Make STEM STEAM

There are still a few widely scattered patches of snow remaining after a couple of days in the 80s.We are now into RED FLAG brushfire season plus flood warnings along some rivers. The rain and snow showers expected this weekend will help the former but not the latter. Meanwhile, after a record-setting winter’s snowfall, we’ve set several new daily high temperature records for the Twin Cities area this week. This is what happens when you don’t have an ocean nearby to temper wild weather swings.

haven’t yet seen a local red-winged blackbird

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m pondering why there seems to have been limited effort so far exploring the concept of bioregionalism in the upper Midwest. At least there’s little I can find on line about bioregionalism for Minnesota, Wisconsin, the St. Croix river and watershed, etc. I’m becoming more and more interested in learning about any potential relationship(s) between bioregional and traditional ecological knowledge. I’m also back to exploring questions around the concept of cultural appropriation. All of the preceding is because I am delighted by A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia and look forward to reading Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. 

All of the preceding is due to recent discoveries of online literary field guide type resources and a desire to find a useful model for organizing them. I’m convinced we must include the Arts as part of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math or we are likely to find ourselves in a position similar to the person whose only tool was a hammer. Consequently, every problem or opportunity looked like a nail. Plus, we’ve taken reductionist thinking beyond reasonable limits and need to put time and effort and resources into synthesizing new and improved world views. Perhaps it’s literally time to go “back to the future.”

Digging

By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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