The Nature of Nature
Living in Place
This morning I feel like the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In the third iteration of the movie I’m watching now on Netflix, he is still taking every word he hears and making up some convoluted story to show the everything is based on Greek civilization. You already know I similarly find a connection to the Earth in just about every aspect of life.
So what’s the deal with the photo of a bull? You know if you read my newsletters through the end, that these writings are built around how different people see the Earth, albeit through my own eyes and experiences. And in just about every chapter in my book, on every topic I’ve written, I started with what I learned about the Earth from my childhood, roaming freely around our farm – the barns, yard, fields, landscape, creek, and, yes, even the manure which was in abundance from forty cows that ate prodigious amounts of grain, hay, summer grass, and stinky winter sileage.
We drank water from a cistern but bathed with groundwater. We lived on a bluff which I found early in my geology career is a part of the central Kentucky fault system. I played ‘house’ on outcrops rich in crinoids and brachiopods. We lived just about on the border between the Bluegrass and the Knobs, two geologic provinces. And we were wary of the EPA when it tried to restrict the effluence from those forty cows eating and drinking right above the creek.
So even though I now recognize the influence of the Earth on me from an early age, I grew up in a decidedly agricultural culture. Both sides of my family had farmed for many generations, from Switzerland, Germany, and England through Virginia to central Kentucky with its outer rim of steep-sided hills of shale.
As I investigate how farming and geology influenced my view of nature, I’m asking myself questions like:
· Am I in nature if I’m in a mine 5,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface?
· Am I in nature if I’m walking through a field of genetically modified corn with an occasional grasshopper that evaded the recently sprayed insecticide?
· What is the nature of the nature in my nearby forest – a near mono-culture of planted pines with a few types of shrubs as understory and devoid of squirrels and birds?
Right now I have more questions than answers. And, by the way, the registered Jersey bull imported from Jersey Island in the 1940s stands outside the farmhouse on a landscape formed from a major fault through limestone. “There you go.”
Why I Like This Rock
Once upon a time, I was in a small cave in the Drakensburg Mountains in South Africa. The guide said “and here are some fossil plants.” I said to my husband, “They are not plants, it’s a mineral!” How could that be? Watch the Video! And to see more of these little tricksters, visit MinDat.org, a reliable database for minerals.
More about Earth to Susan
A few of my readers have subscribed if I open the ‘pay’ portal. Really, I don’t need the money but would appreciate your sending the newsletter to someone you think would be interested. That’s the best payment for me.
I am writing a book about how people see the Earth in different ways. As part of the writing process, I’ve held my book’s content close over the years, but I’m ready to put some of it out into the world. So I will bring science, poetry, music, theology, literature, philosophy, history, geography, politics, and economics to these pages – all in relationship to Earth.
Most importantly, I believe that helping people understand that we all see the Earth in different ways will open conversations to help find solutions for the many issues facing the planet we call home.
I will continue one newsletter per month, and I hope you will read Earth to Susan and share it with your friends! It’s free.
Until next month,
Susan