6th Sailing

I think it’s remarkable we are debating the existence of a gap between us and nature. I suppose some other group of animals is engaging in a similar conversation in a language we can’t decipher, but I doubt that.

I don’t think it’s necessary to become one with nature in order to write a good haiku. I respect the naturalistic observations in the haiku of Allan Burns and H. Gene Murtha. Although I don’t share their particular focus on the natural world (I’m not a birdwatcher but I like watching birds, and do care that different bird species raise their tails differently), I think they would agree it’s important to avoid the false notes caused by attributing imaginary or human characteristics to animals, plants, etc., a ploy I encounter too often for my tastes. One alternative is to use conjecture, as in this haiku by John Stevenson:

peony bud
can an ant
relax?

Where I live there is this really wonderful trout brook with several waterfalls…ancient mill foundations …ravines etc. I love to go to this place called Whetstone Brook. It got that name since the American Indians used to trade the stones here all the way to Detroit! When John and I first found it it had been left to be quite wild with just enough access to get through. John loved to paint it, and I have several times. The last year or so there have been some folks who have decided they would like to make it into a park. I watch with amusement as they do all sorts of things to this place…some helpful, but for the most part like giving a dog a hair cut that’t too short and trimming its ears and tail. Still, as I walk the paths along the
ravine there is this sense that the brook is an entity unto itself.
It will be itself…no matter what anyone wants to do to it short of blowing the whole thing up. I receive a great deal of comfort in
watching the tug of war about what the brook will be. And in the end, as long as there is rain that brook will be water going over the falls, on its way to the sea no matter what. It is “the other” to me. And yet how is it that it gives me comfort?

Hi, Paul, You’re right – the Oliver poem is not haiku – but it’s funny how things come together. I just went in for a cup of tea before getting down to “work” and was reviewing Issa’s Untidy Hut: 2nd Annual Basho Haiku Challenge and the first haiku there was as follows:

But like a
Sacred Song
It pointed the way
by Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

And Cherie – I love the way you bring walking/meditation/pathways together in a rhythm …
within and without all of us… I almost hear the beating of the heart of the universe in what you write. Many thanks.

To continue the conversation, Christopher: In my own view the distinction between human civilization and nature isn’t absolute, but it is “meaningful”. Civilization has been hammered out of the “raw materials” of nature. We don’t create ex nihilo; like your wasps, we reshape. But we do so on a completely different scale than the wasps do and in so many different ways at once, not merely one. As I’ve said before, I do think there’s an important distinction between, say, a wilderness area and downtown L.A.. To call both “nature” seems to me dangerous, esp. in political terms. How can environmentalists fight to preserve “nature” if parking lots and golf courses and shopping malls are as much “nature” as meadows and forests and marshes? And what word could we use to take the place of “nature” to conceptualize the difference? So I think there are important distinctions between the following categories:

1) materiality: all matter
2) nature: matter relatively unmodified by human activity
3) civilization: matter extensively modified by human activity

Obviously, what we’re dealing with in terms of 2 & 3 is more like a continuum than a set of absolute distinctions. We could, for instance, talk about pastoral zones in between categories 2 and 3. And at this point it’s hard to find matter on the surface of the Earth that hasn’t been modified to some degree through human activity. As you may well know, studies have shown that even penguins at the poles have been found to have pesticide concentrations in their bodies. And all that is what Marlene Mountain was getting at with her “less and less nature is nature”. But shouldn’t we work to preserve something of what is left? Maybe as much as possible?

Recognizing significant relative distinctions–like to what degree matter has been transformed from its original state into something else–is really just, I would argue, facing the facts, not idealizing or Romanticizing things. In order for us to change, we first have to comprehend what we are doing to the world and what changes in our own values, behavior, and lifestyles can bring about a healthier, more sustainable, less damaging state of affairs. But I see no incentive to change anything we’re doing if we are unable to draw a meaningful distinction between a meadow and a parking lot–which is why I think the environmental point relates directly to the argument in your original post.

To steer this back to haiku: I do like the Paul Reps poem you’ve cited, particularly when viewed in historical context. It’s interesting to compare it with one from the current Montage gallery by Caroline Gourlay:

April breeze–
branches of the ash tree
rearrange the sky

In the Reps the subjective human perspective is explicit whereas here it is implicit. I tend to prefer the subtlety of the latter approach, which conveys a sense of ”self-and-object-as-one”. In “April breeze” the rearrangement of the sky is effected by the trees but noted only by the human observer; all are part of a larger unity. That’s a perspective that I think can help get us out of our current predicament of being at odds rather in harmony with the world around us. The more we tend in this direction, the better, I think, things will go in the long run for us and biodiversity and all the rest of the world.

Hi Allan,

You make 5 excellent points. I am not unaware of the immense damage humanity has caused to the environment though.

Two examples like that from the UK (where I live) include:

1) the extinction of all wild bears and wolves here caused by hunters etc.

2) the massive population of grey squirrels (accidentally introduced here from North America) which has almost driven the native red squirrel to extinction.

I agree with you that human domination / destruction of the environment should not be left unchecked – it seems out of control and extremely damaging both to the environment and to our own species. However, this wasn’t really my original point.

What I was trying to say is that I don’t know how possible it is to make a meaningful distinction between humanity (civilisation) and Nature. The more one tries to define it the more it seems to become a wild goose chase…

I chose the example of the wasps very specifically as unlike beavers or birds, and other such animals, they do not make their homes out of unrefined natural materials – rather, they break the wood down and change its substance to build their homes. This is a closer parallel to the human process of construction. By drawing this parallel I was attempting to highlight how blurry distinctions, of the sort we are discussing, can be. There are probably much better ways of demonstrating this, but this was all that came to mind at short notice.

I think you were right to say “At the very least, our civilization is an unprecedented force on this planet” but I don’t think that this, or anything else we have discussed, points towards a significant gap between humanity and Nature.

As far as I can see the distinction seems only to be possible under an idealised, or even romanticised, conception of what nature is, one which omits important truths in order to maintain its “boundaries”. I come at this from the point of view of someone who previously believed there was a distinction, but the more I reflect on it now the harder I feel it is to make any such distinction.

I am open to any suggestion you may have to the contrary, so feel free to discuss it with me further.

I’m not quite at the point where I would say there’s no distinction with certainty, but I think, as I originally said, that there’s a good case for saying there isn’t a real distinction.

Again, though, I say that this doesn’t reflect an attitude that humans are right to treat the environment as they do – I feel that this was somehow construed out of my original statement on here.

Anyway, I still feel that that haiku by Paul Reps constitutes a strong example of depicting Nature closer to being “as it is”, for the reasons I previously mentioned.

Merrill, I am not religious but I very much enjoyed the poem in your above comment (it certainly doesn’t have to be understood from within a religious context). I think it sums up a great deal of what haiku is about.