Class One

In response to selected readings from Tuesday May 25th:

We can only ever compare nature to self. It is the human existence which we compare to nature. It is the only thing that is relative because we cannot understand nature in its entirety. The words that Nelson, Lane, Muir, and others choose all have human qualities – “untroubled sounds,” ”boughs reach out and encircle me,” “this forest of eyes.” “pines six feet in diameter bending like grasses,” “Their trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides,” etc. There are other similarities too… the use of limbs to describe branches, for instance. We must place that which is us…which is human upon that which surrounds us and cannot be classified as human. Moore hints at this with the start of her passage – “I wonder what it would be like to go into a forest where nothing had a name?” Oh, but we must give everything a name and that name should seek comparison to ourselves.