Perhaps we would be more cognizant of the trespasses against the air were we required to filter it as we do our water when we’re out drinking from the landscape.
Perhaps we need a more expansive definition of what it mean to trespass. It's a little clunky, but what about something like this:
To trespass is to deny or diminish the opportunity or ability of another being, whether organic or inorganic, to flourish and achieve the full measure of its being-in-itself and its place within the whole.
I very much appreciate that definition! I don't know why our perception of it can't be expansive in that way. Shouldn't that be the baseline of all laws, the center of all values?
Beautiful @hollystarley relates to stories with existential concerns that I am grappling with. Thanks for the compelling reason that we acknowledge such places which is what I have been doing with a community phenology group who visit the place in an urban setting and listen to the inescapable sounds and smells of the earth and how it changes with degrees and I love that the blanket was a metaphor or to me something that was perhaps even an added layer against these other issues related to the climate change and making the connection of who we have to make accountable such as industry and interest based commodities in the hands of the few who log, mine and drill. My sanctuary is my backyard with urban sprawl around me I see my backyard with white snowy branches of my apple, cherry and crap apples and wonder at this time of sadness when we can of course be safe and healthy. Thanks again this was a wonderful gift.
Thank you in return for the gift of that image -- the white snowy branches of apple, cherry, and crabapple. Reminders from nature both of the reality of abundance, and the beauty of a world at rest.
What a beautiful essay. It brought me back to many of the wonderful places I've called home, some of which I have only been passing through -- the dense, fragrant forests of my grandmother's home in the gold country of the Idaho panhandle, the shoreline cedars and hemlocks and tidepools where I lived on an island in Puget Sound, the crystalline air at the top of Hurricane Ridge on the Olympic Peninsula and the humid suspirations of the rain forest in its skirts below. And absolutely, the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier park, where you can literally hear the mountains sing. And the forest ascending Mount Rainier, whose deep mosses are perfumed with a carpet of diminutive, swaying twinflowers in the spring. Thank you for bringing back those memories! And -- thank you for your insights on the nature of air and what it means to trespass.
Love all this generosity of sharing these places and moments, the scents and sounds. I feel like I have not seen enough hemlocks in my life. I don't know why that keeps coming up for me but it does (was just reading an Alison Hawthorne Deming poem that has hemlocks in it.
"humid suspirations" -- isn't that the most beautiful phrase?!
What a lovely piece of writing. I could sense all those things, having lived a couple states south, also near the Rockies. The ozone, the virga, the warm sun/cool air, yellow aspens, rustling evergreens, the interesting sensation when it's well below zero and your nose hair freezes waiting for the school bus at dawn in winter. Also petrichor and the smell of hot rocks (which I can't remember the Spanish word for -- piedra something).
As a teen I once stole a foot-high aspen just off the road to a national park. There were plenty of them, and it was in a bad spot. Dad had a bucket in the car, dug up the tree and all the roots, wet it with creek water, and put it in the trunk to drive home. He planted it in the front yard, and boy did it spring up. By the time I'd grown, married, and the folks sold the house and moved, it towered over the two-story place. I miss my tree.
I do not forgive those who trespass against nature.
We debated the legality, but it was right next to the picnic table and on top of a rock bigger than it was, plus there were tall pines choking out the sun. In the sun at a lower altitude and with care, it did much better.
I was once in the Arizona desert at about 112. My nose hairs much preferred freezing to cooking any day. And you're right, it's something you can't explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it. My husband and I were signing some papers with a woman from Montana and we discussed it with her, since we don't know anyone else outside our families and a very few friends who get it, and neither did she!
“The crime of trespass goes both ways—what happens when we require the very source of life to carry sickness instead? Is this not a violation of the gods of life, of home, and of air’s own right to exist?”
Antonia, this piece really spoke to me—especially this passage. I think and try to write about all the ways that we creatures and elements who share this planet are connected, about the unseen mycelial-like structures that threads through and binds us. This essay does such a beautiful job of showing this through something both profound and simple—air.
I remember watching a video where someone who had spent time on the international space station talked about watching dust in a desert become a storm in a nearby country. Your words show this connection in the same way.
And oof—the fact of sickness being carried on the source of life.
Ooh , that dust and storm observation is so profound. And yet so simple, as most profound things are!
You do a beautiful job yourself of writing about these things. I found the topic of "air" incredibly difficult. I think because it's like ownership itself -- fundamental to everything, and yet hard to put word-structures around that fundamental-ness.
Thank you, Holly! May the air this morning greet you warmly (if not with actual heat!).
Yeah, not a whole lot of heat these days but a fair and pleasant amount of warmth I’m glad to report. :)
I’ll add this about the dust and storm observation. I remember it very clearly—watching a video that recreated on a map what the dust to storm would look like and the words of the voiceover. But I’ve wanted to write about it since, and I’ve had zero luck locating it, no matter what I Google or otherwise research. And I can’t for the life of me remember where I was when I saw it.
We have no freedom to roam, but we can burn tires and pollute our neighbor's air.
Yes. And ... invade many other boundaries.
Perhaps we would be more cognizant of the trespasses against the air were we required to filter it as we do our water when we’re out drinking from the landscape.
Well observed, Bryan! I suppose there are many places where it's come to that.
Perhaps we need a more expansive definition of what it mean to trespass. It's a little clunky, but what about something like this:
To trespass is to deny or diminish the opportunity or ability of another being, whether organic or inorganic, to flourish and achieve the full measure of its being-in-itself and its place within the whole.
I very much appreciate that definition! I don't know why our perception of it can't be expansive in that way. Shouldn't that be the baseline of all laws, the center of all values?
Beautiful @hollystarley relates to stories with existential concerns that I am grappling with. Thanks for the compelling reason that we acknowledge such places which is what I have been doing with a community phenology group who visit the place in an urban setting and listen to the inescapable sounds and smells of the earth and how it changes with degrees and I love that the blanket was a metaphor or to me something that was perhaps even an added layer against these other issues related to the climate change and making the connection of who we have to make accountable such as industry and interest based commodities in the hands of the few who log, mine and drill. My sanctuary is my backyard with urban sprawl around me I see my backyard with white snowy branches of my apple, cherry and crap apples and wonder at this time of sadness when we can of course be safe and healthy. Thanks again this was a wonderful gift.
Thank you in return for the gift of that image -- the white snowy branches of apple, cherry, and crabapple. Reminders from nature both of the reality of abundance, and the beauty of a world at rest.
There are so many necessities for humans that we take for granted but are not a given if we don’t take care of them. Air, water, food.
SO many. How much could change if we treasured them as the foundations of life that they are?
What a beautiful essay. It brought me back to many of the wonderful places I've called home, some of which I have only been passing through -- the dense, fragrant forests of my grandmother's home in the gold country of the Idaho panhandle, the shoreline cedars and hemlocks and tidepools where I lived on an island in Puget Sound, the crystalline air at the top of Hurricane Ridge on the Olympic Peninsula and the humid suspirations of the rain forest in its skirts below. And absolutely, the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier park, where you can literally hear the mountains sing. And the forest ascending Mount Rainier, whose deep mosses are perfumed with a carpet of diminutive, swaying twinflowers in the spring. Thank you for bringing back those memories! And -- thank you for your insights on the nature of air and what it means to trespass.
Love all this generosity of sharing these places and moments, the scents and sounds. I feel like I have not seen enough hemlocks in my life. I don't know why that keeps coming up for me but it does (was just reading an Alison Hawthorne Deming poem that has hemlocks in it.
"humid suspirations" -- isn't that the most beautiful phrase?!
Thanks so much for this, Nia. I love this perspective on trespass. I'll be thinking about that for a while now!
It runs through all of your work, John!
What a lovely piece of writing. I could sense all those things, having lived a couple states south, also near the Rockies. The ozone, the virga, the warm sun/cool air, yellow aspens, rustling evergreens, the interesting sensation when it's well below zero and your nose hair freezes waiting for the school bus at dawn in winter. Also petrichor and the smell of hot rocks (which I can't remember the Spanish word for -- piedra something).
As a teen I once stole a foot-high aspen just off the road to a national park. There were plenty of them, and it was in a bad spot. Dad had a bucket in the car, dug up the tree and all the roots, wet it with creek water, and put it in the trunk to drive home. He planted it in the front yard, and boy did it spring up. By the time I'd grown, married, and the folks sold the house and moved, it towered over the two-story place. I miss my tree.
I do not forgive those who trespass against nature.
Thanks for the memories.
Among all these beauties, the frozen nose hair is something that only people who've lived with viscerally know the feeling of!
Sounds like that aspen was less stolen than rehomed. 💚
We debated the legality, but it was right next to the picnic table and on top of a rock bigger than it was, plus there were tall pines choking out the sun. In the sun at a lower altitude and with care, it did much better.
I was once in the Arizona desert at about 112. My nose hairs much preferred freezing to cooking any day. And you're right, it's something you can't explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it. My husband and I were signing some papers with a woman from Montana and we discussed it with her, since we don't know anyone else outside our families and a very few friends who get it, and neither did she!
Thanks for the warm fuzzies. Or cold fuzzies.
Cold fuzzies indeed 😂 (I went to college in Minnesota, even more visceral in that respect)
Oof da, as they say! That's proper cold.
Haha yes they do and yes it is!
Beautiful essay!
Thank you!
You are such a gifted writer—a thought-provoking piece. All the best to you.
That is so kind of you, Francia, thank you!
“The crime of trespass goes both ways—what happens when we require the very source of life to carry sickness instead? Is this not a violation of the gods of life, of home, and of air’s own right to exist?”
Antonia, this piece really spoke to me—especially this passage. I think and try to write about all the ways that we creatures and elements who share this planet are connected, about the unseen mycelial-like structures that threads through and binds us. This essay does such a beautiful job of showing this through something both profound and simple—air.
I remember watching a video where someone who had spent time on the international space station talked about watching dust in a desert become a storm in a nearby country. Your words show this connection in the same way.
And oof—the fact of sickness being carried on the source of life.
Ooh , that dust and storm observation is so profound. And yet so simple, as most profound things are!
You do a beautiful job yourself of writing about these things. I found the topic of "air" incredibly difficult. I think because it's like ownership itself -- fundamental to everything, and yet hard to put word-structures around that fundamental-ness.
Thank you, Holly! May the air this morning greet you warmly (if not with actual heat!).
Yeah, not a whole lot of heat these days but a fair and pleasant amount of warmth I’m glad to report. :)
I’ll add this about the dust and storm observation. I remember it very clearly—watching a video that recreated on a map what the dust to storm would look like and the words of the voiceover. But I’ve wanted to write about it since, and I’ve had zero luck locating it, no matter what I Google or otherwise research. And I can’t for the life of me remember where I was when I saw it.
I remember hearing about that dust storm, I think. Was it this 2004 observation? https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/12853/central-africa-dust-storm
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147391/perspectives-on-a-dust-storm
Yes I believe so. And I had around 2004 in my mind.
Thank you much for sharing this, my friend.