Nature's cool

I was at my cottage one night, and I decided to go for a run. It's very dark at my cottage and it was pretty late. I ran around for about an hour. When I finished I dove into the lake and just swam and swam, and then I looked around me. It was so dark and the stars were so bright, that I felt overwhelmed. I was asked by one of my friends where I thought we'd be, as people, without electricy and I thought of that moment, the darkness and the lake. So this is my answer to the question: where we'd be without electricity:

You know, I saw it once. It’s something to be afraid of. All darkness, hushed sounds and breathless eyes that seem wider without light. At first it’s terrifying; you believe without electricity we’d be absolutely no where, believe you feel it on your hands and knees, that it’s a place in your head made of real things, like air, or its absence. But then you realize you could call out to blast the silence; make it your own. And then you’re sure there’s a definition of living, that it’s these moments when you can shatter something as pure and innocent as darkness. These moments, and no others.

I know where we’d be without electricity. I’ve been there. It’s a beach at midnight. I remember staring at the lake, and thinking I should call it god. Thinking that, and of a book I read once; a girl who’s hair fell down her back like smoke. I’m sure that’s what this water was, some liquid form of smoke they’ll manufacture one day and sell as jewels. I walked until I couldn’t anymore, and then I swam, forgetting to make note of that moment when the tips of my toes could no longer grasp solid ground. I swam out so far I couldn't see the beach anymore. I wanted nothing to do with light, or the objects that reflect it. I dove beneath the water again and again, hiding myself from the moon, trying to disappear my skin. I wanted to be surrounded and swallowed up. To be owned by the wonder I felt, the astonishment that something like a lake existed, and that I could master it. I could have screamed if I wanted, and stolen back the silence from this night. But I think it’s indecent to scream until you’ve disappeared, and I think that screaming is the only beautiful thing I’ve ever done.

See, screaming is the sound of destruction, the sensuous equivalent to a murder. It should be used only as a person is coming undone, and it should be the only witness. And so I screamed. It was sounds echoing off sounds echoing off a moment that can’t be recreated; a moment that one would call god later, or his absence. A moment that suffocates, like lake water, or smoke. Moments like these are rarely adjectives though later I think I’ll call my own beautiful. I’ll probably forget that it was a living thing, an animal or just many breaths of air, that this time spent in a lake devoid of the electric shouldn’t be contained within a memory but breathed up to sustain me through all my well-lit years, through currents and wires and waves.

You know what a moment like that does to a girl, don’t you? It breaks her apart. See but only when I’ve been divided can I believe I was ever whole. Only after screams that untie the knots within me can I forget all the disparities; the spaces like insults between my ribs, thirty separate teeth, 206 lonely bones. For a moment, right after throwing breathes and shadows out into the sky it’s possible to forget I’m made up of parts. Possible to believe I’m only a voice, a pretty little sound becoming a satellite; becoming some star my grandchildren can point to one day, and say my name. Have you had a moment like this? A moment when all you are is a voice that will last forever, as the only ugly light cast upon a planet of darkness?

I know where we’d be without electricity. We’d be in the middle of lakes trying to drown our skin beneath the water, trying to contain a living moment in our minds. We’d become silhouettes, gaping holes in the world, living lights that stretch and shout instead of shining. We’d cease to be solid; abandon our bodies for the shapes our voices traced in the sky.

I’m trying to say I’ve felt it: heaven. I’m trying to tell you I swam out too far one night, I screamed to loud, and held my breath too long. I’m saying that I think God is a language written somewhere above dark lakes, that stars are shouts reflected off each other. I think paradise is a scream, an exaltation, a moment of pure emotion or darkness. I think we’d be here without electricity; exulted and pure and feeling until we could take it no longer.

Nature around us.

Among the most exciting moments I have had was backpacking through the redwood groves of Northern California. Far away from the noises and distractions of the modern world, these ancient forests bring total tranquility. These are far from normal trees you would find in other forests. These trees are among the largest and oldest trees left in the world, with some of the having been around for over 500 years. For a living organism to have been around before the discovery of America is just mid boggling. The trees create such an atmosphere that you cant help but constantly keeping your eyes open and observing all the element around you from the deer to the small rodents. This trip really opened my eyes to the symbiosis that these animals and plants have with each other.

There is no doubt in my mind taht we should do more to save nature. Unfortunately most of us live in cities or suburbs which take us away from nature so it becomes hard many times for us to relate to the needs of the non human world. If more people had the chance to go out and explore the environment and see the dynamics of it, there would be a much stronger push for conservation.

Fantasia

The most thrilling, enchanting engagement I've had with the non-human world? But there have been so many and they're each so unique and special--how could one even compare?
I love the earth. I love the ground, I love the trees, and I love the leaves. This morning, I was sitting in my Arabic class in the second floor of Ward and literally was staring at the leaves, with their autumn colors, blowing in the wind. I was not even outside to partake in the cool breeze or the crisp air, and yet, even through the window, through vision alone, I was engaged in a thrilling, enchanting, magical experience with the beauty of the non-human world. The colors, shapes, and swift movements of the leaves against the greyish blue backdrop of the sky stirred deep within my soul. After that vision, how could I worry about anything?
Nature speaks to the soul and has an ability to heal nearly all wounds. Humans must protect nature because in protecting nature they are truly helping themselves. Pain, death, stress, and destruction are constantly complicating our lives and nature truly is the safest, most healing refuge we have. To allow our magic to be destroyed, to cause pain to that which removes our own, is something that humans have a responsibility not to allow to happen. The earth is too precious and sacred, not just with its own systems, but for the mental, physical, and spiritual healing of humans. We have to do more to protect the earth, if for no other reason (although I have several other reasons), it means protecting ourselves.

The Greatness of Nature

When I was in high school, I lived in Switzerland. My high school was in a mountainous villege which had about 3000 people. I had to take a mountain railway to go up and down from the village. It was inconvenient to live there, but the view was excellent. I used to go jogging every morning through a big farm and a small path in the woods. Twenty minutes after running through the unpaved path, there is a place called "Eagle's Nest." It is on the cliff hidden by the woods, and there, you can see the Lac Leman sparkling among a sea of clouds. I think the view was the most enchanting one, but I saw a lot of beautiful views in Switzerland and the Alps. Certainly, I know that nature is not always beautiful and kind to people. I was terrified that my eyelid got frozen when I went snowboarding in minus thirty degree. However, I would like to save the nature and enable for the future generation to see these beautiful views. Some people think that they have to control the nature and change it somehow artificially, but I think that we need to find the way to live within the nature and get along with it.

Mitzpe Ramon

I love traveling because whenever you travel you get to experience an entirely new environment. Not only do people change and their culture but you get to investigate a new ecosystem. Whenever I visit somewhere new I'm always amazed at how different the Earth looks from there. The last place I traveled too was Israel, last spring for study abroad. Israel completely took my breathe away because it has so many different landscapes in one tiny country.

The place that absolutely took my breathe away, was when I saw the Negev for the first time at Mitzpe Ramon. At Mitzpe Ramon there is a giant creator that just drops off into the Negev. It was amazing, I couldn't take my eyes away. As our tour guide says, when you come here you can understand how Christianity, Judiasm and Islam were created here in the desert because you can't help but be contemplative and think. I remember he had us lay down right next to the clif and just take deep breathes and think and I never felt more at peace.

I love to hike and explore the non-human world and I think it is crucial that we save it. I don't even want to imagine a world with only human and pests (species that threive with humans). That would be a bland world. We would loose all the inspiration we get from the non-human world and nature. If we loose bio-diversity we'll only eat a couple of plants, see a couple of flowers and animals, it would be so boring. So I say we come together and fix our planet so that we can all live happily together...the end!

Food Choice

Honestly, I do not care about the environment when I choose what to eat, becasue environmentally good foods, such as organic food, are usually expensive. I often buy chap, frozen vegitables instead of fresh ones. Also, I am living with one roommate, not a whole family, so a little bit of foods is enough to feed two of us. Compared to foods in my hometown, foods in the US are designed for a big family. For example, the number of mushrooms in one container is bigger (Mushroom itself is bigger, too, I think). If the number in one container is smaller, I would buy one, but, in this situation, I might spoil most of the mushrooms. This is why I tend to buy cheap, frozen vegitables which will not spoiled in such a short period of time.

More harm then good, but do we care?

I know the environmental impact many of the products we find in the supermarket have but when browsing the aisles, its easy to forget while scanning for dinner. The good thing is that the United States is so agriculturally rich that so much of the food we find in the supermarkets are from this country and don’t need to be shipped half way across the world. That being said, walking in the produce line gives a bit more of a sobering feeling. Walking thru the tables and tables of tropical fruits, its almost shocking at the abundance of fruit and vegetables that have been shipped across the world and the huge carbon footprint that this leaves. This is such a departure from reality when considering seasonal fruit no longer have meaning because we can get our strawberries and oranges anytime of the year. This is an unhealthy relationship. We can learn to ejoy the variety of seasonal fruits and move away from the expectation that everything should be available at all times.

The food items that probably had the largest environmental impact is no doubt the beef in my diet. The amount of energy in the form of cut down forests to make room for cattle, the vegetables grown and fed to the animals the slaughter, butchering and transportation of the animal and it finding its way as a patty in our meet section is mind boggling. Although the means of distribution has allowed us to lower the costs of this chain its still does considerable environmental harm.

food food food

I try to think about the environment when I make my food choices, but sometimes it's depressing and I choose no to think about it. It kind of disturbs me when I look at the ingredients on the back of all the processed food we eat in the United States because I never know all the ingredients are or what they do. It just seems unnatural and unhealthy. I watched a documentary last year, called "King Corn", that really changed the way I looked at the food industry particularly the production of corn in the United States.

In "King Corn", two recent college graduates went to rural Iowa to grow an acre of corn to discover the inner workers of the corn industry. They realized that most of the corn grown in the United States is genetically modified and not for people to eat. It's either grounded up for animal feed, so there is corn in our beef, or it is used to create corn syrup, which is used as a sweetener in almost all processed foods and drinks. Basically they discovered that corn is in almost everything we eat in such vast amounts that it's can be found even in our hair!! I found it incredibly weird to think about. After watching that movie I swore I'd eat all organic and natural food, but that just isn't a feasible option for me because of the cost of those foods. While I was abroad in Israel, I ate all locally grown fruits and vegetables. It was great and I knew that the foods I ate over there were not only better for me but better for the environment.

I think all the processed and frozen food I ate over the past two days, like the frozen dinner I had and the cereal I ate for breakfast. Those foods cause the most environmental damage because all the wheat, corn and other vegetable ingredients had to be grown, packaged and shipped to the factories. Then at the factories they are processed with who knows what, re-packaged then shipped to the grocery stores where I bought them. All the energy used to produce those foods create a lot of environmental damage. I wish there were more organic and local affordable options here in the United States, so that the food I consume isn't as environmentally damaging!

My Relationship with Food and when it turned Green

The summer before my freshman year in high school I went on a month long backpacking trip in the Pacific Northwest, which drastically impacted my perceptions on the relationship between humans and their natural environment, including my personal relationship with food. After coming back from the trip I told my mom that I would only eat Kosher organic meat (I grew up in an observantly Jewish household, so all of our food had to be strictly Kosher, and I loved meat too much-or so I thought-to just give it up). My mom's response was, "If you pay for it, you can do whatever you want". Well, having no source of income except for meager babysitting wages, I chose what I saw to be the next best, although initially painful, option. I became a strict organic vegetarian.
My initial reasons for becoming a vegetarian were rooted in politics and health. I did not want to support the companies that were mistreating both animals and workers (for me it was the Kosher companies that were hiring immigrant workers and paying them meager wages--I am also weary with clothing companies), and I did not want to put chemically infested animals into my body. However, over the past 6 years, my reasons for vegetarianism, now pescetarianism (I reintegrated fish into my diet for medical reasons), have evolved and are continuing to evolve significantly.
One example is that my understanding of the environmental impact food production had went so far as the treatment of animals, but I rarely associated my diet with the impact of food transportation. Last week I went home for Rosh Hashanah, and, as with most Jewish holidays, our week revolved around two giant feasts dedicated to bringing in a sweet and healthy new year. My mom, knowing that I am usually short protein, made a beautiful organic seared tuna dish the first night and wild Alaskan salmon the second night. Under normal circumstances that would have been a dream. I should have been able to eat those dishes no problem, with nothing on my conscience (except the fact that I am still not completely comfortable eating fish). After all, it was a holiday, I got to go home and eat my mom's cooking, and she made two ridiculously nice special meals just for me (well, for my siblings and relatives too). So, why then was I unable to eat my fish without a heavy heart?
I think I can attribute a large part of that to the recent readings for this class relating to the world's fisheries. Those readings reminded me that there are still hundreds of changes I can make in my life to coexist more peacefully with the earth. The Alaskan salmon, probably the food that had the greatest environmental impact because of the transportation (although I am not entirely sure) was contributing to the depletion of the very thing that keeps us alive-the natural environment. It was organic, so my Mom certainly thought that I would approve, but that didn't matter. The environmental impact of bringing that salmon to my dinner plate in Akron, Ohio was not the way I wanted to start my new year. To credit my mom, the fish was delicious (there was no point on letting it go to waste), and it may have even been worth it simply for the dialogue that it opened among my family members. So, to answer the question, I do think about the environmental impact of the food that I consume, and the weight the impact plays on my decision to consume the food has continued to increase since taking this course.