Faith and Nature

Archive for the ‘conservation’ Category

My trip to the AGO meeting in Davis turned out to be an all day affair if you take into account the bike and train commute. I hopped on my bike at 7:20 am and pedaled to the Berkeley Amtrak station. The day started cold, foggy and breezy waiting for the train. I used to know my way around Davis like the back of my hand, having spent four years there as an undergrad. But my memory failed me, and the campus has expanded, and I ended up a bit disoriented, but fortunately found a sign and a fellow attendee to point me in the right direction. I arrived at the meeting location, the Mondavi Center at 9:50, with a little more than an hour to spare. I took the liberty of introducing myself to a few other early arrivals, including the Executive Director of the Stewardship Council, the Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, a former dorm mate from my undergrad years at UCD, and the California Wilderness Coalition.

The session went from 11:00 until about 12:15, with most of that time taken up with the audience listening. If you are interested you can download the agenda. Of the various presenters the presentation that left the most impact with me was Andy Beckstoffer, from Beckstoffer Winery talking on the benefits of private conservation easements in California. With the pressure to expand development up and down the Central Valley, easements may play a key role in protecting land and sustaining agriculture. Phil Martainelli talked about reintroducing Elk into California, including two areas that I’ve visited while taking photos for The Nature Conservancy, The Carrizo Plain and San Antionio Ranch.

But the real focus of the meeting was to give the people attending the event the opportunity to tell their stories. The stories continued for an additional 45 minutes beyond the 45 minutes allotted, and they could have gone on for another two hours. There were, in my estimate, about 200 people attending. We heard from fly fishers, mountain bikers, off road vihicle enthusiasts, rock hounds, hikers, land trusts, cattlemen, farmers, ranchers, environmental educators, including Natures Theater just to name a few. Some of the issues that came up included the Berryessa Snow Mountain proposed national conservation area, with stories both for and against the proposal, the wilderness status of Drakes Estero (the photo above is from Drakes Estero), invasive species such as the Zebra Mussel, and restrictive nature of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

I left the event with a new awareness of the opportunities that exist to connect people with nature by helping them share their stories.

I’ll be attending the America’s Great Outdoors listening session hosted by Congressman Mike Thompson tomorrow, with the intend of expanding my network people that are interested in connecting people with nature.  A number of organizations involved with nature, conservation and land protection are expected to be there.  And to help celebrate America’s Great Outdoors here a photo of on of my favorite places, the Carrizo Plain

On May 2 as part of Dance-A-Rama I staged a performance piece involving dancers, the audience and the panoramic camera. My intent was to create some hope and inspiration amidst all the statistics we see about the effects of climate change. You can read more about the event and see the resulting images by clicking here.

Earth Day found me on the Carrizo Plain looking for wildflowers. It was an overcast and cold with an occassional rain shower. Watching the clouds move in on the Carrizo Plain is dramatic. I’ll be posting photos shortly. In the meantime here’s  photo I captured a couple of hours ago in the Antelope Valley, east of Los Angeles.

The Amen of Nature is always a flower – Oliver Wendell Holmes

I’m reading Gary Snyder’s book Back on the Fire, which is a thought provoking collection of essays, I was particularly struck by the following from pages 34-35.

Gift economy? That might be another perspective on the meaning of ecology. We are living in the midst of a great potluck at which we are all the invited guests. And we are also eventually the meal. The Ainu, when they had venison for dinner, sang songs aloud to the deer spirits who were hanging about waiting for the performance. The deer visit human beings so that they might hear some songs. In Buddhist spiritual ecology, the first thing to give up is your ego- The ancient Vedic philosophers said that the gods like sacrifices, but of all sacrifices that which they most appreciate is your ego. This critical little point is the foundation of yogic and Buddhist askesis. Dogen famously said, “We study the self to forget the self. When you forget the self you become one with the ten thousand things.” (There is only one offering that is greater than the ego, and that is “enlightenment” itself.)

The being who has offered up her enlightenment is called a Bod-hisattva. In some of the Polynesian societies the Big Person, the most respected and powerful figure in the village, was the one who had nothing—whatever gift came to him or her was promptly given away again. This is the real heart of a gift economy, an economy that would save, not devour, the world. Gandhi once said, “For greed, all of nature is insufficient.” Art takes nothing from the world; it is a gift and an exchange. It leaves the world nourished.

“Ripples on the surface of the water— were silver salmon passing under—different
from the ripples caused by breezes”

A scudding plume on the wave—
a humpback whale is
breaking out in air up
gulping herring
—Nature not a book, but a performance, a high old culture

Ever-fresh events
scraped out, rubbed out, and used, used, again—
the braided channels of the rivers
hidden under fields of grass—

The vast wild
the house, alone.
The little house in the wild,
the wild in the house. Both forgotten.

No nature

Both together, one big empty house.

Join Jan Steffe and me for a six week course titled Finding Joy and Generosity in Creation.  The class will look to the natural world and our experiences within it to better understand living with joy and generosity while surrounded by pain and scarcity. In response, we hope to rejoice in our responsibility and commit to generously caring for the resources with which God as entrusted us. The course will be offered at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, 2407 Dana Street, Berkeley, CA,  starting Sunday January 10,  2010 at 11:30.  You can download the Winter Institute Program here, or register for the class here.

Sometimes the signs along the journey of life leave room for interpretation. Here’s a trail marker which normally points to the direction for hikers, but it has come off of it’s anchor and my daughter Amy has it pointing in a new direction. A reminder that perhaps one greater than us is at work here, but I’d prefer to feel the presence of the creator through the creation rather than the clouds. We found this sign along a trail on Ring Mountain,  a small nature preserve on the Tiburon peninsula.  What makes Ring Mountain special in my mind is that you can feel a sense of peace and solitude in nature while being surrounded by the bustling urban life of the Bay Area. From the top you have a view of San Francisco to the North, Mount Tamalpais to the South, and Mount Diablo to the Southeast.  The soils of Ring Mountain also make the location unique.  Rocks such as blue schist and green schist, and serpentine, discourage many of the local native plants and give rise to some unique plants such as the Tiburon Mariposa Lily which is only found in this preserve. Since we would occasionally visit the preserve on family hikes when our kids were small it’s fun to come back and reminisce about visiting the preserve in years past. More photos of the preserve are available here.

The Nature Conservancy turns 58 today, having incorporated on this day in 1951. I’ve been involved with TNC for over 20 years, helping organize and lead tours of some of the preserves, and then providing photographs to help with fund raising and promotion of some of the projects. One of my favorite TNC projects is The Carrizo Plain. This is a broad expanse of land on a plateau between the Caliente and Temblor ranges.  It’s notable because it comes close to representing what the Central Valley looked like before irrigation and farming. In the spring time it becomes a carpet of wildflowers, and a sense of exapansive open space. When I first visited the Carrizo in 1987 or so, it was the domain of barb wire, Peruvian sheepherders, and a few staunch coservationists and researchers. It is now a National Monument with hiking trails, an interpretive center, the Guy Goodwin Center.

I find it encouraging when leaders of faith such as the Rev. James Jones, a prominent leader in the Church of England, make statements that will help map our future in terms of environmental stewardship.  Jim Wallis in Soujourner’s Magazine has the following quote from the Rev. Jones:

Just as we look back on previous times with incredulity and wonder how people, especially believers, could have not only condoned but succored the slave trade and slavery, so in later years I think subsequent generations, who will live consciously with the reality that the earth is not a limitless larder, will find it difficult to understand how we could have described ourselves so uncritically as: “consumers.”

I just finished reading the book Under Bright Wings by Peter Harris. This is a book that recounts the story of a family that take up a mission to start a nature preserve based on Christian principles.  As Peter states in the last few sentences of the book:

My only intention in recounting our experience is to encourage other Christians to take up the challenge, not least because they can see how partial and limited have been our own efforts. By virtue of God’s infinite creativity and compassion, is should not be difficult to discover ways to begin.

The book recounts some amazing experiences, as they share their faith and commitment with the community in which they that transplant themselves. From their start on an Estuary in Portugal, the program, known as A Rocha has expanded to a number of facilities throughout the world.