Where I Went

Map of all the places visited during this project:

I went to a lot more places than I wrote about, that's just the sad thing about writing on schedule, it never happens completely. I find myself living fragments, sometimes forgetting, remembering, or forgetting to remember, the pieces that are never gathered, the pages that are never turned. All the places I go, are real places, but also imaginary, they are places of the heart, places that I carried my heart into, and will be carried away into my heart. It's the statement of a vagabond, one who goes everywhere, but goes nowhere, free-spirited yet always never escaping its own spirit. Everywhere I go, it's the same place.

More than anything, I learned how deeply my heart is connected to the earth, my view of the natural world deeply tied to an ethnic identity, much like the Nazis who believed in the agrarian mystique, the German Blood, German Soil. I, too, cannot sever from the bond of Hakah. I'd like now, I think to read Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem. The years that have been instilled into me, the burden of history I carry. The Famine, the Cultural Revolution, the Capitalistic Experiment, the Tienanmen Massacre. The Homeland That Was Destroyed.

I want to read some Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, Ehrlich Gretel, and some more Gary Snyder and Thoreau--what they say about this place we live in. If there is a place for them, there must be a place for me. For a short season, here was my place. The Peace River Watershed, Lake a small part of it, is a very beautiful place. Tropical, seductive, graceful. I'm going to miss it. And there's nothing I could do further about the fact, besides here, this blog, a living memory.

Lake Parker

On the East side of Lake Parker, crossing the monstrous Memorial Boulevard, entangled with telephone poles and lines, and train tracks, It's like Japan. You can see in the distance ahead the even more monstrous tanks of power plants, a pale white rising out of the waves of water combed white and black.

Water + stuff

Water
I used a fairly simple water test kit measuring temperature, pH and turbidity on Lake Bonny just outside of the studio at Mira Lago.

Saddle Creek

Ironically, we each hand-held a copy of Gary Snyder's Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, nothing physically Asian about the guy, nothing "cold mountain" about the sizzling lake shore either.

Circle B

I went canoeing. With some friends on a Sunday morning. Park hours are 5:00AM-8:30PM paralleling the sunlight hours, and my grandparents' hours too in their Hakah home. We got there quite early, to catch the sunrise. There were no sounds on the trail except our footsteps, the boat scrapping the ground slightly, our breathing, birds in the air in the trees, and fish rippling the water for the occasional surface. I suppose what I mean by "no sounds" is ....

Lake Bonny Clean-up

I counted 419 stones on the retaining wall around Lake Bonny and thought I was finally growing to like the place, until they mulched my favorite tree and now it hurts the butt to sit against it.

Mary Oliver: Thirst

loved one

When your life is so intertwined with that of another's, the severing is always so... nonsensical. There are traces of him everywhere: field, cafe, lake, room; and nearly everything reminds of her: sunlight, handkerchief, tea, shampoo. For the poet, the process proves even more painful as the poet's sharpened senses receive the universe naturally, intermingling it with human drama. I would call it psyche-overwhelm. Sensitive souls take everything so seriously.

Snyder: On the Run, from Fragments to Cohesion

What struck me the most about Snyder was his presence in one place, his devotion to one place. Whether it's the early rough Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, mid-career "The Bath," or recent work "Danger on Peaks," I can always feel that he's there; he's made a home in poetry, and also in nature, or perhaps the nature in poetry.

Love, Prayer: the Metaphysics of Oryx and Crake

     "Oryx," he says. "I know you're there." He repeats the name. It's not even her real name, which he'd never known anyways; it's only a word. It's a mantra.
     Sometimes he can conjure her up. At first she's pale and shadowy, but if he can say her name over and over, then maybe she'll glide into his body and be present with him in his flesh, and his hand on himself will become her hand. But she's always been evasive, you can never pin her down. Tonight she fails to materialize and he is left alone, whimpering ridiculously, jerking off all by himself in the dark. (page 110)

The Light of the World

(for my grandmother)

This morning I rose

at a strange sensation of

having been waken

by something outside of me

and yet inside of me

at the same time,

thought it was not merely time

that could contain it.

Something was green outside,

a wall of bark and shadows

that crowned a bunch of flowers

so tiny I did not know

until I was lured by something

to go barefoot, across the threshold

of my dream, and look.

Here lake water lapped against

the unmoist soil, the concrete

of my heart, which was so not like the

place on which my foot met

the edge of roots

that captured sunshine into

its dark and burgeoned

this grove which hid itself

so well inside the expanse of

a field that would remind me

of rice paddies and the fragrance

from grains, clear and transluscent in a

pool of warm broth, waiting for me

inside the house.

How Then Shall We Live: Eaarth Part II

The ending chapter, "Lightly, Carefully, Gracefully" outlined a few areas we can work on specifically in view of the environmental issues, specifically global warming, facing us today. If summed up briefly, it would be: food, fuel, and the internet--going small and local. It paints a more hopeful, and bearable picture of what future can look like. It'll be hard, requiring more people to farm, more sacrifice in terms of "comfort," and more pressure for the powers that be to commit to maintaining our planet's livability, the last of which I think just may make it worth the effort.

McKibben really belabors the point that we think of economic and political systems as "big" and therefore unalterable. That's not true. For example, many who live in the Western suburbia take for granted that groceries come from supermarkets that purchase from hundreds of miles away, or that energy come from thousands of miles away (i.e. Saudi Arabia), or that urban "modernity" is the only civilized reality there is. I really appreciate how McKibben comes out saying the stupid things and actions that actually characterize 21st century comfortable American homes. It certainly wouldn't hurt to pay your neighbor local farmers for fresh produce, or to put up solar panels, to drive less and less faster, to live a simpler life and spend time with family instead of the TV.

Why haven't we done this though? (or least not enough people) or why aren't we doing this now? Is it that much skin off your nose to change an affluent lifestyle that's terrible for the world, and at times yourself? I mean if your diet mainly consists of boxed "chicken" pot-pie, take-out pizza, and coke, isn't that like walking on the path to destruction? I know so many people who do that though; it's scary. I wonder what people coming out of Wall-E feel like, or maybe they just forgot about it in a few hours....

Bill McKibben: Eaarth

In the book's first chapter, what really struck me was not the slew of statistics, which I believe many of us are already somewhat exposed in science classes; it was the case by case scenarios that fleshed out the realities of what global warming might mean to a specific place. Place matters, especially when those who live there have cultivated a sense of attachment--it's home, an abode of the soul, where we belong.

Atwood's Oryx and Crake

What are we doing to the environment? —Consider over population, genetic engineering, species extinction, climate change. This one’s no big mystery, though the novel is good for raising it for those who haven’t thought much about it.
Over-population did not seem like a big theme in the novel, or at least I didn't catch much of it. From the narrator's perspective, the elites, or the "knights" and "lords" lived in insulated high-tech domes that protected the residents from diseases and natural disasters which infested the pleblands, ghetto-like areas with weeds and high crime rate. The biggest problem, instead, I believe, lies in an uneven distribution of wealth: the affluent West and poverty-stricken Southeast Asia being the prime example, contrasting the life of Crake and Oryx. It's the powers that be, authority, political and technological advantages that wreak the most havoc. From fake food to the game that Crake becomes a master at, Extincathon, one can already see the trend towards the destruction of the planet. He can manipulate just about any genes to achieve the desired affect.Earth actually becomes so unlivable, its heat reducing the normal human to "snowman," that a new species, tailor-engineered, must be produced to combat the harsh environs. I don't think it will take that long, either, to reach such a state.

God and Here

Text: For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care by Steven Bouma-Prediger 
     Theologically, this book is traditional, but something about the author's reverence and communion in relation to this world of God's moves me... I found the stories of these three patriarchs particularly to be profoundly integral to a faith-filled vision for the land in which we live.

Place Under the Sun

Quotations from: For the Beauty of the Earth, etc

"Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are." - Ortega y Gasset

"An individual is not distinct from his place; he is that place." - Gabriel Marcel

"Settle down, get to know your place, and dig in." - Gary Snyder

Lake Bonny: Light, Shore, and Senior Homes

It's amazing the things that happen right under and above our eyelids.

I've biked around Lake Bonny countless times, or no, not around like the nearly perfectly round Lake Hollingsworth paved with a neat path for the town's leisure and exercise-conscious, the civilized. This one, though, is not manicured, not family-friendly, but... a little wild.

Eco-activism?

I don't even know if that's a word. Anyways...

Texts: Terry Tempest Williams' "Clan of One-Breasted Women" and Leopold's "Marshland Elegy" and "Land Ethics"

     Aldo declares that "the trend of evolution is to elaborate and diversify the biota.... Evolutionary changes, however, are usually slow and local. Man's invention of tools has enabled him to make changes of unprecedented violence, rapidity, and scope." Our mass consumption is scary. Is this where campaigns, marches to Washington, and protests targeting the Kyoto-nonsigning come in, then? I can't help but notice that those who do care, who do march and protest are considered hyperactive liberal hippies--at least from the conservative Christians' eyes. What's the craziness about a vegetarian diet or organic food? The advocacy for a completely different lifestyle threatens people used to the middle-class, suburban comfort zone plush with cable TV and diet coke. I feel the tension and either side thinks it's right. The conformists cannot comprehend what's the big deal about using the refrigerator; the activists cannot comprehend how one can continue using refrigerators in view of the ozone-depletion. This almost reminds me of the abolitionist movement little over a century ago in which economic interests have completely blinded people to their moral obligations.

Despite the Changing Seasons--I Have Loved You

Text: Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. (1968)

"For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech." --from the Forward

     I started reading this in the bathtub and almost extinguished my candle from the breath of laughter.

Dock at Lake Holloway: Almanacs FTW

     It's been raining, over Lake Bonny, Lake Holloway, its dock, the brick red pavement serpenting around campus, grass, and lamp posts. I find myself speechless on these grey days, cold and shivering on the bike, cold and shivering on the inside.

     Grandma used to have an almanac, back in my Hakka home; or rather, she was the almanac. This woman who has been moon-watching for over sixty years, can tell with a glance at the night sky what the weather forecast will be for the coming week and generally the entire season. She told me about the monsoon rains, predicted the exact same coldness that would suddenly sweep our town at the advent of rain. And so it was. That year and every year.

     An almanac would be handy now (like the one Aldo Leopold patiently wrote for his beloved Sand County). Especially since I'm on the bike, planed out all the field trips accordingly, and am completely at the mercy of the sun or rain. It's been disappointing day after day, at the Holloway Dock, with my umbrella cast aside and water reeds for company, in the rain. The ripples, widening, made over the lake seemed to exacerbate the cold.

     But so is true of the soul inside me, its darkening circumstances only blow the problem out of proportion more and threaten to consume me completely, to invade into the spaces outside of me. I don't like the thought and image of the darkness in me as widening waves that overflow its boundaries, spilling into the sunlight like those God-awful globs of black oil on the Gulf. I'd hate birds to die some more.

     As of now, it's nicely trapped and kept in tamely, just as the waters at Holloway have not rebelled unnecessarily, even with aid of the rain. The banks are secure, still, and so is the dock. Where then, is the dock of my insides? Even in this cold. When, will sunlight stream its shafts as it has been spreading over the glimmer of a once again blue lake?

     Once again, an almanac would come in handy, I think, an almanac of the soul.

The Peace

Text: Southwest Florida Water Management District, The Peace River: A Trip through Native Florida

     I never thought a canoe trip down the Peace River could be so alluring, its tranquility and yet... how full of life. 

     Reading the passage made me think of so many things, of still waters draped by overhanging canopy of leaves, branches, and pieces of the sky. Is it like what Christopher Marlow felt when traveling down into the heart of darkness? Perhaps... but perhaps not. Even more so than nearing the destination, I'd relish the traveling and wading itself, every space of fresh air and water. Knowing Fort Meade behind me and the Charlotte Harbor yonder, I can rest assured that I am sandwiched between two "civilized" places and allowed a moment's reprieve from their realities into the reality that is nature surrounding the canoe immediately, at this moment. For the time being.

     Perhaps I am romanticizing this a bit. I do get carried away when my imagination roams from the launching point of good writing. Here's a passage I really like from the text:

"...if you’re seeking a little solitude and a spiritual connection with the river and the wilderness through which it runs, you might try an overnighter, like the trip from Zolfo Springs to Gardner."

The thought of "solitude and spiritual connection with the river and the wilderness" sounds extremely appealing, and yet... also incredibly far away. Strangely, lately, as I've looked out of Mira Lago alone, or sat on the grass surrounding Lake Bonny alone, there's a vague presence/absence at my back, in the dark of the shadow that I cannot see. I don't think it's loneliness, which gnaws at the bone marrow; or is it loneliness only in another form--of misty, elusive embrace.... In my dream, of canoe-ing down the Peace River, I somehow cannot imagine being truly "alone."

     Maybe, one can find solitude in the company of another, is that possible? Is it possible that the solitude may feel double-fold? As if one solitary soul communing with another solitary soul, and what passes among the two in the natural elements--can it be the mysterious "spirit" similar to the one which comprises the Holy Trinity? Is that what they call Peace? In the curves of a dove, that hovers.

Short and Imperfect

A few off-kilter haiku:

1月.30 （日）

     Waters, blue like mirror.
At dusk, remaining red on reeds
     --Pelican flies.

湖之幽蓝
    近暮色, 水草.
    白鸟飞

Mapping the Contours II

Text: Excerpts from Bill McKibben's American Earth, an anthology of nature writing in said country.

From: The End of Nature

     McKibben himself shares a story of a lake special to him and his wife. It's hidden in the Adirondacks, a favorite haunt of my Upstate New York hiking friends while I lived there. I remember father and son telling me of their March "man trip" amidst still snow-capped rugged mountains with that uniquely tough pride foreign to us more refined girls who preferred the meadows in spring. Bill, the father, had lamented that he saw someone's trash littered at the lower altitudes.

     Now as I'm reading Bill, the writer, who tells of this small Adirondack lake, once peaceful but now invaded by someone's motorboat, finds himself not knowing even how to feel. Sure, the lake's for everyone to use, but it just bothers him--he can't even swim right. He explains it like this: "It's not so much the danger--few swimmers, I imagine, ever die by Evinrude. It's not even so much the blue smoke that hangs low over the water. It's that the motorboat gets in your mind."

Mapping the Contours

Text: Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism. First two (2) chapters.

Definitions:
Pollution: to defile (polleure, Latin); in its early English usage reflects it "theologico-moral origins" (8). What's wrong with that?

Science: "both a  producer of environmental hazards and a critical analyst of them" (8) - reminds me of many a conversations I've had with a good Biology major friend who's caught in the middle of guilt and love when it comes to developing pesticides, growth hormones, etc.

Quote from Baarschers: "In dealing with environmental reports or policies or regulations we must always keep in mind that what was zero today will no longer be zero tomorrow" (11). Wow, just wow. Once again, reminding us of the difficulty of defining "purity" or "pollution." Exactly how much is too much? What is zero contamination anyways? Can we ever achieve it? Or, a step back, should we ever achieve it?

Buell's phrase: "mythography of betrayed Eden" (12) is really interesting, seeming to hint at the idea of fallen nature being a complete fallacy. I don't know where I stand on the spectrum yet....

Garrard intends to "drag [the discussion] away from pastoral and nature writing towards postmodern concerns such as globalisation and 'cyborg' interfaces of humans with technology" (15). Why? Should we not have a grounding in classic nature writing, in canonical literature and poetry, in additional to engagements with contemporary issues? I think I would be very lost if Contemporary Lit was all taught to me as an English major. I don't believe in, at all, the deification of dead white males, but  Dostoevsky, Keats, Shakespeare have been the irreplaceable catalyst and inspiration in my life unlike any others....

Spiritual Grounding

Texts:

• Belden Lane, "Transformation at Upper Moss Creek" (from The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality)
• Thoreau, "Ktaadn"
• Mary Frohlich, "Under the Sign of Jonah: Spirituality in a Time of Ecosystemic Crisis"
• Some Scriptures Pertaining to the Environment

That Crappy Little Place

"It can't be more than 150 a month!"

"Are you seriously a business major? Have you no concept of housing market values?"

"For that crappy little place?"

As unbelievable it may have been to my scrupulously business-minded friend, I moved into that crappy little place, a one room studio/apartment with dingy carpet, old white paint, and no furniture whatsoever, only bare walls, bare floor, bare ceiling, and a fourth wall made of two extravagantly clear floor-to-ceiling window panes opening to a lake: water grass, marshes, a lone palm in distance.

Mira Lago is its name.