While on break, one of the first questions I was asked by everyone was what I was doing in school. When discussing this class and our Land Ethic assignment, everyone I talked to was very interested and the discussion opened up so much more.
The first person I spoke to about this was my boyfriend's sister; an avid environmentalist, lover of Thoreau and Emerson and one who looks very carefully at what she grows, eats and feeds to herself, husband and three little boys. She was very interested by the idea of having a single ethic, something she disagreed about. She thought that you could weave many together so as to embrace other ideas and create your own. I agreed with this point as well and think it is important to learn more about other ethics as to build onto your own and become more knowledgeable about what are the discussions going around. For Andrea, her ethic centered around the idea of the world being a temple for us and therefore our our bodies are a temple as well. In believing this, Andrea chooses to embrace nature as much as she can. She grows some of her own vegetables and herbs and cooks organically. She is always reading up on new ways to cook, new opportunities to give back to the land and new technology that is helping the environment. She is also a big believer in Thoreau's idea of "Our lives are fittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify." By simplifying our lives, one can see what is important and regain a closer relationship to Nature.
When talking to my parents about land ethics, they found the idea a little more difficult. My parents believe that there is something about us growing up that makes us lose this idea of nature. This is something that I talked to them about in discussing my own land ethic, so we continued on about this notion. They also believe that Nature is a way to become closer to God and one's on religion. With my parents being the uber-Catholics they are, they are big fans on outdoor retreats where one brings together this Nature and Faith. Many of my parent's friends had this same idea as well and would build their land ethic around this spirituality.
I enjoyed so much the conversations I had with people about their own land ethics or the notion of having one all together. It was really rewarded to share mine and get feed back as well as get ideas from other people's. Just thought I would share.
It is really interesting how spirituality can be linked to nature. I know a lot of people that like to meditate outdoors and take spiritual nature hikes. I think that Land Ethic is tied to religion because both deal with people trying to understand the world around them and figure out what to do and what is right.
ReplyDeleteI also like very much Andrea's idea of having access to more than one land ethic... but I also saw the irony in her own admission of what her land ethic(s) "centers around"--thereby clearly indicated a singular focus. In fact, I think it intrinsic to land ethic design that we have a grasp of multiple sources, experiences, etc. I like to think of land ethic design in terms of synthesis, rather than newness.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm of course also thrilled with the fact that you were having extended conversations about this over break... way to go!