Wit-Sa-Nap Creek Winter Sunset. Robin L. Chandler, 2024
“[According to the Avatamsaka Sutra,] Indra’s net is pictured as stretching indefinitely in all directions, and at each of the knots of the net is a glittering jewel. All the other jewels in the net are reflected in each individual jewel, and each jewel reflected is also reflecting all the other jewels. This metaphor describes what was called, in Pali (the original language of the Buddhist canon), paticca samupadda, “dependent co-arising.” Modern Buddhist teachers have called it “interbeing,” or “the harmony of universal symbiosis.” This is a theory of mutual intercausality, interconnectedness, and interdependence. It is a worldview from the same ecophilosophical galaxy as Alexander von Humboldt’s “kosmos,” the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation’s principle of hisuknis cawaak, and the “everything is connected” view at the heart of ecology. When Thoreau wrote that humans need to “realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations,” he had this kind of idea in mind.
We think in metaphors, often — and even scientists do. Metaphors are the templates of pattern, and having those templates helps scientists — and everyone — “see” the patterns and relationships underlying the superficial “data” of experience, which often appear chaotic. Thoreau wrote in his journal on August 5, 1851, “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” Seeing deep patterns needs a metaphoric, poetic mind.” (p.166)
The Sierra Nevada Red Fox pictured in my painting is endangered; there are less than forty of these beautiful creatures remaining in the California counties of Alpine, Fresno, Inyo, Madera, Mono and Tuolumne. As an artist, I choose to make art that fosters kinship with the earth by capturing glimpses of the world’s beauty. I hope that inspiring others to understand our interconnectedness with nature will help preserve the earth- and in this case, the Sierra Nevada Red Fox – for future generations.
“So is ecology a kind of art? And, of course, art, like anything humans (or members of other species) do, is one kind of “interaction” between us and our environment. The logical conclusion from these definitions is inescapable: art is one aspect of human ecology, and ecological science is a kind of art. And since art is a kind of behavior, it may be an example of ecologically adaptive behavior…..if the art of Audubon and the Hudson River School painters has helped save parts of our biosphere, I’d say they are contributing to human survival – and that’s by definition, adaptive.” (p. 63-64)
“Most forms of Western ethics view persons as independent egos, centers of individual choice and action. But the Buddhist “dependent co-arising” view doesn’t see persons in that way. Ecology and evolutionary biology don’t either. The ethics that inspired these differing views – the Western ego-self view versus the Buddhist eco-self view – come out to be quite different. Aldo Leopold argued articulately, from an ecological perspective, for this broader view of self and community. He believed that ethics depend on the premise that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His “land ethic” enlarged the concept of this “community” to include soils, waters, plants, and animals.” (p.174)
“When it comes to actions and lifestyles, a world of total interdependence has both a negative and a positive side. On the negative side, anything that a person does can affect the whole system. Our ego-selfish actions have a global reach. But the positive side of total interdependence is that our actions and our choices, no matter how small, can send ripples of healing through the whole system.” (p. 175)”
Walking along Division Creek near the Sawmill Pass Trailhead. Robin L. Chandler, 2023.
“Away from the sounds of roads and the glare of carbon-arc streetlights, it is quiet here. Some would say it is peaceful, but that is not the right word. This land throbs with life in every season and at every hour. And the quiet itself is not truly quiet. In the absence of the noise of jets and air conditioners, internal combustion engines and recorded music that blankets our perception in most of the human environments of America, ten thousand subtler voices may be heard.”
Today March 31, 2022 our beloved Grinnell, peregrine falcon and mate for seven years to Annie, passed away. Thank you Grinnell for gracing our lives and for giving us so many treasured moments. Life is so fragile and so precious. You will soar always in our hearts.
For the last few weeks, I have been making plans with family and friends for treks to Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras. The mountains are calling and I must go![1] While Covid-19 has kept me close to home, in my dreams I have visited the wilderness and have touched the Earth. Soon, I will be in the mountains breathing the air in a place as big as my dreams where trees connect the land to the sky. I will breathe and my spirit and body will be filled with beauty. Everyone should have the opportunity to breathe the good air of mountains and trees; everyone should feel welcome in the wilderness. But I fear the wilderness – this life giving world of trees and land and sky – may become a dream if we don’t act soon. The wilderness, like a garden nourishes plants and creatures, both animal and human. Respect, compassion, knowledge, and dialogue are critical to caring for landscapes (and all creatures). Otherwise, as we tread the Earth, we will leave nothing but scars on the land, the plants, and all living creatures.
Breath has been much on my mind lately, just as George Floyd’s last breath has been rattling the conscience of my nation. Many Black Americans are marching and rightfully demanding answers about violence. Many White Americans are searching their souls grappling with the violence that is continually perpetrated on people of color. It is time to search our souls and time to listen deeply; we must bathe in these painful and guilt-choked waters before taking action. When Black people say “I can’t breathe” they are saying I can’t take a breath because the police are choking me; I can’t take a breath because I have less economic opportunity; and I can’t take a breath because where I live the air is polluted. This is what we think about when we discuss the need for equality, equity and justice.[2]
Most of the sun’s energy is reflected back into space by the earth’s atmosphere. But due to human activity we have reached the highest amount of carbon dioxide in the last 600,000 years; it has risen from 277 parts-per-million (ppm) to 417ppm in just two hundred years. Carbon dioxide has increased because of our use of fossil fuels and deforestation practices[3]. Since 1850 (the beginning of the industrial revolution), the temperature has risen 1.8 degrees Centigrade (C). In some areas temperatures are rising more than in others; in the United States, the Southwest has warmed up 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.8 C) and parts of the Arctic have already warmed by more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit (F) or (4.0 C). As the climate changes, extreme events increase; there are deeper droughts; more severe rain events resulting in massive flooding; and heat waves. For a number of years, the United Nations (UN) has stated that 2.0 degrees Centigrade is the temperature level the world must hold to and this was formalized in the 2015 Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UN commissioned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to consider what are the dangerous / unacceptable levels of climate change; the panel’s work resulted in a report, presented in 2016, that details impacts at both 2.0 degrees Centigrade and 1.5 degrees Centigrade. The main messages of the report are as follows: the climate has already warmed 1.0 degree Centigrade from pre-industrial times which has already made significant impacts, and without further action temperatures could rise above 3.5 C (6.3 F); every bit of warming matters, losses increase significantly from 1.5 C to 2.0 C; and limiting warming to 1.5 C requires deep cuts in emissions (50% by 2030). The United States did not approve the report.[4]
White-supremacy plays a significant role in the climate crisis, just as it does in the political and economic suppression of people of color. Some of the most important things you can do to strengthen the climate movement is to fight facism against brown and black people; as we take action to ensure that black and brown people have clean air, clean water, and access to trees in their neighborhoods, we will fight climate change, and help all inhabitants of Earth.
People of color are not strangers to the Earth. In her essay EARTHBOUND on solid ground,[5]bell hooks wrote about walking through rows of crops with her grandfather, a Kentucky sharecropper, who taught “I’ll tell you a secret…no man can make the sun or the rains come – we can all testify. We can all see that ultimately we all bow down to the forces of nature. Big white boss may think he can outsmart nature, but the small farmer knows. Earth is our witness.” bell writes “when black people migrated to urban cities, this humanizing connection with nature was severed; racism and white supremacy came to be seen as all-powerful, the ultimate factors informing our fate. When this thinking was coupled with a breakdown in religiosity, a refusal to recognize the sacred in everyday life, it served the interests of white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.”
It is our shared responsibility to preserve our Earth for the future and for the most vulnerable. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the frightening truth about racism and climate change and it is easy to shut down, unable to act because we believe we are powerless to act; powerless to bring about the right-kind-of change. When we feel overwhelmed, we need to sit and feel the pain; understanding the pain will lead us to action. It is time to make the change we want. There is much work to be done and we must begin today. And the place to start is exercising our vote. I will vote in November, and before the election, I will work hard to get others registered to cast their votes. The esteemed writer Marilynne Robinson recently asked what kind of country do we want? Our votes will determine the kind of country we want! We will breathe again.
“We should be cutting lies instead of trees” in my blog title is gratefully borrowed from Jerry Martien’s poem Salvage This.
[3] Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes heat radiated from ground level to be reflected back towards the earth’s surface. This prevents the emission of heat from the earth, thereby raising the temperature of the earth.
[5] bell hooks. EARTHBOUND on solid ground was published in Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World, edited by Alison H. Deming and Lauret E. Savoy and published in 2011 by Milkweed Editions in Canada.
alive in the sea of information 