. Even at a young age, a child is expected to bring in the majority of his or her own calories. While a small child isn’t going to be going out hunting with a gun, to successfully bring in that much food requires enormous attention to detail. This attention to detail is a learned skill: children not only follow along during hunting and gathering expeditions led by adults but also play traditional games that encourage close observation. They certainly have a leg up because this skill set is so highly prized (and necessary!) in their culture, but the skill is developed and sharpened throughout childhood and on into adulthood.

"After digging for ganjimarra [tubers] in a dry riverbed (you find the plant and then excavate the root, straight down, until the whole thing is exposed and you can pull it out without breaking it) we got distracted at a white tree that was full of lungki [witchetty grubs] – Brianna and Alicia [Martu girls aged about 10 years] were up the tree armed with axes before I knew what was going on, and after only maybe 20 minute there was a ziplock bag full of squirmy gooey grubs."

Picture to Left: Children pulling witchetty grubs (lungki) out of a hole in a tree using a twig. The kids made it look easy, but the grandmas laughed while the Stanford students tried (and failed) to hook the grubs with the end of the stick and pull them out.

Like most Aboriginal groups, the Martu relate spatially to the world in an absolute fashion rather than in a relative fashion. This means that there are literally no words in their language for right or left, or front or back, for example. Instead they use directions – north, south, east, west – acknowledging their position within the landscape as a whole and using unmoving reference points rather than relying on a single individual’s own perception of his or her place in the landscape. So when asked where someone wants to lay the fire, for example, the response isn’t “over to the left of the trucks” but rather “to the south of the trucks” – and that is equally clear to everyone, regardless of where they’re standing in relation to the trucks.

This way of relating to the world isn’t limited to the adults. From a very young age, children hone their own skills as expert navigators. While this is easier for these children because it’s an integral part of their culture, it’s not in-born. It’s a learned skill, just like tracking and collecting food. I once saw a mother ask her son to point to where his grandma lived. We were out in the middle of the desert and I couldn’t have pointed to where we’d parked our truck a few hours back, let alone where our base camp was, but the child pointed without hesitation in a particular direction. His mother then adjusted his pointing by a few degrees – that precise! – and said, “That’s where your grandma lives.”

It can be tempting to paint indigenous Australians as nature-lovers, living in perfect harmony with each other and never disrupting the world around them. This can be pretty far from the truth, especially when their culture comes into contact (and conflict) with white culture. But even when on their own land title where they’re most comfortable, the Martu certainly have a major impact on the landscape: they use extensive fire management to promote a diversity of food sources, make it easier to track game, and keep plant reproduction at a steady and predictable rate. If they were to leave the landscape alone and just take what they could find without the creating a burn mosaic, they would have a vastly harder time finding enough to eat and would have to move base camp locations much more frequently. So while the Martu do move lightly on the earth (particularly in comparison to what I’m used to as an American), they also manipulate the landscape to suit their own needs, and have been doing so for long enough that the landscape now depends upon their presence.

With that said, though, spending that week with the Martu was an remarkable lesson in living simply and turning to the land as an unendingly generous source of life, if only you know how and where to look. So while it was spectacular fun to hunt and swim and hear stories and eat weird things in the desert, the real take-home message was about deep observation, true gratitude, and the value of paying very close attention to the world around you.

-Tara Laidlaw

Also, in case anyone is interested, the two professors who led the trip have websites with information about their research:

Doug Bird: http://www.stanford.edu/~dwbird/DWBIRD/main.html

Rebecca Bliege Bird: http://www.stanford.edu/~rbird/RBIRD/main.html

Rebecca has brief and (relatively) understandable summaries of the different research projects she and Doug are working on with the Martu; both have links to their publications, many of which are about the Martu and some of which are available as pdfs. These tend to be pretty dense but if anyone is really into it they might be worth a look.

Further reading & viewing:

The Mardu Aborigines: Living the Dream in Australia’s Desert, Robert Tonkinson, 1986.

Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: Sentiment, Place, and Politics Among Western Desert Aborigines, Fred R. Myers, 1978.

Rabbit Proof Fence, 2002.

10 Canoes, 2006.

Settling in at Your Sit Spot

7:30am

Who in the world is making that chattery noise outside my window? It seems to be the same time every morning. I carefully peak out the window, attempting not to disturb whatever is making the noise. The first thing I notice is a bird frantically hopping around the fig tree outside my window chattering away, twitching and looking this way and that. But what bird would use so much energy and draw so much attention to itself? It looks like a cardinal but the coloring is all wrong...oh wait, it is a juvenile, of course! This late in the summer and still sounding like a begging fledgling? The subtle movement of a branch farthur up reveals the father, bright red, and yet still less conspicuous than the youngster. He is calm and aware, looking after his child. He alternates between calculating scans for danger and cleaning his beak on the bark. He snatches up a small caterpillar in an instant.

But where is his mate? Dead? Cardinal pairs have an intense bond and will spend the year together hardly ever out of sight or chirping distance, usually until one of them dies. Maybe this silly adolescent is all the male cardinal on my fig tree has left. After a long summer of feeding and caring for 2-4 broods and losing his mate, this one juvenile might be all he has left. All the others have either left their nesting territory or more likely did not survive the summer. In North America, 70-90%(depending on who you ask) of perching birds don't make it to adulthood. Between the nest robbers like crows, jays, squirrels, raccoons and snakes and bird eaters like foxes, some hawks, and owls, this adult male must have developed intense awareness and survival skills. It is hard to be a bird.

Suddenly he looks up and flys off. The juvenile does not notice for quite some time and then flies after its father in a panicked flight. With that level of awareness, it may never live to have a red beak. I look outside. The mourning dove is still feeding in the weed garden. The carolina wren is still singing from the hedge and the starling is giving its syncopated verbalization from the top of the post. What made the cardinal fly off? Did he just spook prematurely, without any real danger? No, he probably would not have lived through a summer of raising young if he used up his energy overreacting and misjudging. He must have noticed me peering at him through the window. Despite his ninja-like awareness, he will probably not live more than a few years even though cardinals can live up to 15 years in the wild if they are not killed.

All this drama, and what is funny is that if you walked by in the heat of the day, or weren't really paying attention, you would probably wonder if any birds even lived here...

-Geoff Cox

Settling in at your Sit Spot

By this coming Tuesday (7th), you should be have found the sit spot that you are going to commit to for the semester. Whether discovering a new sit spot or returning to the one you found last week, use this week to start to feel a little more at home. Remember that your sit spot practice starts the moment you leave the door to go to your spot.

Sense Meditation: Take a deep breath and exhale, releasing the tension in your body and your mind. Soften your visual focus to settle into the "wide-angle" vision we explored at Corbin Cabin. Allow your eyes to relax, not focusing on any one thing and becoming more aware of movement in your periphery. Notice how your ability to detect motion is greatly enhanced. Expand your hearing 360 degrees around you, listening for the quietest sound on campus. Taste and smell the air. Feel your body, your feet on the ground, your breath. Relax and smile. With this relaxed yet hightened awareness, wander to your spot. Can you get in the mindset of heading in a direction but being in the moment every step along the way?

This is not always easy. When thoughts arise, smile at them and just let them come and go. Don't push them away or hold on to them. Allow your thoughts to just be part of the landscape of observation. Notice the thoughts arising and passing like clouds in the sky or the sudden flight of a startled bird. If you have trouble doing this, notice that too. If this is a struggle and thoughts of self-judgement start to arise, just notice those too, smile at them and let them go. The key is to be gentle with yourself.

Map: In addition to spending 20-30 minutes sitting silently at your spot, spend some time mapping the area around your spot in a 15-step radius. This time you can map while you are there. Bring a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and draw the area around you in as much detail as you can. Notice how many kinds of plants, trees or critters you see. Put them on the map even if you don't know their name. Feel free to give them a name. Really look at the plants and trees around you. Challenge yourself to study some of them close enough that you could draw a leaf or branch from memory. Maybe try to draw one or two from memory in your journal. Feel the dirt in your fingers. Label North on your map, even if you aren't exactly sure.

Pony Pasture Plant Walk

On Sunday morning a small group of fearless Lodgers joined together for a walk along the river to learn some of their plant neighbors. Lee led us around the familiar paths of Pony Pasture, stopping every once in a while to introduce us to one of the locals. No longer do we have to walk by the spicebush, the hackberry, the redbud, the wild grape, the sycamore or box elder without noticing them or knowing how to acknowledge them.

Now we can say, "hi river birch!" not as a way to define or control, but as a first greeting, the beginning of a relationship. Now that we have met them, I start to wonder, "why didn't I say hello sooner? What was so important that I never stopped to learn the names of my neighbors or see how they were doing or marvel at their seasonal displays of aliveness?" I realized that many of these trees were here long before I was and will be here long after. Even stinging nettle has a sweet side. Although painful to touch, a boiling bath will render the hairs painless and allow for a nutritious tea (high in iron!) or bite to eat.

And I can't forget the nutritious and delicious fruit from the paw-paw tree. This time of year, the fruit is becoming ripe. It is best when squishy to the touch and has a taste somewhere between a mango and a banana. Here is a picture of Paul savoring its sweetness.

In addition to meeting some of the local plants, we also noticed the tracks of some of the local animals. After tracking the elusive Sarah across the sand, we started looking around to see what other animal tracks we might find. Nikki spotted the prints of a raccoon in the mud while we crossed a pipeline bridge.

Towards the end of the walk, Paul noticed some more raccoon tracks, and he tracked it to the water's edge where it bent down to drink. He also helped solve the mystery of a female deer who had walked through the stream. Ask him how we knew it was a female.

Finding Your Sit Spot

This past week, I have been exploring the campus and surrounding area in preparation for this class. I have been wandering around campus in search of my sit spot, feeling like I am exploring a strange new land. And the more I explore, the more I realize that it is a strange new land. I am finding water where I had never thought to expect it, hidden stands of trees, edible and medicinal plants peeking out of the mulched landscaping, trees and shrubs that I had never noticed before, birds species from the small Carolina Wren to the larger Red-tailed Hawk, animal tracks of deer, raccoons, a fox and maybe even an opossum. I realized that North is not where I had thought it was all these years and that I really didn’t know the topography of the campus very well. On Wednesday, I got so carried away listening to bird language and poking around in the dirt that I had forgotten I was supposed to be heading back to the office. This past week, I have been utterly fascinated by the influx of hominids of all different shapes, sizes and colors. Some are clearly very new to this strange land, and some seem to be returning (migration pattern?). Despite my familiarity with this specific species, so much of their behavior utterly mystified me…
-Geoff Cox

Finding your sit spot: Spend some time this week wandering the campus as if you were a surveyor seeing the campus for the first time, or Ish exploring a new world. Allow yourself to be led to a spot on campus that calls out to you, maybe one you have never been to before. Your spot must be outside and should be in a place where you can observe what is going on around you without interacting with other people. You can choose a location that has a view of an area with frequent human activity, but you will still have to make sure you will be able to sit still and not be required to interact with others at your spot. You may have to get creative to make this work. You can consider what the best camouflage might be around other people.

Although any spot can be a sit spot, you may wish to consider:
-being near a body of water
-being on an edge area (for example, where a meadow meets a forest)
-a place with a diversity of natural elements
-a place with a broad view where you can see a large area well
-an area where you are unlikely to be seen or noticed by other people
-a place where you can sit comfortably
-and most of all, a place that invites your curiosity!

At your spot: When you find your spot, spend 15-30 minutes sitting there, looking around and getting to know the place. How many different kinds of plants and critters do you see? Can you tell which way North is without a compass? Settle in and allow your mind to become still.

In addition to your journal: After returning from your spot, draw a map of the area around your spot from memory with as much detail as possible. Bring your map to class on Tuesday.

Sit Spot Journal

Throughout the semester, you will be developing your observation skills, sharpening your awareness, challenging yourself to deepen your capacity for critical thinking and pattern recognition while integrating your personal experience with the texts we will read in class through weekly written reflections.  Your Sit Spot will be a spot on campus that you will get to know intimately.  Your weekly visits to this place in different seasons, weather, times of day and mental state will facilitate both a deep knowledge of place and yourself.

            In a recent National Geographic article,  journalist Michael Finkel spent some time in Tanzania with the Hadza, one of the rare remaining communities of people living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  Finkel wrote of his arrival in the bush, "...there was [tribal elder] Onwas's son Ngaola waiting for us. Apparently, Onwas had noted the stages of the moon, and when he felt enough time had passed, he sent his son to the tree. I asked Ngaola if he'd waited a long time for me. 'No,' he said. 'Only a few days.' "

            A few days!  Can you imagine waiting in one place for several days?  It seems like most of us start to get antsy after just a few minutes of waiting, preferring to sink into a world of digital distraction or compulsive thought.  Can we sit undistracted with our senses wide open for even five minutes?  Ngaola and the rest of the Hadza have no choice.  A high level of focus and multi-sensory awareness as well as a finely honed capacity for pattern recognition are completely necessary for their survival.  Mental agitation, distraction and tension are “luxuries” the Hadza cannot afford.  Ngaola is native to the area in which he lives, but his being native has nothing to do with the color of his skin or being part of what we now call an “indigenous” people.  Being native means having developed enough awareness to know a place so intimately that over time one understands the layers of interconnectedness and the patterns of nature enough to live naturally in that place. 

            My year in California was a doorway into starting to develop the awareness necessary to be native to a place.  I learned to start seeing the farm I lived on through new eyes, eyes that were open to a whole world that I had trained myself to overlook or disregard through years of distraction and disembodiment.  This year, when I returned to Richmond, I realized that although I had lived here for five years before, I was nowhere close to being native to the place.  Sure, I knew how to get around the campus, had a sense of what college life was like, and had lots of memories, but as I look around now, I realize that in my years here, I had somehow almost completely overlooked the physical world, a world teaming with life in every inch, every inch intimately connected to the rest.  Now I am starting to  look around, like a curious child, eager to explore the mysteries…

            Through your time at your Sit Spot, you will start to become native to the Richmond campus.  Over the course of the semester, you will be challenged to explore your world inside and out through developing sensory awareness, mapping skills, observation, pattern recognition, and a relaxed, still mind.  You will also start to develop a relationship with the natural world by getting to know some of the plants, trees, and animals (yes, including those curious bipedal hominids walking all over the place).

-Geoff Cox

Guidelines

Visiting your spot:  You will spend at least 1 hour a week, during one or two visits, sitting quietly with all electrical devices turned off at your spot practicing the sensory awareness that will be explored throughout the semester as well as any particular assignments for that week.

Getting to and from your spot:  The sit spot practice starts the moment you step out the door.  Once through the door, you will start practicing expanding into your sensory awareness, calming your mind and paying attention.  From that first moment out the door, you are encouraged to tap into your inner curious child, making observations, asking question and exploring possibilities.  And remember, you will have to be paying close enough attention to make sure no other Lodgers see you, because…

Keeping your sit spot secret:  Throughout the semester, you will be challenged to keep your sit spot a secret from all other Lodgers.  Some spots will be harder to keep hidden than others and may require some creativity.

Finding other Lodger’s sit spots:  You are also challenged to find the location of other Lodgers’ sit spots and take a picture of them at their spot without them noticing for extra credit.  If you discover the location of another person’s sit spot, you are required to keep their spot a secret as well.  Although teamwork is an important aspect of the Earth Lodge experience, any photos taken as a result of someone intentionally revealing their sit spot will not be considered for extra credit.

Misty Mountain Hop

 EARTH Lodge vet & founding member Geoff Cox will be joining us this semester to help facilitate our field study and share the 'hands-on' education he has gained since graduating from UR. Recently we scouted out the cabin reserved for our retreat yesterday on a day when thick clouds drifted across Skyline Drive with temperatures in the  70's.

The hike in to the cabin is a rocky 1.4 mile downhill walk, so be sure to bring appropriate footwear to protect your feet and help support pack weight. If you have your own pack, sleeping bag and pad, please bring them. For Lodgers without equipment we will have a brief equipment orientation session before we leave and supply what is needed.

Corbin Cabin is on the National Register and seems to be known even in Japan since we encountered about a dozen Japanese hikers resting nearby when we arrived. Even though we're in the dry time of the summer, the nearby Hughes River (really more of a creek) is flowing nicely and might even offer a few good swimming holes for the hearty - bring your bathing suit!

Though it looks like a lonely cabin, Nicholson Hollow was actually one of several settlements as described in The Displaced:
"European settlement was inaugurated in the broad Weakley Hollow valley in the mid-eighteenth century with the legal patenting of large tracts of land which quickly attracted farmers, millers, and merchants. The strongly-flowing streams of the hollow supported at least one grist mill, two sawmills, and a host of legal distilleries, while a road through the hollow connected these businesses with two villages. By the early 20th century, Weakley Hollow boasted its own village, complete with a post office, two churches, two stores, and a school. In 1932, residents owned properties varying from one to 470 acres, living in frame and log houses ranging from the spacious three story home of Haywood and Daisy Nicholson, to the single-story log home of Tera Weakley. Perched high on the slopes of Old Rag Mountain, the newly-abandoned Weakley home was easily missed when the CCC boys swept through the hollow on their mission to restore nature. The house and nearby henhouse stood nearly intact until November 2000."

In 2000 there was a huge forest fire that destroyed many of the buildings and we could see the signs of an old fire all around us. The building itself is a text, showing the marks of making. In the image below the left circle highlights the marks of an "adze" that was used to shape logs and the right circle features an example of the "dovetail notch" style of  cabin assembly.

Even the trail is a text to be read, full of fascinating detail for the attentive hiker. On our way up the mountain we encountered two strange things on the trail - can you identify what they are?

  

 The image on the left is of an Owl pellet....see the tiny bones & hair?
The identity of the second image is not for the squeamish. Can you see that small brownish triangle in the lower right part of the mass?
It's part of a deer hoof, most likely a fawn, in a large dark pile of bear droppings (aka spoor, crap, manure...).

While we are not likely to have any encounters with bears, this is a reminder that the Bambified image of nature we sometimes see in the media is not accurate. Nature, though beautiful, is "red in tooth & claw."