The wilderness and wildness of language

After participating in my first online book club meeting, I've come away with a mixed reaction. I found/find the technology (Zoom) distracting. It's rewarding and satisfying to share reactions with others about material you've all read, but the fact that there were more than 300 participants was overwhelming, even with the use of a number of smaller breakout rooms. Then again, my participation did trigger some thoughts and perspectives I probably wouldn't otherwise have had. So, like so many other things these days, it was rewarding if not entirely satisfying. The jury is still weighing the evidence on whether this form of "participation" is worth it or not.

what language to use to describe the edge of Minnesota's wilderness?

Photo by J. Harrington

The book being read and discussed is Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass:
Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Part of the intial discussion focused on the Grammar of Animacy. Although I agree with the concepts Kimmerer espouses, I'm finding it more than a little challenging getting comfortable with how to apply them and include them in my daily life and writing. It turns out I'm not the only one enjoying responding to such a challenge. Emily Stone has an enjoyable and informative column in the Duluth Reader about her efforts to use language that is respectful of its subject. I particularly enjoyed the passage she begins with:

“We no longer face a physical frontier, but a change in philosophy, a complete reversal of our attitude toward the earth that might open the door to a golden era far more resplendent than the old.” – Sigurd Olson, Reflections from the North Country

Although my college degree is in English, rarely have I considered the more technical implications of language. It may have been my growing awareness of the challenges of describing how humans and wilderness relate that prompted me to wonder about attitude and language. Gary Snyder explores the subject from a different angle in his The Practice of the Wild.

At the rate I'm going with finding books to reread, I not only have to hold off on buying new (unread) books, I'll need to live much longer to finish reading the stacks already accumulated. If that's my biggest problem this year I can't and won't complain.

Off the Trail

by Gary Snyder

for Carole

We are free to find our own way
Over rocks – through the trees –
Where there are no trails. The ridge and the forest
Present themselves to our eyes and feet
Which decide for themselves
In their old learned wisdom of doing
Where the wild will take us. We have
Been here before. It’s more intimate somehow
Than walking the paths that lay out some route
That you stick to,
All paths are possible, many will work,
Being blocked is its own kind of pleasure,
Getting through is a joy, the side-trips
And detours show down logs and flowers,
The deer paths straight up, the squirrel tracks
Across, the outcroppings lead us on over.
Resting on treetrunks,
Stepping out on the bedrock, angling and eyeing
Both making choices – now parting our ways –
And later rejoin; I’m right, you’re right,
We come out together. Mattake, “Pine Mushroom,”
Heaves at the base of a stump. The dense matted floor
Of Red Fir needles and twigs. This is wild!
We laugh, wild for sure,
Because no place is more than another,
All places total,
And our ankles, knees, shoulders &
Haunches know right where they are.
Recall how the Dao De
Jing puts it: the trail’s not the way.
No path will get you there, we’re off the trail,
You and I, and we chose it! Our trips out of doors
Through the years have been practice
For this ramble together,
Deep in the mountains
Side by side,
Over the rocks, through the trees.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.