Journal—Wendell Berry

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
I am not really making sense about this poem. But one thing I am sure that the farmer is really mad. I got this emotion from the way he expresses. He uses a lot of extreme and negative things, paradox things and realistic sentences to show the farmer is mad. Like, he said “So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute.” I think I would like to tell my friend do something that will be compute. Also, he said “Ask the questions that have no answers.” People want to get the answers based on the questions. I like one sentence which is really realistic is “Lie easy in the shade.” I have question that what is the reason which made the farmer so mad? I think it would be related to the historical events, because I read the introductory information from the beginning of the reading, it said “as the voice of a new agrarianism, with an old fidelity…”Also, the word “profit” appears in this poem many times. So it related to some rules that the farmers don’t satisfied.

The Making of a Marginal FarmI think the story is beginning with “The differences between knowing a place and living in it, between cherishing a place and living responsibly in it.” This is an important thing that Wendell Berry discovered in his whole life. He was responsible for the land he lived. Through the description of his land restoration experience, he wants to show us evidence that restoration of land is not only good for environment and also good for people’ life from economy perspective. Because he said “it is possible to for a family to live on such ‘marginal’ land, to take a bountiful subsistence and some cash income from it, and, in doing so, to improve both the land and themselves.” Sustainable development is the concept flashed in my mind after I read this reading. Our economy, society, resources and environment protection should get coordinate development. I think they are an inseparable system, it is necessary to achieve the purpose of economic development, but also protect the nature system. One question in this reading is what is the meaning of the word “marginal”?

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Smokey the Bear Sutra is really interesting and different one I read. Gary Snyder uses a very different way to express the nature, to emphasize consciousness of environment protection. He uses principle of Buddha to see the nature, just like the first paragraph delivers that all the things are beings even grasses. In his Smokey the Bear Sutra, Smokey the Bear is avatar of the Great Sun Buddha to be a warrior to protect the nature environment. And everything related to Smoky the Bear, like his hat, trousers, have a specific symbolic. This is a way to warn people pay more attention to the problem exists in our nature. Buddha is very popular in China, I know that the original idea about nature addressed by Buddha is grasses and woods are beings. Buddha is like philosophy, it gives us a new way to see the world, to understand all the things. Buddha is pretty amazing to discover.

Journal- Having Faith

Since I read Silent Spring, I know more about the pesticide (DDT) which can lead to a bad result in natural environment, Having Faith gives me a chance to know that how chemicals physically affects the people living in this environment, and how this affects the future children of the generations to come. I remember that Steingraber mentioned in Having Faith that “Man is not at the top of the food chain. His breastfed infants are.” Infants have been influenced at every crucial stage of growing from the breastfeed caused by the toxic contaminants in food. Steingraber makes this reading like a different chemistry and biology books from the normal one, using the informative way to explain the toxic contaminants and some chemicals in our food to convey that she wants to recall us to protect the future of baby, protect the human reproduction and protect the nature.

Journal -Feeling the Nature----My first summer in the Sierra

John Muir gives me a chance to find the beauty of the nature. I really like the part he wrote “It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur.” What I read in this part is really a kind of feeling of him not just descripts or tells me how the waterfall looks like, how the mountains looks like. I can feel his heart beast caused by his enthusiasm for the glorious nature. He's truly excited can be found in rocks, water, mountains, woods, all the things in the nature. Nature is a really good gift from God. After read this passage of John Muir, I know that feeling the nature can be a good way to find the truth and beauty of Nature.

Journal--Silent Spring

Silent Spring, a term was supposed to represent the season it could just as easily represent a natural environment where the sounds of life, but now is no longer exists caused by the people’s activities. Rachel Carson changed the way I thought about the environment’s movement today. At beginning, a Fable for Tomorrow is a fictional tale that reflects many true stories of how people have made a tragedy of their environment themselves by chemical pesticides. Just like her said “No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.” By gathering scientific evidence detailing, she makes me know that “a shadow of death” caused by the chemical pesticides people always use to protect their farm. It calls us action to protect our surroundings before we destroyed them. Nature has its inherent system, we use advanced high-tech (like chemical pesticides) means to support this system, rather than excessive destruction of this natural system.