Article 3 - "THIS ISLAND EARTH" by Jessica Kuzmier July 2008 edition of First Church of The Streets

     In an aggressive society, nature is something to be conquered and tamed. It is like an adversary at war that needs to be defeated, and its defeat is heralded by its transformation into whatever it is man thinks is best at the time. If one needs a highway, get rid of the trees in the way. Jobs will be created, comes the dangling carrot. It will be better for everyone this way, because people come first.

     This is most often regarded as a product of a male dominated society, though as often as not women are for the destruction for certain environments if it betters their own personal interest. It is not so much a man versus woman thing as mankind versus nature at large, where it is a pitched battle between two foes. If one approaches nature as something against him, then why would one ever seek to find solace in its source?

     But people do; which goes to show that not all of mankind is completely at odds with his environment. Some people literally live for the time when they can spend time fly fishing, be out in the woods hunting, or whatever their outdoor pleasure is. More and more frequently, city planners are called to create their urban designs with a splash of green shrubbery as well as green technology. The new kind of industry, as opposed to white, pink or blue collar, is now the green collar business. This is industry that invests in, creates and manufactures renewable energy, whether it be solar panels, wind turbines, or other kinds of technology which allows for modern culture to persist in a time of decreasing fossil fuels. Nature is at least being considered a factor to be preserved in this world, and not necessarily a thing to be decapitated.

     In this newer environment, the celebration of wilderness itself has become greater. Even more so than a man and his dog reliving boyhood Huck Finn days is woman's relation to her outdoor environment. To spend outside time alone, away from domestic roles that constrict personal definition within four walls, is something that maybe not so long ago was considered severely aberrant. A woman was supposed to relish her position in relation to others and how she cared for them in a certain context; not go off and play in the woods with a squirrel.

     This kind of strange rationalization to cut a person off from herself is still apparent. Men get it one way, women another, usually in a dyslexic lopsided fashion. You should take time for yourself, a woman might be told. Then if she does, she may hear from the same source how irresponsible she is for leaving it all behind, as though her self-care is the result of a queen bee attitude. In the same fashion, the idea of a woman in the mud digging petunias and rosebushes seems quaint, but if she takes off for the woods, especially without a male companion or God forbid, alone, then perhaps a therapist should be consulted. Take time for yourself as long as no one notices. A woman off alone in the woods is something that is noticed, even if it's not as strange as it used to be.

     It's interesting how times have changed, and the city is now the place for the woman while the open is man's domain. From what I can see, in ancient times, nature was considered to be female, probably mostly because of the rampant fertility of the earth. While in the cities, kings celebrated their manhood by creating temples and towers celebrating their technological and divine prowess. In modern times, I've encountered the stereotype of a man wants to move to the country to get away from it all, while the woman wants to stay in the city near all of the shopping and restaurants. The isolation of the rural is purportedly unbearable for the supposedly garrulous American female who talks more than her male counterpart, as though this verbosity is some biological imperative that needs four walls to contain her.

     It's like the word "wild". Wild is nature, with its untamed tempests and seasons that can't quite be mapped with climate models and computer programs. Wild is the girl who is a little too free with her favors, as though promiscuity and marriage with nature are the same thing. Tame nature, tame the girl: keep her indoors where we can keep an eye on her, and both men and women are guilty of perpetuating the isolation. The woods is where the Big Bad Wolf lives, and you never know what he will do to Little Girls. Better to stay where one is seen, because one could be lured by temptation and talked into worse.

     There is danger, of course, in the wide open spaces. There could be bad men with no one to protect the victim around for miles. There are floods and rabid animals and the opportunity to slip and fall with no help to come. But this also could be a metaphor for the so called civilized world. Bad men proliferate in any environment, and the city is not necessarily a friend to its victims, because everyone is too busy to ensure its survival. One could be flooded, attacked by a man rabid with illness, or slip and fall, and everyone is too overscheduled to notice. Whether in the urban, suburban, exurban, rural or wild environment, danger can happen anywhere.

     Nature is something that is suspect only because it is unknown. For no matter how pretty a package she gets dressed up in through poetry, song and picture, nature's winds blow in the direction that they want to. Perhaps as much as fearing for the physical safety for a woman alone, is that the more she spends time out there, she will learn to allow her winds to blow in a direction that she wants, and may not be easily tamed. Like nature, untamed woman is unpredictable. But like nature, woman has never really been tamed. It's only an illusion. Reality is more unstable than that, no matter what infrastructure is created to pretend otherwise. For no matter what package is designed for the illusion, erosion is always the end of things. Whether it is weathered slowly through time, or destroyed in a tempest, an edifice yields to reality.

     And the reality is this: both man and woman are part of nature, not above it. Perhaps God has created us as the Great Caretaker or Overseer, but we are not above his creation, we are part of it. It is good to remember the nature we have in the vast open space that he has put on this Island Earth.