MODULE SIX

Explain:

What new learning or reflections have you take from this module?

news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8214000/8214150.stm 

This week, my learning or reflections are probably more renewed than new. From the beginning of the lesson, with the words “In a sense, we're like lobsters living at the bottom of an immense ocean of air, trying to understand the invisible medium in which we dwell, usually obliviously,” I was reminded of one of my favorite books, The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram. Abram’s experiences are remarkable, his understanding impressive, and his eloquence masterful. The fact that he is not an indigenous person gives testament to the fact that our relationship with the world is not limited to indigenous people but is part of our common human condition.

Abram observes that people of the modern world consider the “unseen depth between things” as “empty space.” For modern people, air isn’t really noticed until it becomes brown, or it begins to stink, or it carries a visible or otherwise noticeable irritant. For the rest of the time, as Abram says, it’s simply empty space.

But in the indigenous viewpoint, air and breath are estimated quite differently from the way they are perceived in what has become the modern world. There are no rules and laws that guarantee someone the right to say anything they want for the most part without consequence, and words are the audible manifestation of our interaction with the air. We breathe the same air as do trees and dogs and the leavening bread. As Abram says,

Phenomenologically considered—experientially considered—the changing atmosphere is not just one component of the ecological crisis, to be set alongside the poisoning of the waters, the rapid extinction of animals and plants, the collapse of complex ecosystems, and other human-induced horror. All of these, to be sure are interconnected facets of an astonishing dissociation—a monumental forgetting of our human inherence in a more-than-human world. Yet our disregard for the very air that we breathe is in some sense the most profound expression of this oblivion.

Picking up one of my favorite books to refresh its lessons, I was struck by the shared perceptions among this philosopher and the scientists who contributed to this module’s information.

  www.pbase.com/hljungback/image/89115186

Extend:

How might you use this week’s information and resources in your lessons?

I’m sure that much of the information will be useful one day. I especially like this video that my research led me to “Land is Breath: respecting nature in Altai”

"Land is Breath"

Evaluate:

How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources?

I have to say that I was also reminded of the colonial phenomenon wherein the colonizing culture creates crises that wound the colonized culture, and then devises would-be solutions to inflict upon the wounded culture, usually doing more harm. I first described this syndrome to a Fetal Alcohol conference at which I was invited to speak. The circumstances seemed so plain to me: a culture had destroyed all values, standards, and ties from the old culture, generating cultural trauma and its aftermath, not the least of which is fetal alcohol syndrome, and then arranged studies and conferences and laws and foster care systems to confound the problem even more. 

A character in my book by the name of Young Tom is hired to go up to Prince William Sound and clean up a bad oil spill but could not bear to stay there. In his mind, the same system that allowed—created—caused—the catastrophe in the first place was now sending people to tell everyone how to clean it all up.

 
As I told the conference, Young Tom’s experience was a metaphor for many other experiences: the system that removed children and took land and ridiculed beliefs was the same system that was now telling everyone how to clean it all up. My hope is that this is not the case for the pollution and global warming and so many other consequences of the consumer society in which we now find ourselves:

Clean Air, Healthy Villages: Diesel Emissions

Clean Air, Healthy Villages: Diesel Emissions

Colleagues:

I appreciated Tracy’s mention of Chinook winds—because I was able to relate to that, I went on to read the whole article with great interest.

Dave’s blogspot is nicely formatted—quite professional looking—and I was gratified to read that he, too, finds some things puzzling. 

I found Sandi’s blog helpful—I like her tip that she starts with weather—and her graphics are very well done.