THE REDISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA Lopez
Lopez’s small book is a contemplation on our relationship with the North American continent since its “discovery” in 1492 by C. Columbus for the Spanish Queen Isabella. Lopez situates us on the approaching ships to provide some insight into the reigning mind-set that defined how this “new land”, its people and their cultures were met. At the end of his remembrance, Lopez again returns us to the ship in order to give us the opportunity to consider which direction our choices and decision might take after our “illiteracy” and ignorance about the continent has been challenged. Throughout the little book, Lopez challenges us to IMAGINE not only what might have been here at the moment of contact, something to which we have been continuously blind, but also to image how we might still be able to see what is here, and how we might be able to recuperate, for our own collective benefit, some of the knowledge associated with the place(s) we have settled. Discuss how we might shift our existence from “settlers” to “inhabitants” of place. What does this mean vis-a-vis our relationship to “local knowledge”, to history, to resources? What does “listening” mean in this context? What do you expect to hear? Finally, consider how these work to outline what we might call (using Stegner’s phrase) a geography of hope.
24 comments:
Lopez indeed urges us to not view land as a possession but as a companion and friend. To develop this companionship we must spend time and become intimate with the land, never losing sight of its true wealth. He asks us to listen and “approach the land as we would a person, by opening an intelligent conversation. And to stay in one place, to make of that one, long observation a fully dilated experience”(37). Sojourning into the land connects us to our earthly companion and our neighbors; we realize that we are but a small piece in the cosmos.
I agree with Lopez that we mustn’t forget that as inhabitants we must reciprocate the gifts the land has given us. We must overcome our society's dark aspects of power and wealth that have resulted in such a dramatic cost to our land and its true value. Once we begin to imagine our earth as complex and beautiful we can truly respect it and fit in at home.
Having oriented oneself in a home space, and having begun to acculturate oneself to the intricacies of that home-space with a multi-level imperative for understanding, e.g. the plants, social history, land use, etc., the problem becomes acknowledging that your behavior is descendent from the unsustainable American tradition and thus is due for scrutiny and alteration. Lopez characterizes Bermeo’s first sighting of the New World in a unique way by redefining the context of his crying out for land. He says that when Bermeo cried out, a voice answered him, a voice from the land itself, but Bermeo did not hear this voice. Lopez claims that “When we arrived in the New World, we came to talk, not to listen” and that the voice of the earth “was an antiphony we wanted no part of” (Lopez 19). I was very struck by the idea of the earth as an “anti-voice” (“-phon” being a Greek root meaning sound or voice) and it led me to consider what the voice was that Bermeo wanted to hear. Lopez captures it clearly: “the assumption that one is due wealth in North America” (Lopez 10). That is the voice we have been listening to for 500 years. Then I considered some of the antiphonies in my own life: the sound of my car engine running, the sound of my computer fan humming, the sound of too much trash falling into the garbage truck outside my suburban dwelling. At some point, if we are to take responsibility for our place as a home, these antiphonies should change from annoying noises pushed away to instigators of behavioral switches. As Lopez reinforces, “We need to be more discerning about the sources of wealth” (Lopez 49). Discerning implies a certain measure of excision, of reducing the quantities of detail frittered in, of casting aside material trappings. Gil Scott-Heron asks us, in “Comment #1,” “Who will survive in America?” The answer is no one as America is “defined” today. And in response to this, I remind myself to GO LIGHT.
Cassidy Curl
A culture of listening must also develop out of and alongside our local knowledge. The land and our relationship to it is something that is constantly negotiated and transformed. Rather than impose an agenda—some destructive notion of Manifest Destiny or “progress”—we can listen closely to marginalized histories, human and non-human processes, and begin to imagine new ways to negotiate our relationship to systems we too often ignore, “so that what is left of what we have subjugated might determine its own life” (20). We retreat from our aggressive practices and invite the land into “the same moral universe we occupy, to include it in the meaning of the word community” (34). This is to truly listen.
By encouraging his audience to untie themselves from Columbus’ legacy, Barry Lopez gives us a newfound hope that stretches beyond the physical confines of geographical boundaries. The idea of hope, an intimate and almost spiritual relationship with the universe, combined with the idea of geography, a visual layout of our home, our “querencia”, encompasses the interconnectedness of physical ecosystems with a socially nourishing environment. “A geography of hope” then, can be understood as a spiritual guide; one that maps out locations where we as humans can retreat to in order to emotionally recharge and physically reawaken our senses by listening and attending to the movement and sounds of nature.
Lopez compares us to the men on Columbus’ ships in that we are at the point where we will decide which path to take. By listening we can learn from our environment and create a deeper connection to it. If we learn local knowledge and the history of a place we will understand its beauty and act responsibly. We must learn our place in our fragile ecosystem and how to take the resources we need for survival but give back to maintain our relationship. By finding our home in North America we can be true inhabitants through which we will acquire true wealth. We can imagine this change and it is not too late to act. -Michelle McCadden
We must be able to live cooperatively with the land’s many peoples, animals, and plants, and must take only what we absolutely need from those things in order to survive – nothing more. We must buy locally or grow our own gardens. We must welcome our neighbors into our homes instead of ushering them off our so called “properties.” And most importantly, we must remember that we do not own the land, but are rather just a single thread in its expansive web. In doing all of this, we are acknowledging the fact that the land, America, is a home – a place where things are born and change and die – not an item that can be bought and sold.
Because we are so domesticated, we have lost touch with nature and truly listening to its treasures. Living in the wild and being “one” with nature is seen as unconventional and a means of retrograding into the past. Though, as Darwin put it, “we are a wild species” and our domestication has brought us “comfort and material goods” but also “spiritual losses” and possibly self-destruction (Stegner, 2). I believe that we have to look in the past to understand how our land came to be and what it used to be like. We must know our history in order to not make the same mistakes and preserve the land the best we can. It is our “privilege to know what the landscape is actually like” but we take it for granted (Lopez, 55). The landscape and all the beauty it holds should be appreciated and treated with respect. Even so, we rarely sit back and “listen” to the land and the stories it has to share, but instead occasionally, superficially enjoy its beauty. Our modern world has taken these simple delights away from us and has driven us to live an impersonal technological lifestyle. Humanity is slowly becoming more computerized and technologically dependent. Hence, we need to come back to the natural land and embrace our past in order to save our future.
Amidst the discussion of being somewhere, Lopez introduces the Spanish term la querencia; which describes a place where one goes to regain strength, “a place in which we know exactly who we are” (Lopez 39). There is no word like this in the English language. This draws attention to the fact that we may have no understanding of what this feels like or where to find it. However, by listening to what is around us and ignoring any expectation of what events we feel need to happen, we may regain a connection to the land and find this place somewhere within where we are.
Ultimately though, this relationship reminds us of the inherent responsibilities to spread our received gifts to others in our community, who in turn will spread it to their community and the next. Hopefully continuing, until we feel this knowledge wrap itself around the world, linking one another into a worldwide family. Stegner’s voice accomplishes this kind of connection as he shares this ingrained desire to feel “a sense of bigness outside of ourselves”. Recognizing true wealth is not the hardest challenge we face. It is to have the courage to feel the call within ourselves and respond back with rising resonance.
What is most important, however, is that every person, or at least the overwhelming majority, must take the initiative to change their lifestyle, especially people who live in the United States, who have long lived under the notion of looking out for one’s self. This idea is poignantly summarized by Lopez’s last words in the book, that we need to rely on each other. Being able to live in harmony with the environment is only possible when all the people are committed to this. Through this, we can follow through with being able to live sustainably, a “geography of hope.”
Columbus’ ship arrives to this new land with little knowledge of what will greet them. However they did not have to know what was awaiting them because their acts of greed overtook every possible resource available all the while ridding themselves of the natives. From here it left a domino effect, that although there are “beautiful distractions” from nature it can easily be overlooked for acts of avarice (Lopez, 14). Looking at these acts, do we not wonder what will happen after all the resources are sucked out, when all of nature starts to deteriorate? These point of view needs to be altered in order to think of ourselves as a part of nature even though some do not naturally live within its boundaries. History has happened, yes, but it does not mean we have to follow the path it has lead us rather we can change ourselves now to safely preserve what is left. From preservation, knowledge can be gained not purely through literature but also an interaction with the environment to know when “‘enough… is enough’” (Lopez, 10).
The minute Columbus’s ships landed, the atmosphere was filled with deception as Columbus took the credit for discovering the land, while it was actually Senor Bermeo. The Spanish “imposed” instead of “proposed” and unfortunately, that pattern has continued to this day. People impose on the land and take whatever they need for their materialistic needs, while ignoring how or where the resources are being used. With this mentality, we are still settlers to the land instead of inhabitants; we see land as a personal possession instead of land we live on. Barely anyone, if at all, knows where they truly come from and the history behind their local background because all they are concerned about is the future and wealth. Barry mentions the word querencia, which is “a place in which we know exactly who we are”(39). Unfortunately, many of us have lost that sacred relationship between the place we occupy. It should be our local home that defines us, but now it that materialistic wealth and status is what defines in current day.
To be able to successfully listen to the land as it is means more than sitting in a quiet spot for a certain amount of time. It's learning about the land we live on, and what and who we share this land with. It's accepting our place within this land, and giving up some misplaced ownership to something that has existed and will exist longer than any of us. It is also essential to separate greed from what surrounds. "We lost whole communities of people, plants, and animals, because a handful of men wanted gold and silver, title to land..." (Lopez 15). We can sit outside, or even inside, and hear everything around us without really listening to what it is we hear. The difference between 'listening' and 'hearing' is vital in this case. Anyone can hear, but to really listen, we must first understand.
Today, our country has been built on many impositions stemming from our mentality of entitlement to things that do not belong to us. This conditions us from birth as Americans to assign property to things that cannot belong to us—such as land. If we choose to change our roles as settlers to inhabitants, Lopez proposes that one must be sensitive to the local knowledge—specifically to Americans, the Native American culture. The Native American tribes share a philosophy that the land does not belong to us, rather, that we belong to the land. In many tribes, the creation story is indicative of our niche in the ecosystem. The “hierarchy” in the creation story is filled with a lineage of different animals/insects. For example, a type of local knowledge one can adopt if they are on the Hopi reservation is our creation story about Tawa (Sun God) and Grandmother Spider (the Earth Goddess) and how their union came to will each aspect of our being here on earth (animals, geographic aspects, sounds, etc.). Even the most fundamental understand of local knowledge can bring appreciation to the land one inhabits. This real life example demonstrates the difference between History and history.
All of these aspects: understanding the history, having local knowledge, and limiting resource use are interlinked by one aspect, what Lopez calls us to do: “listen.” Lopez wants us to listen to everything that surrounds us today. Dig deeper, further beyond the noise we hear outside, but travel back to hear the ghosts, the native tribes that were once here, names that we have never heard of or know how to pronounce (25). If we don’t listen, we won’t learn. By listening, we will hear what those before us have to say about the land. We will become more intimate with the land we live in. With intimacy we will feel the need to protect the land we live in by not putting a value on everything, reducing our waste, increase in local products, and limit nonrenewable resource use. Along with intimacy, we will become inhabitants instead of settlers because we begin to care.
The Spanish never stopped to think about the value of the things they were destroying because they did not really belong here; this land was not theirs. The history was not theirs. Sure, they were amazed at the
novelties such as crocodiles and hummingbirds, but these were only beautiful distractions. They were willing to throw away these splendors in a moment (14). What the Spanish were lacking was respect for the organic and nonorganic elements of the land they happened upon. This is the same lack of respect that adults have when they ignore a child and then proceed to command that child to act in the way that they see fit. The Spanish needed to respect the land enough to “listen” to it; their time is gone
however, and their opportunity has passed them by (19). But we, in this place, in this time need to “listen” to what the natural world is telling us. The land we are part of is not a child to be cultured, developed and shaped to our liking. The land is above us, below us, beyond us and it will reclaim our bodies when we expire. It deserves our undivided
attention and respect.
Debbie Leung
January 21, 2010
Professor Verdichio
LTWL165
Response to Barry Lopez’ The Rediscovery of North America
As a representative and citizen of one of the world’s most developed countries, I propose that the first step in making our country our home is to change our attitude toward the land, resources, and communities around us. Instead of treating the land like trash, we would “approach the land as [we] would a person” (Lopez 31). When getting to know a person, it is considered indecorous to ask them for vast favors. In fact, they would think you were utilizing them solely for favors! This exact scenario is what we have done to the land. Just because the land doesn’t communicate the way we do through our mouths doesn’t mean it hasn’t said “no” in other ways. In thousands of ways, the land has said “no”, but all we hear is “yes.” We continue to take. We’ve asked so many favors of the land that the land is tired. It’s especially tired of getting to know us so well; but we don’t even know the land at all. Instead of being “settlers,” we should be “inhabitants” with a vested interest in the history, knowledge and culture of the land.
In the current day and age, we strive for material wealth. Such struggle makes each and every one of us poor. The huge gap between rich and poor is the space by which the poor seek to equal the rich. It is a lofty goal that fewer than few reach. Not enough resources exist in the world to sustain every person at the lifestyles developed countries live today. Wiser it would be to embark on a more reasonable, achievable goal: getting to know the land, where things come from, and where we come from. We should strive for “true” wealth in the form of
In the past, we as a people have, not asked, but rather, taken what the land offered us in deference to our needs and wants. It’s time we returned the favor. It’s time we “listened” to the land and put forth effort to give the land what it needs and what it wants: nourishment and respect.
Our attitude needs to change from impose to propose, from residence to habitation, from illiteracy to enlightenment, so that when we look at a map, we see not land that we could conquer and use to further our own success, but land that holds intrinsic value for what it is, and in that moment of looking, we experience a desire to know the land, its people, and its culture. We want to shorten the distance between ourselves and the land; be best friends with it. If we do, when we look at a map of the world, we will see a “geography of hope” (Stegner) bound by the ties of friendship.
In contrast, then, we must turn from this perception of the “I” and learn to think, see, and act from the collective, communal “I” or “eye” that is responsible for the actions of the community, respectful of the environment it both lives in and benefits from, and sees the destruction caused and attempts to minimize it. The collective eye not only sees from an insider’s view, it is inside and perceives environment to be a living, breathing organism made up of millions of organs and systems that work in cooperation and interdependence. It is only when we see with this eye that we can begin to mend our relationship with our land’s history, knowledge, local resources. It is only when we can start seeing from the “I” that we can start to not only live in our land, but listen.
Lopez beseeches us to consider cohabiting with the land instead of attempting to dominate it. He brings up the many people who lived here before the arrival of European setters potential mentors, as they more than any of us have had more time and experience with the land, are more well versed in the natural cycles. He notes the anonymity of the people who were destroyed in a genocide type incursion on pages 25-26. They too, were the horrific collateral of our juggernaut avarice. They, like the land, have illustrated for us the prodigious wealth lost in our superficial over-valuing of the physical, tangible world. The richness of these connections, these bodies of knowledge, the smutting out of efflorescence, the mastery of natives over their respective lands in a fairly harmonious relationship. The worth of these things, these connections, these networks, cannot be enumerated, quantified, priced in the way of Western civilization, only speculated, and never recreated. All this lost to the superficial understanding of value, held by European settles hundreds of years ago and indeed, Americans today.
Thus, a critical point that Lopez makes for the reader is the call for consolidation with our history, with the land itself. It is easy to identify Columbus as a hero or a murderous villain, however, both these versions of Columbus enable us to see ourselves at a distance from him. Lopez dispels this tendency, for either interpretation is inconsequential. The kind of man Columbus was is of no significance today, here and now. It was Columbus’s view of the land, its role as the giver and ours as the taker, internalized by Western civilization that is of any importance. Lopez invites ourselves to consider ourselves as a part of the system, not masters over it, with free command of the earth, our subject, ordained by the cosmos, scribed into destiny.
Through this theme of imagination, we are drawn back to the earth before colonization, and before land became worthy of only economic value. The idea of ‘impose’ drawn from lecture connects with this concept of settlement, “excursion of wealth,” and the need to feel inferior. The calling of unknown names such as the “Thelon River, Great Bear Lake, the Brooks range, Glacier Bay” and various other places, proves to us how disconnected we are from what once existed (28). Imagination interrupts here to propose an image of what the earth looked like before Columbus, and other colonizers declared the correlation between owning land and seemingly being wealthy. While we can’t duplicate what was lost, imaginary consciousness is what Lopez refers to as ‘knowledge’. The importance of knowing what can be lost before it occurs will hopefully prevent a situation such as “the people we ignored… a wealth that didn’t register until much of it was gone, or until like the people, it was a tattered, diluted remnant, sequestered on reservation”(29). While we can imagine and become ‘inhabitants,’ we are not making progress if we continue to allow for ‘settlement’ to transpire. Lopez then mentions the process of listening and what it truly means to be awakened, versus lamenting without making efforts.
To find a home to “sojourn in” and be an inhabitant we need to first look at our history in order to perceive how we learned to treat the earth. Lopez writes that the “incursion” of North America by the Spanish created a “harmful road into the New World (which) quickly became a ruthless, angry search for wealth. It set a tone in the Americas” (p.9). This tone is still prevalent today. Though the means to get the wealth and the idea of what wealth is has changed over the years from pillaging and killing for land and gold to now depleting the ozone layer and using children in sweatshop factories for the latest Lexus’ and iPad’s, the idea is still the same. The sense of entitlement we have to take from the earth and the idea of “I am what I have” has created a “loss of psychological and spiritual stability or groundness” (Kaza p. 6). The idea that “one is due wealth” (Lopez p.10) is relevant still today. How do we erase what our history has been teaching us for over three millenniums? The psychological insistence that acquiring goods and consuming is the means to happiness has been embedded in us to do whatever means necessary to acquire the goods. We must unlearn what history has taught us and learn from the past mistakes to create a better and more spiritual world or better yet, a home.
We must develop from feeling like settlers of the land to viewing ourselves as inhabitants of it. An inhabitant of a land does not exist in a superior position to it, but rather exists within the system of the place. Only when we can shift our mindsets to a position of equality within nature can we begin to regain balance. The key to this integration lies in our imagination; by being able to “imagine the physical place” (27) which was once there, societies will slowly be able to return to its previous splendor. By having the knowledge of all the living things which exist, or used to exist, within a space, people can begin to respect their place on societies alongside ourselves. Once the imagination grabs hold, the hope is that the remaining life can proliferate and expand, so that we can transition from imagining to being able to see.
Living in the ecologically-diverse region of Southern California, residents can encounter the coast, inland, mountains and desert in a single day. This highly-coveted area of North America is also home to one the most urbanization and population stresses. In this aspect, we “settle” the land instead of “inhabit” it. Motivated by economic and social factors, we build track housing and large metropolises to accommodate our insatiable need. We “settle” the land because we build little communities on top of this beautiful land, without having any real connection or local relationship with it. In order to “inhabit” this fragile and ecologically-valuable land, we must refocus our attempts at building over or conquering California’s natural habitats, and remember the local plants and people that occupied the land before our takeover. Lopez provides a comprehensive list of various Indian tribes, and shows that the loss of these people led to the loss of their language and culture as well (26). Not only do we threaten natural life, but endanger invaluable cultural creativity when we “settle” the land instead of “inhabit” it. To fully inhabit, we must build areas that do not consists of houses and commercial developments, but spaces that we can call home within local environments.
Post a Comment