Sweet in Tooth and Claw: stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World

 

 Even though Dr. Jonathan Lundgren had won several awards and published hundreds of scientific articles, he was reprimanded and treated with hostility for expressing the findings of his research on the ways neonicotinoids harm bees and monarch butterflies. In 2016 Jonathan Lundgren left his job at the USDA and began a fifty-acre farm:  Blue Dasher Farm; he named it after his favorite dragonfly.

  Dr. Jonathan Lundgren also created the Ecdysis Foundation, a non-profit research lab located on the farm. The name of the foundation refers to the stage of metamorphosis in which insects shed their skin.

 Several farmers support his research and partner with him to create a community of farmers who are interested in sustainable practices that work to improve the quality and resilience of the soil. In doing so, they restore the integrity of ecosystems, curb climate change, improve the quality of water and air and support human health. What is not to like about that?

  Kristin Ohlson reflects on their partnership in practical terms: “All these farmers are citizen-scientists. They walk the land with the informed, fond curiosity of naturalists and know that it’s folly to approach their work as if they were baking the same cake every season using the same recipe and ingredients. They know that nature has many moving, changing, interacting living parts and that these parts need our respect. For the farmers trying to find a path to both healthy profits and healthy landscapes, Lundgren’s science can answer some of their questions about how to proceed.”

  Buz Kloot is a scientist at the University of South Carolina who used to hate his work because he felt like a coroner. “The waterways were dying and the only thing I could do was to declare the cause of death.” He did not think that anything could change because he did not think farming could change. He did not think the health of the soil in modern America’s farmlands could change until he visited a farm owned by a soil-health pioneer: Ray Styer.

  Ray Styer had not used chemical fertilizers in twenty-five years.

   You can learn more by listening to Dr. Buz Kloot here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWDO_O3JUSI

 The experiences of various farmers are featured in the chapter entitled “Agriculture that Nurtures Nature”. It is the fifth chapter of Sweet in Tooth and Claw by Kristin Ohlson.

 I appreciate how the author debunks the false assumption that more agricultural productivity is needed to satisfy the demands of a growing population. “According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, we already grow enough to feed ten billion people, which is one estimate of the world’s peak population. A third of that production goes to waste, and another third feeds automobiles and CAFOs—Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations are where animals are divorced from their natural surroundings, crammed into very small spaces, and often fed things they never evolved to eat. The massive amount of food produced by industrial agriculture rarely reaches the billion people who are hungry, not because there isn’t enough food, but because it’s too expensive or is not locally available. And the farmers who are on the industrial-production treadmill suffer, too: the problem for them is overproduction, which results in lower prices despite their hard work”.

  

 

Why has cooperation in the natural world been overlooked for so long?

  Sweet in Tooth and Claw delves into the ways cooperation in the natural world works to sustain life. Her exploration of scientific facts may help readers understand why it is necessary to learn these concepts and may inspire societies to emphasize cooperation.

 The facts she shares in her books corroborate how our lives are interdependent and connected. To illustrate the awareness on the essence of her message, I can cite beavers and focus on how their actions benefit the environment.

  Many people do not know anything about the unique role beavers play through their sophisticated work. Beavers help to minimize the effects of floods, and they even help to prevent them. Beavers improve the quality of the water, store water during droughts, and create wetland habitat for other species, enhancing biodiversity.

  

 How does our own survival depend on the integrity of life on earth? How can our choices help to make a difference? Sweet in Tooth and Claw is a comprehensive resource to answer these questions.

  If you don’t have time to read the whole book, I recommend the chapters entitled “Living in Verdant Cities” and “We are Ecosystems”.

 Perhaps you remember that 90 percent of vascular plants interact with fungi. Their exchange plays a role in their health and survival, but these interactions are often ignored. I wrote about this here.

  There are more living organisms in a teaspoon of healthy soil than human beings on earth, and understanding this web of life is a work in progress.

 

When soil is healthy it is better prepared to withstand unexpected phenomena such as droughts and floods. Sustainable practices of agriculture that are based on fostering biodiversity and enriching the health of the soil with organic matter rather than using synthetic chemicals are reasonable ecological strategies to face the challenges ahead.

   I highly recommend Kristin Ohlson’s Sweet in Tooth and Claw. Some of the topics she addresses in this book have been discussed in previous posts at My Writing Life blog.

 

Finding The Mother Tree

Entangled life

The Ecological Gardener

  You may also want to visit this site.

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

 “Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in a factory.”

“The difference between the man who just mows lawns and the gardener is in the touching. The lawn mower might just as well not have been there at all. The gardener will be there a lifetime.”

 

 Everybody was in a rush, so the dew on the grass, the sensation of rain in the skin and the sunrise were insignificant details to most people in Farenheit 451, but Clarisse McClellan appreciated them.  She liked to go for walks and enjoyed watching nature. She observed people. She knew interesting facts about the past. Clarisse was spontaneous and curious, and, unlike her peers, she rejected violence, but in the Farenheit 451 society, Clarisse was considered creepy and crazy.

 Books are banned and burned. They are considered a dangerous source of useless ideas. The liberal arts no longer exist. Critical thinking skills, knowledge and empathy are suppressed and disregarded. Books can ignite controversy, so those who try to read them are arrested.

 In Farenheit 451 people are dumbed and numbed by television and technology. It is a mechanical society that has no clue about its history, and is not even aware of the extreme poverty in other parts of the world.

 When Montag, her neighbor, met Clarisse during her walks, he felt irritated at first. Montag thought she was a peculiar teenager. She was not considered normal by the societal standards. Normal teenagers in Farenheit 415 are expected to be violent.

 In Farenheit 451 people kill each other for nothing.

 Clarisse enjoyed meaningful conversations, and she was curious about Mr. Montag’s life. Why did he burn books? He was a fireman, but technology had created fireproof homes, so firemen were hired to burn books instead. Gone were the days when firemen were expected to put out fires in homes, and Montag was not even aware of that historical fact.

   Clarisse planted a seed of transformation in Montag. She asked him questions that made him feel uncomfortable and kindled a sense of wonder in him: he opened up to the idea of unlocking the hidden world of books. Clarisse sparked a new light of awareness for him.

 Montag refused to continue working as a fireman.

  Montag escaped from his stagnant existence and meaningless occupation to rescue the soul of the books, and new perspectives delineated the beginning of a different life. 

   What kind of life would that be?

   Throughout the story multiple artists and literary authors are referenced; they were all male. Then I realized Ray Bradbury wrote the book in the year 1951. In those days it was normal to highlight the works of men, not women…At least, he mentioned Emily Dickinson in the foreword of the edition of the book published in the year 1993.

  Farenheit 451 left me in awe; the book is relevant today on so many levels…

    Yes, I do make the time to volunteer to create a space of awareness, reflection, inspiration. If you feel connected to Clarisse McClellan in more ways than one, you are not alone. Welcome to My Writing Life blog, and thank you for reading.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to read my writing on the following posts:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Island by Aldous Huxley

The Handmaid’sTale by Margaret Atwood

 

 

The Good Lord Willing and the Creek don't Rise by Robert Norris

 

 

 I love books that take me on journeys to distant places. The Good Lord Willing and The Creek don’t Rise will help you “travel” from the comfort of your home, and will make you feel part of unexpected adventures that will awaken your   conscience to new reflections.  

  This book reminds us that amid the darkness, we can seek the light toward growth, wisdom and self-realization.

Spanning over a century, this memoir captivates our hearts and nourishes our curiosity.

How does a person manage to settle down and thrive in a different culture? Robert Norris grew up in the redwood forests of California, but he ended up settling down in Japan, forty years ago.

  The memoir starts long before Robert Norris was born, with the trials and tribulations of his ancestors, the children of immigrants from Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden. Their love, resilience and perseverance guided them through adversity, and a dose of humor was never absent from their everyday challenges. Sometimes they did not know where their next meal would come from, but they stood together and moved forward. Their indomitable spirit will hopefully continue to inspire generations of people.

   The experiences of his great-grandparents and grandparents roaming the Midwest in search of work on farms is vivid in my mind.

 “Around 1928 the Fredericks loaded their belongings in two beat-up trucks and headed west from North Dakota. They’d travel until they found work farming, picking fruit or any kind of labor. They sometimes became scattered, with some members staying in one place working while others moved on ahead. Grandad Frederick and some of his clan finally settled in White Salmon, Washington, in 1932. Not long after, mom, her mother, father, brother and maybe a couple of cousins, or aunts and uncles also made the journey…”

 The inspiration for this book is rooted in Robert Norris’s mother: Kay Schlinkman. 

  Kay Schlinkman grew up on the banks of the Columbia River in the 1930s and 1940s. Kay was ahead of her times. She fought against sexual and power harassment in the home and workplace.  She overcame the ostracism of a small logging town in the late 1950s when she chose to divorce her first husband. She was excommunicated by the Catholic church for remarrying; she experienced severe rejection when she chose to support her son’s refusal to go to war in Vietnam, and she also had to deal with the burden of paying off her second husband’s gambling debts. There were other inconceivable situations she had to contend with, but none of these ordeals suppressed her motivation to dive into her infinite potential and flourish.

    Kay was an insatiable learner. She was a highly motivated woman whose  zest for life propelled her to cultivate her multiple talents with steady optimism. Her perseverance was the fuel that enabled her to never give up. Until the end of her life at age ninety-five, she continued to study the Japanese language with fervor and discipline.

 Kay graduated as legal secretary after taking night classes, and she continued working until age 78. At some point in her life, she took on two hourly wage jobs: one wrapping presents at a mall and one splitting time between night clerking and cleaning rooms at a hotel. She did not have money for gas, so she rode her bike in the snow to get to work.

 She wanted to learn to fly, so she became a licensed pilot and worked for the Department of Forestry as a forest fire spotter. She became chairperson of the Reno chapter of Ninety-Nines, the Women Pilots’ Organization whose first president was Amelia Earhart.

 Kay was an artistic soul and an athlete. She practiced various sports and taught roller-skating lessons. Her creativity found its way in her breathtaking artworks. She loved to draw and paint nature. She played the piano at social gatherings and wrote haiku poems.

Her life was a masterpiece of creativity and optimism.

 As a conscientious objector to the war in Vietnam, her son Robert Norris was forced to serve time in a military prison. His communication skills shortened the period of time he spent in prison. Even though being authentic and standing up for his ethical principles led to humiliation and social shaming, the experience made him stronger and set him on a journey in search of his identity. He travelled to various places across America and the world. In his travels Robert Norris met other human beings who appreciated his courage and resilience. He worked hard at different jobs during those uncertain years of his life: he worked as a construction laborer, millhand, mailman, oil rig steward, cook. No matter what he did, he was fully devoted to the task at hand, and he approached his life experiences with an open curious mind.

 As I embraced his experiences with an open heart and mind myself, savoring the moments of connection with many people across the world, I reflected on Robert’s free spirit, one that is genuinely devoid of prejudices and biases; his uplifting attitude does not threaten the reader with rigid preconceptions and theories. I found in the author's true stories a space to relax and dream. His memoir inspires and creates wings for one’s dreams, irrespective of the reader’s age and gender. His enthusiasm is a reflection of his mother’s life. Kay was an inspiration to Robert, and her optimism lives on through his words and life.

 When Robert landed in Japan he discovered his passion for education, where he became a remarkable English professor, and he accomplished his dream of becoming a writer. He has authored several books. Adapting to a different culture is in itself an adventure that deserves special attention. The Good Lord Willing and the Creek don’t Rise shares the unique trials and tribulations of settling down in Japan and traces the winding road of his life with amazing details. It reveals the memorable experiences that shaped his destiny in Japan, where he retired as a professor emeritus. Robert currently lives in Japan with his wife.

 The Good Lord Willing and The Creek don’t Rise made me reflect on the situation of men in Russia who refuse to be sent to fight in Ukraine. I wish the media paid more attention to their plight. It should not come as a surprise that dictators like Putin resort to aspects of toxic masculinity to recruit men, and you can read about it in this article. I think it is important to remind people that toxic masculinity is not limited to men. Some women succumb to it, too, and they espouse the same ideas and behaviors that empower men with such views. The assault on the US capitol on January 6 2021 is an example of that. (Some women were part of it).

  The Good Lord Willing and the Creek don’t Rise is a special tribute to Robert’s mother. She was an inspiration to him until the last days of her life... The precious bond between them is the expression of a lifelong commitment of love, respect and admiration, and the spirit of their relationship has the potential to expand beyond them to bring a sense of hope where it is needed.

  It was fascinating to read how the people in Japan honored Kay when she visited Robert.

 Robert’s book is a celebration of a mother’s love, and I know it will inspire and empower many people across the world.

 I invite you to enjoy this soothing podcast in which the author narrates some of his amazing experiences.

 https://www.boomerbedtimestoryradio.com/post/the-good-lord-willing

I thank Robert Norris for sharing The Good Lord Willing and the Creek don’t Rise for My Writing Life blog, and for kindly allowing me to showcase Kay Schlinkman’s artworks.