Have you ever woke up with that dreaded feeling that you might be pregnant? Then every where you go you encounter pregnant women or babies? Well that’s the reaction I’ve been having lately with compost, specifically this idea about compost having a moral character. Every where I go I encounter something that reminds of this idea of nature being next to godliness (move over cleanliness–there’s a new saying in town!)
I’ve been working on a teaching guide to an educational digital game we’ve made at work on the damning of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. (if you want to see our stuff, check out ali.unt.edu). Since the damning of Hetch Hetchy is STILL controversial–it’s only been 100 years, after all–I’m not surprised that there’s an entire moral overtone involved but the degree that nature is linked to godliness reminded me of Pollan’s argument about compost.
Hetch Hetchy was damned to provide water to San Francisco. The earthquake of 1906 made it clear to the city’s leaders that they needed a local, publicly owned water source and the nearest natural water that could be damned and piped in was the Tuolumne River, which ran through the Hetch Hetchy Valley, located in the newly created Yosemite National Park. After several years of political wrangling, the Federal Government agreed with local city leaders to damn the valley and provide a consistent water source to the growing community of SF. John Muir–soon of Sierra Club fame–led the anti-damning fight and it is his writings, and those of his compatriots, that illustrate a similar vein of godliness in nature. For as much good as Muir has done, he has also helped to create a dichotomy: those who value nature for its own sake are good; those who value development are bad.
Now I’m something of a hippie in spirit and I often feel smug about my convictions. I fall down on the side of the tree-huggers, for the most part. I can’t actually think of an instance when I haven’t, but I’m also pragmatic by nature and realize that sometimes nature has to incorporate an element (at least) of development.
Here’s a glimpse of Muir’s thoughts on the wilderness:
“In wilderness God is made manifest on earth. It is full of God’s thoughts, speaking to people spiritually through their intuitive capacity to apprehend the very soul of the universe. Wild country has a mystical ability to inspire and refresh, and there is in wilderness an ancient mother-love that is central to the bodily, intellectual, and above all, spiritual health of the individual—as against civilization, which has distorted our sense of ‘relationship to other living things.”
Does this remind you of Thoreau? Both are naturalists who write in the same vein. The idea that the earth is sacred and man is a temporary resident, at best. So maybe that’s part of the appeal of having a homestead. Homesteaders are doing good–being good.
I don’t think I want to buy into that self-righteous attitude. If not, then the question becomes why homestead? Peace? Quiet? A deliberate life?
