#5 A Sense of Place

Everyone is invariably linked to a place or a memory of a place. It is the spot that continuously draws one back whether it be physically or only in memory. A "sense of place" is the ability one has, at the most subconscious level, to close one’s eyes and hear, taste and feel every aspect of a particular landscape. Sense of place is inherent in our definition of ourselves, whether it is conscious or not. It is also the main impetus for conservation and stewardship of a landscape, and the organisms of that landscape. It is critical for a connection to be made between oneself and the environment, for a relationship to be established before someone will work for the integrity and viability of a place. There are many ways in which a sense of place can be developed and established. This evolution and importance of a sense of place is best exemplified by the writings of Virgil, Austen and Trautman.

Virgil’s Ecologue I is a lament and praise for a landscape lost. Ecologue I is a dialogue between the shepherds. Shepherds in Virgil’s time, may have been the poorest of the peasants, but were used in literature to represent the freest most carefree of life. They depended on Nature; her seasonality and abundant harvest. Shepherds were perhaps the most completely tied to the landscape and thus had developed a clear sense of place. In the dialogue, it is revealed to the reader that one of the characters is being forced from the countryside (his home) into the city. His land (which technically was never his own) is being given to an ex-soldier, and he must abandon his green hills and flocks forever. He cries for his loss; truly feels his life cannot go on. This is "sense of place." The shepherd is tied to the land, it is connected with who he is. The shepherd is no one in the city without his flock and green pastures. For his remaining years whenever his eyes are closed (either in sleep or in wake) he will be transported back to this landscape.

Land of Little Rain is a further example of the development of sense of place. (In fact, when I went to school in Arizona, this was one of the first books we read, so as to facilitate a better understanding and sense of place with the desert.) Mary Austen was not a native of the Eastern Sierras, in fact she did not move there until her adult years. In the beginning, she hated the desert. It is sometimes a difficult place to love. But, Austen was an observer, which is one of the first steps of developing a sense of place. She walked and watched and thus the landscape taught her and she began to feel a connection with it. In her writings, Austen praises the coyote and the buzzards. She drops down on her hands and knees to look at the trails left by the little animals, near water. She is able to see beauty in the death and struggle of the landscape as well at the wildflowers and replenishing storms. In one of the chapters, which we did not read in class, she chastises her neighbor for ruining his land, and for treating it frivolously. After many years of absorbing the landscape, learning the plants and habits of the creatures, Austen has developed a sense of place that is apparent in her writing and which helped me to have a greater appreciation and love of the desert.

As a biologist and writer, Baxter Trautman’s The Spirit of the Valley is another excellent example of a clear sense of place (even a sense of the world). The poet/writer and naturalist are strong forces, which drive the stories in The Spirit of the Valley. A sense of place is a complex interaction between one’s self and the environment, and only grows stronger with more experience and wisdom. Trautman continually places herself in environmental and historical context with the land. She is a product of the non-native grass species brought over from Europe, and the dawn of agriculture in Mesopotamia. She is connected to the plight of the kit foxes, perpetually marked by her quick bite, just as the fox will always bear the scar of the ear tag. There is a great sense of appreciation and reassurance of the cycles of nature. Trautman’s self identification with the Oak Savannah of the Central Valley is the definition of a sense of place. I believe her book also acted as a tool to help develop a better sense of place for this class and tie them to San Luis Obispo County.

We have spent this quarter (in this class) learning to read the landscape. The class has been pushed outside and made to be quiet and absorb the scenery, the smell and taste of the lands surrounding Cal Poly. Many secrets have been revealed this quarter, and our sense of place has grown and matured. I, for one, have already had a good sense of this place. Particularly because I have grown up not far from here, my coursework has focused on plants and animals, as well as the soil of the area and in addition, I have made a point to walk and hike and discover. So this place, Cal Poly and the surrounding area, already held historical, personal significance to me.

During the times that I have gone to school in other places, Arizona, Montana, the South Pacific, I have dearly missed it here. I am able to close my eyes and mentally hike Bishop’s Peak or embrace a coast live oak. These represent sanity and happiness to me. This place is a huge part of me and where I will go in the future and what I will do. This class has only helped to enhance these feelings even more.

This class has taught me new things about my landscape I was not aware of. I have always despised agriculture, but through the discussions with other students and our walks, along with the poignant writing of Wendell Berry, I understand the importance of the culture aspects of agriculture. I also see how agriculture and ranching can help cultivate a sense of place in others. This class also introduced me to the historical content of the landscape and the present debates about its future. All in turn facilitate a better feeling for Cal Poly and Cal Poly land. I was also introduced to Pennington Canyon, which will be a quiet destination for me in the months to come.

Like the shepherd of Virgil’s Ecologue I, Mary Austen and Baxter Trautman, I feel intertwined with my landscapes. There is a quote (someone I read in another class about sense of place) which states, "I and the world are one." There can be no better statement for how I feel towards this land. Furthermore, there can be no better statement describing sense of place. It is as simple as that, although complex in development. There is no better reason for stewardship or conservation than knowing that saving a place is essentially saving yourself. There is no better management strategy that linking a person with the landscape. I believe this class has successfully set a path towards this end.

#1

A fundamental part of nature writing is the ability to take the beauty, peace, and solitude one experiences while in nature and blend it together with scientific knowledge and understanding. To use only poetry and imagination would leave the reader with a beautiful mental picture but no sense of connection to the place, while a purely scientific approach would quickly bore the reader and diminish the value they give the place being described.

In The Sprit of the Valley, Baxter Trautman blends poetry and science together to interconnect a small California valley with the outside world and the history of civilization. This is readily apparent in the chapter on acorn woodpeckers. As with all of her stories, Trautman orients the reader to time and place using a description of where she is in the valley. Then she describes the sound of a woodpecker in the distance, using this to transition into a scientific description of the bird itself, including how its tongue works, how its skull and brain are designed to absorb the high impact of the beak into wood, and what foods the woodpecker prefers to eat. Soon the reader is whisked into a discussion of pagan and Christian mythology to understand how and why the woodpecker was given its scientific family name. It is by these methods that Baxter Trautman is constantly weaving a beautiful story of poetry and science.

John Muir uses a keen sense of observation and beautifully written description to bring peace and reason to a seemingly violent and chaotic storm in his story A Wind Storm in the Forests. Muir uses scientific observation to understand which trees will be blown down and why. He sees that poor soil and fire damage often lead to the breaking of a tree, while even the most massive of trees, which would seem more prone to failure due to the extreme size and exposure, will weather the worst of windstorms if they are well rooted and healthy. Muir then climbs a giant swaying tree to watch the wind moving through the forest, and beautifully relates this to water moving in a stream. He hears music of the moving trees and realizes that the storm is removing the old and weak to make room for the young and strong. When the storm is over he sees the forest as being refreshed and renewed, thus leaving the reader with a sense of harmony and reason in nature.

In Rural Hours, Susan Cooper tells the story of a landscape as it evolves from winter into summer using scientific record keeping and vivid poetic descriptions of the local flora and fauna. Cooper diligently records the first siting of every bird in the forest, the first buds and leaves of every plant in the woods, the transition of the lake as it gradually thaws in spring. She even records the first night that frogs are heard ribbeting in a pond. All of this information is bound together with descriptions of bark texture on trees, smells in the air, tastes in water, and colorful plumage on birds. By reading Susan Cooper’s accounts the reader is drawn into the landscape and feels a connection to the time and place in which it occurs.

I have spent the past five years learning the science of plants. I know that by pruning the apical (dominant) bud off of a plant I will remove hormones restricting growth and allow the plant to branch out. I have learned to nurture plants, watering, fertilizing, and pruning them, or even removing and destroying them, depending on what a job requires. But after reading the works of Trautman, Muir, and Cooper, I realize that I can look at something like an oak tree and see beyond Quercus agrifolia, native to California, prune here to remove deadwood, water only in winter. I now can write about a brooding cloud, anchored to a sea of grass by a massive trunk or giant limbs, bending downward as if they were bearing the weight of the sky. Through experiencing other writers science and poetry I have learned to blend my own experiences and education into nature writing of my own.

#3 Becoming the "Translucent Eyeball"

Writing immerses one with a stillness indefinable by society’s terminology. When the place is right, when the mind is ready, individuality becomes a hollow shell, like a corn husk dried and dead, carried elsewhere by the noble wind.

When Marvel writes of "The Garden", His voice becomes the harbinger of "truth so old we have all forgotten it," as Edward Abbey would say. His words, "Mistaken long, I sought you then - in busy companies of men," are all too true for myself and many others. The Garden that Marvel describes is an Eden of long ago. Its mythology rears itself in me when I walk through the woods or take off on a trek. The fast paced movements of the material world cloak the eye with a veil of efficiency, sadly we are often "too busy" to enjoy the gift of the sunset of the delicacy of a hummingbird.

Yet busy company is no more a necessity than a burden, for there is still wild in this world. Paul Vinlio in his writing of speed in consumer society and art describes the phenomenon of how the spectator speeds up the eye is forced to focus farther and farther in the distance until the horizon becomes a blur and nothing is in focus. For many of us the landscape is but a vessel for our journeys of existence, it’s a stage setting, we have not attachment to it.

Whatever the reason may be, when one decides to leave society and enter the great symphony of nature, what solitude provides can be of immeasurable value. In her novel, The Spirit of the Valley, Baxter Trautman leave her home that is laden with fog and traffic to sojourn amidst the golden pacivity of North San Luis Obispo County canyon lands. She detaches from the ordinary place wherein her attitude has drowned itself with work and human affairs and as she enters the beautiful clear valley, her insight is freed and her cup is emptied. Trautman’s view of humanity is not jaded, however her love of solitude is made apparent by the way in which she describes an encounter with two men in a truck halfway through the journey, while bird watching. The mood of the passage is that of analyzation and appreciation for her lack of time spent with the other folks. Instead, Trautman prefers the company of her dog Mick, a far less testing being than many humans.

Another writer who benefited from solitude was John Muir. Throughout The Mountains of California, Muir releases from all identity with the industrial revolution of the times, instead becoming a nomadic bard of the Sierra legacy. He excitedly details the science behind the formation of California’s magnificent mountains. Also, his solitude allows him to further merge with nature. In one instance, he climbs high into a sequoia to endure a hellish thunderstorm. However, hell to many people becomes heaven to Muir as he lets go of his humanity to become one with the tempest. Without the warnings and obvious opposing views of society, Muir lives the crazy moment and is taken to the pure energy of Nature — a place where the mind melts into the sky and no words or company can do the action justice.

In my own journey as a writer I have walked the line between delicious solitude and the cumbersome membership to a societal group. During spring break, prior to this course, I had a conversation with a good friend, an artist. He and I were staring at the sky and the parking lot we were in, under moonlight. He proclaimed, "I’m a colorist, look at this — all the variations — the night is alive." I heard his words but could not immerse into the moment at that time. I lived in a house with 7 friends and we all would "burn like mad roman candles," as Kerouac puts it. However my personality was locked in the reflection of the group, my words mere manifestations of a collective consciousness. I was lost as a writer.

Throughout this course I have spent many hours in delicious solitude, writing in my journal and reading literature. One day in particular, when I was listening to the brook in Poly Canyon and staring at the lime green fluorescence of the surrounding grasses, I remembered the earlier conversation. I released and wrote, fat and furious, my pen flying through the solitude like the prairie falcon overhead.

At this time I became the translucent eyeball of Emmersonian description. I was in pure solitude, no one — not even my self-identity could interfere with my love affair with that magical place. I realized then, Marvel’s truth. The Garden can be found in the presence of others, but not until it’s revealed within one’s solitary self. This is the great benefit of solitude, for it will never go away. Every time I return to this place within myself I am refilled with the treasure of the landscape, the bliss of existence and the peacefulness of one who has left the crowds to merge with nature.

#1

The relationship between poetic imagination and scientific observation in eco-literature is inseparable. To paraphrase Baxter Trautman, it is a necessary marriage, a union that can/should not be broken.

I have found this so in my own experience in, and writing about, nature. Scientific information makes me more observant. Through this quarter I have learned to differentiate between various species of birds and plants. Now when a bird flies overhead I stop and attempt to identify it. The starling, for example, is no longer simply a black bird. I identify its slender yellow beak and distinct rattled song. I have learned the origins of different grasses and when I walk through the hills I look for those native to California. The more I learn about nature the more closely I observe; the more closely I observe the more I want to learn. As I learn about the process of nature — how mountains form, that birds have hollow bones, and how woodpeckers absorb the impact of pecking — I become more "awed" at the creation. My observation becomes more intense and inspired. I am awed at the perfection and intertwined, dovetailed cycles.

One practical example for this necessary marriage between poet and scientist in eco-lit is the need for communication. Only through common/uniform identification can the beauty of nature be poetically expressed. Of course poetic expression can illustrate the beauty of various roles of nature, but it will quickly become abstract and trite without the scientist’s influence.

Baxter Trautman, The Spirit of the Valley, is an example of a perfect union of marriage. Genesis says, "and the two will become one flesh." Trautman’s marriage of poet and scientist transforms two into one. Her book is a perfect example of a balanced marriage.

She combines scientific knowledge about native and non-native grasses of California with the liberal arts influence of history, mythology and even philosophical thought. Not only do I now observe the various varieties of grasses on our hills, but I think philosophically of where they came from. Through her scientific knowledge the reader is able to travel to a different time and culture by observing a grassy hill — once thought of as just a weedy hill.

Wendell Berry is another example of the scientific/poetic relationship. Many would not classify Berry as a scientist, but his critical close observations of farming techniques and conditions plays the scientific role. This together with his poetic and philosophical writing successfully influences the reader to observe natural changes in and around farm lands.

John Muir serves as the last example of this perfect and necessary union of scientist and poet for successful eco-literature and experiences in nature. Muir acts like a scientist. He collects data concerning snow levels, glacial counts, wind speed and direction, storm patterns and other natural processes. In doing so, Muir gives an overall picture of, for example, California’s mountains. He makes the reader aware of the diversity and similarities throughout the mountain ranges. But at the same time he brings the reader away from the desk reading to a specific and beautiful location through his poetic descriptions. Muir the poet dazzles us with descriptions of mountains as "holy scripture" and brings us down into the depths of icy glacial crevasses.