Footing. One two three four cacophanous stepping + sideways glancing. Breezes brushing momentums hurricaning whirling bumping off shoulders crossing paths. "I'm sorry." looking streetward. House on the corner is watering. Sky is watering. The house is leaving. turreted walls leaking green living, dripping growing flowering consuming. Sky greying and clearing. footsteps echoing. smell of gasolene music bumping. screeching. loudening breaking thumping. ground shaking. bass tone voices blaring. returning home -- quieting centering

tree sitting in Taft. bee crawling. black and yellow refracting -- gossamer winging. sky darkening cold invading. pen failing raindrops washing blurring dissolving paper. Sounding off leaves. Smelling of fountaining Taft. engrossing. fluffy squirrel foraging ignoring. chipmunk creeping a foot away clawing scaling the tree scurrying changing directionals startling startled dissappearing. scurrying along decaying grounding -- deadening?

When finishing part two of Offending Women, where they talk about Vision's idea of therapy and addiction as solutions and causes for the women's incarceration, I was particularly struck by how good intentions can go bad. It seems like the women involved in the program had good intentions, but had much difficulty executing them in productive ways for the incarcerated women. I was horrified at the lack of privacy the women in Visions were given, not only in respect to the program but with the expectation that they should air out their problems and lives for everybody to see. This was especially evident when incoming women were asked to write "autos" in which they fully detailed traumatic experiences and just bad situations. Not only were they asked to revisit them but they were also asked to "perform" them. That just didn't sit well with me. I was horrified. As someone who deals better with trauma and difficult experiences alone, focusing on self-reflection, I can't imagine being asked to completely break down in front of an audience when I'm not ready. I don't understand how helping these women "unmask" themselves or open up about their struggles serves as anything else than feeling shame, guilt, anger, pain. I wonder where the opportunity for positive experiences went. This program seemed very much "damage-centered."

The first few minutes of my third trip to my spot followed the basic general format that I had followed in my previous observation periods. I sat on the bench, taking into account how there were growing splotches of color in the tree leaves above the Nature Trail, noting the relative isolation of the spot being interrupted by early morning runners, noticing the mushrooms starting to grow around the bench, hearing the car horns as a traffic jam started to form on Haverford Avenue, and looking for other aspects of my location that were not the same as the previous week’s visit. But after a while of this, I kept thinking back to the alien world in Vaster Than Empires and More Slow and our class discussion about potential forms of plant sentience.  By constantly thinking back to these subjects, I started considering whether my surroundings had a form of sentience and wondering if my presence at  the bench was being registered by an alien mind? I began asking myself more and more questions regarding this concept such as:

                - Did the leaves and pine needles lying on the ground share the same manner of sentience the trees they came from hold and lost that sentience when they fell from the trees or did they possess a separate form of sentience than the trees they come possess?

This week, I share in Sarah's distance predicament. I always thought Rock was rather close to where I live, but apparently that distance is subjective. Last week, when I was perfectly able, the tree was not far at all. This week, with an injury, I might as well have walked to Brecon. By the time I got there, standing for too long became difficult and sitting on the tree was the worst of all. I had no hope of climbing it. I stood on the ground in the shade of the damp tree for as long as I could, but after a while I had to go back to my human den to lie down. What if I didn't have a comfortable, soft white bed to fall into? What if I, like any other species, had to live in the wild? I would choose this spot. It is shady and secluded from predators and outside influences and I would probably deal with the pain of my injury and climb the tree until I was hidden more and until I found a comfortable branch. I would have to put up with all the spiders and who knows what else that I have chosen to eliminate from my human-space room, but I would be used to them. It would be okay.

The pinecones continue to be an interesting thing to look at. I found they are especially interesting from the ground, where I have never really looked at them before. I am not yet sure if this matters in my decision to choose a new wilderness home to lie down in.

I have some reflection on the exercise that we took turn to read our Sunday online post in the class today. A lot of us did pictures last week, and we didn’t have a chance to look at them but listened to excerpted words. Nevertheless, I found many of those words very visual and vivid. I felt I saw the objects that were described by listening to the words - the spinning leaves and the deep far sky… And they left me such a deep impression, which I don’t think would have been achieved by reading those words. Because when we read, alphabets are what we first see, and it requires a second process of creating a visual impression. Moreover, I don’t think it is only language (the descriptive words that are being used) that is contributing to deepening an image in my mind. I could not have seen those images if I haven’t experienced them myself. For example I wasn’t able to see the circus rehearsal so vividly because I wasn’t there. My brief reflections are 1) it helps to  grasp a literal idea if I move my eyes off the text from time to time; 2) in this case languages served to record one’s own experience and evoke other’s similar experience and it is more effective if the reader/listener have similar experience.

I found much of what I've read about Alliance and Visions in "Offending Women" to be problematic, but, in both cases, I think what has struck me the most is the idea that motherhood is a reward for good behavior, that the women who are part of these "communities" don't deserve to interact with or parent their children until an overseer tells them so. I think what hits me hardest here is the idea that, once you are marked as an "offender" you are then also branded to be an unfit parent, two labels which don't necessarily go hand in hand. Is it not keeping these women from a full recovery to keep them away from their children, or to tell them that they are not fully able to fulfill a responsibility that they have to their child(ren)? It killed me to read that the women went into the bathroom for hours at a time to calm their child down, to have precious few moments where they could be the mothers that they wanted to be, without the intrusion of administrators. They obviously were not perfect parents (but who is?), but to stop these women in a program with "Mothers" in the title from truly filling that role seems cruel to me. 

I'm a member of a Facebook group for my grade school and someone posted this link to a blog discussing "groundbreaking research on how spending time in nature affects the human brain." Just thought I would share!

It took me three tries to get to my spot today. I sat in the Pembroke arch, watching the rain, waiting for it to let up. Every time I would think the rain had stopped, I would venture tentatively out, hand first and body second. It wasn’t raining heavily, but I had intended to draw. I was determined to find the exact moment in which the rain would pause, allowing me to carry through with my plan. I wanted to defy the rain.

 Finally, after at least fifteen minutes, I realized there was no way I was going to win against the rain. I sat dejectedly on a plastic bag in my spot, feeling rather lost. What now? Is this where the narrative of “man vs nature” emerges? We make plans, but ultimately the rain is a reminder of how little can go according to that plan.

Chief Yellow Lark

"Oh Great Spirit - whose voice I hear in the winds, and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me. I am a man before You, one of Your many children - I am small and weak. I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Made my hands respect the things You have made, my ears sharp to hear Your voice. Make me wise, so that I may know the things you have taught my people - the lesson you have hidden in every leaf and rock."