Where to find an ethic

As we drove to and from Baraboo Wisconsin over the weekend, we noticed, almost everywhere, a proliferation of pale green vines growing over much of the countryside. Today we learned that we were probably seeing wild cucumber. As we were learning about Echinocystis lobata, we also read that kudzu has spread into Canada. We just checked and there's no report that we can find of this invasive species having reached Minnesota, but it's now North of us and South of us and warming climate is unlikely to help keep it at bay. Sigh!

and these are: prairie coreopsis?

Photo by J. Harrington

We also noticed many tallish to tall yellow flowers, some of which we think are Few-leaf Sunflower (Helianthus occidentalis) or Maximilian Sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani), and others looked like Prairie Coreopsis (Coreopsis palmata). Since we're still trying to learn how to tell a plant's bract from our elbow, these identifications are tentative suggestions at best.

thoughts on a land ethic

Photo by J. Harrington

Something we're sure we must have read before this weekend, but that never registered as well as it did when we saw it on a poster at the Leopold Center is the observation in the photo above. It's contrary to some of our fundamental principles, such as "if it's important, write it down!" That no doubt helps explain why it hadn't really registered before now. We're going to rethink this, or at least try, as we explore a transition from being a product-focused person to one who comes to trust more in process. Joy Harjo offers some insights into why "an ethic is [n]ever written."

Remember

Joy Harjo, 1951

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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