Here lie some layered rocks, ominously shaped but softened by the white snow. There lies a pool of water, not frozen up quite solidly by the temperatures. To my right there are small fields of tall yellow husks and grasses growing silently against the cold cement wall. I close my eyes and breathe in the fresh air and pure nature; smoke and car fuel find themselves diluted in these scents. A concrete bridge overheads the layered rocks and the pool of water reflects a nearby condominium. Tasked with a photoshoot in nature I start pulling out my gear and making myself at home. The marks of human influence didn’t bother me in my pursuit of a natural shoot. I understood how mankind had influenced this natural world and how this natural world has influenced us. Regardless, I could photoshop the signs of industrialization out of the photos anyways, all I needed was a base resemblance of nature for me to work with and manipulate later. I set up a self-timer on my camera and skidded down the rocks in the 10 seconds I had to pose on the cliffs of the rocks and manifested humanity into this picture – perfect construction of a natural world. A few repeats later and I’m satisfied with the shot on the rocks. Turning around, my eyes lock sight on the next photo target, the bridge. The plants are all weedy and dry - colorless but also contributing to the neutral color scheme in combination with the navy gray waters. Given the nature of the plants I thought the soil running underneath the bridge would adapt a similar state. Wrong. Assumptions of a dry and frozen soil sank along with my every footstep I lunged into the soft mud. My $120 yellow suede boots suffered from my impaired decision, caked in mud. Cleaning them was my first thought so I rubbed my shoes against the snow on the rocks, each dirt smear staining the pure whites with streaks of filth. In an effort to clean my shoes, the rocks peeled back layers of the snow they harvested over these months and that same snow adapted the new muddy color I fed them. It wasn’t until I soiled every piece of white snow that I looked back at what I had done and realized I was destroying beauty. Not only had I messed with the white snowy nature but I had vandalized the soft mud by etching my footprints into its soft bosom.
5 ‘o clock means it’s about time for me to leave so I climb out of the rocky area, leaving behind my damage and thinking of how my permanent imprints had scarred the previously smooth mud. Only an hour spent in this place, yet my place in this natural world has already made its permanent impression, altering the space so that no two people will ever see the exact same view again. My friend is waiting on me for dinner so I walk myself over in my newly imprinted shoes. You see, Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So if I am imprinting and scarring nature’s ground, that doesn’t leave me unaffected. I too have been imprinted by the strongest dirt stains that insist on staying clung to my shoes despite my frantic efforts to wipe them off. I deserve it though; if I am affecting the natural world then the natural world is also influencing our individual places. And what is this role that humanity plays in Mother Nature’s natural process? How far can we intrude onto nature’s property and assert our humanness without consequence? How much can we take from nature all the while not giving back? And when will Mother Nature stop being able to or stop letting herself continue to give to us humans relentlessly? Well to attempt to explore some of these impossible questions, a little look into history provides background reasoning in as to why the earth and environment has been a female term and coined “Mother Nature.” This idea started budding when referenced by the English in 1266 C.E., then the Greeks started writing about this reference in the 12th or 13th century. These become so due to the personification of Mother Nature as nurturing and replenishing qualities of the natural world. It was solidified during spiritual traditions, particularly the Enlightenment (Zimmerman 2016). Officially, in order to be studied, nature could not be analogous to God – which meant that it had to be a woman (Barry 2015). Sarah Milner-Barry, a grad student in environmental policy at the New School, wrote an article called, “The term “Mother Nature” reinforces the idea that both women and nature should be subjugated.” Here she talks about how Mother Nature and women have come to be oppressed in a sense of always being expected to perpetually be available to the patriarchal society and be accepting or accommodating of all their desires. She states how as long as the woman remains tied with nature, this rhetoric continues to exploit both parties as inferior to men. The closer women are seen to be connected with nature, the easier it makes to subordinate, just as nature itself is everywhere devalued and subordinated (Ortner 1974). Perhaps Carolyn Merchant sums it up quite nicely in her book, “The Death of Nature,” where she writes, “in the aftermath of the scientific revolution, the environment became something to be exploited, transformed, and used for profit. This shift in attitude took place in a patriarchal context, while women’s labor and reproductive abilities had for thousands of years been exploited and freely accessed. In this, humanity has an effect on nature in everything we do. We must be aware that our actions can endanger the beauty of the view for the next person. Just like how my muddy footprints changed the scene of the bridge area, no one will ever be able to view the exact same view I saw. While for centuries man’s relationship with nature has been all take and no give, this misogynistic mentality has hit peak lows in the approach of environmental concerns towards climate change. Is it the poor treatment of our planet that reflects how we treat our women or is it the poor treatment of our women that reflect how we treat our planet? Never mind. It is rooted all from the same toxins anyways - apathy, exploitation, undervaluation. Do you know the modern woman has become a desensitized blur of people-pleasing activity? That modern nature is none but a construct of human intervention and an artificial hollow that is made to appear natural by patriarchal standards? Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes in her book, “Women Who Run With the Wolves,” about the Wild Woman and her connection to wildlife and nature. She says, “Over time, we have seen the feminine instinctive nature looted, driven back, and overbuilt. For long periods it has been mismanaged like the wildlife and the wildlands… It’s not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our [wild woman] own inner wild natures fades” (3). The term Wild Woman is coined by Estes here, defined as the force that lies behind a powerful psychological and instinctive nature. She describes it simply as the female soul and complicatedly as the source of feminine, the force that funds all females, the instinctive psyche that fuels the fire in a woman’s heart (9). And so, it is important to not let this wildness go and not to groom our wild women into a manicured construction of natural and wild. After ever interaction with man, after every broken trust and relationship she changes and is shaped by her experiences. We must treat her with respect and equality so that she may live for a future of her own. And that “her” is for every female and for every bit of nature on the planet. Yes it is true that my deep footprints in the mud will lose some of its rigid shape over time but it is much more than that. It has to do with the colony of flora in the soil that was displaced, the missing pieces of soil that now remain forever etched onto my boots, and the eventual hardening of the mud to reveal the scars of an uneven surface all because of my interference. In my reflective state, I realized the damage I had done to my surroundings; accountability for men’s impact on women’s lives should be inferred the same way. If humans turned the whole world into an industrial colonization, then there would be no beauty left. If man turned a naturally wild woman into their domesticated ideal then there would be no love left. Men and women alike, calling our women to retain their wildness and our men to humbly embrace and appreciate this very wildness is a saving grace towards our relationship with Mother Nature’s environment. References Estés Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. Ballantine Books, 2003. Milner-Barry, Sarah. “The Term ‘Mother Nature’ Reinforces the Idea That Both Women and Nature Should Be Subjugated.” Quartz, Quartz, 1 Dec. 2015, qz.com/562833/the-term-mother-nature-reinforces-the-idea-that-both-women-and-nature-should-be-subjugated/. Ortner, Sherry B. 1974. Is female to male as nature is to culture? In M. Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (eds), Woman, culture, and society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 68-87. Zimmermann, Jackie. “Why Is ‘Mother Nature’ a Woman?” A WOMEN'S THING, 26 Oct. 2016, awomensthing.org/blog/mother-nature-woman/.
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