May 2, 2002
Saint John, New Brunswick, CanadaDay #3 of photo class
7:53pm. I'm reading The Great Remembering, by Peter Forbes. Princess Melissa sent it in the mail. She is finishing her masters degree in land conservation at the University of Guelph in Ontario. A moment ago, these words from the book jumped out at me:
"We know deep in our hearts what is the Great Work. It is a moral cry to declare that we want to live differently, that we want to express our love and our prosperity in terms of the quality of our relationships, not in the amount we acquire and consume."
9:04pm. I just finished the book and reviewed the important points, and here's a few I thought especially interesting:
"When we are ready to live a life without fixed ideas or answers, then we are ready to bear witness to every situation no matter how difficult, impossible or painful it is. Out of that process of bearing witness--healing action spontaneously arises." --Roshi Bernie Glassman
The American countryside is being transformed by sprawl at 365 acres per hour. Our own federal government tells us that almost 3 millions acres of forests, farms, and open spaces will be developed this year. Maricopa County in Arizona loses seventeen acres of pristine desert to development every twenty-four hours. Atlanta's growth pressures cause clear-cutting at the rate of thirty acres each day, giving Atlanta the distinction of consuming land faster than any settlement in human history. California--already the world's seventh largest economy--is still growing, to the detriment of one of America's largest concentrations of endangered plants and animals. Americans living in the West have watched their beloved mountain backdrops--the Boise foothills, the Rockies, the Wasatch Range, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains--all be developed at levels unprecedented in our land-use history.
The long-term cure for the loss of wilderness is not merely buying and protecting some wildlands but rebuilding a culture of sympathy for and reliance on the land, just as the complete prevention for another heart attack isn't bypass surgery but changing the patient's way of life. It is fundamental to the ultimate success of land conservation that our work changes not only our public life but our private as well. Fighting the loss of wilderness, regreening our cities, saving endangered species, controlling growth and sprawl, and protecting special places, are all critical, but they may not be significantly addressing the source of the problem. And the source of the problem is how we humans live each day. There are no environmental problems that don't start as people problems. The ecological solution is to rethink land conservation as the conservation of culture.
"Nothing can be done without creating a new kind of people." --Aldo Leopold.
"Conservation." wrote Leopold, is defined by "a state of harmony between men and nature," which assumes shared values between the two. Leopold was nervous about a form of conservation that is valueless, that "defines no right and wrong, assigns no obligation, calls for no sacrifice, implies no change in the philosophy of values." He saw conservation as a moral argument that might create a healthier, whole-land community that includes people. In this light, the point of land conservation is less about recreation and more about re-creation. Imagine, for a moment, that the purpose of land conservation is to help create a new kind of people.
10:33pm. Tomorrow I'm presenting my slide show at the New Brunswick Teachers Association conference in Sussex. Middle schools teachers from all over the province will be there and the theme is "Making Connections". I'm scheduled to do two shows, and they are paying me $150. It will be a great opportunity to get invited to do more shows. I'm getting a drive up with my friend Joanna, who is just doing me the favor because she is an angel.
The 1987 Nissan Sentra Wagon that was I was planning to buy was bought by someone else who hand the money in hand. The price was right--just $1300. My research thus far has shown that foreign cars last longer than American cars.
Back to land conservation... and getting people connected with the earth, I've been thinking about making community vegetable gardens in vacant lots--the one across from the future FAR OUT HQ, and where the Labatt's brewery used to be. If a lot of people pitched in it would be a snap. Each person could look after just their own row--bring their compost to spread and replace an hour of TV each week with picking weeds. The end result for a bit of exercise is lots of free organic food. And there's trail building, creating a green-way around the city to easily get around in peaceful, quiet, beautiful scenery. Kids would love to get out of the classroom a couple days a week to get dirty. There's a group of folks already working on the green-way, but the first mile that they hope to have completed in the coming year is projected to cost 2.4 million dollars.
The FAR OUT foto project I directed at Lorne Middle school over the last three mornings was a great experience for me and the students. The Superstore donated two rolls of film and developing, so I'm making up a poster with the pictures to display at their photo lab. It will give the kids some recognition and raise public awareness for my work.
I've met a three social workers in the last week who are interested in what I'm doing... so lots of good stuff is coming together and I'm stoked.
