I have many different feelings about prayer.

On one level, it’s a representation of something I’ve stepped away from. For a little over a year, I was the youth representative on my Presbyterian Church’s session, which is the governing body of the church. It’s a lot like our government. Session meets regularly to discuss whatever current issues are brought before them. There are committees delegated to handle particular issues, and there are committees to delegate each committee. For the entire time I served on session, I did not speak a word. I showed up to meetings, I filled a chair, and I listened patiently to each debate. I watched friends become hostile and impatient with each other. Over the course of the time I was a session member, I watched several other members abruptly resign and leave the church. I was angered by the way money and finances seemed to poison the conversation. The contention that seemed to accompany each meeting, little by little, soured my relationship with the church and I chose not to participate.

The botanical tour that the people in the other class lead us on was very interesting. I liked learning about the plants in Morris Woods while actually being able to see them and touch them.  One of the things that our tour guides had us do was to smell the leaves of two similar looking plants. Smell is not a sense I would usually think to use when comparing plants but these plants had two clearly different smells so this ended up being the easiest way to tell them apart. This made me wonder what else I was missing by using mostly only my sight to interact with plants. In William’s book she talks about loving the land, but you cannot be intimate with the land if you are only using one of your senses to interact with it. I really liked that we used multiple senses to interact with the plants we were being shown during the tour. 

So with Thrusday’s Silence class came along some “prayer” and when Anne was talking about the activity we were going to do, I could not help but begin to feel a little anxious. And if I can recall correctly, I remember mentioning that in class. Anywho, I just want to reflect on why exactly I felt that way. I think a lot of it has to do with my apprehensions with religion. and I don’t think that these apprehensions really have to do with the idea of religion versus an actual type of religion. The class activity went better than I expected, even though I found myself asking a lot of questions during the praying section and not necessarily having/getting any answers…

On the morning of November 18, Susan, Elizabeth, Max, Sarah and I set out boldly to teach each other a little bit about the botany and geology of the campus...

Well... Maybe it was more of a saunter... 

Either way, it was a very enjoyable, as well as informative walk. We started out in front of Erdman, began walking towards Taylor, but decided to detour back to Max's site sit outside of Erdman instead. There we talked about the invasive English ivy, and other invase plants. We defined weeds as something that doesn't belong and won't leave. We then spent some time comparing our two classes. We talked a little bit about the writing expectations and the reading we had been doing. Since we were all in the ecofeminism unit at the time we discussed how feelings played into class discussions, and how nice it was to have feelings validated as positive contributions to the discussion, rather than brushed aside as inconsequential. 

After that we (Susan, Elizabeth, and myself) led Sarah and Max to Taylor to identify the one of the two main types of rocks that the majority of Bryn Mawr's buildings are made out of. We used the handouts provided by Maria Louisa Crawford to identify the types of rock Bryn Mawr was situated upon. We discussed what happened to the old quarries after the rock had been removed; some turn into lakes, some turn into dumps. 

I went on a geological and biological tour of campus with Susan and Maddie from our class and Max and Sarah S from English 313. We spent about the recommended times on everything we were supposed to (a half an hour to get to know each other and then forty-five minutes for each tour), but we didn't split it up so exactly, we talked about things as they became relevant to the environment we were in, which I thought worked out pretty well. We had room to discuss what we needed to and inform each other, but we were also able to have more of a conversation, and bring things back up if we had forgotten to say them earlier, or wanted to expand on them a little more.

We all (freshwomen and senior ecological imaginers) agreed unanimously that we wanted to get the biological tours of BMC campus done before Thanksgiving Break due to the amount of work we had to do after the Break. One thing we could not agree on, however, was the exact time. Numerous e-mails were exchanged back and forth, but no agreement could be reached. Thus a Doodle doc was born. We all put down the times we could meet, but not a single time frame seemed to work for every one of us. While this was happening, it was somehow decided to meet on a Saturday from 10:30 to 12:30, and in the e-mail talking about it it was mentioned (can't recall by whom) that the time would work for me too, since I was free from 11. I e-mailed everybody back, telling them they got the wrong idea: I was free from 1, not 11. But that seemed to go unheard and the decision was made to go on our biological tours then, and when I saw the e-mails discussing that it was ttoo late. All logistics aside, I am really sorry we didn't manage to go on the tours - it would have been lovely to find out more about the botany of the BMC campus. However, I do feel that my voice and opinion were not heard at all in this project; Zoe and I tried to reschedule the tours but we got negative response, and the agreement about the initial meeting completely disregarded me and what I had to say. I don't know why this happened, but one thing I know for sure is that I don't like not having my voice heard and feeling invisible.

Today, I went on a walk with ekthorp and sarahj to discuss what our plans would be to arrange the opening and closing for tomorrow’s ramble. On our way back we began discussing “the Lives of Animals” and I became really fixated on the part of Elizabeth’s speech where she brings up Sultan, who is starved until he can achieve his task. In doing so, he is being trained to focus and give importance to only one thing, and being asked to disregard all other possible thoughts or distractions. I had recently listened to this podcast that had reminded me of Sultan for another one of Anne’s classes (http://www.onbeing.org/program/last-quiet-places/4557) and it had a huge effect on my thinking. One of the things discussed in the podcast is how children are taught to direct their attention, to close themselves off to divergent and distracting thoughts. I began to see a connect here between the way we are conditioned to focus and the way in which Sultan was taught to abandon his instincts and focus only on one thing in order to achieve his task. I wondered about the way we teach children, and how often learning and play are intertwined. Most “play” moments actually serve as teaching moments, where children learn problem-solving skills, teambuilding skills, leadership skills. It doesn’t seem like children are ever just playing. However, I’m starting to wonder whether or not it is “ecologically literate” to teach and condition children to filter out divergent thinking.

I enjoyed reading about Professor Beard and Sister Chittiste because they completely shattered stereotypes for me. When I think of a nun, I think of a very quiet, reserved and hidden (dress and location-wise) woman who spends most of her days reading the bible. This image is a little extreme and even though I knew that it was not entirely true growing up, I had nothing to challenge it. So I was surprised to read that Professor Beard doubted her relationship to God and her faith well into adulthood and I was VERY surprised to read about Sister Chittiste's activism and to hear her describe our country so well in the context of sin and belief.