Thinking from my last post, I remembered that the noun 'plant' comes from the Latin verb plantare, so a plant is a thing that is planted. And what was that thing, a planta (a sprout, a seedling), before it was a plant? It was part of the vegetatio 'power of growth' from vegere 'to be active'. As, I believe and if I remember correctly, the prolific scholar, Michael Marder, and others, have pointed out the irony of the English verb 'to vegetate' meaning the exact opposite of its Latin source. It has preserved the distinction between vegetation and plants, however, the first being wild plants growing in abundance and considered as a group, and the second being single entities that have been pulled into human agricultural or horticultural systems. A similar relation seems to exist with regard to animals: a 'pet' is an animal that is petted, although the etymology of 'to pet' is less clear.
These engagements with nonhumans are similar in that they deliver a sense of tranquility via a form of connectedness that seems to be unavailable through interactions with human beings, fraught as they so often are by social and political concerns. They are also humbling in that so often the nonhuman entities get the better of you, by either their superior benevolence or resilience, or both. As I said in my previous post, I find tilling the earth (with hand implements) to be uniquely engaging and exhausting, and expiating. The feelings of guilt I have for killing this or that plant dissolve pretty quickly when I see that another has popped up in its place just a short time later, with the interval depending upon the plant, time of year, and other circumstances. True also of cobwebs, which seem to appear over night, and with astounding complexity.
A failing that came to light while I was hoeing, and there is still more to do, was my neglect of soil in my contemplation of plants. I remember a lecture by one of my geography professors on soil that left me absolutely fascinated, and to this day I really cannot say why. One of my earliest and happiest childhood memories has me digging in the side of a hillock that was next to our house, working with a screwdriver in a section of rock and dirt and then having the metal shaft of the screwdriver snap unexpectedly in my hands. There was something so satisfying and fascinating about interacting with the earth this way. The downward and inward orientation of it fits the baroque model of thinking that I find so engaging today, more so than the upward facing romantic perspective. Why is the imaginary of the Inferno so much more detailed than that of the Paradiso?
Arthur Clarke suggested that Earth should be renamed Ocean simply because the planet's composition leans more heavily toward the latter, but this observation ignores the human orientation toward earth, and its relative alienation from ocean, as a habitat. It makes us biased and negligent observers of home, for how often do we think of algae and other aquatic species when contemplating the vegetal world? Algae, from 'alga' for seaweed, is the ultimate vegetation and, for the most part, utterly un-plantable, although attempts to harness its prodigiousness are developing.
These engagements with nonhumans are similar in that they deliver a sense of tranquility via a form of connectedness that seems to be unavailable through interactions with human beings, fraught as they so often are by social and political concerns. They are also humbling in that so often the nonhuman entities get the better of you, by either their superior benevolence or resilience, or both. As I said in my previous post, I find tilling the earth (with hand implements) to be uniquely engaging and exhausting, and expiating. The feelings of guilt I have for killing this or that plant dissolve pretty quickly when I see that another has popped up in its place just a short time later, with the interval depending upon the plant, time of year, and other circumstances. True also of cobwebs, which seem to appear over night, and with astounding complexity.
A failing that came to light while I was hoeing, and there is still more to do, was my neglect of soil in my contemplation of plants. I remember a lecture by one of my geography professors on soil that left me absolutely fascinated, and to this day I really cannot say why. One of my earliest and happiest childhood memories has me digging in the side of a hillock that was next to our house, working with a screwdriver in a section of rock and dirt and then having the metal shaft of the screwdriver snap unexpectedly in my hands. There was something so satisfying and fascinating about interacting with the earth this way. The downward and inward orientation of it fits the baroque model of thinking that I find so engaging today, more so than the upward facing romantic perspective. Why is the imaginary of the Inferno so much more detailed than that of the Paradiso?
Arthur Clarke suggested that Earth should be renamed Ocean simply because the planet's composition leans more heavily toward the latter, but this observation ignores the human orientation toward earth, and its relative alienation from ocean, as a habitat. It makes us biased and negligent observers of home, for how often do we think of algae and other aquatic species when contemplating the vegetal world? Algae, from 'alga' for seaweed, is the ultimate vegetation and, for the most part, utterly un-plantable, although attempts to harness its prodigiousness are developing.
No comments:
Post a Comment