Day 6: Breathing in Abram and Bower

"What a mystery is the air, what an enigma to these human senses!  On the one hand, 

the air is the most pervasive presence I can name, enveloping, embracing, 

and caressing me both inside and out, moving in ripples along my skin. 

-Abram

Before getting into this entry, I have to say that I agree with many of the reviewers about how David Abrams writes.  It is both lyrical and illuminating.  It read like cognitive rhythm.  First to the rhythm of various first nations as he explored the very meaning of the wind itself from the perspective of the Lakota and the Dine cultures of North America.  

Breath itself, Abrams argues,  is the wind in microcosm and it is connected in consciousness to the world itself.  It makes sense that breath and the conscious and unconscious act of breathing would signify more than the expansion and contraction of the chest for many different cultures.  Perhaps the emergence of death itself lies in the act of a still chest.  It is said that dogs have the ability to detect death in the breath we exhale and a few lives have been saved through the presence of a canine alert to the imminent health needs of an owner going into cardiac arrest.  

Science may one day find ways to diagnose and cure various respiratory ailments based solely on the sample of our breath, catching some "essence" of what makes us sick or strong.  It is thought by many people within our own culture that a person's dying last words (or last breaths) contain some significance for the survivors.  

Having witnessed death on several occasions myself, the final moments when the act of breathing becomes gasps, gurgles, and finally nothing is both disturbing but also profoundly moving.  Being in the presences of death when the last breath has gone often subconsciously brings loved ones closer to the deceased.  In the cases I have witnessed hands are held, hair is caressed, eyes may or may not be peered into and most importantly reverent whispers of love are exchanged just after the realization that the spirit or last breath has departed and just before the explosive realization of loss fully hits.  So yes, I see value in the link between spirit and breath that Abrams describes.

 I wonder why we whisper though.  Is it because the imminent awareness of loss saps strength or something deeper.  Death is never pleasant.  Perhaps we are quite because we are uncomfortable.  The only times I really remember whispering is when I was having fun with friends, on a date, or speaking quietly so as not to scare wildlife.  I am sure if my life was threatened by violence and I needed to hide and communicate, I would only whisper then as well.  What does whispering signify in this instance, I do not know.  

David Abram

Anyway, back to Abrams...I enjoyed his description of early Hebrew texts and the absence of vowel phonemes which created space for interpretation.  There seems to be some disappointment on behalf of Abrams and member of our discussion group about the sadness of fixing the spiritual interpretation to one sound.  I myself am not surprised as the development and expansion of written languages in the this region of the world would come to be dominated by the Greek alphabet.  How many times has the bible been translated and written into other languages and forms.  Now you can find graphic novel versions of the bible and a controversial version that includes photographs from pop culture and modern history.  There there are new versions and interpretations like the Mormon bible.  

Should this surprise us if we believe that social cognition is a dynamic and ever changing process?  I think not. What should surprise us is that some groups become so disfunctionally fixated on one version or system of thinking that they lose touch with evidence that overwhelmingly disagrees with their older encapsulated beliefs.  What happens when this occurs is either a paradigm shift or cognitive entrenchment.  But that is another discussion.

"Exercising ecological intelligence would focus on the history of cultural forces 

that led to this taken-for-granted-pattern of thinking." 

-Chet Bowers

Ah...Chet Bowers.  Though I did not remember it at the time of our group discussion, I have read his work.  Both he and David Orr greatly influence my concept of ecological literacy during my graduate work at The Evergreen State College.  This article has been a nice way to reacquaint myself with  his work and see its evolution in the time since I have last studied his work.  

I have been an environmentalist since before I was born, though I grew up on a ranch I grew up to become a biologist who worked with and taught about wolves.  I college we went to local hardware stores to see about getting donations for a new campus recycling program (now the college has a huge edifice dedicated to environmental science).  There was no environmental degree at Mesa, so I blended biology with political science.  Then I worked for environmental and wildlife organizations.  

One day during my hundredth (or more) presentation, I came to the realization that if you wanted to save wolves or other wild places, you needed to teach the children how to ride a bicycle (then you would not need so much oil).  I decided to become a teacher.

Chet Bowers

After ten years in the field I have come to the realization that Bowers talks about in this article.  The educational system is culturally entrenched and encapsulated and by and large, is failing to teach children basic ecological skills (I would also argue skills for democratic literacy as well).  

As a teacher of at risk children (ESL kids in grades K-5), I wanted to show them how to ride a bicycle, grow a garden, and recycle.  But the system was not so flexible.  My position was restricted to teaching speaking, listening, reading, and writing in English.  While many times I was creatively subverted my administrators encapsulated worldview, she had a point as well.  Children need to be able to communicate, read, and write to change the world.  There are examples of illiterate peacemakers but they are few and far between.  

So a question arises which I will probably research in more detail in the coming weeks.  Is there a connection between academic literacy and ecological literacy/intelligence that Bower speaks of.  Bower writes about the ecological and cultural commons.  What about an educational commons?  Shouldn't there be, in this day and age, a  common educational right that all children and adults should have a right to?  And, if there is an educational commons, what are the current educational enclosures? 

While the educational system utterly failed to teach me ecological literacy, through trial and error (an an inherent intelligence in the natural world as discussed by Howard Gardner) I was able to emerge more ecologically conscious and aware than most of my peers.  I do not consider myself gifted in this area but I am aware. Why wasn't this fire ignited in my peer community?  I am not sure.  But one factor I can pinpoint as a possible suspect was an educational system and pedagogy encapsulated in outdated paradigms about humanities relationship within the natural world.