EXCERPT: Davos (10)

It was good to sit down. As much as Franco liked walking, there was a time to walk and a time to stop walking, and this was it. Cool summer mountain air, green fresh grass, the concrete fountain made as if it had been made by a fourteen-year-old, whatever that meant. The mountain and the fountain were pals at this point, and perhaps nothing else gave Franco a sense of wellbeing than that. It made the idea of what lie ahead for him at Davos suddenly relaxed, exciting and attractive, all at the same time. ‘We have to do it. Don’t you see?,’ Franco thought. The friendly concrete, solid and stable, mixed happily with the water and the metal, the metal rusting in a gesture of humility and generosity that so filled Franco with pride and hope that he could barely contain the feeling within him. ‘Yes, Davos, do you understand now?,’ Franco asked of no one in particular, of everyone in general, and most of all in his own mind.

Enrollment Denied

As I was watering my dymondia yesterday, it occurred to me how little my engagement with them is enhanced by their name. While I like the word dymondia, and especially the full name of the plant, dymondia margaretae, it is not really present in my mind as I look at them, water them and weed around them. It is this refusal to become enrolled in human culture, at least in some respects, that lies at the heart of plant charm. A plant will not come when you call its name. It will never be your pet.

Yes, we pot plants, and perhaps even name them, although I think the practice is rare, but they are never fully domesticated. Ontologically, they are just too strange to become complacent participants in our pathetic dramas. It is their cool distance, their seeming indifference, that makes them so appealing.

Yi Fu Tuan observed how humans make pets even out of inanimate entities; water, for instance, by training it to leap in a fountain. And Michael Pollan gave us the remarkable image of plants as, not pets exactly, but as exploiters, seducing us to do their bidding in the evolutionary game of reproduction, by intoxicating us or nurturing us in exchange for aiding their proliferation and distribution.

Those arguments not withstanding, I suppose my thesis here connects to my thinking about the poverty of ideation. When I look at a poppy, my experience is far richer if I forget, momentarily, that in English the name of that flower is 'poppy'. It is this pre- or ex-lingual state of relations that I value because it renders the engagement with a thing, any thing, much more complex and whole than it would otherwise be as mediated through language. Words, as the saying goes, just get in the way.

This post has been difficult to write. Usually I just tap them out and then go back a day or two later to clean up the typos, misspellings and grammatical errors. I see this as a hopeful sign because it signals to me that I am writing from wordless experience, and so I struggle to find the words that fit. Far too often I am far too glib, with one word creating another, immersed as I am in a wordy world.

But what I am finding is that the wordless world is much more appealing, and that I must develop this ability to represent the world, without using words. But that too might have its own traps.

EXCERPT: Davos (9)

The camp at the end of the tube always left Franco stunned by beauty. Why was being here so important, and why did the water from the fountain not taste as good as the water from the tube? Surely it must taste better at the source, or at least it should. Franco thought that the problem was in the should; that is, the problem was not ontological but epistemological. ‘Might as well throw myself back into the word game,’ Franco thought, the scene at Davos clearly in his mind. It was a scene that was marked, for the most part, by that thin veneer of adhesive on the back of the adherent name tags that everyone was expected to wear. He despaired over what happened to the wool fibers of his jacket when they became coated by it. Arriving at every check-in table, he always tried to find a way to tuck the tag into his breast pocket so that he would not have to peel of the backing to expose the noxious adhesive. He flipped through a book on origami to see if one of the folded forms would help him, maybe by causing a hook to pop out the back so that he could just hang the tag on his pocket. Sometimes the tags were plastic sleeves with metal safety pins on the back that could be opened and threaded through the material of his coat, but even that method, although much better than the chemical warfare promised by the adhesive, caused worry. Would the metal pin separate two fibers who had clung to each other through all that was required to make the jacket, through the shearing and carding and threading and weaving and dying and cutting and sewing and shaping and ironing? What if it actually pierced one of them? 

Getting to Know You

After spending several days of stooped labor doing earthwork, again often on my hands and knees when necessary or simply more comfortable, it was a pleasure to do the same in service to my dymondia, who were badly in need of weeding. Ever since I planted them, they have suffered from a weed infestation, often from something called purslane, other times by simple grasses, that had a tendency to entwine themselves, root and stem, inside of the dymondia's tightly clustered leaves, making weeding a painstaking task. Because the work was so tedious and demanding, and because I have hundreds of these little mounds to tend to, I never did a proper job of it, until today.

Making the difference was my previous tenure with the soil in the back. Barefoot and on hands and knees, I finally found it possible to give each plant the attention it deserved, and to my shame, this was the first time that I actually considered, and approached, each dymondia plant as a separate being, and it has changed my relation with them.

Now, my regarding each of them as a separate being is problematic, because in fact each 'plant' is probably two, three or even more separate plants that just happen to be clustered together to make a plantable unit.

An experiment with pine trees comes to mind. In one case, seeds from a single tree were planted next to each other. They extended their roots only so far as to not infringe on their siblings territory, into their brother or sister's root system, that is. In the second case, the planting was repeated, but with seeds taken from several trees, meaning that the seedlings did not have a sibling relationship. In contrast to the first group, these plants did not respect each other's boundaries, and fought with each other for soil, water and nutrients. I wonder if nurseries are attentive to this dynamic, if in fact it is a wide spread phenomenon, and compose their little six pack cells in such a way as to promote harmonious and symbiotic relations among the seedlings.

In any case, it felt good, and easy, to spend an hour or two on my hands and knees, shifting slowly from one plant to another, cleaning each one of competing plants and dressing the soil around each one. I have to say that I had some mixed feelings about what I did to the weeds, especially because purslane can be quite pretty, and I feel somewhat stupid for killing the plants that grow so well, at least much more quickly than the dymondia, punishing them for their success.

But the ontology of plants being so vigorous, and so different from animal ontology, it seems only intelligent and prudent to respect the difference. I do hold plants to be persons, but they are certainly not humans and I must attend to that distinction. Still, it felt good to take care of each little plant, and I am glad I finally took the time to do it.

There has always been something very affecting to me about the prostration of Catholic priests during certain ceremonies, and a little research reveals that the assumption of this posture is found in many religions. I have to say that it lent a special intimacy to my tending, and I have often thought that the world would be a kinder place if everyone went barefoot more often.

Here is Gerard Manley Hopkins on the matter:

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and share's man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod

The Problem With Ideas

Amidst the swirl of issues that inhabit, condition and constitute my daily world: national and local politics, controversies within the tech sphere, choosing floor coverings for my cottage, and tending to my plants, I have become aware that there are a lot of problems with ideas, something I have already posted on a bit.

This is not a new insight, of course. Most present to me is an observation put forth by Michel Serres, who complains that we pay more attention to the label on the bottle of wine than we do to its contents. In the age of ideas in which we live, we have lost the ability to use our senses effectively, relying too much or even solely on ideas to help us navigate the mind-boggling and neurosis-producing embarrassment of choices that our economy produces. Curiously, this condition does not afflict our politics, at least in the US, which remains meagre in its offerings, a dysfunction that is different from systems that are sclerotic with choices and parties that support them, those of Italy for example, and of other European countries, but more on that later.

No, the problem is our brains, Serres again, have developed smooth neural pathways that channel the infinitely complex barrage of stimuli that we experience daily into a few manageable boxes, categories to which we apply words, containing more words that constitute ideas. How dull.

Do I like this wine? Well, I like this or that, and so what does it say on the label, is this or that listed? Great, then I will like this wine. In fact, I like it already. Does the label tell a good story that really have nothing to do with the taste of the wine itself? Great, then I know I will like the taste, because I will like what the taste represents.

This idea came to me while watering my backyard, (a break from the dymondia in the front, which all of us appreciate, I am sure), which I am preparing for clover, which will be less demanding of time and water than the California Native Bent Grass.

As I sprayed down the dirt to settle it and prepare it for sowing, I noticed that the persimmon tree was looking a little haggard. I began to enumerate the features that indicated this to me: curled leaves, pale leaves, drooping branches . . . ) and then I thought better. The word game was working its reductive magic on my mind, so I decided to exit that route and merely observe the tree as best as I could without using language.

Was this pre-lingual approach more comprehensive than a worded and reasoned one? I am not sure. Since I did not need to communicate the signs of plant dehydration to anyone, the worded approach seemed at least superfluous, is not also restricting. So I gave the persimmon a good drink and hope it will look better soon.

About my carpets and mats, the floor coverings I mentioned at the opening of this piece. Again, boggled by choice, I tried to apply reason in making my selection, but reason as a tool, much like the scientific method, is often too sharp to be of use in these situations. Should I pick this door mat because it is made of natural fibers? That is a good reason, but I just did not like the mat as a thing and it did not mix well with the other items in the room. Should I pick this other one because it matches the color and texture of the walls? Again, a sound reason, but not one that led to a good selection. I know, I will just pick the mat that I like the best, ignoring other qualities and contexts, so that even if it does not fit into the ecology of the room, at least I will like it of and for itself. Yet again, a failed strategy.

Serres again: Forget reason. One can only sample, sample, sample. Want to buy a house? Scroll through the thousands of listings available on any good online real estate site, forget the filters. Want to find a wine you like? Taste, taste. taste! One after the other, until you find one that makes you go: hmmm!

Serres loves lists, making them, thinking through them, traveling along them. The items in lists are not ideas, they are items, not irreducible things, or things without representations or which are not representations themselves, but they are first and foremost things nonetheless.

And one should choose the thing over the idea.

La Terra Bruna

If I ever adopt a (new) religion, it is going to be one based on earth.

I think there is an old Buddhist saying (are there any new Buddhist sayings?) that goes something along the lines of the worshiper of the mountain looking upon the worshiper of the trees as a newcomer.

What inspires this particular post, however, is the ecstasy that comes from hard labor on the earth, even though in this case my goal is far from noble: I am digging up my backyard to put in a *gasp* lawn. Well, it is California native bent grass, so it is okay.

While I may suffer daily humiliations at the hands (leaves? roots?) of my weeds in the front yard, I do not think that they can wear me body and soul in the same way that the earth can. Weeds may be spry and stealthy, tiny but overwhelming in number, nimble and tenacious, but the earth can just take whatever you throw at it and barely show a scratch. And when you think you might have gotten the better of it, all you have to do is remind yourself that there is a virtually limitless supply of it lying just inches below your feet. So, who is fooling who?

And it is so fascinating. One of the few times I was utterly captivated by a lecture was when my Geography 101 professor talked about soil. What it is and how it is made still fascinates me. And to stand on top of it, and in it - think of Francisco Goya's Duel with Cudgels here and Michel Serres' use of it in introducing his idea of the natural contract - is to love it, admire it, and be humbled by it.

Della Solitudine

E godo la terra
Bruna e l'indistruttibile
Certezza delle sue cose

And I love the brown earth
And the indestructible
Certainty of its things

Carlo Betocchi (1899-1986)

There is also a beautiful ode by Sappho, obviously much more ancient, that speaks of 'la terra bruna', 'the brown earth', and even though it does so incidentally, I find the phrase to be the most beautiful in the poem.

The Beauty of the Wind

I am currently (re)reading Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents, one of the most stimulating and engaging pieces of intellectual thought I have ever encountered. It is definitely a product of its age, but for every time the essay rubs against current thinking, the benefits of man conquering nature and similar comments (although if one thinks of it, who are we to pretend that our environmental ethos is anything more than talk; Freud and his contemporaries were much more ecological than we are, if only for structural reasons), it offers multiple insights that have not only stood the test of time, but have become such fundamental parts of our daily understanding of life and the world that they have become invisible. So I enjoy being reminded of them by picking the book up and slowly reading through it every few years.

It so happened that I was reading a paragraph on beauty just now, and then got up from my chair to glance out the glass doors of my cottage. The rapid juxtaposition is fitting because it produced in me that nice feeling when the thing that one is reading combines with one's surroundings to create an all encompassing experience. Fittingly, the passage comes just after a section in which Freud notes that happiness occurs only in brief flits here and there, and is not something that can be sustained, because by its very nature it is strongest when it comes suddenly after a period of repressed desire, which of course was one of the key insights of his work. This could be as simple as the rush of relief one feels upon drinking a glass of water after working for many hours in the sun, but of course Freud, a biologist of the mind as Louis Menand refers to him, saw this dynamic at work in registers beyond the biological: cultural, social, political and others.

In the passage on beauty, Freud says that it, or rather our appreciation of it, does not do much to protect us from suffering, but it does a great deal to alleviate its symptoms. And what I saw when I looked out the window was a very common phenomenon of late afternoons in the Bay Area, and I am sure in many other places, the arrival of a cooling breeze off of the water. And what struck me most about this occurrence is how the wind is made visible and sensible, encased as I was behind glass doors, only by its effect on things in the environment, foremost among them the many trees and shrubs and grass and other plants that proliferate on my little street.

I think there is nothing more beautiful than the gentle swaying, swinging and fluttering that the wind causes when it rushes by and through the plants, the movement it produces as well as its unique sound, and I am always struck by it no matter how many times I have experienced it in the past. This makes me think that this, too, taps into an essential aspect of being human, perhaps of being an animal, or an entity of any kind (why of all instances would I leave plants out of the mix now?), just as the stooped engagement with the earth, or being down on hands and knees, produces a similar connection to the world, between habitant and habitat, only with earth rather than with wind.

What is so humbling is that to experience the wind rushing through the trees seems to make everything all right, and it costs nothing, except a little time and attention, and the insight to appreciate what a gift it is.

I will have to amend my thinking on the wind, having called it inanimate in the past, because what could be more in possession of an anima than the wind, which more than any other feature in the landscape, embodies the very spirit of the word and idea itself?

Metaphor

One of my favorite investigative methods into metaphor involves etymology and one of my favorite etymologies is that for the word 'precipice' from the Latin 'praeciptium', meaning 'abrupt descent'. Apparently, the original referent, the proto-event, in this case, was not geographical but biological, the 'abrupt descent' being that of a baby from the birth canal. Basically, the word is 'prae' (pre-) plus 'caput' (head), with one meaning being a headlong fall, for example down a steep hill. In any case, the idea of the vulnerability of the head, being a large and relatively heavy and delicate part of the body is used to express a landscape feature in which such a vulnerability would most likely be an issue. The fact that this vulnerability is at its most pronounced during birth, when it must be noted the head is disproportionately large and soft, created such a strong impression that it stood as the ur-impression from which other meanings were made, even in registers other than the biological. I think it is no accident that 'caput' has been the root of so many words whose meanings extend far beyond that of the most important part of a body; eg: capitol, captain, but perhaps also principal (from princips), in which we see the same shift from 'cap' to 'cip' that we see in 'precipice'.

'Stamen' and 'pistil', parts of a flower, come from weaving and culinary, or perhaps apothecary, practices, respectively. It is fun to imagine an ur-place in which one might see all of the basic elements and activities of daily life from which the basis of language came, if I am not making some kind of grave error in thinking of language this way. My mind goes there, however, because I spent another morning of heavy labor tilling soil, getting the undeniable feeling that there is something essentially human about working the earth. And again, it is that crouched stance, on two feet and with implement in hand, that seems so fundamentally human, so fundamentally homo habilis. No doubt I would feel similarly at the root of things if I were (as I often have been) on all fours, digging with my hands to get at some rock or root, or simply to scoop mud out of a trench where a tool simply will not fit, or which is a poor instrument for the task. But then I might feel that I am more in touch with my essential animality (nonhuman) rather than with my essential humanity.

What a gift the recent trend in books has been, in which authors put themselves in the place of animals to experience life as they do (the one by Thomas Thwaites, as does the more recent one by Charles Foster, comes to mind).

Could such a book be written, and researched, from a plant perspective? Or is that one ontological divide which is just too distant ever to be crossed? We have gotten it so wrong about plants all of these years (centuries). It is time we at least try to see things their way. Surely some new metaphors would come out of the experience, or at least more accurate ones.