The following post is a draft of the Prologue from a book I am planning. I would appreciate any comments or feedback you have.
Prologue
A flock of bicyclists floats quietly across the Hawthorne Bridge as the rising sun spreads a golden glow over the city of Portland. A stream of pedestrians flows along the sidewalk next to the bikes, echoing the movement of the Willamette River below. Cars seem almost sheepish as they crawl across the bridge, outnumbered by bikes and people on foot.
My daughter Aliza and I are headed to the farmer’s market to buy fruit and vegetables from the people who grew them, perhaps some cheese and bread from area artisans. We love the market, with its sensuous smells, colorful booths, generous samples and happy atmosphere of people chatting as they shop (“sweetie, try one of these amazing plums”). It’s a chance for father and daughter to bond while getting a taste of the thriving local food movement.
We live just across the Willamette River from downtown, an easy 30 minute stroll to the market. It’s a warm spring morning and so we decided to walk, which Aliza loves. Given the choice she always wants to go on foot rather than by car; it gives us a chance to talk and I’m focused on her, not the road.
Aliza is a typical eight-year-old: curious, thoughtful and well on the way to having a mind of her own. I really enjoy our conversations and I always learn something. Like a lot of children, Aliza intuitively feels a kinship with the natural world. She has a highly developed reverence for life and steadfastly refuses to harm a living soul. She won’t let anyone else kill anything either, not even spiders and bugs, which she doesn’t particularly like.
“They have a right to live too, just as much as we do,” she says matter-of-factly.
As her dad I have become quite adept at catching creatures in jars and setting them free. I have to admit it always feels good, like I’m acting in consonance with the laws of the universe.
Children give us a glimpse of the future and Aliza is a constant source of inspiration and hope for me. More than many adults I know, she understands the interconnectedness of life. “Waste paper, waste breath,” I heard her say to her older brother when she was 5. When I asked what she meant she explained that trees make oxygen, which we breathe, and paper is made from trees. “Waste paper, waste breath.” Words to live by.
Our journey to the market took us through an industrial sanctuary on the east bank of the Willamette, where machine shops and auto repair businesses sit next to warehouses and manufacturing plants. The area is in transition and many of the old buildings now house creative services, with architects, graphic designers and other creative types rubbing shoulders with truck drivers and blue collar workers.
As we reach the crest of the Hawthorne Bridge I admire the beauty of cherry trees blooming in the green park downtown, which runs along the Westside of the River’s edge below. I marvel at the sun reflecting off solar panels on an office tower ahead and imagine the innovation a new Center for Sustainability will catalyze when it is built a few blocks away. Birds peacefully ride the breeze overhead and I think about the turbines just outside of town that turn the wind into renewable power. Everywhere I see humanity and nature taking the first tentative steps as partners in a new dance of cooperation.
Aliza squeezes my hand and shakes me from my reverie. She asks in a clear strong voice, “Daddy, when did people take over the world?”
My dream of the future melts away and I experience the world from Aliza’s perspective: I see the urban environment the way she does, a dense grey mass of concrete, glass and steel. I am assaulted by a cacophony of car noises and I choke on the acrid smell of exhaust. A bus rumbles by, rattling the bridge and shaking my vision of detente between man and nature.
I realize she’s right; at some point we did take over the planet and the results of our domination aren’t pretty. We have created a built environment that to a child feels dirty, ugly and arrogant. In our rush to turn the planet into products we lost sight of something essential and only now are we beginning to realize it.
So we find ourselves on the bridge between our industrial past and a promising future. Will we make it across? If we do, what will find on the other side?
This book provides a possible answer. It’s about how we can once again integrate with nature. It’s about the benefit of no longer thinking of ourselves as the dominant species, but simply a contributing member in the web of life. It’s about the joy and beauty of being part of something larger than ourselves and the peace and empowerment that connection and integration could provide.
The promise of the future is a world in which our children will feel at home and thrive. But it will take new ways of thinking to get there. It will require each one of us to develop An Eco-Logical Mind.
My daughter Aliza and I are headed to the farmer’s market to buy fruit and vegetables from the people who grew them, perhaps some cheese and bread from area artisans. We love the market, with its sensuous smells, colorful booths, generous samples and happy atmosphere of people chatting as they shop (“sweetie, try one of these amazing plums”). It’s a chance for father and daughter to bond while getting a taste of the thriving local food movement.
We live just across the Willamette River from downtown, an easy 30 minute stroll to the market. It’s a warm spring morning and so we decided to walk, which Aliza loves. Given the choice she always wants to go on foot rather than by car; it gives us a chance to talk and I’m focused on her, not the road.
Aliza is a typical eight-year-old: curious, thoughtful and well on the way to having a mind of her own. I really enjoy our conversations and I always learn something. Like a lot of children, Aliza intuitively feels a kinship with the natural world. She has a highly developed reverence for life and steadfastly refuses to harm a living soul. She won’t let anyone else kill anything either, not even spiders and bugs, which she doesn’t particularly like.
“They have a right to live too, just as much as we do,” she says matter-of-factly.
As her dad I have become quite adept at catching creatures in jars and setting them free. I have to admit it always feels good, like I’m acting in consonance with the laws of the universe.
Children give us a glimpse of the future and Aliza is a constant source of inspiration and hope for me. More than many adults I know, she understands the interconnectedness of life. “Waste paper, waste breath,” I heard her say to her older brother when she was 5. When I asked what she meant she explained that trees make oxygen, which we breathe, and paper is made from trees. “Waste paper, waste breath.” Words to live by.
Our journey to the market took us through an industrial sanctuary on the east bank of the Willamette, where machine shops and auto repair businesses sit next to warehouses and manufacturing plants. The area is in transition and many of the old buildings now house creative services, with architects, graphic designers and other creative types rubbing shoulders with truck drivers and blue collar workers.
As we reach the crest of the Hawthorne Bridge I admire the beauty of cherry trees blooming in the green park downtown, which runs along the Westside of the River’s edge below. I marvel at the sun reflecting off solar panels on an office tower ahead and imagine the innovation a new Center for Sustainability will catalyze when it is built a few blocks away. Birds peacefully ride the breeze overhead and I think about the turbines just outside of town that turn the wind into renewable power. Everywhere I see humanity and nature taking the first tentative steps as partners in a new dance of cooperation.
Aliza squeezes my hand and shakes me from my reverie. She asks in a clear strong voice, “Daddy, when did people take over the world?”
My dream of the future melts away and I experience the world from Aliza’s perspective: I see the urban environment the way she does, a dense grey mass of concrete, glass and steel. I am assaulted by a cacophony of car noises and I choke on the acrid smell of exhaust. A bus rumbles by, rattling the bridge and shaking my vision of detente between man and nature.
I realize she’s right; at some point we did take over the planet and the results of our domination aren’t pretty. We have created a built environment that to a child feels dirty, ugly and arrogant. In our rush to turn the planet into products we lost sight of something essential and only now are we beginning to realize it.
So we find ourselves on the bridge between our industrial past and a promising future. Will we make it across? If we do, what will find on the other side?
This book provides a possible answer. It’s about how we can once again integrate with nature. It’s about the benefit of no longer thinking of ourselves as the dominant species, but simply a contributing member in the web of life. It’s about the joy and beauty of being part of something larger than ourselves and the peace and empowerment that connection and integration could provide.
The promise of the future is a world in which our children will feel at home and thrive. But it will take new ways of thinking to get there. It will require each one of us to develop An Eco-Logical Mind.
