Milton's Paradise Revisited (But not Regained)

While reading Muir's account on his thousand mile walk, I found it interesting that one of his few belongings in his satchel was Paradise Lost. Additionally, Gary Snyder composed a poem on reading Paradise Lost from a mountaintop in California. How is it that two naturalists bring an epic poem on the fall of man and lost paradise while they trek through the wilderness? Snyder obviously takes a tongue and cheek approach to the poem by pointing out that the Garden will outlive fallen man (Myths and Texts), but why would they chose a poem specifically about man rather than nature? (Instead of something like Wordsworth)

Consider the opening of Paradise Lost:

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death upon the world, and all our woe.

Here, man's first disobedience--his fall--is that he takes the fruit from a tree that he is forbidden to take from. Thus, he takes the seeds and potentiality for the tree to grow from the tree and in stealing from a tree, he brings the problem of death and suffering unto man. In this sense, it could be interpreted that man's dominion over nature denies his place in Paradise.

The thesis to Paradise Lost is as follows:

What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

Milton's point in writing Paradise Lost is to make sense of the suffering and death in the world. i.e. to help others understand why Paradise has been lost. (And if Paradise is lost because Satan (representation of dominion) convinces Eve to steal an apple that isn't hers, this says a lot about man's attempt to overpower the natural world)

And, to jump ahead, after Adam and Eve join hands and walk away from the Garden, we can turn to Milton's poem Paradise Regained in which Jesus regains Paradise for men by denying Satan and his dominion.

In all honesty, this is not how I read Paradise Lost. It's one of my favorite poems because it allows us to understand and even like Satan, making sense of why people do terrible things and helping us to better reconcile injustice. Reinterpretating Genesis to teach stewardship over dominion, however, is a worthwhile art in adapting our culture to a more ecological consciousness.

Unintentional Elitism

While discussing my reading of Leopold's "The Land Ethic," I found myself frustrated with my friend. He informed me that it still sounds anthropocentric to apply human conceived rights to "the land" as soil, wind, and water in addition to living organisms. This reminded me of a debate I had with Keaton (I mention his name because his personality allows me no shame) about John Muir being elitist. Then, while rereading my posts, I discover that I sound elitist.

How does this happen? Someone thinks of a good idea, writes it out, and someone else reads it and thinks "Wow, what an asshole." Well, Leopold sort of did sound like a white guy in control of his land when I read his account of seasonal change in Sand County. Yet his land ethic feels much more authentic to me because he abandons his notion of "his" land and extends it to a consciousness for all elements of the land. John Muir wandered the wilderness in order to study the process of plant diversity across differing ecosystems but wrote for social change to preserve these lands. Thus, people thought John Muir was being elitist for taking plant samples in land he wanted to keep everyone out of. I write in this with a certain idealism in order to reflect and continually grow upon my goals and sound as if I am preaching or bragging. How does one then communicate without the danger of misinterpretation?

I don't think there is much of a solution to this. As Lacan would say, the object is a failure and one can never fully communicate through language. In order to be interpreted, an object must be delivered by one person and interpreted by the other, and each person's own experience with the object is taken into account. This is understood by a childish game of telephone or asking a group of people to draw a leaf; everyone has their own interpretation of what a leaf looks like, but there are different manifestations of what the object leaf can mean.

I do think there is a certain delicacy to argument a writer must consider. Alas, once something is written it takes on its own life beyond the one who wrote it. It is constantly recreated through each who encounters it.

The Perceiving Mind

Though I am not particularly fond of getting out of bed when my room is freezing, I do enjoy when the weather is cold.

Being able to see your own breath leave your body, form a cloud in the air, and then fade away is incredible to me. I suddenly become aware of my consistent breathing and am reminded of what being alive actually means. I can even feel my breath rising and falling within my own chest.

When I think of how I'm constantly breathing, I become aware of all of my sensory perceptions and feel overwhelmed that I'm aware of the world around me on so many levels. I think about how some animals only see in certain colors, some only in black and white and how when one sense is weak, others are intensified.

Lenten Season Aquarium Contemplation

(Picture taken of Cownose Ray in the Carribean Tunnel Exhibit at the New Orleans Aquarium. Stingrays, unlike their name, are non-aggressive to humans and, when domesticated, begin to act affectionate as if they were puppies. Working with them has taught me a lot about how seemingly dangerous animals are really just as sweet as the cute, fluffy ones.)

As I am curious about Jesuit ideals, I have been participating in an Ignatian Lenten Retreat in which I pray with scripture 20 minutes a day and conduct a daily examen.





One of the places I have sat down to pray is the Aquarium Gulf Exhibit. This is a large room with the largest tank in the New Orleans Aquarium, containing a 50 year old green sea turtle, a sandtiger shark, many nurse sharks and sandbar sharks, tarpon (big, shiny fish) and a whole lot more. There's a set of raised benches for observation set up, so I sat down. Once I opened the retreat packet, I started writing and reflecting on "finding God in all things," (Ignatius) keeping in mind how to "pledge allegiance to all," including things like the soil that we often leave out (Snyder).





I started to write about William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger." Obviously, the poem questions how the same God can create both a meek lamb and a strong tiger. Yet, I started thinking about the sandtiger shark. This shark constantly has his mouth open, baring his rows of teeth and giving him an uneasy appearance. Yet, he's actually the most docile shark in the tank because he can only eat small fish due to his jaw structure. If anything, people are afraid of the potential, not the nature, of a shark, as most sharks are not particularly aggressive. Lambs have the appearance of being meek and innocent, yet they have the potential to be destructive, too. They can overgraze fields and destroy ecosystems; lambs just don't have the appearance of dangerous potential. Sharks and tigers are not malicious creatures and they never kill for sport or out of their natural habitat. In fact, most sharks only eat fish who are dying or sick to keep the ecosystem healthy and never attack a healthy fish. Perhaps it is more appropriate for us to understand an animal's potential. Both a tiger and a lamb have the potential for fearful symmetry in different ways; it's how a creature deals with their own potential that makes it a beast.