Thank you for reading and for your support, Leah. I have been thinking about 'it' and the objectifying of nature for decades (since my first argument with an editor about pronouns for plants, in fact), but it's only recently that I could see a way around the issue with 'they' as a first-person pronoun. S/he works well for animals and insects, where gender is clear, but not plants, who remind us it's fluid. :) Blessings!
I may have said this before, but it bears repeating: nature is my church. I've been a tree hugger since college and, believe me, that was a long time ago. Native American have always known we are part of all beings, and beings are anything that lives.
This is so true. I, too, consider Nature my church. A very short story. Many years ago I was moving cattle from winter range to the high country for the summer with the guy in my life and his family. We were up high in the Wyoming Mountains. After riding horseback for a couple of days, his dad asked me if I wanted to go to church with him in the morning. Knowing we were at least a couple days solid riding from anything that even resembled a town, I said sure, thinking he was joking. At 4:00 A.M. he was at my tent, horses saddled, telling me to hurry. We rode through the darkness, weaving through the timber and came out on a ridge facing east, just as the sun began to lift over the horizon. He turned in his saddle and said, "Susan, this is my church."
What a great story, Susan N! Your guy's dad was in touch with what is most important in that way, and good for him for sharing it with you. And of course now I want to know where you were more specifically, because the landscape sounds so familiar. :)
They lived outside of Thermopolis. We trailered in from east of Shoshone for about 30 miles, and went horseback from there. It was a rough ride that morning for church, but the experience was absolutely delicious! This has stayed with me all these years.
I bet it has stayed with you. Trailering in from east of Shoshoni would put you in the Owl Creek range, maybe where it bends north into the Bighorns. Gorgeous country!
I agree, Karen, and I often say that too: nature is my church. I think that all cultures that live close to the land, including my Celtic and Scandinavian ancestors, had a more wholistic view of our relationship with all other beings and this planet. I believe that understanding is something that lives on in all of us at the cellular level. I call that understanding our terraphilia, but you can use any name you like. (Our habits of language are difficult to change though, witness the last clause of what you wrote above, "beings are any'thing' that lives." I am trying to learn to say, "beings are anyone who lives" instead!)
One of the major flaws in modern culture is a lack of connection to the natural world. Whether we like it or not, we are part of that world and we suffer when we think otherwise. This is, of course, the main premise of Practicing Terraphilia.
Lately I've been reading the recently published book (December 2024) Good Nature, by Kathy Willis in which Dr. (she is also a baroness!) Willis presents empirical data to back up the connection and how contact with nature, especially plants, improves our health. I picked this up at a recently opened bookstore in Shoreline whose owners seem to have great talent in picking interesting books.
Of course organisms should be respected in how they are mentioned and I have always tried to not refer to them as "it". We are not the only important creatures on this earth, having dominated it for a relatively short time. If you use length of domination of the planet, bacteria would come out ahead and there is reason to consider them the lords of creation even now. After them other microorganisms and ants!
Thanks for the recommendation of Good Nature, David. I'll have to look it up. And yay for the new bookstore in Shoreline with interesting books.
One of the most difficult things for me about erasing "it" from my vocabulary of other lives has been working with editors who are the gatekeepers of proper language use and refuse to allow other beings to be referred to as other than objects. I can't tell you how many times I've argued with editors at national nature magazines--Audubon, National Parks and the like--about the use of personal pronouns in my features for them. It's frustrating that they of all people, are not aware of the implications of objectifying nature.
And yes, bacteria and archaea are definitely the first-comers here, and as EO Wilson famously said, it's really the little ones that run the earth. (He was referring, of course, to ants.)
Ahh. Archaea! My main observation of that group is in noting the pinkish ring of halophilic Archaea on the edge of Bitter Lake in New Mexico, as the lake dries up before refilling during the monsoons.
I referred to something in my writing the other day, and wrote "it" in reference, and it bothered me so much, I spent a ton of time rewriting the the whole thing. Thanks for this,
I have done that so often, Susan N! I can empathize with how difficult it is to eradicate that little two-letter pronoun from both my writing and my speech. (The latter is harder for me because it's such a longstanding habit.)
I appreciate this so much, but I struggle with using plural pronouns for singular beings. The grammatical training is deep! Any suggestions for addressing my unease? I am all in on the gender construct work.
I had the same issue, Kathryn, until I worked with a couple of gender-fluid young people who asked to be addressed as 'they/them.' I found that practice, just as Allie Picketts suggested below, was the key. The more I used those pronouns out loud, the more comfortable I became. They/them is not a perfect solution, but it is so much better than 'it.' And honestly, sometimes we learn from our discomfort and find other issues revealing themselves.
Yes, thank you. I know a couple of gender fluid people also and the daughter of one good friend. That good friend has become very facile with the plural pronouns. If she can, I can too! It’s just my seventh grade grammar teacher won’t get out of my head lol.
You may have to have a serious talk with that seventh-grade grammar teacher about how language evolves the way culture does, and whether or not that teacher would appreciate it, you are determined to be sensitive and thoughtful!
Beautiful sentiments and a great reminder of so much we can overlook. We need to care for our own personal ecosystem to help the larger ones around us.
We do that. Really, the only lasting change we can make is with ourselves and our immediate family, community and neighborhood. We can hope that our light shines beyond it and sparks others' lights too.
I could give it a try lol! I was in trouble with her two or three times for talking back and telling her she was wrong on a couple of things! But the truth of the matter was… I was right and she was wrong!
It must be hard to be a 7th grade grammar teacher--so much rebellion brewing at that age, and you are the person tasked with enforcing all those troublesome rules! No wonder she couldn't admit she was wrong. Maybe you need to forgive each other. :)
I completely understand the connection and respect for nature piece, and the preference for a certain group of people to be addressed however they want, as well as an artist's or writers desire to speak how they want to, but not everyone is going to address people or "things" through that lens all the time.
Of course not! Everyone has to make their own decisions on language and custom and perspective. Diverse viewpoints and expressions are what make a healthy community, human and moreso. All I'm saying is we should think about our words and what they mean, and use them generously and with as much care as we can. Blessings.
You are so welcome, Janie. I believe that the more we honor other lives, the more we become fully human. And we surely need our fullest expression of humanity in these times.
It’s so good to reaffirm pronouns and the problems of ‘it’ given the muscular mess in the US (I’m writing from Australia). Martin Buber meditates on I-it and I-Thou in his book I-Thou.
Dougald Hine and Elizabeth Slade are holding a discussion on Buber’s I-Thou on Substack in early March. It may be of interest to you.
"Muscular mess" is an apt phrase for the situation, Terri. Sigh. And thanks for the reminder of Martin Buber's I-Thou book, which I read decades ago and probably should read again. Also for the mention of and link to the discussion in early March. Blessings!
Thank you for this writing...calling the living beings either she, he or they is far more appropriate than "it". It honors and respects them. The Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference sounds well worth attending. And you are the MC! Colorado State University is my alma mater.
Thank you for your comment, Jenny. Honoring and respecting others is so important in these times, I think. We have to model the behavior we want the world to show, even when it seems hopeless. As for the conference, it is always amazing and inspiring, even though I never get to just attend because I'm an organizer and the MC. Wish you were nearby so you could come!
Yes, honor and respect these days seems to be in short supply. But we must keep chipping away at it as best we can. I wish I could be at the conference also!
I will use the pronouns in my speech; a great idea to remind us of our own roots.
Exactly, Sharon, and thank you!
I agree. S/he or they. The living world is not a bunch of objects. Thank you for your post.
Thank you for reading and for your support, Leah. I have been thinking about 'it' and the objectifying of nature for decades (since my first argument with an editor about pronouns for plants, in fact), but it's only recently that I could see a way around the issue with 'they' as a first-person pronoun. S/he works well for animals and insects, where gender is clear, but not plants, who remind us it's fluid. :) Blessings!
I may have said this before, but it bears repeating: nature is my church. I've been a tree hugger since college and, believe me, that was a long time ago. Native American have always known we are part of all beings, and beings are anything that lives.
This is so true. I, too, consider Nature my church. A very short story. Many years ago I was moving cattle from winter range to the high country for the summer with the guy in my life and his family. We were up high in the Wyoming Mountains. After riding horseback for a couple of days, his dad asked me if I wanted to go to church with him in the morning. Knowing we were at least a couple days solid riding from anything that even resembled a town, I said sure, thinking he was joking. At 4:00 A.M. he was at my tent, horses saddled, telling me to hurry. We rode through the darkness, weaving through the timber and came out on a ridge facing east, just as the sun began to lift over the horizon. He turned in his saddle and said, "Susan, this is my church."
What a great story, Susan N! Your guy's dad was in touch with what is most important in that way, and good for him for sharing it with you. And of course now I want to know where you were more specifically, because the landscape sounds so familiar. :)
They lived outside of Thermopolis. We trailered in from east of Shoshone for about 30 miles, and went horseback from there. It was a rough ride that morning for church, but the experience was absolutely delicious! This has stayed with me all these years.
I bet it has stayed with you. Trailering in from east of Shoshoni would put you in the Owl Creek range, maybe where it bends north into the Bighorns. Gorgeous country!
I agree, Karen, and I often say that too: nature is my church. I think that all cultures that live close to the land, including my Celtic and Scandinavian ancestors, had a more wholistic view of our relationship with all other beings and this planet. I believe that understanding is something that lives on in all of us at the cellular level. I call that understanding our terraphilia, but you can use any name you like. (Our habits of language are difficult to change though, witness the last clause of what you wrote above, "beings are any'thing' that lives." I am trying to learn to say, "beings are anyone who lives" instead!)
Well expressed! Nature is my church and spirituality as well.
One of the major flaws in modern culture is a lack of connection to the natural world. Whether we like it or not, we are part of that world and we suffer when we think otherwise. This is, of course, the main premise of Practicing Terraphilia.
Lately I've been reading the recently published book (December 2024) Good Nature, by Kathy Willis in which Dr. (she is also a baroness!) Willis presents empirical data to back up the connection and how contact with nature, especially plants, improves our health. I picked this up at a recently opened bookstore in Shoreline whose owners seem to have great talent in picking interesting books.
Of course organisms should be respected in how they are mentioned and I have always tried to not refer to them as "it". We are not the only important creatures on this earth, having dominated it for a relatively short time. If you use length of domination of the planet, bacteria would come out ahead and there is reason to consider them the lords of creation even now. After them other microorganisms and ants!
Thanks for the recommendation of Good Nature, David. I'll have to look it up. And yay for the new bookstore in Shoreline with interesting books.
One of the most difficult things for me about erasing "it" from my vocabulary of other lives has been working with editors who are the gatekeepers of proper language use and refuse to allow other beings to be referred to as other than objects. I can't tell you how many times I've argued with editors at national nature magazines--Audubon, National Parks and the like--about the use of personal pronouns in my features for them. It's frustrating that they of all people, are not aware of the implications of objectifying nature.
And yes, bacteria and archaea are definitely the first-comers here, and as EO Wilson famously said, it's really the little ones that run the earth. (He was referring, of course, to ants.)
Ahh. Archaea! My main observation of that group is in noting the pinkish ring of halophilic Archaea on the edge of Bitter Lake in New Mexico, as the lake dries up before refilling during the monsoons.
And a very cool observation that is!
I referred to something in my writing the other day, and wrote "it" in reference, and it bothered me so much, I spent a ton of time rewriting the the whole thing. Thanks for this,
I have done that so often, Susan N! I can empathize with how difficult it is to eradicate that little two-letter pronoun from both my writing and my speech. (The latter is harder for me because it's such a longstanding habit.)
Another valuable lesson, Susan.
Thanks for reading and letting me know, Gary. Blessings!
I appreciate this so much, but I struggle with using plural pronouns for singular beings. The grammatical training is deep! Any suggestions for addressing my unease? I am all in on the gender construct work.
If the unease truly comes simply from unfamiliarity/habit, then in my opinion it's practise, practise, practise, like anything else :)
I agree, Allie. And thank you for this thoughtful affirmation. :)
I had the same issue, Kathryn, until I worked with a couple of gender-fluid young people who asked to be addressed as 'they/them.' I found that practice, just as Allie Picketts suggested below, was the key. The more I used those pronouns out loud, the more comfortable I became. They/them is not a perfect solution, but it is so much better than 'it.' And honestly, sometimes we learn from our discomfort and find other issues revealing themselves.
Yes, thank you. I know a couple of gender fluid people also and the daughter of one good friend. That good friend has become very facile with the plural pronouns. If she can, I can too! It’s just my seventh grade grammar teacher won’t get out of my head lol.
You may have to have a serious talk with that seventh-grade grammar teacher about how language evolves the way culture does, and whether or not that teacher would appreciate it, you are determined to be sensitive and thoughtful!
Beautiful sentiments and a great reminder of so much we can overlook. We need to care for our own personal ecosystem to help the larger ones around us.
We do that. Really, the only lasting change we can make is with ourselves and our immediate family, community and neighborhood. We can hope that our light shines beyond it and sparks others' lights too.
No living thing, in any form, should be an "it." Thank you for this thoughtful piece, Susan.
Amen, Jeanne! And thank you for reading and commenting. Blessings to you!
I could give it a try lol! I was in trouble with her two or three times for talking back and telling her she was wrong on a couple of things! But the truth of the matter was… I was right and she was wrong!
It must be hard to be a 7th grade grammar teacher--so much rebellion brewing at that age, and you are the person tasked with enforcing all those troublesome rules! No wonder she couldn't admit she was wrong. Maybe you need to forgive each other. :)
Good idea!
I completely understand the connection and respect for nature piece, and the preference for a certain group of people to be addressed however they want, as well as an artist's or writers desire to speak how they want to, but not everyone is going to address people or "things" through that lens all the time.
Of course not! Everyone has to make their own decisions on language and custom and perspective. Diverse viewpoints and expressions are what make a healthy community, human and moreso. All I'm saying is we should think about our words and what they mean, and use them generously and with as much care as we can. Blessings.
Appreciating your words, Susan 🌳
Thank you, Christina! Blessings to you.
This really spoke to me today! Thank you!
You are so welcome, Janie. I believe that the more we honor other lives, the more we become fully human. And we surely need our fullest expression of humanity in these times.
It’s about respect.
To call non-human kin ‘they’
or just by their name.
Exactly, Marisol. Thank you for understanding and writing the essence in a poem. Blessings!
It’s so good to reaffirm pronouns and the problems of ‘it’ given the muscular mess in the US (I’m writing from Australia). Martin Buber meditates on I-it and I-Thou in his book I-Thou.
Dougald Hine and Elizabeth Slade are holding a discussion on Buber’s I-Thou on Substack in early March. It may be of interest to you.
https://open.substack.com/pub/dougald/p/buber-club-an-invitation?r=1rdibp&utm_medium=ios
"Muscular mess" is an apt phrase for the situation, Terri. Sigh. And thanks for the reminder of Martin Buber's I-Thou book, which I read decades ago and probably should read again. Also for the mention of and link to the discussion in early March. Blessings!
Thank you for this writing...calling the living beings either she, he or they is far more appropriate than "it". It honors and respects them. The Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference sounds well worth attending. And you are the MC! Colorado State University is my alma mater.
Thank you for your comment, Jenny. Honoring and respecting others is so important in these times, I think. We have to model the behavior we want the world to show, even when it seems hopeless. As for the conference, it is always amazing and inspiring, even though I never get to just attend because I'm an organizer and the MC. Wish you were nearby so you could come!
Yes, honor and respect these days seems to be in short supply. But we must keep chipping away at it as best we can. I wish I could be at the conference also!