LAND COMPASSION

Brene’ Brown, research professor, lecturer, and author, says it’s dangerous to question our own lovability, creativity, or divinity. Whatever scars traumatic experiences have left us with, they are not to define or describe our intrinsic values in these three categories.

I apply that same philosophy to the context of land. The land I live with talks to me clearer than people do. This land is intrinsically loveable, stunningly creative, and unquestionably from the divine.

At the same time I heard Brene’ make her case about human value, I happened to read the book, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. This article is not a book review, but points made in Leopold’s essay, The Land Ethic, align with my reality and daily life. I’ve experienced over six decades living very close to the land in both wet and dry climates, trees and no trees, and variations of domestic and wild life and have strong notions about land use.

The soils here in Missouri are clayey, which means they are soft, dark and fertile or red and hard like brick, depending on how wet they are. I’ve yet to figure out one single strategy; the soil is an ongoing mystery to me. I’m lousy at proper composting methods of containment. Every year I consider another formal structure for this scientific process and diligently contribute vegetable scraps and egg shells. This year, it was an obsolete 55-gallon trash container with a lid I never used. I thought I could build up a couple feet, toss in some clippings, roll it around, and have compost cooked by mid-summer.

One early morning, as I bent over the deck railing to add yesterday’s coffee grounds, two black eyes looked up at me. A foraging opossum, harmlessly looking for a meal, was stranded in the bottom of this muck. Whatever aroma tempted her was surely not worth her current predicament. The sides were too high; the cost of any pitiful morsel also too high.

I made my way down the stairs in dawn’s light, carefully laid the can over so she could escape. Dark stinky compost tea poured out. The opossum waited to hear the backdoor close before she ambled out and scooted downhill into the brush cover 500 feet away.

I dumped the remaining sludge later that day; washed and stored the trash can. Maybe I can use it to store lumber cut-offs when it smells better, but I’m done composting in containers. I went back to tossing kitchen scraps as far as I can into the back yard. I never toss anything this ecological cohort would not naturally come upon; no avocado, no banana peels, no pineapple. Whatever I toss one day is typically gone in a day or two; I mow over any melon rinds and cabbage cores.

My land – this land I’m fortunate to steward includes fauna as much as flora. The economics of producing edible greens for my own belly are equal to providing (to a practical level) foods for resident and roving critters. I welcome and try to accommodate opossums, raccoons, ground hogs, foxes, and deer. I grow native plants for pollinators; build mason bee and bat houses; and planted a small clover patch for the three bucks, two doe, and three fawns.

But we do have our conflicts. Every few days, I have to go toe-to-hoof with a certain doe. (She and her fawns have eaten most of my pole beans and squash this summer.) When I catch her grazing toward the trellis, I slip quietly out the door opposite that side of the house and step cautiously around the corner toward her. I ‘m trying to learn the language of her head movements, but I think I understand her forefoot code.

I try to mimic her head tilting and stomping. I don’t rush her or act scary. I accept her point of view; I am the non-native entity. I step as close as she does, matching her approach. Sometimes, I get within 40 feet and wish I could capture this beauty on camera. When I think I’ve made my point that she can eat all the rest of this acreage, but the beans and fenced garden are my food, I emit a small snort, stomp one final time, turn to the side, and remove myself from her territory.

This is how I live now and lived this way before I read the essay. It makes sense to me to collaborate with the natural environment and steward this acre of place as best I can. It’s more work than I can handle sometimes, but it’s my spiritual commitment, satisfaction, and deep joy. I am grateful for this blessing.

Leopold became a conservationist and educator, but was foremost a natural philosopher. That label is one of the few that I’m comfortable wearing also. Some points Leopold makes in his essay, The Land Ethic follow:

• Humans tend to consider the value of land only from its economic potential. Whatever the range of function or use, its worth is relative to our benefit. Mining, forestry, lumber, recreation, or hunting – human benefit or pleasure guides our evaluation of a parcel or region.
• Ecology describes a study of nature that includes plant, animal, water and soil elements. Living creatures and interdependent relationships with their physical environment.
• Ethic is a pattern of behaviors that are responses to social approval or social punishment.
• To consider land in only economic terms limits human-land relationship to a sense of privilege without obligation – what it can provide for us-me.
• We should step back from our individual exploitation point of view and feel compassion for the land.

For me, these beliefs mean my land is a community of interdependent elements. I keep hazardous things like plastic bags away from here. I don’t allow pesticides or chemicals on my acre. I might pour a little diesel fuel on a stump of non-native brush, but that’s the limit. I wait until a tree dies a natural death before I shape it into firewood.

The main point that repeats throughout the essay, even if not always put to script, is violence. I resonate with this philosophical description. I can’t stand violence on the big screen or little screen and see no justification for violence in the stewardship of my little community called land. The violence of the chainsaw is after the trees’ natural death.

I don’t want to conquer this place; I want to be one of its inhabitants. I’ve invested thirty years here after moving nineteen times. Things, precious things, are under this sod. Living things contribute too. Squirrels learn to share with cardinals. Deer chase fox when boundaries are trespassed. Feral cats intrigue the same deer but don’t hurry their pace – ever. Hawks nest in the early spring and their fledges learn adulthood by raiding robins’ nests. Foxes pounce on moles and squirrels.

I am but one critter among this tribe. I feel an obligation to consider the whole community including the intermittent creek that edges the north and west of us and the trees and brush that contribute more than I have time to describe here. I’m the one with tools and resources (and maybe a mind) to manage this place. I’ll call it my place for now, I have the heart, thus the obligation to apply my best land ethic to this place. My land.