There is so much in the world to admire and to love. This passage assigned to read for this journal entry gave me a better understanding of this love. Ruskin, a famous artist of the 19th century, has done just that. He feel in love with nature through observation and writing. He would draw what he saw to the minute detail and then "try" to describe in words what he observed. I learned that the time that you sit in front of nature and be by yourself and really feel the intake of her force of nature, she draws you in with her beauty. That allows you a better understanding of how she lives and breathes through simple blades of grass and magnificent sunflowers and how everything comes together lives as one. The time that a person spends adapting to that feeling of unity this is the adjustment of understand and change for the person spends adapting to that feeling of unity this is the adjustment of understanding and change for the person. Some people think this that the change is the environment to the person but I feel that is wrong in its entirety. During our times of observations in this class I will know that I must change and adapt to the environment. I must learn to relax and be calm and then notice the beauties she has to offer.
The passage mentions combing science and art as being the basis of Ruskin's ideology. This was a breakthrough for many artists of his same time period. The usage of photography overlapping the natural beauty of drawing with pencil and paper is a struggle that we msut learn to beat. I see many more pictures being taken of memorable field trips or of the numerous gifts nature allows us to see. We have pictures of everything today. If we want to see a baby being born in the wild to her mother the giraffe we can see it over the internet! What if we were there in physical existence and not just imaginary existence? What would the world be like without pictures? We would be full of drawing freaks, not using freaks as a harsh term just meaning that we would all love the art of realism in drawing and appreciate nature even more. I think that taking a picture cuts back on time. You spend a second looking at something in nature and pushing the little black button on your camera to snap a picture. You can spend a whole day in nature actually drawing that entity in nature with detail adn appreciation.
Which brings me to my next point that I believe was pointed out very clearly and truthfully in this passage. I have learned to depreciate nature in many ways, which saddens me to confess. Reading the ways that Ruskin appreciated his forms and techniques of discovering nature in a while new way made me realize that I would have never of thought to spend much time in nature to "learn" about it. I could just hit myself; I have taken for granted the life that nature has given me and the freedom to be one iwth approach to combining science and art. Being able to draw what is there with greater detail than a photograph shows can aid anyone to have a better memory of the place visited.
In conclusion, I took this passage and appreciated a better understanding of what I will be given the permission to do in nature during this class. I really can't wait to interact and spend time just thinking and perhaps drawing what I see.
Burch "Vocabularies of Nature"
If we were to start at the beginning of human existence...this is where we would start. Just that, HUMAN existence. What was here before we were? Nature. That's right, so why then do we treat nature as it was the second in line? Starting with the New England Colonists, their idea was to settle and change this land to fit their needs. They used and abused this land first. This was the beginning to become habit...using everything up and not growing more. They finally started to get the hang of living on this land and starting making money off of her. Used her in all different ways. That sounds awful to put into words but that is what was done. If we think about it, nature gave them life! The animals, plants and men are all on the same level...we all depend on nature. We need her to stay alive, we need her to eat, drink, reproduce, and die. Our lives revolve around her yet we try to think of it as going in the other direction.
We feed ourselves, we find water, we find our mates and have babies, and we die. Yes this is all correct but we never give gratitude to the source of it all. True, animals go throught this same cycle as do plants. We are small, we are miniscule, we are nothing without nature. This "does not make society part of nature, rather, it makes nature part of society" (Burch, 59). We have to think as nature being number one and us being number two. We sink or swim together, if there are problems with nature there are problems with us. For example, if a tornado were to hit this town tonight. Nature would be changed drastically, trees rooted, and soil damaged; we would see the after effects of this tornado as well. Although nature would be first to change we would have to adapt to those changes.
Taniguchi describes heaven. Man has stopped respecting nature; he has taken for granted everything nature has had to offer. He has used nature as a means of payable commodities, and a I am ashamed that we have done that. I just sit back and think about how different the world would be if we actually stopped what we were doing and cherished the earth that we live on. We would probably find it hilarious that a man, grown man, picked up a stone from the ground and started building a garden. I know that Taniguchi has defined garden in a different aspect, but I am using a tangible garden as an example right now and not the ideology of the word garden he has set forth. But if a grown man today was to start picking up stones and build a garden in a populated park and worked on it for 18 months, the average person would question his work.
We have to have the answers to everything! We must know what everyone is doing at a given time so that we feel secure...so that we have everything under control. But Why? Why can't we live without worries? Why do we have to be right all the time? Feel again, Love again, I say to everyone! Stop falling into that technological gap to where one day we will all be machines just like the one I am typing on right now. We will have assigned tasks and live unhappy in a society that we helped to overcome ourselves. We will not be able to control things anymore and we will not be albe to live peacefully, as if we are now...but even more so in the future. This was Taniguchi's gift to us.
He wanted us to have a place that we can go and hide form the machines and demands. He wanted us to cherish what was here firstly. He wanted us to never forget that the land and earth and water and grass is what was here first and that we should never take that for granted. He wants the heartless man of today to break through the burdens of rules and just relax. Love is all one nedds to survive. Love for the earth that he inhabits and love for theyself. If you have these two things then you are redy to face life's obstacles. Religion is another huge benefactor in the world to help release oneself.
Taniguchi uses the rock, soil, and water to build his garden. The most significant fact that he adds to his purpose is the water splashing from a bamboo pipe. He describes this as being baptized in the Christian religion. Religion, Love, the beautyof the earth is recognized, sounds just like Heaven. Heaven on earth perhaps?
That's a very powerful comment. I believe there is a heaven on earth, but I believe it is a state of mind. Not a tangible heaven as compared to tangible earth. I mean an ideology of heaven here on earth. I find that we can be in heaven in so many situations. It's a feeling, an amotion, a state of happiness...heaven is. When my nephew tells me he loves me, I believe I am in heaven, a state of mind. When it's a beautiful day and there are no worries and I am sitting on the ground looking up at the clouds watching my day pass by slowly but not caring that I have to read or that my writing assignment is due the next day or that my love life is nonexistent at the moment. No worries, nothing on your mind at the time, you can be one with nature. This is heaven on earth and Taniguchi has just preserved a place on earth where that heaven can be felt. Love, I believe is the emotion and feeling you have when you are in heaven. Therefore, this garden allows you to be alone with nature to see nature at all directions from where you sit and to love it as you would a child. Heaven on earth is being in love with nature and all that nature offers.