Culture and Nature

The content of the article linked below is, ultimately, distressing. By using harvest records from 664 years of grape-growing in the Bourgogne region of France, these researchers were able to determine that there has been a significant increase in temperature in the region - harvests are now happening 13 days earlier than the average for the previous 664 years. The most significant change has happened since the late 80's.

That is nearly half a month difference, and reflects some noteworthy warming.

And that is distressing. At some point, if unchecked, getting grapes to harvest in the Bourgogne is going to start becoming more and more difficult. 

But on the other hand, this study surprised me by also making me feel quite tender-hearted about the history of wine-growing and growers in this region. 664 years of families growing grapes and making wine is a long time. 664 years of knowing a landscape, working with the sun and seasons, predicting rainfalls. 664 years of integration between the economics, the politics, the culture, and the nature of this region.  The simple fact that grapes can still grow there at all is testament to conscientious farming practices - considering that the history of large-scale farming in the United States goes back only a couple hundred years - and the result has been massive top soil loss, mineral depletion, and post-war, with the full-scale implementation of corporate farming - ultimately the loss of small farms and the cultures that they created.

Too often we humans think of ourselves as separate. Different from the rest of nature in some essential way. Whether it is Biblical "dominion" or Cartesian "Dualism"--from the vantage of our cars or desks, it can be hard to feel anything but alienation from our planet. After all, our busy, frenetic, increasingly internet-and-media-focused lives even leave us alienated from each other and from our own bodies.

I've never been to the Bourgogne, but did visit Toulouse once for a Eco-Criticism conference at the university. After our first day, the whole group went out to eat at a local restaurant, where the chef was frustrated trying to find me (a vegan) something to eat, even commenting that the diet was "not very practical ..." (And by the way, the resulting pyramid of rice with sautéed vegetables was absolutely gorgeous). But the first thing we were served was a local liqueur mixed with a local sparkling wine. A traditional aperitif in Toulouse. It was golden and tasted like sunshine and earth fused on the tongue. It tasted like what I had imagined wine must be like when I was a kid. And there was a centuries long history to its production.  

Whatever concepts or devices may block the way - we are all made of Earth. Quite literally. 

This article (below) had the amazing effect of making me both hate and love human beings at the same time ... 664 years of harvest records for one wine-growing town in France ... and what they mean.

https://climatenewsnetwork.net/french-wines-show-hot-dry-years-are-now-normal/?fbclid=IwAR2bU9DRpZ1ui9liHGPNL5FTsmSfnXghxvw8GNLGn4BkA7_uYmrGt_e5MYo

Fragments from the Highway ...

Fragments from the Highway …

After successfully writing a blog a week for Miriam Sagan’s great, eclectic, community-spirited blog, “Miriam’s Well” for nearly a year … here I go and start my own blog and after only a few weeks I miss multiple posts!

Ah well … perhaps I will try to “catch up” with some shorter snapshot blogs in the coming weeks. In the meantime, there was a 2 week trip by car from New Mexico to the east coast … and a lot of 12 hour driving days.

So to share something of what I was up to, here are some fragmentary notes from a section of the drive.

Highway 40 …

I.

Third coyote

at the side of the road

in thirty miles.

This last –

head outstretched, nose

to the wind,

neck fur ruffling

as if he is still

running.

II.

Feed lot cows

shoulder to shoulder,

no space

to move,

standing on several feet

of shit.

The smell

thru closed windows

stings my eyes.

Caught in the endless wheel,

I say a prayer

for their smooth black heads,

their fine, white spots.

III.

After yet another

sign quoting the Bible

I say, “That thing I’ve been talking about – the reason the

world looks like it does now:

falling into chaos, hate, senseless

sound-bite nonsense – everyone’s

opinion

fact enough

and turn it around

its just the same …

That world.”

“Yes, this world,” you say.

“The reason – the thing we lack now,

that thing we used to have that went

missing –

could it be, Meaning?”

IV.

Corn fields.

Cotton fields.

Rows of soy.

A field of rusted metal parts.

V.

“But there’s more,” I say.

“Meaning has to be participatory. If its

something just handed

to you, a proscription, a

perspective, a set of rules,

that isn’t enough.”

You quote Joseph Campbell,

“People aren’t looking for meaning,

they’re looking for an experience of life.”

I’ve been searching for meaning

since before

I have memory.

Maybe the search itself

Is the missing

piece.

VI.

Red-winged blackbirds

scatter-shot

from tall grass into

gray sky far windmill horizon.