1 January 2002 ...we are nature as we are its artists, its extensions


14:23: Sitting beneath the oak tree in the little valley of birches.

Today there are a hundred people, perhaps two hundred, visible from this spot. If there are thirty such spots then there are several thousands on the heath today... Usually I see fewer than fifty people, sometimes fewer than ten, in one or two hours walking.

Someone is setting off fireworks in the bright sunlight - two rockets so far but I saw only smoke, not star bursts, in the cloudless sky.

Is our presence an improvement, I ask, remembering the last words I wrote in 2001: 'we are nature as we are its artists, its extensions'?

'It depends what we do, and how we perceive' says a new voice that is perhaps preparing to speak (or to dictate?) what I will write in 2002...

I pause to listen to the world... UNusually, I hear sounds of adult voices in loud conversation and children's cries and shrieks - as if in a playground...

And when I look up from this little screen I see a designed landscape full of moving people - many more than it was intended for - and no Lord and Lady in command. Our task now is to make 'being numerous' an improvement! That's it, the next aim beyond 'sustainability' and 'protecting the environment' - two faulted and inadequate aims, to my mind (I feel that they both divide 'nature' or 'environment' from 'people'; impose dualism where unity and connectiveness are essential).

Cold hands. Time to put on my gloves and go for tea.



...but on the way there I paused to wipe mud from my shoes (I'd stepped in a little swamp that was still unfrozen though nearly all of the heath ground was frozen quite hard). While I wiped my right foot on a tuft of grass the doubled weight on my left foot caused it to sink suddenly into another bit of swampy ground... and when I lifted my left leg the shoe came off and filled with red muddy water... as I struggled to rescue the wet shoe and to empty it and put it back on while still standing on one leg in a semi-swamp, I found myself laughing out loud at this predicament.

And now, as I write of it in a warm room with dried shoes, I can't help wondering what sort of an omen this is for the new year? Do I see all my previous writings as steps in a partly frozen swamp - and my latest book as sinking if I put too much weight on it?... but this is nonsense, I hope.



digital diary dates

homepage

(c) 2002 john chris jones

You may transmit this text to anyone for any non-commercial purpose if you include the copyright line and this notice and if you respect the copyright of quotations.

If you wish to reproduce any of this text commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj at publicwriting.net.