Gueph, Ontario.
37 Macdonnell st.
1.19.2007
1.17.2007
kdub and the bump
kdub has gardened herself. her mother knit the pants and booties. naima aurora wiley
is in the world. She is gorgeous. Quiet. Really sweet. Today is her fifth day. Every day she 'wakes up' more, her eyes open more.
Last night we were reading out of Starhawk's book The Earth Path, from the "Center: Patterns" section. We read of branching patterns, of relationships and ratios; of creeks flowing into rivers like the pattern of leaves flowing into trees, and also of a drumbeat, pattern and ratios.
These are the flow forms of transportation via water. Water is what is used by most everything to move things. ( That gives me some thoughts about how car culture liberates us from that, which could also be seen as unspringing a population control mechanism, and being a big part of the reason we are so disconnected from the land. ya think?!)
Water also moves in spirals, always. The bottom of a river is slowed by friction, as are the sides, especially the inside of the meander. The river is moving in a long, horizontal spiral, like a fluid drill, carving curves in the land.
There are different drumbeats.
So Keona and her wee antique-new-born treasure (how to possibly desribe all of the layers - fine, crystalline strands of connection, possibility, emotion, energy, history - like spider webs)
are sleeping in the room beside me.
I have worked three days since I arrived here. I have lots of work, but not right now. I have been able to be here all week, 'though I have done a lot of other work-related stuff - but a new mama needs someone around to keep on top of everything, like laundry and tiding, for the first week at least. The Universe is totally supporting us: I have secured work, I have pulled in a tad on income, then got a gst cheque, then one from my mama for my birthday, which was really nice. And I have work at the flower factory on Saturday.
It all feels really good.
Kay, then, to work with me.
Blessed be.
1.05.2007
destabilizing the binary for enlarged spaces of the sayable:
jayme melrose: 20226103
december 13, 2006
destabilizing the binary for enlarged spaces of the sayable:
reflections on Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva
“Let me go where I am not yet” is how Hanneke Canters translated Luce Irigaray’s “Laisse-moi aller ou je ne suis pas encore” (Canters &Jantzen, 2005, p. vii).
Those few words are a seed for the opening up of such possibility. If within patriarchy, women have been oppressed and constructed as (m)other, what has been excluded?
Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva are two French Feminists who inquired along the axes of exclusion and marginalization, asking after the ‘female’/’feminine’ subject.
It was Paris in the 60’s, there was a lot of talk about social subjects: Marxism and socialism were thriving; existentialism had met Simone de Beauvoir; the ideas of Michel Foucault and postmodernism were in circulation; and psychoanalysis was thriving via Lacan’s Ecole freudian. The women’s movement was still trying to get equality before the law.
Weaving together elements of these discourses feminist theory has helped create, among other things, “a set of discourses which have created feminist subject positions” (emphasis hers, Bury, 2003, p. 222).
Perhaps the two most influential feminist philosophers to emerge from this period are Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, though, Kristeva cannot strictly be called a ‘feminist’ as she refused to define her politics along the gender axis; for exactly this reason, her work is central to contemporary gender theory.
While Irigaray’s mission is to engage, expand, and explore the subjectivity of the silenced ‘feminine,’ Kristeva’s mission is the deconstruction of identity altogether to allow the sexual signifier room to move (Moi, 1985, p.172). This essay is a(n incomplete) mapping of the space their theories have opened up for alternative feminist subjectivities, helping to enlarge the “spaces of the sayable” (Foucault qtd in Charania, 205, p. 31).
By mapping out the key arguments of Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva I hope to do two things: get an idea of how their ideas may have helped open up ways of being through theorizing alternate subjectivities, and to disseminate these ideas to my peers to encourage the making of further meanings.
In this paper I will sketch out a bit of the context Irigaray and Kristeva emerge from, and their main trajectories, though in a much simplified framework, focusing on their theories regarding the social construction of gender. I will engage the critiques of Irigaray’s essentialism, and illustrate how I find their works useful in being taken up as part of the continuing work of enlarging our “spaces of the sayable” (Foucault qtd in Charania, 2005, p. 31).
to set the stage…
To set the stage, starting in the early 60’s, the ideas of ‘structuralism’ blossomed. Structuralism can be defined as the approach to academic disciplines that explores the relationships between elements of language, literature, and theory upon which some higher function of mental, linguistic, social, cultural structures, or “structural networks” can be drawn (Wikipedia, 2006a, para. 1). A major theory within structuralism is the existence of binary opposition in which “there are certain theoretical and conceptual opposites, often arranged in a hierarchy” (Wikipedia, 2006b, para. 10).
Structuralism was critiqued in the rising tide of alternative radical philosophies, including feminism, Marxism, and nihilism, which Foucault termed “subjugated knowledges” (Wikipedia, 2006b, para. 10). Rather than look at the underlying structures, post-structuralism emerged proposing to deconstruct them.
Post-structuralism views even the underlying structures as culturally constructed and therefore mired in the matrix of the knowledge system that produced it. Knowledge systems became seen as imbricated within power systems. Just as juridical systems represent their subjects, Foucault established that “juridical systems of power produce the subjects they subsequently come to represent” (Butler, 1990, p. 2). Likewise “representation is the normative function of language” (Bulter, 1990, p. 1), thus language also plays the multiple role of producing, restraining, and reflecting its subjects.
As Judith Butler (1990) says
“[f]or feminist theory, the development of a language that fully or adequately represents women has seemed necessary to foster the political visibility of women. This has seemed obviously important considering the pervasive cultural condition in which women’s lives were either misrepresented or not represented at all” (p.1).
In questioning the misrepresentation, those ‘subjected knowledges’, the excluded voices including feminism, turned the tool of deconstruction upon the structure of binary oppositional logic pervasive in patriarchal thought.
Going back to Pythagoreus’ table of opposites, deconstruction revealed that the gendered framework “form[s] a structure in which maleness is associated with a clear, determinate mode of thought while femaleness is linked to vagueness and the indeterminate” (Canters & Jantzen, 2005, p. 10).
This gendered framework constructs male subject as the norm, “leaves the woman described as not-man, and erases her as a subject in her own right” (Canters & Jantzen, 2005, p. 16). Not only are things divided on a gendered axis which relegates the feminine to the passive, fluid darkness, but simultaneously along the axis of same and Other, with self and same being synonomous, and Other, referring to the unconscious, silence, madness, and that unsaid in language (Wikipedia, 2006c, para. 5). The self is identified as distinct from the Other with the Excluded Middle in between. These concepts are part of the foundation upon which civilization built identity and philosophy which Kristeva and Irigaray deconstructed to build upon.
Luce Irigaray…
Luce Irigaray was born in Belguim in the 30’s, earned her Master’s and taught high school before moving to Paris in 60’s to do her Master’s in psychology. She then did her diploma in Psychopathology; in 1968 she received her Doctorate in Linguistics. She taught from 1970-1974 at Lacan’s University of Vincennes. In 1974 she published her second doctoral thesis, Speculum de l’autre femme, at the “prestigious and high scholarly French” doctrat d’Etat in philosophy (Moi, 1985, p.129). The publication of this work was quickly followed by her dismissal from employment with Lacan. The extremity of the reaction to her work hints at the investment of psychoanalysis in that which she was criticizing, and gained her a lot of attention. (She continued and continues to publish, and is now the Director of Research Philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de Paris).
Speculum (1974) is an circular work in which the “architectonics of the text, or texts, confounds the linearity of an outline, the teleology of discourse” (Irigaray, 1977, p. 68). Her project is to upset the dualistic framework that positions ‘masculinity’, linearity, rationality, and
culture as dominant to ‘femininity’, poetry, hysteria/incoherence/women’s language, and nature.
She argues that psychoanalytic theory and conventional philosophy hold one subjectivity – the (disembodied) masculine which is proposed to be neutral and universal, but it is “constituted on the silent ground of woman “ (Moi, 1985, p.129-131). Her project then is to explore, articulate, and theorize the whole silent/suppressed realm of ‘woman’ and ‘femininity’ in order to create a ‘feminine’ subjectivity. Her argument though is not that women need only to step into the realm of culture, but also that men must become more embodied, so both sexes see themselves equally in nature and culture (Donovan, 2006, para. 5).
Her strategy relies heavily on the use of paradox; “hers is most strenuously a both-and logic” (Roberts, 2005, para. 1). She works not only within the literal level of language but associatively, symbolically, using both metaphor, and Fuss, (1991) argues, metonym (p.101). Irigaray requires her readers to think associatively and engage in a creative relationship with her work; she considers the creation of this subjectivity an emergent process, and identity as multiplicitous, dynamic, and emergent. According to Whitford (1991) the instructions for use of Irigaray are:
“Do not consume of devour. For symbolic exchange only” (p. 52).
Julia Kristeva…
Julia Kristeva came from Bulgaria at the age of 25 to Paris in 1966 with a doctoral research fellowship in hand (Moi, 1986, p. 1). She engaged immediately with the “blossoming structuralist milieu” by becoming involved with the Tel Quel group (Moi, 1986, p. 2-3), a “center of gravitation for almost all of the younger generation of structuralist and emerging post-structuralist theorists in France” (Moi, 1986, p. 4). Her Bulgarian background provided her with an intimate knowledge of Marxism to fuse with Hegelian philosophy and linguistics; as well, she studied Freudian and Lacanian psychanalysis. She worked as an analyst and academic, and was on the editorial board of Critque, the journal published by the TelQuel group. She published her doctoral thesis La Revolution du langage poetique in 1974. The publication of her thesis lead her to become chair of Linguistics at the University of Paris.
While Kristeva’s theories do center around the status of the subject and the questions of identity, her axis of inquiry is not into ‘female’/‘feminine’ subjectivity, but into those marginal
or dissident to patriarchy. She maintains that all signification is composed of two orders, not ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’, but semiotic and symbolic. The semiotic is the “the endless flow of pulsions gathered up in the chora (from the Greek word for enclosed space, womb)” (Moi, 1986, p.12).
The semiotic is, according to psychoanalytic theory, from conception until the mirror stage at 6-8mos, after which one enters the Symbolic order through language. Kristeva considers the semiotic the site beyond contradiction, of paradox, fluidity, and multiplicity; it is disruptive, maternal, the site of the Other within self, beyond difference and gender, impossible for the Symbolic; it is associated with rhythms, tones, and drives, and the body.
Kristeva’s project then is to connect the body and semiotic into the symbolic order, not to create a stable identity, but rather “discourses that resist rigid and one-dimensional logic and instead engage in an ongoing process of writing the struggle within the impasse of language” (European Graduate School, 2005, para. 2).
Her explicit aim is to open the meaning of signs up to polysemous readings, emphasizing multiplicity of expression and subjectivity. She maintains that ‘feminine and ‘masculine’ are social constructions created, enforced and disrupted through language, refuses to define woman, and “remain[s] aloof from the call for explicitly feminist approaches” (Moi, 1986, p. 9); for this reason, she cannot really be called a ‘feminist’, but it is exactly for this reason that the work of Kristeva continues to be of such value.
essentially speaking…
Essentialism in perhaps the key conundrum in contemporary ontology. Essentialism is speaking of things as though they have a innate nature (such as ‘human nature’). But, if we position something as essence, ‘human nature’, for example, then agency and resistance are foreclosed. A deeper inquiry, and cross-cultural comparisons, often reveal variations in that which was thought to be essence, revealing that it was social construction all along. Despite the brilliance of Irigaray’s work, the label of essentialism haunts it.
Irigaray’s project is to alter “the status of the “female’ in the symbolic realm”, but her strategy is through “uncompromising stress not on the obliteration and overcoming of sexual differences, but on sexual difference itself” (Whitford, 1991, p. 15). Irigaray is leveled with the
charge of being a ‘biological essentialist’ because of her “unmediated casual relationship between biological sex and sexual identity” (Whitford, 1991, p. 14). This rationale posits sex and gender as indistinct; in this formula, biology is destiny. Indeed, Irigaray says “by our lips we are women” (qtd in Fuss, 1992, p. 99), locating the realm of the feminine directly in the female body.
As Toril Moi (1985) succinctly surmises, “[t]o posit all woman as necessarily feminine and all men as necessarily masculine is precisely the move that enables the patriarchal powers to define, not femininity, but all women as marginal to the symbolic order and to society” (p. 166).
As Whitford explains of Segal’s critcism of Irigaray, if the “differences between the sexes are seen as a construct of patriarchy and repressive of both” then theory based on the emphasis of feminine/female/woman’s identity just continues to prop up patriarchy (Whitford, 1991, p. 15-16).
Toril Moi (1985) argues that if “all efforts towards a definition of ‘woman’ are destined to be essentialist, it looks as if feminist theory might thrive better if it abandoned the minefield of femininity and femaleness for a while and approached the questions of oppression and emancipation from a different direction” (p. 148). This is exactly what Julia Kristeva did. In the words of Moi (1985)
“Kristeva does not have a theory of ‘femininity’ or even ‘femaleness’. What she does have is a theory of marginality, subversion and dissidence. In so far as women are defined as marginal by patriarchy, their struggle can be theorized in the same way as any other struggle can be against a centralized power structure” (p. 164).
Even into her theorization of sexual difference she maintains an anti-essentialist approach. Kristeva held firm to the theory that “all meaning is contextual” (Moi, 1985, p.155), mapping out the different levels of our social patterns that can be deconstructed to become visible as social constructions. She chose to see how language is used discursively but with different interests, so that “[t]he meaning of the sign is blown open – the sign becomes ‘polysemic’” (Moi, 1985, p.158). What Kristeva’s strategy does, that Luce Irigaray could (arguably) not do, is alter the status of the ‘female’ in the symbolic realm, by allowing the sign and the symbol freedom to move.
While the charge of essentialism repeatedly comes up against Irigaray, it is also repeatedly defended. Margaret Whitford (1991) positions Irigaray as frequently interpreted to have some static notion of ‘woman’/’femininity’, while, in actuality, Irigaray is arguing for “the relation of ‘woman’ [a]s precisely what needs to be rearticulated” (p. 14); Irigaray is pushing for the exploration of gender relations in the realm where we are not yet.
Diana Fuss, (1992) concurs, viewing Irigaray’s mission as an attempt to explore the distinction of the sexes “in terms of how they inhabit or are inhabited by language” (p. 101) in an attempt to see what a “differently sexualized” (p. 101) language might be.
Whitford, (1991) argues that what both Irigaray and Kristeva hold in common is the idea of the “subject –in-process [ that is,] a subject in dialogue, engaged with the other” (p.48). From this perspective, it might be able to be argued that Irigaray does indeed leave room to be contingent, as Butler states is necessary.
Contingency implies allowing room for that which is not expected, allowing room for that which is not yet. In response to the question “what is woman?” Irigaray answers by asking “what is …?” (Irigaray, 1977, p. 122); to answer is to remain inside the phallocratic discourse, but to not answer is to remain outside of it, so Irigaray tries “to situate [her]self at its borders and move continuously from the inside to the outside” in an “attempt to overturn it” (Irigaray, 1977, p. 122).
While, in reading Irigaray, I truly do sense that Irigaray is calling for an emergent, contingent space to open within the social fabric that allows for and creates alternate subjectivities, specifically for those deemed ‘women’ by phallocratic discourse, I do still find supporting the gendered binary contrary to the political aims of reconstructing ontology, and for that reason, her reliance on the tem ’feminine’ remains problematic.
Kristeva’s account, on the other hand, by using the axis of marginalization to discourse, is more useful in collapsing binary logic completely. In remembering that the beliefs we hold have real world effect- they produce subjects, we are reminded to keep an eye on the ramifications of our theories.
enlarging spaces of the sayable…
Where Irigaray and Kristeva both explore that excites me so it their positioning of paradox at the core, calling for a both-and logic, instead of an either-or logic, as well as an understanding of and language for the world that is complex, multiplicitious, and emergent.
My personal perspective is based in an ecological understanding that views life as complex processes of relationship, interaction and mutuality. My interest in gender studies is born from the knowledge that we need a new ontological understanding from a feminist, ecological, and spiritual perspective that no longer allows for exploitation of ‘women’ and ‘nature’, (indeed, these need to be collapse as discreet categories).
As Irigaray and Kristeva worked to reveal, the gendered binary at the core of patriarchal discourse is not based in equal representation, guided by love, but rather sets up a framework that creates a hierarchy of marginalization that continues to produce women’s oppression.
Based on what I have read in the feminist, ecofeminist, and environmental discourses, binary oppositional logic is thoroughly deconstructed, regarded a patriarchal tool to justify exploitation. The next step is to reconstruct language that both reflects and produces the fluid and multiplicitous complexity of reality that does not trap us in an insincere, flattened, unitary identity.
In preparing for this paper, I discussed with a good friend of mine who is in the autistic spectrum the ideas of multiple subjectivites, including the idea of abandoning the subject-object construction. My friend became seriously excited, plying me for more information, concurring that autistics do not see the world with a subject-object or self-other perception, but rather as a fluid and undistinguished whole.
I began to observe more closely my speech patterns with ‘women’ and ‘men’, and in formal and intimate situations. With another close friend who is well-educated and shares with me a similar spiritual worldview, I began to notice our patterns of language becoming more and more abstract. We rarely finish our sentences, but rather use patterns of metonym to sketch out ideas and experiences as processes associated with other processes. Indeed I felt that we were trying “ceaselessly to embrace words and persistently to cast them off” (Fuss, 1982, p. 99), to avoid getting caught in flattened and insincere meanings, but convey experiences that we experienced on many levels simultaneously.
Irigaray’s focus is on parler femme which can translate into “speak (as) woman” (Whitford, 1991, p. 49). “Subjectivity is denied to women,” (Moi, 1985, p. 136) Irigaray claims; woman remains “exiled from representation”(Moi, 1985, p. 136) in order to provide the grounds upon which stable objects can be constructed. The “only place in Western history where woman speaks and acts in a public way” is in mystical discourse (Irigaray qtd. in Moi, 1985, p. 136).
Mystical experience involves the “loss of subjecthood… the mystic’s soul is transformed into a fluid stream dissolving all difference” (Moi, 1985, p. 136). In phallocratic discourse, “mysticism (like hysteria a few centuries later) offers women a real if limited possibility of discovering some aspects of pleasure that might be specific to their libidinal drives” (Moi, 1985, p. 138).
Women’s subjectivity, as Irigaray generalizes, is not unitary and divided like phallocratic subjectivity is constructed, but rather it is Woman neither two nor one but both at once, which “signifies that a woman is simultaneously singular and double; she is ‘already two - but not divisible into one(s)’ or, put another way, she is “neither one nor two’” (Fuss, 1992, p. 97). While the case for this can be made in a number of ways, the most obvious argument is in pregnancy and motherhood.
In pregnancy, a woman in both self and other, which blurs the unity of the subject, revealing the “subject in-process” (Oliver, 1993, p. 2). Julia Kristeva uses maternity as “a bridge between nature and culture, the drives and the Symbolic” (Oliver, 1993, p. 5). Drawn from this, Alison Weir “maintains that Kristeva provides a theory of a divided mother that allows the possibility for the mother to both participate in the symbolic and remain heterogeneous to it” (Oliver, 1993, p. 7).
Kristeva’s intent is to open discursive space to allow for the other within the self to be embraced, engaging a both-and logic. For Kristeva, the axis through which to access the Other, including women and those infantilized by patriarchy is the Semiotic, a core of fluid, multiplicitous, emergent contradiction and paradox, “which knows no sexual difference” (Moi, 1985, 165).
Language, in Kristevian terms, is an emergent “complex signifying process” (emphasis her, Moi, 1985, p.152), and it is not a universal, monolithic system, but rather sets of discourses which are “specific linguistic strategies in specific situations” (Moi, 1985, 154). Kristeva then “emphasizes the need to steer between stable identities” (Oliver, 1993, p. 8). In this way, Kristeva remains anti-essentialist, but also makes room for alternate subjectivites.
I enter this discourse with perhaps two generations between in which much expansion and critique of Luce Irigaray’s and Julia Kristeva’s work has rippled out through our social fabric. Born late in the seventies, I grew up in a rigid patriarchal household, with a hesitantly-feminist mother; it is interesting to reflect on the culture I was raised in, and the cultures I navigate through today; it seems that culture is much less rigid presently than it was for my mother’s generation.
While the direct action of grassroots feminist action began to expand life for women at the community level, Kristeva, Irigaray, (and others), were rattling the tap root of civilization: they were questioning the binary logic based in two discrete genders (and the law of the excluded middle), as neutral and universal ; they exposed that our very language, the symbolic order, is not neutral, universal, nor is the language of women is not represented.
In conclusion I see primarily the need to engage with these texts and disseminate this information. Our culture need to break and broaden our language base, so to shift ontology away from the ‘masculine’/ ‘feminine’ confines, collapsing the problematic binary towards a more fluid logic, with more room within the spaces of the sayable.
I feel we need to cross-reference our theories with an environmental ethic, and perhaps even more importantly, cross-reference our environmental ethic with these understandings of how power functions to ensure our means reflect our aims. While sex exists, is it useful explore the complexity and diversity of subjectivites, especially if we keep “a focus on the mechanisms of power” (Chanarnia, 2005, p. 36), we can perhaps expand the space that ‘woman’ is relegated and able to occupy.
Works Cited
Bury, R. (2003). Stories for Boys Girls: Female Fans Read the X-Files. Popular
Communication I(4), 217-242
Butler, J. (1990). “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” from Gender Trouble. New York:
Routeledge.
Canters, H. & Jantzen, G.M. (2005). Forever fluid: A reading of Luce Irigaray’s Elemental
Passions. New York: Manchester University Press.
Charnia, R. C. (2005). Regulated Narratives in Anti-homophobia Education: Complications in
Coming Out Stories. Canadian Women’s Studies, 24 (2-3). 31-36.
Cohn, J.S. (2004). Women & Society: Essentialism. University at Buffalo, archived at
http://www.womenandsociety.buffalo.edu/dictionary/essentialism.htm
Donovan, S.K. (2006). “Luce Irigaray: (1932-present).” The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Retreived December 6, 2006, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/
irigaray.htm#H1
European Graduate School. (2006). “Julia Kristeva.” Retrieved from Philosophers Resource
database, December 6, 2006, from http://www.egs.edu/resources/kristeva.html
Fuss, D.J. (1992). Essentially Speaking. In N.Fraser & S.L. Bartky (Eds.), Revaluing French
Feminism (pp. 94-112). Indianapolis, IN, USA: Indiana University Press.
Irigaray, L. (1977) This sex which is not one. ( 1985 ed.) New York: Cornell University.
Holland, B. (1998). “Luce Irigaray; A Bibliography.” Feminist Theory Website; Virgina Tech
University. Archived Novermber 30, from http://www.cddc.vt.edu/
feminism/Irigaray.html
Moi, T. (1985). Sexual Textual Politics. New York: Routledge.
Moi, T. (1986). The Kristeva Reader. New York: Routledge.
Oliver, K. (1993). Introduction: Julia Kristeva’s Outlaw Ethics. K. Oliver (Ed). Ethics, Politics,
and Difference in Julia Kristeva’s Writing. (pp. 1-11). New York: Routledge.
Roberts, S. (2005). “Burn the Panopticon: Irigaray’s Ethics, Difference, Poetics.”
Reconstruction: studies in contemporary culture, 5.1. Retrieved December 3, 2006,
from http://reconstruction.eserver.org/051/robertsintro.shtml
Wikipedia. (2006a). Structuralism. Retrieved Dec 11, 2006, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism
Wikipedia. (2006b). Post-structuralism. Retrieved Dec 11, 2006, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism
Wikipedia. (2006c). Other. Retrieved Dec 11, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other
Whitford, M. (1991). Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine. New York: Routledge.
december 13, 2006
destabilizing the binary for enlarged spaces of the sayable:
reflections on Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva
“Let me go where I am not yet” is how Hanneke Canters translated Luce Irigaray’s “Laisse-moi aller ou je ne suis pas encore” (Canters &Jantzen, 2005, p. vii).
Those few words are a seed for the opening up of such possibility. If within patriarchy, women have been oppressed and constructed as (m)other, what has been excluded?
Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva are two French Feminists who inquired along the axes of exclusion and marginalization, asking after the ‘female’/’feminine’ subject.
It was Paris in the 60’s, there was a lot of talk about social subjects: Marxism and socialism were thriving; existentialism had met Simone de Beauvoir; the ideas of Michel Foucault and postmodernism were in circulation; and psychoanalysis was thriving via Lacan’s Ecole freudian. The women’s movement was still trying to get equality before the law.
Weaving together elements of these discourses feminist theory has helped create, among other things, “a set of discourses which have created feminist subject positions” (emphasis hers, Bury, 2003, p. 222).
Perhaps the two most influential feminist philosophers to emerge from this period are Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, though, Kristeva cannot strictly be called a ‘feminist’ as she refused to define her politics along the gender axis; for exactly this reason, her work is central to contemporary gender theory.
While Irigaray’s mission is to engage, expand, and explore the subjectivity of the silenced ‘feminine,’ Kristeva’s mission is the deconstruction of identity altogether to allow the sexual signifier room to move (Moi, 1985, p.172). This essay is a(n incomplete) mapping of the space their theories have opened up for alternative feminist subjectivities, helping to enlarge the “spaces of the sayable” (Foucault qtd in Charania, 205, p. 31).
By mapping out the key arguments of Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva I hope to do two things: get an idea of how their ideas may have helped open up ways of being through theorizing alternate subjectivities, and to disseminate these ideas to my peers to encourage the making of further meanings.
In this paper I will sketch out a bit of the context Irigaray and Kristeva emerge from, and their main trajectories, though in a much simplified framework, focusing on their theories regarding the social construction of gender. I will engage the critiques of Irigaray’s essentialism, and illustrate how I find their works useful in being taken up as part of the continuing work of enlarging our “spaces of the sayable” (Foucault qtd in Charania, 2005, p. 31).
to set the stage…
To set the stage, starting in the early 60’s, the ideas of ‘structuralism’ blossomed. Structuralism can be defined as the approach to academic disciplines that explores the relationships between elements of language, literature, and theory upon which some higher function of mental, linguistic, social, cultural structures, or “structural networks” can be drawn (Wikipedia, 2006a, para. 1). A major theory within structuralism is the existence of binary opposition in which “there are certain theoretical and conceptual opposites, often arranged in a hierarchy” (Wikipedia, 2006b, para. 10).
Structuralism was critiqued in the rising tide of alternative radical philosophies, including feminism, Marxism, and nihilism, which Foucault termed “subjugated knowledges” (Wikipedia, 2006b, para. 10). Rather than look at the underlying structures, post-structuralism emerged proposing to deconstruct them.
Post-structuralism views even the underlying structures as culturally constructed and therefore mired in the matrix of the knowledge system that produced it. Knowledge systems became seen as imbricated within power systems. Just as juridical systems represent their subjects, Foucault established that “juridical systems of power produce the subjects they subsequently come to represent” (Butler, 1990, p. 2). Likewise “representation is the normative function of language” (Bulter, 1990, p. 1), thus language also plays the multiple role of producing, restraining, and reflecting its subjects.
As Judith Butler (1990) says
“[f]or feminist theory, the development of a language that fully or adequately represents women has seemed necessary to foster the political visibility of women. This has seemed obviously important considering the pervasive cultural condition in which women’s lives were either misrepresented or not represented at all” (p.1).
In questioning the misrepresentation, those ‘subjected knowledges’, the excluded voices including feminism, turned the tool of deconstruction upon the structure of binary oppositional logic pervasive in patriarchal thought.
Going back to Pythagoreus’ table of opposites, deconstruction revealed that the gendered framework “form[s] a structure in which maleness is associated with a clear, determinate mode of thought while femaleness is linked to vagueness and the indeterminate” (Canters & Jantzen, 2005, p. 10).
This gendered framework constructs male subject as the norm, “leaves the woman described as not-man, and erases her as a subject in her own right” (Canters & Jantzen, 2005, p. 16). Not only are things divided on a gendered axis which relegates the feminine to the passive, fluid darkness, but simultaneously along the axis of same and Other, with self and same being synonomous, and Other, referring to the unconscious, silence, madness, and that unsaid in language (Wikipedia, 2006c, para. 5). The self is identified as distinct from the Other with the Excluded Middle in between. These concepts are part of the foundation upon which civilization built identity and philosophy which Kristeva and Irigaray deconstructed to build upon.
Luce Irigaray…
Luce Irigaray was born in Belguim in the 30’s, earned her Master’s and taught high school before moving to Paris in 60’s to do her Master’s in psychology. She then did her diploma in Psychopathology; in 1968 she received her Doctorate in Linguistics. She taught from 1970-1974 at Lacan’s University of Vincennes. In 1974 she published her second doctoral thesis, Speculum de l’autre femme, at the “prestigious and high scholarly French” doctrat d’Etat in philosophy (Moi, 1985, p.129). The publication of this work was quickly followed by her dismissal from employment with Lacan. The extremity of the reaction to her work hints at the investment of psychoanalysis in that which she was criticizing, and gained her a lot of attention. (She continued and continues to publish, and is now the Director of Research Philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de Paris).
Speculum (1974) is an circular work in which the “architectonics of the text, or texts, confounds the linearity of an outline, the teleology of discourse” (Irigaray, 1977, p. 68). Her project is to upset the dualistic framework that positions ‘masculinity’, linearity, rationality, and
culture as dominant to ‘femininity’, poetry, hysteria/incoherence/women’s language, and nature.
She argues that psychoanalytic theory and conventional philosophy hold one subjectivity – the (disembodied) masculine which is proposed to be neutral and universal, but it is “constituted on the silent ground of woman “ (Moi, 1985, p.129-131). Her project then is to explore, articulate, and theorize the whole silent/suppressed realm of ‘woman’ and ‘femininity’ in order to create a ‘feminine’ subjectivity. Her argument though is not that women need only to step into the realm of culture, but also that men must become more embodied, so both sexes see themselves equally in nature and culture (Donovan, 2006, para. 5).
Her strategy relies heavily on the use of paradox; “hers is most strenuously a both-and logic” (Roberts, 2005, para. 1). She works not only within the literal level of language but associatively, symbolically, using both metaphor, and Fuss, (1991) argues, metonym (p.101). Irigaray requires her readers to think associatively and engage in a creative relationship with her work; she considers the creation of this subjectivity an emergent process, and identity as multiplicitous, dynamic, and emergent. According to Whitford (1991) the instructions for use of Irigaray are:
“Do not consume of devour. For symbolic exchange only” (p. 52).
Julia Kristeva…
Julia Kristeva came from Bulgaria at the age of 25 to Paris in 1966 with a doctoral research fellowship in hand (Moi, 1986, p. 1). She engaged immediately with the “blossoming structuralist milieu” by becoming involved with the Tel Quel group (Moi, 1986, p. 2-3), a “center of gravitation for almost all of the younger generation of structuralist and emerging post-structuralist theorists in France” (Moi, 1986, p. 4). Her Bulgarian background provided her with an intimate knowledge of Marxism to fuse with Hegelian philosophy and linguistics; as well, she studied Freudian and Lacanian psychanalysis. She worked as an analyst and academic, and was on the editorial board of Critque, the journal published by the TelQuel group. She published her doctoral thesis La Revolution du langage poetique in 1974. The publication of her thesis lead her to become chair of Linguistics at the University of Paris.
While Kristeva’s theories do center around the status of the subject and the questions of identity, her axis of inquiry is not into ‘female’/‘feminine’ subjectivity, but into those marginal
or dissident to patriarchy. She maintains that all signification is composed of two orders, not ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’, but semiotic and symbolic. The semiotic is the “the endless flow of pulsions gathered up in the chora (from the Greek word for enclosed space, womb)” (Moi, 1986, p.12).
The semiotic is, according to psychoanalytic theory, from conception until the mirror stage at 6-8mos, after which one enters the Symbolic order through language. Kristeva considers the semiotic the site beyond contradiction, of paradox, fluidity, and multiplicity; it is disruptive, maternal, the site of the Other within self, beyond difference and gender, impossible for the Symbolic; it is associated with rhythms, tones, and drives, and the body.
Kristeva’s project then is to connect the body and semiotic into the symbolic order, not to create a stable identity, but rather “discourses that resist rigid and one-dimensional logic and instead engage in an ongoing process of writing the struggle within the impasse of language” (European Graduate School, 2005, para. 2).
Her explicit aim is to open the meaning of signs up to polysemous readings, emphasizing multiplicity of expression and subjectivity. She maintains that ‘feminine and ‘masculine’ are social constructions created, enforced and disrupted through language, refuses to define woman, and “remain[s] aloof from the call for explicitly feminist approaches” (Moi, 1986, p. 9); for this reason, she cannot really be called a ‘feminist’, but it is exactly for this reason that the work of Kristeva continues to be of such value.
essentially speaking…
Essentialism in perhaps the key conundrum in contemporary ontology. Essentialism is speaking of things as though they have a innate nature (such as ‘human nature’). But, if we position something as essence, ‘human nature’, for example, then agency and resistance are foreclosed. A deeper inquiry, and cross-cultural comparisons, often reveal variations in that which was thought to be essence, revealing that it was social construction all along. Despite the brilliance of Irigaray’s work, the label of essentialism haunts it.
Irigaray’s project is to alter “the status of the “female’ in the symbolic realm”, but her strategy is through “uncompromising stress not on the obliteration and overcoming of sexual differences, but on sexual difference itself” (Whitford, 1991, p. 15). Irigaray is leveled with the
charge of being a ‘biological essentialist’ because of her “unmediated casual relationship between biological sex and sexual identity” (Whitford, 1991, p. 14). This rationale posits sex and gender as indistinct; in this formula, biology is destiny. Indeed, Irigaray says “by our lips we are women” (qtd in Fuss, 1992, p. 99), locating the realm of the feminine directly in the female body.
As Toril Moi (1985) succinctly surmises, “[t]o posit all woman as necessarily feminine and all men as necessarily masculine is precisely the move that enables the patriarchal powers to define, not femininity, but all women as marginal to the symbolic order and to society” (p. 166).
As Whitford explains of Segal’s critcism of Irigaray, if the “differences between the sexes are seen as a construct of patriarchy and repressive of both” then theory based on the emphasis of feminine/female/woman’s identity just continues to prop up patriarchy (Whitford, 1991, p. 15-16).
Toril Moi (1985) argues that if “all efforts towards a definition of ‘woman’ are destined to be essentialist, it looks as if feminist theory might thrive better if it abandoned the minefield of femininity and femaleness for a while and approached the questions of oppression and emancipation from a different direction” (p. 148). This is exactly what Julia Kristeva did. In the words of Moi (1985)
“Kristeva does not have a theory of ‘femininity’ or even ‘femaleness’. What she does have is a theory of marginality, subversion and dissidence. In so far as women are defined as marginal by patriarchy, their struggle can be theorized in the same way as any other struggle can be against a centralized power structure” (p. 164).
Even into her theorization of sexual difference she maintains an anti-essentialist approach. Kristeva held firm to the theory that “all meaning is contextual” (Moi, 1985, p.155), mapping out the different levels of our social patterns that can be deconstructed to become visible as social constructions. She chose to see how language is used discursively but with different interests, so that “[t]he meaning of the sign is blown open – the sign becomes ‘polysemic’” (Moi, 1985, p.158). What Kristeva’s strategy does, that Luce Irigaray could (arguably) not do, is alter the status of the ‘female’ in the symbolic realm, by allowing the sign and the symbol freedom to move.
While the charge of essentialism repeatedly comes up against Irigaray, it is also repeatedly defended. Margaret Whitford (1991) positions Irigaray as frequently interpreted to have some static notion of ‘woman’/’femininity’, while, in actuality, Irigaray is arguing for “the relation of ‘woman’ [a]s precisely what needs to be rearticulated” (p. 14); Irigaray is pushing for the exploration of gender relations in the realm where we are not yet.
Diana Fuss, (1992) concurs, viewing Irigaray’s mission as an attempt to explore the distinction of the sexes “in terms of how they inhabit or are inhabited by language” (p. 101) in an attempt to see what a “differently sexualized” (p. 101) language might be.
Whitford, (1991) argues that what both Irigaray and Kristeva hold in common is the idea of the “subject –in-process [ that is,] a subject in dialogue, engaged with the other” (p.48). From this perspective, it might be able to be argued that Irigaray does indeed leave room to be contingent, as Butler states is necessary.
Contingency implies allowing room for that which is not expected, allowing room for that which is not yet. In response to the question “what is woman?” Irigaray answers by asking “what is …?” (Irigaray, 1977, p. 122); to answer is to remain inside the phallocratic discourse, but to not answer is to remain outside of it, so Irigaray tries “to situate [her]self at its borders and move continuously from the inside to the outside” in an “attempt to overturn it” (Irigaray, 1977, p. 122).
While, in reading Irigaray, I truly do sense that Irigaray is calling for an emergent, contingent space to open within the social fabric that allows for and creates alternate subjectivities, specifically for those deemed ‘women’ by phallocratic discourse, I do still find supporting the gendered binary contrary to the political aims of reconstructing ontology, and for that reason, her reliance on the tem ’feminine’ remains problematic.
Kristeva’s account, on the other hand, by using the axis of marginalization to discourse, is more useful in collapsing binary logic completely. In remembering that the beliefs we hold have real world effect- they produce subjects, we are reminded to keep an eye on the ramifications of our theories.
enlarging spaces of the sayable…
Where Irigaray and Kristeva both explore that excites me so it their positioning of paradox at the core, calling for a both-and logic, instead of an either-or logic, as well as an understanding of and language for the world that is complex, multiplicitious, and emergent.
My personal perspective is based in an ecological understanding that views life as complex processes of relationship, interaction and mutuality. My interest in gender studies is born from the knowledge that we need a new ontological understanding from a feminist, ecological, and spiritual perspective that no longer allows for exploitation of ‘women’ and ‘nature’, (indeed, these need to be collapse as discreet categories).
As Irigaray and Kristeva worked to reveal, the gendered binary at the core of patriarchal discourse is not based in equal representation, guided by love, but rather sets up a framework that creates a hierarchy of marginalization that continues to produce women’s oppression.
Based on what I have read in the feminist, ecofeminist, and environmental discourses, binary oppositional logic is thoroughly deconstructed, regarded a patriarchal tool to justify exploitation. The next step is to reconstruct language that both reflects and produces the fluid and multiplicitous complexity of reality that does not trap us in an insincere, flattened, unitary identity.
In preparing for this paper, I discussed with a good friend of mine who is in the autistic spectrum the ideas of multiple subjectivites, including the idea of abandoning the subject-object construction. My friend became seriously excited, plying me for more information, concurring that autistics do not see the world with a subject-object or self-other perception, but rather as a fluid and undistinguished whole.
I began to observe more closely my speech patterns with ‘women’ and ‘men’, and in formal and intimate situations. With another close friend who is well-educated and shares with me a similar spiritual worldview, I began to notice our patterns of language becoming more and more abstract. We rarely finish our sentences, but rather use patterns of metonym to sketch out ideas and experiences as processes associated with other processes. Indeed I felt that we were trying “ceaselessly to embrace words and persistently to cast them off” (Fuss, 1982, p. 99), to avoid getting caught in flattened and insincere meanings, but convey experiences that we experienced on many levels simultaneously.
Irigaray’s focus is on parler femme which can translate into “speak (as) woman” (Whitford, 1991, p. 49). “Subjectivity is denied to women,” (Moi, 1985, p. 136) Irigaray claims; woman remains “exiled from representation”(Moi, 1985, p. 136) in order to provide the grounds upon which stable objects can be constructed. The “only place in Western history where woman speaks and acts in a public way” is in mystical discourse (Irigaray qtd. in Moi, 1985, p. 136).
Mystical experience involves the “loss of subjecthood… the mystic’s soul is transformed into a fluid stream dissolving all difference” (Moi, 1985, p. 136). In phallocratic discourse, “mysticism (like hysteria a few centuries later) offers women a real if limited possibility of discovering some aspects of pleasure that might be specific to their libidinal drives” (Moi, 1985, p. 138).
Women’s subjectivity, as Irigaray generalizes, is not unitary and divided like phallocratic subjectivity is constructed, but rather it is Woman neither two nor one but both at once, which “signifies that a woman is simultaneously singular and double; she is ‘already two - but not divisible into one(s)’ or, put another way, she is “neither one nor two’” (Fuss, 1992, p. 97). While the case for this can be made in a number of ways, the most obvious argument is in pregnancy and motherhood.
In pregnancy, a woman in both self and other, which blurs the unity of the subject, revealing the “subject in-process” (Oliver, 1993, p. 2). Julia Kristeva uses maternity as “a bridge between nature and culture, the drives and the Symbolic” (Oliver, 1993, p. 5). Drawn from this, Alison Weir “maintains that Kristeva provides a theory of a divided mother that allows the possibility for the mother to both participate in the symbolic and remain heterogeneous to it” (Oliver, 1993, p. 7).
Kristeva’s intent is to open discursive space to allow for the other within the self to be embraced, engaging a both-and logic. For Kristeva, the axis through which to access the Other, including women and those infantilized by patriarchy is the Semiotic, a core of fluid, multiplicitous, emergent contradiction and paradox, “which knows no sexual difference” (Moi, 1985, 165).
Language, in Kristevian terms, is an emergent “complex signifying process” (emphasis her, Moi, 1985, p.152), and it is not a universal, monolithic system, but rather sets of discourses which are “specific linguistic strategies in specific situations” (Moi, 1985, 154). Kristeva then “emphasizes the need to steer between stable identities” (Oliver, 1993, p. 8). In this way, Kristeva remains anti-essentialist, but also makes room for alternate subjectivites.
I enter this discourse with perhaps two generations between in which much expansion and critique of Luce Irigaray’s and Julia Kristeva’s work has rippled out through our social fabric. Born late in the seventies, I grew up in a rigid patriarchal household, with a hesitantly-feminist mother; it is interesting to reflect on the culture I was raised in, and the cultures I navigate through today; it seems that culture is much less rigid presently than it was for my mother’s generation.
While the direct action of grassroots feminist action began to expand life for women at the community level, Kristeva, Irigaray, (and others), were rattling the tap root of civilization: they were questioning the binary logic based in two discrete genders (and the law of the excluded middle), as neutral and universal ; they exposed that our very language, the symbolic order, is not neutral, universal, nor is the language of women is not represented.
In conclusion I see primarily the need to engage with these texts and disseminate this information. Our culture need to break and broaden our language base, so to shift ontology away from the ‘masculine’/ ‘feminine’ confines, collapsing the problematic binary towards a more fluid logic, with more room within the spaces of the sayable.
I feel we need to cross-reference our theories with an environmental ethic, and perhaps even more importantly, cross-reference our environmental ethic with these understandings of how power functions to ensure our means reflect our aims. While sex exists, is it useful explore the complexity and diversity of subjectivites, especially if we keep “a focus on the mechanisms of power” (Chanarnia, 2005, p. 36), we can perhaps expand the space that ‘woman’ is relegated and able to occupy.
Works Cited
Bury, R. (2003). Stories for Boys Girls: Female Fans Read the X-Files. Popular
Communication I(4), 217-242
Butler, J. (1990). “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” from Gender Trouble. New York:
Routeledge.
Canters, H. & Jantzen, G.M. (2005). Forever fluid: A reading of Luce Irigaray’s Elemental
Passions. New York: Manchester University Press.
Charnia, R. C. (2005). Regulated Narratives in Anti-homophobia Education: Complications in
Coming Out Stories. Canadian Women’s Studies, 24 (2-3). 31-36.
Cohn, J.S. (2004). Women & Society: Essentialism. University at Buffalo, archived at
http://www.womenandsociety.buffalo.edu/dictionary/essentialism.htm
Donovan, S.K. (2006). “Luce Irigaray: (1932-present).” The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Retreived December 6, 2006, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/
irigaray.htm#H1
European Graduate School. (2006). “Julia Kristeva.” Retrieved from Philosophers Resource
database, December 6, 2006, from http://www.egs.edu/resources/kristeva.html
Fuss, D.J. (1992). Essentially Speaking. In N.Fraser & S.L. Bartky (Eds.), Revaluing French
Feminism (pp. 94-112). Indianapolis, IN, USA: Indiana University Press.
Irigaray, L. (1977) This sex which is not one. ( 1985 ed.) New York: Cornell University.
Holland, B. (1998). “Luce Irigaray; A Bibliography.” Feminist Theory Website; Virgina Tech
University. Archived Novermber 30, from http://www.cddc.vt.edu/
feminism/Irigaray.html
Moi, T. (1985). Sexual Textual Politics. New York: Routledge.
Moi, T. (1986). The Kristeva Reader. New York: Routledge.
Oliver, K. (1993). Introduction: Julia Kristeva’s Outlaw Ethics. K. Oliver (Ed). Ethics, Politics,
and Difference in Julia Kristeva’s Writing. (pp. 1-11). New York: Routledge.
Roberts, S. (2005). “Burn the Panopticon: Irigaray’s Ethics, Difference, Poetics.”
Reconstruction: studies in contemporary culture, 5.1. Retrieved December 3, 2006,
from http://reconstruction.eserver.org/051/robertsintro.shtml
Wikipedia. (2006a). Structuralism. Retrieved Dec 11, 2006, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism
Wikipedia. (2006b). Post-structuralism. Retrieved Dec 11, 2006, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism
Wikipedia. (2006c). Other. Retrieved Dec 11, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other
Whitford, M. (1991). Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine. New York: Routledge.
Beyond Economy: a Critical Participation (my best essay to date)
jayme melrose
october 21, 2006
Beyond Economy: a Critical Participation with The Great Work
The human project and the Earth project must come into alignment or we risk undoing 65 million years of evolution; this imperative is the subject of Thomas Berry’s book The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future.
Our mission is, in his words, to reinvent the human at the species level, with a critical language, within the community of life systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience, and it is hope for me just to recite this set of phrases.
While Father Thomas Berry stresses clearly the dire urgency and horrific reality of our present planetary situation, he helps us to create a framework for survival by conjuring the possibility of a viable human in the Ecozoic Era.
This transition includes the creation of a new ontological Story, a shift in viewing the world as “a collection of objects [to] a communion of subjects” (16), and a reformation of the “four fundamental establishments that control the human realm: governments, corporations, universities, and religions - the political, economic, intellectual and religious establishments” (4) of the present era.
Following the economic strand, this paper will explore how Berry frames the pathway to becoming viable humans, while reflecting on how the work of Derrick Jensen supports and expands on Berry’s ideas. These two great thinkers are of different generations and come from very different backgrounds, yet cross-reference each other in these books. I will look at how they share perspective and politics, and where their trajectories differ.
Finally, in order to make a little more room for agency in some of Berry’s arguments, I will also weave in some post-structuralist perspectives regarding essentialism in my attempt of participating in the Great Work for a vibrant future.
To Thomas Berry every people has had a Great Work, such as building pyramids, or singing the patterns of the stars. Our Great Work is to shift from our present way of life, which is based on exploitation and destruction of not only our physical reality but also our psychic-spiritual realm, to a way of life that honors Life with every action, creating mutual enhancement for the community, environment, bioregion and, therefore, the entire cosmos.
Our bodies, minds, and worldviews are affected by our physicality, as the opposite is true: our material reality if affected by worldviews. How we acquire our basic life supplies, -our food, water, song, etc- is imbricated with affects on and from other beings and systems.
For centuries, humans gleaned their physical, artistic and spiritual needs from the ecosystem they participated in. This is no longer so. This entire realm is now the economic sphere and it has been colonized by corporations. Economics have become our primary referent. Not only does this shift affect our bodies, but also our planet.
Berry is insistently gentle in his language and does not call directly for the dismantling of the industrial, commercial, financial complex as do many others, such as Derrick Jensen, though Berry does make clear that a complete shift is urgently necessary. For both Jensen and Berry, this shift begins with taking a critical look at the history of our land acquisition, economic systems, and the history of our corporations.
How we view the land we live on, how Canada and America came to be, is part of our ontological Story. Our Story is imbricated in our identities, culture, politics, resource use, and energy expenditures. Both Thomas Berry and Derrick Jensen work through history to show that the normative North American Story is not rooted in a full and clear version of history.
North America is occupied land, taken though violent colonization and genocide; in the large-scale takings of land, corporations were born (Berry 121). The political and economic growth of North American is intimately entangled with corporations and large large-scale resource exploitation for economic gain. But, while lip service has always been that these gains are for every citizen, a critical look at history makes clear that an elite few prosper, while the masses, the non-humans, and the planet’s very life-processes suffer, to serve an elite few.
Derrick Jensen works deeper into this realm, dredging up piles of bloody facts, creating what Foucault would call a genealogy: a critical history that works to include what was omitted, deconstructing the reigning discourses, and considers the complex positions of the subjects in the storylines.
While Jensen explores these stories in visceral depth and aching length, Thomas Berry sketches a simple frame of five phases in our resource use, a device that allows the book to stay focused on transitioning to a mutually enhancing way of life. Berry’s tactic also allow polysemy for readers to participate in the re-making of meaning. The five phases Berry picks out can be summarized as: beginning in the land takings; the creation of canal and rail lines; the integration of electricity and petroleum into industrial and daily life, including the automobile; the rise of chemicals after WWII; and the Ecozoic Era.
Thomas Berry describes the Ecozoic Era as a time when communities learn to “align their own functioning and the limits of their activities to the possibilities of the Earth” (133), when the only “viable economic programs … are those that have an intimate relation to the land” (134) function, and when people “take responsibility for doing the essential things themselves” (135).
Berry does not give precise directions as to how exactly this transition can occur; in this way Thomas Berry and Derrick Jensen take a similar stance by providing only a framework for the work to be done. This allows and demands each person to listen to his/her own landbase and community to discern what actions are best. Earth needs us all to take responsibility, to learn how to live in our bioregion, as a community, in a mutually enhancing way.
There are many people working on creating models for change through enhancing local economic systems. The very concept of bioregionalism is gaining popularity. This year, the idea of the “100 mile diet” gained notoriety. This goal of this meal plan, as you might guess, is to eat only that which is created in a 100 mile radius from your home. Small organic farms are gaining customers as more people realize that local, organic food is healthy in innumerable ways.
People are even beginning to think beyond organics, looking to Permaculture, which is a method of design based on mimicking natural systems, as it aims to create healthy ecosystems that provide food, fuel and fiber for the human inhabitants in a way which not only respects healthy, natural limits, but is mutually enhancing for the biosphere (Quinney 54). One of the four main ethics of Permaculture is to give away surplus, precisely because of the effect this has on shifting our economic system.
Another major affirmation of this shift in thinking was the awarding of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank for their work in providing micro-credit to “create economic and social change from below” as a key method to creating lasting peace, true democracy, and gains in human rights (Nobel Committee 2006).
The successful colonization of our economy by the corporations Berry blames on their evocation of “the deepest of psychic compulsions towards limitless consumption” (120). It is here that I would like to use a post-structuralist argument to re-position this tendency as a not an essential human “compulsion”, but rather as a social construct of this culture, primarily because this positioning allows space for transcendence of the tendency, and also because a cross-cultural comparison might lead us to the conclusion that some communities did not exhibit such compulsions.
As Berry states repeatedly, life is an emergent process; everything is in a process of continual co-creation. Through our repeated daily actions, we form our material selves (Bulter 33), including our brain patterns. This positioning gives us agency. As Thomas Berry says, we must reinvent ourselves, with critical language, in a time-developmental context.
We need a new understanding of ourselves and the world.
Both Thomas Berry and Derrick Jensen are working towards developing a new ontological Story that positions humans as not the almighty species, entitled to exploit all, but rather as integral components of the cosmos. We must learn, through story and shared dream experience, that this land was and is sacred, that the world is to be venerated, that we are not ourselves without everything else.
The deleterious hyper-exploitation of our landbase in the name of economic gain must stop. We need to shift to a small market system of local production and consumption that functions within the community of life-systems in a mutually enhancing way. This imperative is our Great Work, and while patience is a virtue, the transition to an Ecozoic Era will be more graceful the sooner it occurs.
Works Cited
Berry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future. New York: Bell
Tower, 1999.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Jensen, Derrick. Endgame. New York: Seven Stories P, 2006.
Norwegian Nobel Committee. “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006” 13 Oct. 2006.
Nobel Foundation. Retrived Oct. 28, 2006, from
Quinney, John. “Designing Sustainable Small Farms” The Mother Earth News,
July/August (1984): 54.
october 21, 2006
Beyond Economy: a Critical Participation with The Great Work
The human project and the Earth project must come into alignment or we risk undoing 65 million years of evolution; this imperative is the subject of Thomas Berry’s book The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future.
Our mission is, in his words, to reinvent the human at the species level, with a critical language, within the community of life systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience, and it is hope for me just to recite this set of phrases.
While Father Thomas Berry stresses clearly the dire urgency and horrific reality of our present planetary situation, he helps us to create a framework for survival by conjuring the possibility of a viable human in the Ecozoic Era.
This transition includes the creation of a new ontological Story, a shift in viewing the world as “a collection of objects [to] a communion of subjects” (16), and a reformation of the “four fundamental establishments that control the human realm: governments, corporations, universities, and religions - the political, economic, intellectual and religious establishments” (4) of the present era.
Following the economic strand, this paper will explore how Berry frames the pathway to becoming viable humans, while reflecting on how the work of Derrick Jensen supports and expands on Berry’s ideas. These two great thinkers are of different generations and come from very different backgrounds, yet cross-reference each other in these books. I will look at how they share perspective and politics, and where their trajectories differ.
Finally, in order to make a little more room for agency in some of Berry’s arguments, I will also weave in some post-structuralist perspectives regarding essentialism in my attempt of participating in the Great Work for a vibrant future.
To Thomas Berry every people has had a Great Work, such as building pyramids, or singing the patterns of the stars. Our Great Work is to shift from our present way of life, which is based on exploitation and destruction of not only our physical reality but also our psychic-spiritual realm, to a way of life that honors Life with every action, creating mutual enhancement for the community, environment, bioregion and, therefore, the entire cosmos.
Our bodies, minds, and worldviews are affected by our physicality, as the opposite is true: our material reality if affected by worldviews. How we acquire our basic life supplies, -our food, water, song, etc- is imbricated with affects on and from other beings and systems.
For centuries, humans gleaned their physical, artistic and spiritual needs from the ecosystem they participated in. This is no longer so. This entire realm is now the economic sphere and it has been colonized by corporations. Economics have become our primary referent. Not only does this shift affect our bodies, but also our planet.
Berry is insistently gentle in his language and does not call directly for the dismantling of the industrial, commercial, financial complex as do many others, such as Derrick Jensen, though Berry does make clear that a complete shift is urgently necessary. For both Jensen and Berry, this shift begins with taking a critical look at the history of our land acquisition, economic systems, and the history of our corporations.
How we view the land we live on, how Canada and America came to be, is part of our ontological Story. Our Story is imbricated in our identities, culture, politics, resource use, and energy expenditures. Both Thomas Berry and Derrick Jensen work through history to show that the normative North American Story is not rooted in a full and clear version of history.
North America is occupied land, taken though violent colonization and genocide; in the large-scale takings of land, corporations were born (Berry 121). The political and economic growth of North American is intimately entangled with corporations and large large-scale resource exploitation for economic gain. But, while lip service has always been that these gains are for every citizen, a critical look at history makes clear that an elite few prosper, while the masses, the non-humans, and the planet’s very life-processes suffer, to serve an elite few.
Derrick Jensen works deeper into this realm, dredging up piles of bloody facts, creating what Foucault would call a genealogy: a critical history that works to include what was omitted, deconstructing the reigning discourses, and considers the complex positions of the subjects in the storylines.
While Jensen explores these stories in visceral depth and aching length, Thomas Berry sketches a simple frame of five phases in our resource use, a device that allows the book to stay focused on transitioning to a mutually enhancing way of life. Berry’s tactic also allow polysemy for readers to participate in the re-making of meaning. The five phases Berry picks out can be summarized as: beginning in the land takings; the creation of canal and rail lines; the integration of electricity and petroleum into industrial and daily life, including the automobile; the rise of chemicals after WWII; and the Ecozoic Era.
Thomas Berry describes the Ecozoic Era as a time when communities learn to “align their own functioning and the limits of their activities to the possibilities of the Earth” (133), when the only “viable economic programs … are those that have an intimate relation to the land” (134) function, and when people “take responsibility for doing the essential things themselves” (135).
Berry does not give precise directions as to how exactly this transition can occur; in this way Thomas Berry and Derrick Jensen take a similar stance by providing only a framework for the work to be done. This allows and demands each person to listen to his/her own landbase and community to discern what actions are best. Earth needs us all to take responsibility, to learn how to live in our bioregion, as a community, in a mutually enhancing way.
There are many people working on creating models for change through enhancing local economic systems. The very concept of bioregionalism is gaining popularity. This year, the idea of the “100 mile diet” gained notoriety. This goal of this meal plan, as you might guess, is to eat only that which is created in a 100 mile radius from your home. Small organic farms are gaining customers as more people realize that local, organic food is healthy in innumerable ways.
People are even beginning to think beyond organics, looking to Permaculture, which is a method of design based on mimicking natural systems, as it aims to create healthy ecosystems that provide food, fuel and fiber for the human inhabitants in a way which not only respects healthy, natural limits, but is mutually enhancing for the biosphere (Quinney 54). One of the four main ethics of Permaculture is to give away surplus, precisely because of the effect this has on shifting our economic system.
Another major affirmation of this shift in thinking was the awarding of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank for their work in providing micro-credit to “create economic and social change from below” as a key method to creating lasting peace, true democracy, and gains in human rights (Nobel Committee 2006).
The successful colonization of our economy by the corporations Berry blames on their evocation of “the deepest of psychic compulsions towards limitless consumption” (120). It is here that I would like to use a post-structuralist argument to re-position this tendency as a not an essential human “compulsion”, but rather as a social construct of this culture, primarily because this positioning allows space for transcendence of the tendency, and also because a cross-cultural comparison might lead us to the conclusion that some communities did not exhibit such compulsions.
As Berry states repeatedly, life is an emergent process; everything is in a process of continual co-creation. Through our repeated daily actions, we form our material selves (Bulter 33), including our brain patterns. This positioning gives us agency. As Thomas Berry says, we must reinvent ourselves, with critical language, in a time-developmental context.
We need a new understanding of ourselves and the world.
Both Thomas Berry and Derrick Jensen are working towards developing a new ontological Story that positions humans as not the almighty species, entitled to exploit all, but rather as integral components of the cosmos. We must learn, through story and shared dream experience, that this land was and is sacred, that the world is to be venerated, that we are not ourselves without everything else.
The deleterious hyper-exploitation of our landbase in the name of economic gain must stop. We need to shift to a small market system of local production and consumption that functions within the community of life-systems in a mutually enhancing way. This imperative is our Great Work, and while patience is a virtue, the transition to an Ecozoic Era will be more graceful the sooner it occurs.
Works Cited
Berry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future. New York: Bell
Tower, 1999.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Jensen, Derrick. Endgame. New York: Seven Stories P, 2006.
Norwegian Nobel Committee. “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006” 13 Oct. 2006.
Nobel Foundation. Retrived Oct. 28, 2006, from
Quinney, John. “Designing Sustainable Small Farms” The Mother Earth News,
July/August (1984): 54.
Sacred Space: design for an interfaith garden
space for the sacred
an inter-faith garden design
jayme melrose
ineffable@riseup.net
nov 28, 2006
table of contents
intention
the garden
introduction
the pathways
thematic organization
the center
elements
entering
in the East
in the South
in the West
in the North
in the center
throughout
somewhere
things omitted
signage
general
entering
in the East
in the South
in the West
in the North
in the center
throughout
somewhere
works cited
intention
My intention is to design (and manifest) a garden that offers possibilities for sacred experiences. Using a combination of plant, path, sculpture and sign, small pilgrimages can be made through a multi-dimensional space of life and symbol. Labyrithine paths weave towards a center dome which offers a space for a multiplicity of worship and practice. Symbolism, iconography, and reference from many spiritual traditions guide the pilgrim through diversity and unity.
The design as follows can be used freely by anyone with good intentions, in piece or in entirety.
Before manifestation, consultation with the local spiritual communities should occur to insure that the symboligies and arrangements are conducive to everyone’s engagement. Ideally, a community design process is used to bring all interested persons and groups together. It is important for everybody to be given the chance to name themselves, to be represented and with their own voice; instead of speaking for others, lets allow people to speak for themselves. Through the sharing of process and discussion education, understanding, and community can be fostered. The communal investment of love and time will make the garden sacred above everything else.
It is my hope to manifest a garden that offers glimpses of the sweet sacred in each of the represented spiritual traditions, fostering affection, understanding, and accessability for ‘Others’. I wish for it to be a space where people can go into, talk to god/God/Goddess/etc, be inspired, shed tears of joy and/or sorrow, engage directly and indirectly with the sacred, and be in community.
Some things may be problematic, such as overt references to sexuality and queerness. I hope everyone can take a position of acceptance, embracing diversity. Let’s work with love; let’s all name ourselves; let’s love and honor what we love and honor, and work towards creating beauty. Holding this in mind, dialogue between groups during the community design process, hopefully, can organize the garden according to the needs of the community in a way that eliminates problematic conventions, or places them into a contextual distance. Anything knowingly omitted should be acknowledged at least. I pray that all parties involved work from hearts brimming with creative love.
In the building of the garden, the least amount possible of petroleum energy should be used, including material transportation. (Petroleum energy is ideally used only to retrieve or contain energy already invested, such as welding recycled metals into a functional long-term use.) As much as possible use biological resources, native species, natural patterns, renewable energies, and recycled materials. I hope for the local Indigenous community to be involved, especially, perhaps, with siting and aligning the garden.
Creative Commons, some rights reserved. Email me and respond, suggest, expand or critique. Please pass on to anyone you know who might help create such a space. How wonderful would it be to have more and more across the nation, all regionally variable!
the garden introduction
What constitutes a sacred place? Where does one find such a space? Mircea Eliade describes in his “System of the World” that a) a break occurs in the homogeneity of space, b) this forms an opening for c) connection to higher forces of the cosmos, forming an axis mundi, d) around which the known world turns (37). In the colloquial, there is daily life, oft called the mundane, the profane, the daily grind; our bodies can numb and our senses shut down.
The healing traditions of yoga, massage, dance, etc., speak of opening ourselves up to breathing, sensing, letting go, and experiencing. Through opening connection to ‘source’ is possible. I think of whirling dervishes, of moments in the forest, of the alter during mass; these moments or places of connection form an axis mundi, an axis around which the world turns. This sensation or realization of deep connection is sacred experience. And then, inevitably, our gaze is re-directed back outward, to the mundane, profane, daily grind.
This description of the world appeals to me in how it positions sacred experience as a circular part of life, not only horizontally but vertically as well, directing our gaze up and larger, then back down and out, to return around again. This description also allows for polysemy: the process may be experienced in either primarily a space or time context, and as either a communal or personal experience.
The physical layout of the garden will accentuate Eliade’s description of the world. The garden is shaped as a circle, with four main gates aligned to the four directions. These entrances are ‘guarded’ by large sculptures of recycled and welded metal that act to break the homogeneity of space/time. On and throughout these, guardian symbols from many different faith traditions can be incorporated; gothic gargoyles, Japanese temple-guarding dogs, fierce Hebrew cherubium, and the cute little dudes from the movie Princess Mononeke are some possible examples.
These creatures and the gates serve the dual function of guarding the sacred space from ‘evil spirits’, and warning the pilgrims to shed their egos and defense mechanisms. Shedding the ego (the outward sense of self we hold on to, the projected face of who we hope the world sees us as, the stories we tell of ourselves and others to make sense of ourselves, also called our illusion) is also a reoccurring theme in spiritual discourse. The recycled metal sculptures can play with metaphors of scraping the ego away as we pass, as though our egos belong with the constructed and produced elements of the world as do metal and modernity. I imagine these metal sculptures as jaggedly peaked and made of many pieces, emphasizing the idea of breaking or splintering.
The quest for the sacred finds a long history in humanity. “[B]orn of desire and belief,” (Morinas, 1) people have been known to traverse great distances on pilgrimages to in “pursuit of the ideal” (Morinas, 2). Throughout this paper I will refer to guests of the garden as ‘pilgrims’. In doing so I may run the risk of preemptively glorifying the garden, but, if the garden is indeed manifested through a community design process, it has the potential of being a community repository of spiritual ideals ( Morinas, 5) and the people journeying through can be called pilgrims by proxy.
Passing through the ego-scraping forest of metal and guardians, a few meters must be traversed before the garden opens to the pilgrim. For both entrance and exit, this acts as a liminal phase of pilgrimage, of the time of being in between, or in transition. This buffer zone between the sacred and the mundane allows people some time to process and prepare for the steps beyond.
An undulating border of hedges obscures a clear vision of the center dome to where the pilgrim is drawn. The hedges frame the circle of the space. Passing through them the garden opens to us, an expanse of color, texture, and path. In their vibrancy the plants create air inspiring us to deepen our breathing, further opening our chests, lungs and hearts. The primary goal of the garden is to encourage people to open themselves up, if even for a moment, to a heightened awareness with greater mindfulness.
the pathways
From the four gates, the paths curve inwards. Though neither a proper maze nor labyrinth, the paths allow for circumambulation, guided wanderings, and a process of moving towards the center. The garden’s layout is based on the chlorophyll molecule. As the building block of all life, plants have evolved the ingenious capacity to translate solar radiation into physical manifestation that creates the atmosphere we all need to survive, as well as the food that all creatures use either directly or indirectly. In the garden layout the pathways are the connections between, intersecting where the component molecules are situated, marked by labeled tiles or stones embedded in the earth.
Figure 1. Diagram of a chlorophyll molecule, Figure 2. Diagram of garden layout,
taken from (http://metallo.scripps.edu/promise/chlb_s.gif) Based on chlorophyll molecule.
The inspiration for using the chlorophyll molecule came from Starhawk’s book, The Earth Path, in which she offers a new ontological story based on our scientific knowledge of the evolution of life on the planet but told as a creation myth in which the Goddess (creativity incarnate) is playing with elements as though drawing pictures in the sand.
Placing the magnesium atom in the center loosely connected to four nitrogen, and supported by carbon combonations, the magnesium began to vibrate when touched by sunlight, creating a transference of energy into the connecting atoms. None other but this twelvefold symmetrical pattern seems capable of such energetic translation (Lawlor, 5).
In mythological thought, “twelve most often occurs as the number of the universal mother of life” (Lawlor, 5). This idea existed long before the technology was created to visually experience this miraculous construction, revealing the possibility of “geometrical knowledge as innate in us” (Lawlor, 9). This layout fulfills a number of patterns I was inspired to use, such as mandalas, Islamic geometric patterns, labyrinths, and concentric circles. Using the chlorophyll inspired shape concentric circles are imbricated, as well as the idea of a matrix, or interconnected web which is not linear nor hierarchical.
The essence of sacred space in many ways is cosmography, the mapping of the cosmos. As Eliade describes in the iconic function of sacred space, “sacred spaces are natural maps that provide direction to life and a shape to the world”, especially the existential (530). As Steve Higgins pointed out when speaking of Buddhist mandalas, external forms are analogous to internal states and process.
The circular mandalas of Buddhism are echoed throughout India, Tibet, Islam, and medieval Europe through the form of a circle and a square divided into four quadrants showing difference, interrelation and unity (Lawlor, 16). They are most often symbolically cosmological, representing the organization of the elements of the cosmos as a unified whole.
This garden then is an attempt to create a cosmic map that incorporates elements of multiple known cosmologies, both spiritual and scientific, ancient and modern. The framework of the chlorophyll molecule encased in a circle reflects the ‘squaring of the circle’, sacred geometry of number and pattern, scientific knowledge of molecular constructions, and ancient wisdoms.
Overlaying the chlorophyll-inspired layout is a medicine wheel theme.
The garden is divided into four main quadrants aligned with the four directions as is the medicine wheel. The organization that I have used for the medicine wheel is based on West Coast Indigenous cultures that I have experienced; organizations differ widely even throughout North America; again, consultation with the local Indigenous populations should occur to choose the most appropriate correlations.
The organization that I have chosen to work with is: North – winter, dreaming, Indigenous and ancient UK traditions, white, stone, alder and tamarack, and moss; East – spring, Asia, bright, wood, yellow, ginko, and poetry; South – summer, chaos, vibrant lushness, Pagan, Wiccan, and ancient European traditions, corn, red, berries; and West – autumn, black, Western traditions and the Abrahamic three, elder and apple trees.
thematic organization
The four gates allow for the garden to be loosely organized into four main sections though not distinctly divided.
The path leading in from the East will highlight some of the wisdoms and traditions of Asia; the South will play with the fecundity and fertility of Goddess worship, of systems theory, postmodernism, and of Dionysis; Apollo, geometry and the Abrahamic three will be referenced in the Western quadrant; and in the North, stones reminiscent of Inukshuks and ancient European megaliths will be combined with cosmographical indicators.
This paper provides a list of elements and quotes that could be incorporated into the sections. The precise organization of these will need to occur with the help of a community design process including consultation with local religious communities, and according to the space and resources available in the particular context. Further details of the four quadrants will be discussed in the Elements section, supported by quotes within the Signage section of this paper.
The pervasive theme throughout the garden is the dialogue between duality, paradox, and unity.
Western thought is based on a dualistic framework of oppositional binaries. They are ingrained within the very structure of European languages; henceforth I will speak primarily of English, though this problematic structure is not confined to English, nor only to Europe, or Western thought. Our symbolic order of language creates meaning through oppositional logic: the normal hinges on not-normal (Epstien, 10), black has its partner white, from birth we are divided into male and female; a thing can only occupy one position at a time; it is either male or female, subject or object.
These sets of binaries pervade our language and form relations with each other that result in a hierarchy that discursively posit rich, rational, white males at the top and poor, intuitive, colored women at the bottom. Feminism, ecofeminism, postmodernism, and queer theory, to name a few, have taken aim at this symbolic arrangement and presently much reconstructive work is being done. These emerging discourses, as well as systems theory, are working towards creating discourses that allows for multiple subject positionings, so as to avoid the flattening of our complex reality.
Many Indigenous creation myths do not over-simplify reality into oppositional binaries, but rather embrace multiple possibilities simultaneously. For example, in a creation myth of the Keres, as told by Paula Gunn Allen, tells how they were ”All of it and only a small piece of it” (36). This embracing of both possibilities may appear to the western mind to be a paradox, contradictory, and nonsensical. Many eastern philosophies in fact use paradoxes as tools to aid their students in their journey to enlightenment, of grasping the great ineffable unity beyond the dualistic illusion. (For example,“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” is a commonly known Zen Buddhist koan.)
The mystical experience is “precisely an experience of the loss of subjecthood, of the disappearance of the subject/object opposition” (Irigaray, qtd in Moi, 136). With the loss of subjectivity/subjecthood, “[t]ouched by the flames of the divine, the mystic’s soul is transformed into a fluid stream dissolving all difference” (Moi, 136), allowing us to grasp the cosmos as a unified whole of which we are simultaneously all and a part.
It is my thesis that a transition from an ‘either/or’ mentality to a ‘both/and’ mentality (Riley, 479) is necessary for the human species and planet to survive, considering our present technological and planetary situation.
As Thomas Berry so eloquently articulates in his beautiful book, The Great Work: Our Way Into The Future, we are in danger of undoing 67 million years of planetary co-evolution; it is our Great Work to transition to the ‘Ecozoic Era’, living lovingly in complex interdependence (10). Berry uses language very similar to systems theory to explain our interconnected reality, free of the subject – object oppositions that allow us to exploit that of which we are made.
Through using quotes as guidance, and religious/philosophical symbology that reveal the interconnections and mystical experience, I hope to help people see that our world is indeed ‘both/and’, complex, interdependent, and sacred to the very core.
the center
At the center of the garden, where the magnesium atom of the chlorophyll molecule resonates with energy, is a circular pad, encased in a dome. The pilgrims have made the journey to the center, taking whatever route they have chosen, and the arrangement of the symbols have hopefully helped to lead them from the dualistic disconnect of the mundane, towards the mystical interconnection of the great unity symbolized by the circular center. Here is the axis mundi.
The garden’s center is a circular pad mosaicked with flowing Islamic geometry, and encased with a dome of ornate wrought iron.
The center of the dome is open, representing “another door or window, accessible only by a ‘ladder’ or ‘rope’ by which our being is suspended from above, and through which one can emerge from the dimensional structure” (Coomaraswamy, 6). The portal frames the sky, and embedded within the design in the iron are stars, constellations, planets, indeed, the cosmos.
The dome is held up by 12 pillars, reflecting again the twelvefold pattern of the universal mother (Lawlor, 5). Nestled amongst the pillars are four benches made of cob (a mud, sand, straw material) that can be sculpted into beautiful organic forms, representing the four directions/seasons/elements/aspects of life.
In the center of the circle there is a large, black, square stone; on top sits a round cob hearth with four openings to cast light and heat, and a smooth, shallow dish above. The stone is to represent Earth, manifestation, ancient stone alters, and the Ka’baa in Mecca. The hearth atop represents the light, heat, heart, and fire of spirit, as well as the Eternal Light so important to Judiasm and Christianity. The fire possible in the hearth allows for fire to be honored, food prepared, and the power of transformation observed. The shallow dish that crowns the hearth can be used as an offering dish, an alter, to hold water, or as a warming plate for the people who may use the hearth for creating food. This alter and hearth can be also for Hindus for the “Agnihotra, or burnt offering…[which is] an interior self sacrifice, in which the heart is the alter,the outer man the offering, and the flame the dompted self” (Coomaraswamy, 6).
Returning to Eliade’s System of the World, the pilgrim has found a break in the homogeneity of life in entering the garden of the sacred, created an opening in themselves in which communication with cosmos can occur, the act which creates the axis mundi. This axis is represented in a physical form to aid the pilgrim’s connection. The concept of transcending duality is embodied in the circular dome which represents One, the place of transformation.
As Joseph Campbell writes “the essence of the image of the axial point or pole that it should symbolize the way or place of passage from motion to rest, time to eternity, separation to union; but then, also, conversely, rest to motion, eternity to time, unity to multiplicity” (194). In this space/state we can bring our disparate parts together into integrity, allowing us a deeper understanding and connection to the complexity of life.
It is hoped that the design is multi-functional, allowing space for ritual, gathering, and/or practice for many spiritual traditions. I have imagined the circle to be 3.5m in diameter, with the center stone being less than 1m across, allowing room for a number of people, space for dance, chi gong, meditation, and rest. The sculpted hearth should have openings to many sides, casting heat and light in a circle.
elements
The following list of elements is not intended to be complete and concrete, but negotiable and to be added to. Any elements omitted from the garden should be added to the list of things omitted so that they are not rendered invisible and unacknowledged.
general:
∑ 2 silver hoops that form ellipses over the whole garden from east to west, like the rings of Saturn, to inspire the sense of turning, orbit, axis.
∑ labyrinth-inspired layout. In this design, the garden layout is inpired by the chlorophyll molecule.
∑ tiles embedded in the pathways indicating the molecular component of the chlorophyll structure
∑ overlaying pattern of the medicine wheel, using the local pattern, color, element, season, animal, direction correlations
∑ childrens area with a good open and dynamic place to play that is outside the garden, but located in a way that does not exclude and separate, but honors and facilitates.
entering:
∑ ego-scrapers and guardians; break in homogeneity. The four gates can be swathed for a private ceremony. Chinese demons more in straight lines, so make sure the ego-scrapers are aligned to prevent clear trajectories into the garden.
∑ Fierce Herbrew cherubium.
∑ koma-inu: Japanese temple guardian dogs
∑ mythic Japanese warriors
∑ Chinese guard dogs with orbs held in their teeth
∑ gargoyles
∑ liminal zone between gates and the garden.
∑ the cute little dudes from the movie Princess Mononeke, whose heads click sideways
in East:
∑ Torii: traditional Japanese gate at entrances to Shinto (and sometimes Buddhist) shrines, usually Kamakura vermillion
∑ Temizu-ya: Japanese style carved stone basin with flowing water for cleansing hands and mouth
∑ rakable pebble zen garden area, with bamboo rake available
∑ shishidoshi: deer-scaring device: a piece of bamboo hinged on an axis, into which water pours; when it fills, it snaps up, hitting a rock making a sharp noise; it empties, and the process begins again.
∑ Ishi-dourou: large Japanese stone latern for the garden
∑ Nepalese prayer flags strung for the wind to carry on their prayers
∑ prayer tree to tie wishes on paper or fabric to
∑ Hindu temples face eastward because the gods come from the west.
∑ a reference to Mt. Meru/ Mt. Kailas/ Mt. Sharapada/ Phang Rinpoche: Precious Jewel of Snow; mountain sacred to Jains, Buddists, Hindus.
∑ Ginko tree
∑ an Asian lotus, (blooming of course).
∑ a Borobadur Buddha, and a map of the stuppa's mandala shape
in the South:
∑ 'Venus figurines'
∑ Dionysis references; the African Goddess Oshun;
∑ Quetzalcoatl- the plumed serpant of the ancient Aztecs
∑ full moon references
∑ medicinal herb garden
∑ lush and chaotic flower gardens, vegetables too
∑ a corn patch, perhaps the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash. Heritage varieties.
∑ (SouthWest corner, playing the transition) Egyptian Goddess Nut. egyptian eye, papyrus patch
∑ Greek symbolism plays on the western border as well, especially through Dionysis.
in the West:
∑ Mt Sinai, with a 'Burning Bush' planted at the base!
∑ Illusion to Adam's Peak, where Chrisitians and Muslims believe Adam stood 1000 years on one leg as penance (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 41)
∑ minaret
∑ minora (and the connection between minaret and minora)
∑ Water
∑ a Wudu for Muslims to wash hands and feet.
∑ Serpent: play upon the dual meanings of temptation/evil and wisdom
∑ an apple tree
∑ Symbology that plays upon the connection of the Abrahamic Three: Judiasm, Islam, and Christianity.
∑ A book: The book.
∑ Roman symbolism
∑ 'Venus' figures again, the traditions of ancient Europe
∑ an Elder tree with the compost pile beneath it
∑ illusion to the Holy Grail
∑ some sort of monolithic church-spire/skyscraper, complimentary to the minaret, but taller (not because its better, but because such constructions are usually trying to be taller).
in the North:
∑ cosmological observatories, nature, stone, winter, Dreaming, moon
∑ color scheme of mainly green, greys, and whites: moss, stones, lichen, ferns.
∑ solitude
∑ a marker which points to the constant North Star.
∑ stars mapped somehow, perhaps a the sky as it would appear at solstice could be mapped throughout the northern quadrant using thin and tall poles with stylized stars atop.
∑ Megaliths, reminiscent of Stonehenge or Carnac
∑ Two standing stones with a circle stone in the middle; Men-an-Tol, near Morvah in Cornwall, England, (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 57)
∑ Grove of alders
∑ heather
∑ tamarac or larch trees
∑ Spiral embedded in earth
∑ Medicine wheel in stone enbedded
∑ Totem pole
∑ Maple trees – scarlet Japanese maple (if possible), sugar, or big-leafed.
∑ a story of the local Native spirit creatures –serpant, little people, etc.
∑ cultures of reference: Indigenous, Celtic, ancient UK
in the Center:
∑ Axis mundi.
∑ Dome: map of cosmos within dome
∑ Portal hole in dome through which sky is visible and also provides metaphor of the eye of God, the ‘rope ladder’ to the door from which spirit can emerge into the spirit plane
∑ North star indicator
∑ alter made of stone and earth
∑ A hearth.
∑ Fire.
∑ Omphallos.
∑ Ka'baa.
∑ Shabbat.
∑ Meditation.
∑ Commons.
∑ Kaleidescope on a pole for people to look through!
∑ Symbolic hole in the floor, inspired by Anasazi people who built such holes, believing their ancestors emerged from them (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 30)
throughout:
∑ frames through out the garden. Window frames on posts, and suspended from frames.
∑ cosmographical images from different cultures.
∑ golden mean: fibannocci spiral
∑ conversation between order and chaos, duality and paradox, Apollo and Dionysis
∑ body parts correlations
∑ safe cozy sitting spots throughout for different views and ambiances.
∑ signage indicating that this is a lgtbq positive space.
Things omitted
While not all things can be included, the omission of elements can render them invisible, causing great harm. Learning from feminist discourse, things we knowingly omit, for whatever reason, can be listed here to acknowledge to give honor and render visible.
The following is a list of things I have knowingly omitted, and/or wished that I could have included.
∑ amphitheatre, meeting grounds.
∑ community gardens
∑ sphinx
∑ flock of doves
∑ holy cow
∑ bees
∑ womb enclosure for people to be birthed from
∑ sweat lodge
∑ sauna
∑ lake
∑ river (for people to float little candle-boats down)
∑ orchard
∑ working farm that provides food for those who maintain the garden.
∑ vinyard
∑ cultivation of sacred herbal allies.
∑ Many Indigenous belief symbols: (local communities should be contacted)
∑ Hotsprings!
Signage
General
acknowledgements and thanks:
Dr. Meena Sharify-Funk. Steve Higgins.. Dr. Rhiannon Bury.
Kili Akua, my beloved honey
entering:
«…a puddle that reflects the sun,
a piece of paper with my name on it.
I am surrounded.
I surrender.
All that I am I have been;
All I have been has been a long time coming;
I am becoming all that I am…
The spittle the surrounds the mouthpiece of the flute,
That which is not heard but felt…» (Saul Williams, Release)
«The body, the temple, and the universe being thus analogous, it follows that whatever worship is outwardly and visibly performed can also be celebrated inwardly and invisibly» (Coomaraswamy, 1978).
«What we call the beginning is often the end and to make and end is to make a beginning./
The end is where we start from…/
We shall not cease from exploration and te end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started/
And know the place for the first time.» ( T.S.Eliot, Four Quartlets)
May the forest be with you.
«Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again» Joseph Cambell
«To those of aberrant minds, the place is just earth, stone, water, and trees.
To mistaken intellects, it apprears as solid, innanimate objects.
To practitioners, apperances have no intrinsic nature.
To those of pure vision, it is a celestial palace full of deities.To those with realization, it is the radieant luminosity of innate awareness.» ( Jamgon Kongrul the Great)
«it is only in the end that I am beginning to see» (Michelangelo)
«Nature of this Flower is to Bloom». (Alice Walker)
in North
-maybe not so many words; perhaps some signage to contextualize the standing stones and star maps, but otherwise, silence.
«Dreaming –the time beyond memory when ancestral being roamed the land and formed its features» (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 6)
in East
«Thirty spokes unite in one nave,
And because of the space between the spokes, we have the use of the wheel.
Clay is molded into vessels,
And because of the space where nothing exists we are able to use them as vessels.
Doors and windows are cut in the walls of a house,
And because of the space which is empty, we are able to use them.» Tao Te Ching
«Bit by bit a narrow path was formed beneath
the apple orchard's trees and when you asked
whose first steps does that remember
your question was my treasure.» (Shimazaki Toson)
Emptied of prayers
for the life to come
or even for this one
my heart is filled
with the falling cherry blossoms (Tomiko Yamakawa)
in south
“A healthy ecosystem might be one that is characterized by co-operative and interdependent relationships among its members, and that it is diverse and complex enough to be resilient, to maintain itself in the face of change. Energy and resources are spread through the system so that diversity can thrive.” (Starhawk, 31)
EVERYTHING IS COMPOSED OF A SUBATOMIC FLUX OF WAVELETS AND PARTICLES, CHAOS AND PATTERN. BOUNDARIES ARE FLUID. POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS. UNRELATED SEPARATENESS IS AN ILLUSION. INTERCONNECTEDNESS IS REALITY. PROCESS IS ALL. REVISE YOUR PERCEPTIONS, CONCEPTS, AND LIFE ACCORDINGLY. ANY QUESTIONS? (Spretnak, 21)
“A healthy, balance ecosystem, including human and non-human inhabitants, must maintain diversity. Ecologically, environmental simplification is as significant a problem as environmental pollution…Therefore we need a decentralized global movement that is founded on common interests yet celebrates diversity and is opposed to all forms of domination and violence.” (King, 459)
“Systems don’t change from within,” I heard the forest say, “Systems try to maintain themselves”. (Starhawk 29)
“I figured that the forest, being a complex system itself, ought to know. But I say, ‘The forest told me,’ is already to create a simplified frame. It’s a frame I find useful: it’s a way of perceiving that’s comfortable for human awareness and allows me to hear something I might otherwise miss. But it is also a simplification of a larger framework, one that might perceive me and my mind and my question and the forest around me and the moment that includes my long-term relationship with that particular spot as a whole in which my mind and the forest’s mind are not separate being talking to each other but one process that together produced that insight.” (Starhawk, 29)
Bachelard's monumental work and the descriptions of phenomenologists have taught us that we do not live in a homogeneous and empty space, but on the contrary in a space thoroughly imbued with quantities and perhaps thoroughly fantasmatic as well. The space of our primary perception, the space of our dreams and that of our passions hold within themselves qualities that seem intrinsic: there is a light, ethereal, transparent space, or again a dark, rough, encumbered space; a space from above, of summits, or on the contrary a space from below of mud; or again a space that can be flowing like sparkling water, or space that is fixed, congealed, like stone or crystal. Yet these analyses, while fundamental for reflection in our time, primarily concern internal space. I should like to speak now of external space. (Foucault, para 8)
“The margin of abundance is the free gift of the sun’s energy, which is constantly showered on the earth, the only true margin of profit that exists.” (Starhawk, 32)
in west
“Know thyself”
“God is an intelligent sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. (I Corinthians 3, 16-17)
-please consult local community for input: Islamic, Christian and Jewish.
in center
“(It should be pointed out that, ideally paramita practice is based on enough understanding of interdependence that the practice is nondualistiic. Therefore, the question of giver and receiver of generosity or discipline does not arise, There is simply one spontaneous field of action)” (Gross 169).
«-an interior self-sacrifice, in which the heart is the alter, he outer man[/woman/self/ego/defense-system] is the offering, and the flame the dompted self» (Coomaraswamy, 6)
“Now it is of the essence of the image of the axial point or pole that it should symbolize the way or place of passage from motion to rest, time to eternity, separation to union; but then, also, conversely, rest to motion, eternity to time, unity to multiplicity.” (Joseph Campbell: the place of transformation II –194)
throughout
rumi poems
haiku poems
poems!
somewhere
“When discipline is well established, responsible and generous action is spontaneous and joyful, rather than onerous” (Gross, 170)
"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different than the ones we have been brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
Arundhanti Roy (2001, quoted in Rebick, 257)
«As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. This is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t' know we don't know.»
Donald Rumsfeld, US defense minister, 2003 (qtd in Starhawk, 2004)
Real democracy is not about power in numbers, it is about collaboration as an organizational system. Real democracy includes the right of the minority to a remedy, one that is unhampered by the tyranny of a complacent or aggressive majority. Its collaborative decision-making engages everyone in the process; decisions are not handed down by leaders “empowered” to decide for everyone. It is a negotiated process that creates trust and consensus because the solution belongs to everyone for all their own reasons. The process empowers the community, creating unity and strength for the long term. Because land is seen as a fundamental part of the self, along with family and community, it requires and insures sustainable practice in its practice. (Armstrong, 1999)
50,000 nuclear warheads
tucked away, it drifts
in indigo space:
our
earth (Kato Katsumi)
Works cited
Armstrong, Jeanette. “Let Us Begin with Courage”. Blowing Drifts Moon: Center for Ecoliteracy,
1999.
Berry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future. New York: Bell
Tower, 1999.
Campbell, Joseph. “The Place of Transformation”. Mystic Images. Princeton University P,
1974: 184-189.
Chlorophyll Protiens. Retrieved from http://metallo.scripps.edu/promise/chlb_s.gif, Nov. 23, 2006.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K.. “An Indian Temple”, Parabola 3:1. (1978): 4-11.
Eliade, Mircea. “Sacred Space.” The Encyclopedia of Religion 12. (1987): 526-535.
Eliade, Mircea. “The Sacredness of Nature and Cosmic Religion” The Sacred and The Profane: The
Nature of Religion. Trans. W.R. Trask. Harcourt Brace, (1959): 116-159.
Epstien, Rachel. “Queer Parenting in the New Millennium: Resisting Normal.” Canadian Women’s
Studies 24:2,3. (2005): 7-14.
Foltz, Richard C., Ed. Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment: A Global Anthology. Wadsworth
Thomas, 2003.
Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces (1967), Heterotopias.” Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité,
1984. para 8 –9.
Gross, Rita M., “Towards a Buddist Environmental Ethic.” Foltz 163-171.
Gunn Allen, Paula. “Cosmogyny: The Goddesses; A New Wrinkle.” Grandmothers of the Light: A
medicine woman’s sourcebook. Beacon Press, 1991.
Higgins, Steve. “Sacred Space in Buddism.” RS272: Guest Lecturer, University of Waterloo.
8 November, 2006.
Katsumi, Kato. “50,000 nuclear warheads.” Makoto 41.
King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Foltz 457 –463.
Lawlor, Robert. Sacred Geometry. Thames and Hudson, (1982): 4-25.
Makoto, Ooka, and Beichman, Janine. Oriori no Uta: Poems for All Seasons: An Anthology of
Japanese Poems from Ancient Times to the Present. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2000.
Moi, Toril. Sexual Textual Politics. New York: Routledge, 1985.
Molyneaux, Brian L., and Vitebsky, Piers. Sacred Earth, Sacred Stones. London, Laurel Glen: 2000.
Rebick, Judy. Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution. Penguin Canada: 2005.
Riley, Shamara Shantu. “Ecology Is a Sista’s Issue Too: The Politics of Emergent Afrocentric
Ecowomanism.” Foltz 473-481.
Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Era.
San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991.
Starhawk. The Earth Path. San Francisco:: Harper Collins, 2004.
The Trend: Dictionary of Things Japanese, First Ed. Shogakukan: Japan, 1999.
Toson, Shimazaki. “Bit by bit” Makoto 135.
Williams, Saul. “Release” on the album “Blazing Arrow” by Blackalicious. MCA, 2002.
Yamakawa, Tomiko. “Emptied of Prayers.” Makoto 55.
Each operational computer’s ecological footprint
383 kg of natural resources
1.17 million kg of water (= 1.17 billion L of water; each of us in Canada personally uses about 0.01 billion over our entire lifetime)
4.67 kg of fossil fuels
36 kg of solid waste - could be diverted
0.25 tonnes of air emissions - could be scrubbed
The above does not consider manufacture of computer or indirect environmental impacts
1.17 million kg of water (= 1.17 billion L of water; each of us in Canada personally uses about 0.01 billion over our entire lifetime)
4.67 kg of fossil fuels
36 kg of solid waste - could be diverted
0.25 tonnes of air emissions - could be scrubbed
The above does not consider manufacture of computer or indirect environmental impacts
response to reading from Worldviews: Foltz
Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment. Richard Foltz (Ed)
Living within the land: becoming native to the land.
It has long been my understanding the indigenous peoples have a fundamentally different relationship with the land than conventional culture does.
Both the Graham and the Omari pieces speak to me a of way of living that I believe will be again, in the not so distant future. Mary Graham’s piece speaks of a mind-frame, a way of living within our lands, where Nature is teacher, and “You are Not Alone” (89). This way of living is much more gentle on my soul than the tendency of conventional civilization towards binary logic. The Omari piece inspires me in its clarity. He argues that, for Tanzanian Aboriginals, sustainable living evolves through spirituality. For them, communal land ownership, with rights and responsibilities, is foundation. Every family must have “access to the means of production” (98). These ideas I have heard discussed at length on Cortes Island, especially regarding the designing of their Community Forest.
I think it is possible that the continued denial of living on stolen land haunts our culture to a degree much underestimated. This is one area of Thomas Berry’s book that I felt was touched on too lightly, though understandably so. Lakota Sioux activist Vine Deloria further explains the theft of culture through the theft of land, which the law facilitates. Many works in the genre are taking a critical look through history, to re-tell the Stories, included the versions often omitted and oppressed.
As Thomas Berry says, “Nature abhors uniformity”, so Nabhan makes a great point about the incorrectness of a unified category of North American Native. He does make clear though that they were co-managers of the ecosytems, which is an understanding that I have long held, and I am glad to hear it affirmed, again. “Everything gardens” is a tenant of Permaculture. It only seems logical. Both quantum theory and post-positivism argue that we are indeed participatory in nature, what changes is out consciousness of the effects of our actions. Both of these discourses leave room for agency which is essential if we are to move to an Ecozoic Era.
November 1, 2006
Judiasm and Buddism
Rita M. Gross introduces her piece as working “Toward a Buddist Environmental Ethic” as “the process of working within a traditional symbol system and worldview while doing reconstructive work to eliminate certain problematic conventions” (163).
I like the way this is positioned: gardening conventions. It helps me to understand the purpose of endless scholarship.
Gross emphasis the need for to practice to accompany theory (185), as does Waskow in his description of the two strands of Doing and Being, creating the I-Thou spiral as the driving force of nature (308). Waskow’s description of the I-Thou spiral is very similar to the process I have imagined in the yin-yang.
In my own scholarship am looking for methods for transcending dualism and these cross-cultural examples are useful.
It is wonderful to see how ancient Judiasm saw the patterns of the cosmos, and how Jewish mystics explained it. ( I have read of the similarities between Buddism and quantum theory; now I am learning the language of systems theory through Fritof Capra’s The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. )
In systems theory, we have a language we can see (and therefore experience) patterns and relationships of interconnection, spontaneously self-emergent systems nested within systems, that resonates with both scientific discourse as well as spiritual; I could cite examples from all four articles.
Swearer speaks beautifully of anurak as the bodily, “intrinsic act of “caring for’ that issues forth from the very nature of our being” (184), which I know as Love, as rooted in the “ontological realization of interdependent co-arising” (184).
All of these discourses are working towards created a new language, gardening conventions, and revising our ontological Stories, as necessary to shift our way of living; only systemic change, involving whole populations, on multiple levels simultaneously, will succeed.
(The specific mechanisms that scholars use to lever discourses are what flowers are in a grey-water system: while functional and necessary, the spontaneous creativity embodied in both are fueled by the forces of generosity and discipline, which have a dual function, also inspiring joy and wonder.)
Response: Ecofeminism
November 14, 2006
This journal will be a little long as I want to respond to your comments of my Nov 1 journal, then move into my response to the four readings assigned for this week. I will begin with the response to clarify my strategy for this exercise. I perceive the journaling exercise to be an intentional engagement with the process of learning and building ideas; in order to engage with the text at the level that interests me currently, I am assuming a base of knowledge similar to my own. The 300 word target limits my ability to position my arguments in their greater context. As this is an exercise of process, I am focusing mainly on articulating useful building blocks as I discover them, as well as exercising my muscles of critique when I see good opportunity.
As I unsuccessfully tried to explain in my Nov 1 journal, the academic tendency towards seemingly endless theory and scholarship that stifles action has often irritated me, but I know that, as Rita M. Gross explains, there is great value in “doing reconstructive work to eliminate certain problematic conventions” (163).
As I come to understand power from a postmodern perspective, I can see how language is both produced by us as subjects, and that it produces us as subjects, as well as our subjectivity (Foucault).
Working through theory, through our ontological stories, our socio-cultural symbol sets, religions, and worldviews, we must ‘garden’ our conventions to incorporate the ever-emerging knowledge(s), ‘composting’ problematic conventions, and cultivating deeper understandings. In these journal responses, I have been focusing on specific strategies used by the authors which I find either wonderfully useful in creating an ontological shift, or problematic in that they somehow hinder our capacity to shift to a healthy, diverse, ecological worldview.
Rosemary Radford Ruether’s article was fantastic. It is wonderful to hear that such radical suggestions for shifting the Christian paradigm are being proposed from within. I felt that her article was deeply loyal to her Christian faith, while offering an intense criticism and radical restructuring. Her rejection of dualistic thinking leads her to use the a lot of the same language that systems theory uses in understand our complex reality. Ruether spoke of the “continuity of matter-energy dynamics” (467) and “the matrix [of]…interdependency” (469). I found useful how she and Gerbera position Jesus as an anitmessiah (470) as a way for Christians to reject our current social structure without denying their religion. Another direction I would like to hear her explore is connections between the Abrahamic 3, and an environmental ethic.
Heather Eaton’s response to Ruether I found both useful and problematic. While she expands fantastically on the possible trajectories for expanding and transforming Christian thought also using a systems understanding, she occasionally fell back on binary language.
Throughout the article she uses the phrase ‘being held in tension’ to describe the relationship between idea sets, such as nature and history, of religion and culture. The language intimates that these idea sets are discrete, separate from each other, that they are in opposition somehow, and must be brought together by effort and force. This language, I think, is exactly this mode of thinking that Ruether is challenging.
(I could go on to critique other details of Eaton’s language use, and positioning of arguments as possibly problematic, but for the parameters of the assignment, it will suffice to say that the value in doing these readings I am finding where, why, and how to be careful with our arguments and language; as Thomas Berry says, we must reinvent the human with critical language.)
I think it is very important to not see the world as made of oppositional dualities of either/or’s, but rather, as Riley says, as interdependent, dynamic processes with a “both/and perspective” (479). I understand that for the planet to be able to sustain human life, humanity must stop living in such a destructive way; there is no one strategy that is going to create this change; it will take many many strategies to succeed, as Eaton as well suggests.
The value I am gaining from these readings then is learning of different strategies and tactics, from some of the many different perspectives; learning these, I believe, will help me guide people of different religious/traditional backgrounds to deeply understand ecological and cosmological patterns in a way that allows them to continue to love their faith tradition(s).
voices from the global South: chapter 14
response
I feel I have read quite prolifically in this realm of critiques emerging from the ‘global south’ regarding the effects of colonialism, globalization, industrialism, and centralization, etc., and still, everytime, the stories make me ache.
Through reading so many papers regarding the forces and implications of social change, I am beginning to be able to articulate where I see the unity (that allows for difference) in trajectory throughout. I am continually weaving together the languages of ecology, philosophy, resistance, and love. I can take these through everything, to the domain of the everything/nothing vortex, where the intersections collapse into a black hole of ineffability, and re-emerge from the yin-yang kaliedescope, which is to say I can travel through theory, thought, poetry, spirit, and back out again. While comforting to me to have found ‘trails’, the challenge now is articulation into language that remains complex while being clear.
Language is key; what we can name, we can identify, and what we can identify then exists. As Boff (and Waring) articulate, “[w]hat is not in the marketplace does not exist” (Boff, 501). As Potigaura articulates, “Brazilian society will respect Indians only when it recognizes them as a part of its own culture, language and traditions” (520), which really means when the entangled histories are thoroughly discussed.
With this dialogue comes education, and understanding , but most importantly, the creation of consensual language, making events, people, and contexts ‘legible’ (Foucault). Being able to self-name and morph/expand/shift identities is critically important, especially for the oppressed.
Most articles end in a connection to, or plan for, action/praxis. “Eco-justice in these churches takes shape as a life style rather than a written code of conduct.” (Daneel, 512-513). On Dec. 28 I fly to Vancouver to move in with a friend and support her while she births and begins to parent. I will support her health, cradle her business, and expand my knowledge of plant medicine in regards to mothers and babes. It is comforting for me to know that soon I will shift my focus to celebratory service for a new life and for community.
“We believe that life and vivacity in its totality can be perceived, experienced, and realized only in the microcosms of community and family” (Sharma, 499).
resistance!
nov 29
The Sprituality of Resistance; I am a believer.
When I saw Derrick Jensen speak he said repeatedly, “The Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a much higher rate of survival” (Guelph, April 2006).
Again, I hear the recurrent theme of “fully engag[ing] that which frightens and depresses us the most” (557) as a spiritual and personal necessity to become fully realized, and indeed, this is often my strategy when speaking with my peers in discussion of the future.
Gottlieb raises the essential question: what do we hold on to, and what do we let go of? (556). The answer is a continual negotiation.
In Korten’s article he articulates well how the division now is no longer so much between “between northern and southern nations… it is class” (565). Indeed I have thought this for a while; it is interesting to hear his support for this argument.
Another figure he raised that I am happy to now have to cite is “that for every $1 circulating in the productive economy today, $20 to $50 circulates in the world of pure finance” (567). His conclusion is decentralization and localization, and, again, I am happy to know his argument to support mine.
Norberg-Hodge (a person I would like to meet) articulates so well the affects of globalization and industrialization. I find it very interesting that she cites polyandry as a cultural population control (574). This is an argument I am interested in researching.
The piece by James Profit is beautiful; I can relate through my similar childhood embedded in Nature, experience participating in Native ceremonies, and living intimately with the ocean. His positioning of passion for the Earth as the passion of Jesus is both useful and understandable to me. Praise be to Ignatius, all of the amazing work they are doing, and to thinkers like these.
Living within the land: becoming native to the land.
It has long been my understanding the indigenous peoples have a fundamentally different relationship with the land than conventional culture does.
Both the Graham and the Omari pieces speak to me a of way of living that I believe will be again, in the not so distant future. Mary Graham’s piece speaks of a mind-frame, a way of living within our lands, where Nature is teacher, and “You are Not Alone” (89). This way of living is much more gentle on my soul than the tendency of conventional civilization towards binary logic. The Omari piece inspires me in its clarity. He argues that, for Tanzanian Aboriginals, sustainable living evolves through spirituality. For them, communal land ownership, with rights and responsibilities, is foundation. Every family must have “access to the means of production” (98). These ideas I have heard discussed at length on Cortes Island, especially regarding the designing of their Community Forest.
I think it is possible that the continued denial of living on stolen land haunts our culture to a degree much underestimated. This is one area of Thomas Berry’s book that I felt was touched on too lightly, though understandably so. Lakota Sioux activist Vine Deloria further explains the theft of culture through the theft of land, which the law facilitates. Many works in the genre are taking a critical look through history, to re-tell the Stories, included the versions often omitted and oppressed.
As Thomas Berry says, “Nature abhors uniformity”, so Nabhan makes a great point about the incorrectness of a unified category of North American Native. He does make clear though that they were co-managers of the ecosytems, which is an understanding that I have long held, and I am glad to hear it affirmed, again. “Everything gardens” is a tenant of Permaculture. It only seems logical. Both quantum theory and post-positivism argue that we are indeed participatory in nature, what changes is out consciousness of the effects of our actions. Both of these discourses leave room for agency which is essential if we are to move to an Ecozoic Era.
November 1, 2006
Judiasm and Buddism
Rita M. Gross introduces her piece as working “Toward a Buddist Environmental Ethic” as “the process of working within a traditional symbol system and worldview while doing reconstructive work to eliminate certain problematic conventions” (163).
I like the way this is positioned: gardening conventions. It helps me to understand the purpose of endless scholarship.
Gross emphasis the need for to practice to accompany theory (185), as does Waskow in his description of the two strands of Doing and Being, creating the I-Thou spiral as the driving force of nature (308). Waskow’s description of the I-Thou spiral is very similar to the process I have imagined in the yin-yang.
In my own scholarship am looking for methods for transcending dualism and these cross-cultural examples are useful.
It is wonderful to see how ancient Judiasm saw the patterns of the cosmos, and how Jewish mystics explained it. ( I have read of the similarities between Buddism and quantum theory; now I am learning the language of systems theory through Fritof Capra’s The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. )
In systems theory, we have a language we can see (and therefore experience) patterns and relationships of interconnection, spontaneously self-emergent systems nested within systems, that resonates with both scientific discourse as well as spiritual; I could cite examples from all four articles.
Swearer speaks beautifully of anurak as the bodily, “intrinsic act of “caring for’ that issues forth from the very nature of our being” (184), which I know as Love, as rooted in the “ontological realization of interdependent co-arising” (184).
All of these discourses are working towards created a new language, gardening conventions, and revising our ontological Stories, as necessary to shift our way of living; only systemic change, involving whole populations, on multiple levels simultaneously, will succeed.
(The specific mechanisms that scholars use to lever discourses are what flowers are in a grey-water system: while functional and necessary, the spontaneous creativity embodied in both are fueled by the forces of generosity and discipline, which have a dual function, also inspiring joy and wonder.)
Response: Ecofeminism
November 14, 2006
This journal will be a little long as I want to respond to your comments of my Nov 1 journal, then move into my response to the four readings assigned for this week. I will begin with the response to clarify my strategy for this exercise. I perceive the journaling exercise to be an intentional engagement with the process of learning and building ideas; in order to engage with the text at the level that interests me currently, I am assuming a base of knowledge similar to my own. The 300 word target limits my ability to position my arguments in their greater context. As this is an exercise of process, I am focusing mainly on articulating useful building blocks as I discover them, as well as exercising my muscles of critique when I see good opportunity.
As I unsuccessfully tried to explain in my Nov 1 journal, the academic tendency towards seemingly endless theory and scholarship that stifles action has often irritated me, but I know that, as Rita M. Gross explains, there is great value in “doing reconstructive work to eliminate certain problematic conventions” (163).
As I come to understand power from a postmodern perspective, I can see how language is both produced by us as subjects, and that it produces us as subjects, as well as our subjectivity (Foucault).
Working through theory, through our ontological stories, our socio-cultural symbol sets, religions, and worldviews, we must ‘garden’ our conventions to incorporate the ever-emerging knowledge(s), ‘composting’ problematic conventions, and cultivating deeper understandings. In these journal responses, I have been focusing on specific strategies used by the authors which I find either wonderfully useful in creating an ontological shift, or problematic in that they somehow hinder our capacity to shift to a healthy, diverse, ecological worldview.
Rosemary Radford Ruether’s article was fantastic. It is wonderful to hear that such radical suggestions for shifting the Christian paradigm are being proposed from within. I felt that her article was deeply loyal to her Christian faith, while offering an intense criticism and radical restructuring. Her rejection of dualistic thinking leads her to use the a lot of the same language that systems theory uses in understand our complex reality. Ruether spoke of the “continuity of matter-energy dynamics” (467) and “the matrix [of]…interdependency” (469). I found useful how she and Gerbera position Jesus as an anitmessiah (470) as a way for Christians to reject our current social structure without denying their religion. Another direction I would like to hear her explore is connections between the Abrahamic 3, and an environmental ethic.
Heather Eaton’s response to Ruether I found both useful and problematic. While she expands fantastically on the possible trajectories for expanding and transforming Christian thought also using a systems understanding, she occasionally fell back on binary language.
Throughout the article she uses the phrase ‘being held in tension’ to describe the relationship between idea sets, such as nature and history, of religion and culture. The language intimates that these idea sets are discrete, separate from each other, that they are in opposition somehow, and must be brought together by effort and force. This language, I think, is exactly this mode of thinking that Ruether is challenging.
(I could go on to critique other details of Eaton’s language use, and positioning of arguments as possibly problematic, but for the parameters of the assignment, it will suffice to say that the value in doing these readings I am finding where, why, and how to be careful with our arguments and language; as Thomas Berry says, we must reinvent the human with critical language.)
I think it is very important to not see the world as made of oppositional dualities of either/or’s, but rather, as Riley says, as interdependent, dynamic processes with a “both/and perspective” (479). I understand that for the planet to be able to sustain human life, humanity must stop living in such a destructive way; there is no one strategy that is going to create this change; it will take many many strategies to succeed, as Eaton as well suggests.
The value I am gaining from these readings then is learning of different strategies and tactics, from some of the many different perspectives; learning these, I believe, will help me guide people of different religious/traditional backgrounds to deeply understand ecological and cosmological patterns in a way that allows them to continue to love their faith tradition(s).
voices from the global South: chapter 14
response
I feel I have read quite prolifically in this realm of critiques emerging from the ‘global south’ regarding the effects of colonialism, globalization, industrialism, and centralization, etc., and still, everytime, the stories make me ache.
Through reading so many papers regarding the forces and implications of social change, I am beginning to be able to articulate where I see the unity (that allows for difference) in trajectory throughout. I am continually weaving together the languages of ecology, philosophy, resistance, and love. I can take these through everything, to the domain of the everything/nothing vortex, where the intersections collapse into a black hole of ineffability, and re-emerge from the yin-yang kaliedescope, which is to say I can travel through theory, thought, poetry, spirit, and back out again. While comforting to me to have found ‘trails’, the challenge now is articulation into language that remains complex while being clear.
Language is key; what we can name, we can identify, and what we can identify then exists. As Boff (and Waring) articulate, “[w]hat is not in the marketplace does not exist” (Boff, 501). As Potigaura articulates, “Brazilian society will respect Indians only when it recognizes them as a part of its own culture, language and traditions” (520), which really means when the entangled histories are thoroughly discussed.
With this dialogue comes education, and understanding , but most importantly, the creation of consensual language, making events, people, and contexts ‘legible’ (Foucault). Being able to self-name and morph/expand/shift identities is critically important, especially for the oppressed.
Most articles end in a connection to, or plan for, action/praxis. “Eco-justice in these churches takes shape as a life style rather than a written code of conduct.” (Daneel, 512-513). On Dec. 28 I fly to Vancouver to move in with a friend and support her while she births and begins to parent. I will support her health, cradle her business, and expand my knowledge of plant medicine in regards to mothers and babes. It is comforting for me to know that soon I will shift my focus to celebratory service for a new life and for community.
“We believe that life and vivacity in its totality can be perceived, experienced, and realized only in the microcosms of community and family” (Sharma, 499).
resistance!
nov 29
The Sprituality of Resistance; I am a believer.
When I saw Derrick Jensen speak he said repeatedly, “The Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a much higher rate of survival” (Guelph, April 2006).
Again, I hear the recurrent theme of “fully engag[ing] that which frightens and depresses us the most” (557) as a spiritual and personal necessity to become fully realized, and indeed, this is often my strategy when speaking with my peers in discussion of the future.
Gottlieb raises the essential question: what do we hold on to, and what do we let go of? (556). The answer is a continual negotiation.
In Korten’s article he articulates well how the division now is no longer so much between “between northern and southern nations… it is class” (565). Indeed I have thought this for a while; it is interesting to hear his support for this argument.
Another figure he raised that I am happy to now have to cite is “that for every $1 circulating in the productive economy today, $20 to $50 circulates in the world of pure finance” (567). His conclusion is decentralization and localization, and, again, I am happy to know his argument to support mine.
Norberg-Hodge (a person I would like to meet) articulates so well the affects of globalization and industrialization. I find it very interesting that she cites polyandry as a cultural population control (574). This is an argument I am interested in researching.
The piece by James Profit is beautiful; I can relate through my similar childhood embedded in Nature, experience participating in Native ceremonies, and living intimately with the ocean. His positioning of passion for the Earth as the passion of Jesus is both useful and understandable to me. Praise be to Ignatius, all of the amazing work they are doing, and to thinkers like these.
Ecological Water Cleaning Systems
November 6, 2006
Ecological Water Cleaning Systems
Table of Contents
1.0 Regional Water Use
1.1 Water Problems
2.0 Region of Waterloo Water Use: Introduction
2.1 Effects of Municipal Water Discharge
2.2 Region of Waterloo: Conclusions
3.0 Alternatives: Towards Sustainability
3.1 Alternate Solutions
3.1.1 Greywater Systems
3.2 Vision of the Ideal: the Community Greywater Garden
3.3 Alternatives: Conclusions
4.0 Anticipated Side Effects
5.0 Conclusions
References
1.0 Regional Water Use
Water is pumped from 126 wells in the Waterloo Region, servicing 450, 467 people a daily average of 161 200m3 in 2005 (Region of Waterloo, 2006). The wastewater is pumped to 7 wastewater treatment plants which are operated by the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA) , providing a minimum of secondary treatment under Ministry of Environment (MOE) regulations (Region of Waterloo, 2006).
1.1 Water Problems
Groundwater Contamination:
Agriculture runoff, industry discharge, landfill seepage, and urban runoff all affect groundwater. Only a few aquifers have been studied, and usually only as result of posioning, such as a case of pesticide contamination in Elmira, Ontario, (Environment Canada, 2006a).
Groundwater Mining:
If groundwater is pumped at a rate faster than which the aquifer natural recharges itself then water levels will be reduced, leading to the possibility of depletion. Such a case is illustrated by the well W4 located on University of Waterloo main campus which is no longer in use (Nyp, 2000).
Industrial Discharge:
Exact data regarding quantities of chemicals discharged by industry is challenging to gather. In 2005, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) gave 300 tickets to the Industrial Waste Haulers sector, and 185 fines for further violations (Government of Ontario, 2006).
Municipal Discharge:
Municipalities supply both residential and industrial process with freshwater. It is first treated with a chlorinating process that is known to create trihlomethanes which are suspected carcinogens (Nyp, 2000). After use, the wastewater is treated with chlorine again before it is discharged (Region of Waterloo, 2003).
Pharmaceutical contamination:
A recent study of the Kitchener Waterloo area shows extensive existence of pharmaceutical mixtures (Lissemore et al., 2005). While comparatively little knowledge exists regarding quantity or effect this has, it is known that some of these chemicals have strong effect with little dosage, and that non-target effects occur. Estimates of contamination quantity are in the range of thousands of tones.
2.0 Waterloo Regional Water Use: Introduction
Water is a fundamental need of all life, and while it is reusable, it is not renewable. It is a global system and therefore complex. It is imbricated in everything, making it challenging to define system boundaries. Freshwater is but 3% of Earth’s supply. Our freshwater is increasingly polluted from multiple sources creating chemical combinations that are also increasingly complex.
In 1996 Canada used 64 421 million cubic meters (MCM); just less than 20 000 MCM was re-circulated, and 90% of it discharged post use (Environment Canada, 2006b). The average Canadian municipal breakdown was residential 52%, commercial 19%, industrial 16% and leakage13% (Environment Canada, 2006b). Each Canadian used an average of 335L a day in 1996 (Environment Canada, 2006b).
As an example of a municipal water system I will look at Galt, an area of the City of Cambridge, in the Region of Waterloo, in southern Ontario. It is a good example for its complexity, the systems nested within systems, for the dense population, and high pollution levels. The Integrated Urban Water Supply (IUS) includes Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge, Elmira and St. Jacob’s, draws from 126 wells an average of 171.5 million liters/day (MLD) (Region of Waterloo, 2006).
The groundwater is tested for more than 150 chemical contaminants and undergoes a chlorinating process (Nyp, 2000). Chlorine reacts with organic matter, creating trihlomethanes which are suspected carcinogens (Nyp, 2000). From the treatment plant, the water runs through an underground network of metal pipes serviced by the city.
Average daily water use for the IUS in 2005 was 161 200 MCM. Cambridge received a daily average of 51 331m3 from the IUS ( City of Cambridge, 2005). Most of the wastewater in Cambridge is processed in the Galt Waste Water Treatment Plant (GWWTP) which is operated by Ontario Clean Water Agency (OWCA) and monitored by the Ministry of Environment (MOE). The GWWTP treated a daily average flow of 30 301 m3/day in 2005 (Region of Waterloo, 2006a).
Conventional wastewater is treated in roughly a five stage process. First the waste is screened, then solids are allowed to settle out. The water carries on the third stage, called secondary treatment, which aerates and uses biological processes in mimicry of how water is cleaned in natural ecosystem. Solids are allowed to settle out again. The water is treated with chlorine before it is discharged, and the solids are let to compost before being either incinerated, put in landfill, or used as fertilizer.
2.1 Effects of Municipal Water Discharge
The following information is based on the Grand River Conservation Authority’s 2006 report, Water Quality in the Grand River: Summary of Current Conditions (2000-2004) And Long Term Trends ( Cooke, 2006).
Generally, nutrient levels in the Grand River are high, and metal levels are within the guidelines. Agricultural runoff and wastewater discharge are cited as the main contributors, and exacerbated by the underlying clay pan which contributes a high sediment load. The central portion of the river, around the confluence of the Conestoga and Speed Rivers, is the “most impaired”.
Wastewater plants, intense agriculture, and urban runoff are cited as the main contributors. Effects are seen in downstream eutrophication., Increasing concentrations of total ammonium, chloride, and phosphorus are being seen in Waterloo Region. Chlorides are particularly high in the lower Speed River, likely from road de-icing and water softening salts persisting through wastewater treatment. Spills from the wastewater treatment plant bypasses pose “significant threat” to the river of “acute and immediate impairment to water quality”. In 2004 there were over 70 spills in the Grand River, most of which were from wastewater treatment plants of secondary treated water.
Pesticides are not thoroughly tested for. Neither are pathogens or bacteria. No mention is made of testing for pharmaceuticals, petroleum, or other toxins.
The recent discovery of chromatography and spectroscopy technology has made possible testing for more complex chemicals, but the lack of economic resources limits the availability of equipment and staff to do such testing. As well, the knowledge regarding how chemicals exist in combination and in context is incomplete. Recent studies using this technology have shown that wastewater treatment plants “only partially eliminate[d]” antibiotics such as tetracyclines and sulfonamides and are considered “point sources for antibiotic contamination (Yang et al., 2004).
Global change is another vector of large impact upon the system. The continuing trends of urban development and population growth are increasing pressure upon already stressed groundwater supplies. High water use is contributing to lower water quality; this is a local and global trend. As well, increasing water sales to American markets are also placing pressure on many Canadian areas, such as nearby Guelph, which is considering building a freshwater pipeline to the stateside market.
2.2 Region of Waterloo: Conclusions
The Region of Waterloo operates a very large water supply and treatment system. This system is leading to groundwater contamination and depletion in the area. Concurrently, pollution and contamination levels are rising. A major limitation is our lack of capacity to test for many contaminants: the time, man-power, technology, and research have not been funded yet. Of our known pollution, it is wastewater treatment plants that pose the highest threat to the health of the Grand River.
3.0 Alternatives: Towards Sustainability
Clean water is necessary for life; not only is it a prerequisite for human life but planetary health depends on it. We are polluting water at a rate higher than natural planetary processes can purify it. As a result “nearly all surface water bodies within and near urban-industrial centers are now highly polluted” (Biswas, 2005). According to Biswas a water crisis might occur, but not for a lack of water, but because of failing water quality, and insufficient for water treatment technology. Large, high-tech, treatment plants have a high cost and large ecological footprint. They require a high energy input to construct and to maintain. Especially for developing nations, which is most of the global population, currently insufficient investment is available for the treatment facilities necessary to maintain a high quality water supply (Biswas, 2005).
While some argue that large, high-technology systems hold the most hope for the task of cleaning our ever-increasing load of polluted water, many will argue that biological systems are more affordable, and truly sustainable. The success of a wastewater treatment system is dependant on how well the system functions as a whole and within its environment. It must be suited to the bioregion and to the community.
A sustainable treatment process must be: a viable economic investment for a community in both the developed and developing worlds; of mutual benefit to the community and the ecosystem; provide habitat for biodiversity; and be designed for flexibility in its long term biological functioning.
3.1 Alternative Solutions
Alternative methods do exist. If, to begin with, human feces and urine (blackwater) and washing water (greywater) are allowed to remain separate, our task of maintaining a clean water supply and cleaning dirtied water is greatly eased. Feces and urine are both very high nitrogen sources, a requisite of all soil and plant processes. Composting human waste before returning it to the fields is an ancient practice, and currently being cautiously used in the Waterloo Region (Region of Waterloo, 2006b). Saying goodbye to the flush toilet has the dual effect of conserving water while greatly reducing the toxicity of the municipal water treatment load.
Many methods exist for the cleaning of water. The following is a list of techniques and the vector they are effective in. Often, these methods are used in combination with another.
Table 1. Techniques, method, and results for water cleaning strategies.
Adapted from Adin and Asanno, 1998, except for * taken from Bononomo et al, 1997.
Technique Method Results
Aerobic bioactivity metabolism by bacteria removal of organic matter
Oxidation pond: aeration and sunlight reduce solids, BOD, coliforms, bacterial,
and ammonia
activated carbon physical adsorbtion removals hydrophobic, and organic
compounds
lime treatment precipitate metals softens and disinfects
from solution using lime
reverse osmosis pressure membrane removes salts, and pathogens
UV radiation ultraviolet exposure disinfects, purifies
duckweed * removes organic cleans, denitrifies
3.1.1 Greywater Systems
Two trends in greywater systems currently prevail, roughly categorized as the constructed wetland and a Living Machine (patented). A constructed wetland is an outdoor system that uses soil, water, plants, and microorganisms to purify water mimicking the natural wetland system (Magmedov, 2003). A Living Machine is primarily an indoor system constructed of a series of tanks each containing a different mini-ecosystem which function together to clean water in up to four days (Wolovitz, 2000). Both systems cultivate water-cleaning microorganisms through accentuation of habitat.
A constructed wetland is based on the ecology of a natural wetland. They generally consist of multiple beds containing media, such as sand, soil and gravel, planted with aquatic plants, such as cattails, bulrushes, reeds, and sedges. Multiple mediums of varying diameters are critical for cultivating quantity and diversity of microorganisms, as is a diversity of plants. Plant roots provide habitat and the carbon necessary for microorganisms to denitrify water. Often systems will incorporate vertical and horizontal flows to increase aerobic activity.
The following list is a few of the many research projects containing elements that might successfully be integrated into a sustainable, community water treatment system:
- Vertical Flow Constructed Wetlands (Kantawanichkul et al., 1999). Researchers in Thailand are using constructed tanks filled with gravel and planted with grasses or papyrus, and vertical flow to filter water from Chang Mai University; results show coliform removal was 99.9% and overall 90% removal efficiencies even when in high flow.
- Constructed Wetlands for Cold Climates (Smith et al., 2006). Researchers in Atlantic Canada have run dairy wastewater through a constructed wetland year-round to determine that, with continuous and steady hydrolic flows, and with mulch and snow for insulation, biological activity can remain high enough to remove 62%-99%.
-Duckweed Wastewater Treatment ponds (Bonomo et al, 1997): Italian researchers concluded that while cold winters limited this method, otherwise results proved high cleaning efficiency and high production of biomass and habitat.
Living Machines were created and patented by John and Nancy Todd of the Ocean Arks Institute. These systems involve a set of connected tanks containing complete aquatic ecosystems, providing habitat for a diversity of beneficial bacteria indoor environments to clean greywater. In these systems, the water is first collected and held in a closed anaerobic environment and treated to anaerobic decomposition for about three days; the water then is transferred to a closed aerobic tank, where it is aerated and allowed to off-gas. From there, the water is run through a series of tanks housing aquatic ecosystems of varying depths and species; these tanks are designed to maximize surface area to house high beneficial bacterial population.
The Living Machine at Findhorn, Scotland was designed in 1993 and serves approximately 300 people per day. It lives in a 10m x 30m greenhouse, and takes approximately 8 days to clean water (Findhorn, 2005). Living Machine systems are currently used in the Toronto Body Shop bottling plant, at Ben & Jerry’s headquarters, and a number of other high profile locations.
3.2 Vision of the Ideal: the Community Greywater Garden
Water, food production, humans, and human waste are a connected system. Currently this system is primarily fueled by petroleum at every stage, and heavily dependant on water subsidies. Regardless of the remaining quantity of available oil, the high environmental and economic costs will likely necessitate that we produce and maintain the majority of our basic resource in our own bioregions. History is revealing a lack of efficiency in centralized systems. Scientists, philosophers, activists, even theologians are calling for an urgent shift to bioregionalism (see Thomas Berry, Jane Jacobs, David Suzuki). If we look at the impressive new bodies of knowledge collected through systems theory, community development, and permaculture, then the idea of mimicking natural systems, using the pattern of systems nesting within systems, becomes imperative (see Fritof Capra, Donnella Meadows, David Holgrem).
Water and food are linked; everything needs water to grow, clean, to digest, and cook. Both plant growth and water cleansing occurs through bacterial action. Becoming more aware of these processes, so to create responsible, efficient and healthy food and water production is imperative. Linking these systems at a home, community, and watershed level is necessary. An entire social, system shift is necessary to accompany these structural changes to our living patterns.
For the city of Cambridge, Galt in particular, I imagine three or four large, community managed, water treatment centers. Consisting of multiple constructed wetland systems, multiple Living Machine systems, compost areas, and systems for specific contaminations, a variety of local bacteria, fungi, ecosystems, and knowledge can be cultivated there. These centers can process any water that has no other system, process heavily contaminated waters, and supply biological and intellectual resources. These local water treatment centers have the dual function of water treatment and nursery centers, supplying appropriate and adapted varietals of the micro and macro organisms necessary to create home greywater systems. The community level systems could create a level of knowledge sharing within the watershed, and cross-watersheds.
As water becomes a more lucrative resource, more households and communities will want to, and need to, reuse water. Clean water is preferable. In some cases, households will want to have a garden, thereby having the knowledge, energy, feasibility and desire to maintain a greywater system. They might have their own system of rainwater collection, water storage, water cleaning, and food creation. In other cases, groups of dwellings will chose to share the chores of garden and water system. Ideally, the community would care for both indoor and outdoor systems; especially in a climate with a more severe winter, a greenhouse with a LM would cleans water much quicker, contribute to winter food production, and could provide a great community space for the winter months. Good design, with close attention to the particular ecology, community, and local needs, will be specific to the site and context.
3.4 Alternatives: Conclusions
Globally, we are polluting our water at a rate faster than natural process can clean it. Conventional wastewater treatments plants are expensive, have a large ecological footprint, and, as revealed by studies of the Grand River, they create the most known pollution. Current research stresses the need for more efficient water treatment, and attention to water quality. Knowing that investment for new, expensive WWTPs is not always available, sustainability must be defined as economically viable for both developed and developing communities, consisting of a small ecological footprint, of mutual benefit to the community and local ecosystems, fostering biodiversity, and designed for flexibility in its long term functioning.
By keeping separate our greywater from blackwater, we greatly increase our capacity to efficiently clean water. Greywater systems have been created on a many scales, both indoor and outdoor, in warm and cold climates. Constructed wetlands are usually for outdoor application and can be designed for varying scale and climate. Living Machines are a patented design from Ocean Arks Institute have been functioning successfully in a number of indoor locations for over ten years.
Ideally, while still subsidized by inexpensive energy sources, we begin to shift WWTPs to using biological systems. WWTPs can cultivate locally adapted and effective species for greywater treatment, functioning as both treatment plant and nursery. The community can then support the building of more indoor and outdoor greywater systems of varying scales, for households and communities, facilitating greater water re-use with less embodied energy.
4.0 Side Effects
The effects of the implementation of an integrated system of bioregional food production and biological water treatment both creates and necessitates a complete social, cultural, and ontological shift. This shift is being widely called for throughout the peace movement ( see Thomas Berry, David Suzuki, Derrick Jensen). If one looks only at the economic vector, such a shift is inconceivable and unprofitable. However, if one looks at the effects of such an integrated system on local biodiversity, global and community health – physically, socially, and spiritually-, as well as food and water quality, a positive relationship of mutual enhancement is found.
Some possible side effects might include an increase in biodiversity as habitat is created, increasing air quality, an increase in groundwater quality and recharge, deepening sense of community pride, deeper understanding of biological process, an increase of knowledge regarding biological process capable of decomposing the residues of chemical era, etc. Side effects would likely also include an increase in local food productions, which would affect the local economy and employment. The effects of such a systems on the planet, humans and non-humans would be overwhelmingly positive if one deems biodiversity and life as positive.
The greatest challenge to this proposition is creating a social movement towards saying goodbye to the flush toilet. This idea is incomprehensible to most. From this perspective the greatest resistance would be met. The implications of such a move would be mass water conservation as well as much less water contamination. It is possible, indeed likely, that tertiary industries would be created to process and recycle the composting of human waste.
As stated, looking through the economic vector such a system is not plausible; indeed, it is problematic. Such self-sufficient, ecological models of local production do not fit profitably in current economic frameworks.
From a short-term perspective, it is possible that the transition of WWTPs from conventional to ecological models could provide job opportunities in research, and community education. Community design processes could greatly help ameliorate the shifting economic patterns. It is in the transition from our current economic system to an ecological system that possible negative side effects lie, as it is uncertain that the transition will occur without crises. Indeed, if we can shift to a network of resilient, locally adapted, flexible systems with built-in redundancy, while subsidized by petroleum energy, maintaining our water quality would be more likely, and fostering of sustainable community development could be supported.
5.0 Conclusions
The Region of Waterloo supplies water to nearly half a million people from 126 wells, and treats the wastewater in seven main WWTPs. This is resulting in the depletion and contamination of groundwater. As well, the watershed is becoming increasingly polluted from urban and agricultural runoff, as well as from pharmaceuticals in municipal discharge. The greatest known damage is occurring from spills from the municipal WWTPs. The current organization responsible for testing the Grand River’s water quality is not equipped with the necessary equipment to test for presence of quantity of many known contaminants.
The first step in improving water quality is keeping solid waste separate from wastewater. Greywater can be treated much more safely and easily than blackwater. Methods alternative to convention are being explored in both the scientific and sustainability communities. Constructed wetland systems are receiving much scientific attention currently, and have shown the most positive results in warm, though strategies are being studied for cool climates. Living Machines are a patented design from Ocean Arks Institute; they are for indoor or greenhouse application and have been successfully installed in a number of high-use, high-visibility commercial locations. Both systems rely on biological processes to cleanse water of toxins and impurities.
Natural systems have the capacity for self-organization, self-repair, self-reproduction, and a great ability to adapt thereby fitting our definition of sustainable. By first creating a nursery and research site in our municipal WWTPs and using a community design process, we can create a network of systems that function in to create food and community while cleaning our water for reuse.
References
Akhand, N.A., Lapen, D.R., Topp, E., Edwards, M.J., Sabourin, L., Ball Coelho, B.R., Duenk,
P.W., Payne, M. 2006. Prediction of liquid municipal biosolid and precipitation induced
tile flow in a Southern Ontario agricultural field using MACRO. Agricultural Water Management 83: 37 – 50.
Adin, A., Asanno, T., 1998. The Role of Physical-Chemical Treatment in
Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse. Wat. Sci. Tech. Vol 37, No 10: 78-90.
Biswas, A.K., 2005. An Assessment of Future Global Water Issues. Water Resources
Development, Vol. 21, No. 2: 229-237.
Bonomo, L., Pastorelli, G., Zambon, N., 1997. Advantages and Limitations of Duck-Weed Based Wastewater Treatment Systems. Wat. Sci Tech. Vol. 35, No. 5: 239-246.
Capra, F. 1996. The Web of Life:A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. New York:
Anchor Books, p 37.
City of Cambridge, 2005. Water Summary Report: 6.
Cooke, S., 2006. Water Quality in the Grand River: A Summary of Current Conditions (2000-
2004) and Long Term Trends. Grand River Conservation Authority: vii-ix.
Environment Canada, 2006. Toxic chemicals: the legacy of a chemical society. Retrieved
October 16, 2006, at http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/manage/poll/e_legacy.htm: para 1.
Environment Canada, 2006a. How we contaminate groundwater. Retrieved Ocober 16, 2006 at http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/manage/poll/e_howgrd.htm: para 7
Environment Canada, 2006b. http://www.ece.gc.ca/water,
Findhorn Foundation, 2005. The Living Machine. Retrieved from
http://www.findhorn.org/ecovillage/livingmach2_new.php. Paragraph 4-12.
Government of Ontario, 2006. Sector Compliance Branch: Our Work: Inspection Results.
Retrieved from http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/scb/work/table1.htm#industrial,
para 13.
Katawanichkul, S., Pilalila, S., Tanapiyawanich, W., Tikampornittay, W., Kamrua, S., 1999.
Wastewater Treatment By Tropical Plants in Vertically Constructed Wetlands. Wat.Sci.Tech, Vol 40 #30: 173-178.
Lissemore, L., Hao, C., Yang, P., Sibley, P.K., Mabury, S., Solomon, K.R., 2005. An exposure
assessment for selected pharmaceuticals within a watershed in Southern Ontario.
Chemosphere 64: 717-729.
Magmedov, V. 2003. Constructed Wetlands for Low-Cost Wastewater Treatment and Nature
Conservation. Online retrieval, www.constructedwetlands.org: para 1.
Ministry of Environment, Procedure F-1. Determination of Treatment Requirements for
Municipal and Private Sewage Treatment Works Discharging to Surface Waters.
Nyp, G., 2000. Half a million gallons a day. University of Waterloo Daily Bulletin, online
edition; retrieved from http://www.bulletin.waterloo.ca/2000/aug/02we.html para 8.
Region of Waterloo, 2003. Water and Wastewater Monitoring Report. p 9.
Region of Waterloo, 2006a. Water and Wastewater Monitoring Report. p 50.
Region of Waterloo, 2006b. Wastewater in Waterloo Region. Regional Website:
http://www.region.waterloo.on.ca/web/region.nsf/: para 4.
Sasek, V., Cajthaml, T. Bhatt, M. 2003, Use of Fungal Technology in Soil Remediation: A Case
Study. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution: Focus 3: 5–14.
Smith, E., Gordon, R., Madani, A., Stratton, G., 2006. Year-Round Treatment of Dairy
Wastewater by Constructed Wetlands in Atlantic Canada. Wetlands, Vol 26, No. 3: 349-
357.
Wolovits, J., 2000. The Living Machine. PennState Online Reseach,
http://www.rps.psu.edu/0009/machine.html: para 4.
Yang, S., Jongmum, W., Carlson, K., 2004. Simultaneous extraction and analysis of 11
tetracycline and sulfonamide antibiotics in influent and effluent domestic wastewater by
solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. Journal of Chromatography A, 1097: 40-53.
Ecological Water Cleaning Systems
Table of Contents
1.0 Regional Water Use
1.1 Water Problems
2.0 Region of Waterloo Water Use: Introduction
2.1 Effects of Municipal Water Discharge
2.2 Region of Waterloo: Conclusions
3.0 Alternatives: Towards Sustainability
3.1 Alternate Solutions
3.1.1 Greywater Systems
3.2 Vision of the Ideal: the Community Greywater Garden
3.3 Alternatives: Conclusions
4.0 Anticipated Side Effects
5.0 Conclusions
References
1.0 Regional Water Use
Water is pumped from 126 wells in the Waterloo Region, servicing 450, 467 people a daily average of 161 200m3 in 2005 (Region of Waterloo, 2006). The wastewater is pumped to 7 wastewater treatment plants which are operated by the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA) , providing a minimum of secondary treatment under Ministry of Environment (MOE) regulations (Region of Waterloo, 2006).
1.1 Water Problems
Groundwater Contamination:
Agriculture runoff, industry discharge, landfill seepage, and urban runoff all affect groundwater. Only a few aquifers have been studied, and usually only as result of posioning, such as a case of pesticide contamination in Elmira, Ontario, (Environment Canada, 2006a).
Groundwater Mining:
If groundwater is pumped at a rate faster than which the aquifer natural recharges itself then water levels will be reduced, leading to the possibility of depletion. Such a case is illustrated by the well W4 located on University of Waterloo main campus which is no longer in use (Nyp, 2000).
Industrial Discharge:
Exact data regarding quantities of chemicals discharged by industry is challenging to gather. In 2005, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) gave 300 tickets to the Industrial Waste Haulers sector, and 185 fines for further violations (Government of Ontario, 2006).
Municipal Discharge:
Municipalities supply both residential and industrial process with freshwater. It is first treated with a chlorinating process that is known to create trihlomethanes which are suspected carcinogens (Nyp, 2000). After use, the wastewater is treated with chlorine again before it is discharged (Region of Waterloo, 2003).
Pharmaceutical contamination:
A recent study of the Kitchener Waterloo area shows extensive existence of pharmaceutical mixtures (Lissemore et al., 2005). While comparatively little knowledge exists regarding quantity or effect this has, it is known that some of these chemicals have strong effect with little dosage, and that non-target effects occur. Estimates of contamination quantity are in the range of thousands of tones.
2.0 Waterloo Regional Water Use: Introduction
Water is a fundamental need of all life, and while it is reusable, it is not renewable. It is a global system and therefore complex. It is imbricated in everything, making it challenging to define system boundaries. Freshwater is but 3% of Earth’s supply. Our freshwater is increasingly polluted from multiple sources creating chemical combinations that are also increasingly complex.
In 1996 Canada used 64 421 million cubic meters (MCM); just less than 20 000 MCM was re-circulated, and 90% of it discharged post use (Environment Canada, 2006b). The average Canadian municipal breakdown was residential 52%, commercial 19%, industrial 16% and leakage13% (Environment Canada, 2006b). Each Canadian used an average of 335L a day in 1996 (Environment Canada, 2006b).
As an example of a municipal water system I will look at Galt, an area of the City of Cambridge, in the Region of Waterloo, in southern Ontario. It is a good example for its complexity, the systems nested within systems, for the dense population, and high pollution levels. The Integrated Urban Water Supply (IUS) includes Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge, Elmira and St. Jacob’s, draws from 126 wells an average of 171.5 million liters/day (MLD) (Region of Waterloo, 2006).
The groundwater is tested for more than 150 chemical contaminants and undergoes a chlorinating process (Nyp, 2000). Chlorine reacts with organic matter, creating trihlomethanes which are suspected carcinogens (Nyp, 2000). From the treatment plant, the water runs through an underground network of metal pipes serviced by the city.
Average daily water use for the IUS in 2005 was 161 200 MCM. Cambridge received a daily average of 51 331m3 from the IUS ( City of Cambridge, 2005). Most of the wastewater in Cambridge is processed in the Galt Waste Water Treatment Plant (GWWTP) which is operated by Ontario Clean Water Agency (OWCA) and monitored by the Ministry of Environment (MOE). The GWWTP treated a daily average flow of 30 301 m3/day in 2005 (Region of Waterloo, 2006a).
Conventional wastewater is treated in roughly a five stage process. First the waste is screened, then solids are allowed to settle out. The water carries on the third stage, called secondary treatment, which aerates and uses biological processes in mimicry of how water is cleaned in natural ecosystem. Solids are allowed to settle out again. The water is treated with chlorine before it is discharged, and the solids are let to compost before being either incinerated, put in landfill, or used as fertilizer.
2.1 Effects of Municipal Water Discharge
The following information is based on the Grand River Conservation Authority’s 2006 report, Water Quality in the Grand River: Summary of Current Conditions (2000-2004) And Long Term Trends ( Cooke, 2006).
Generally, nutrient levels in the Grand River are high, and metal levels are within the guidelines. Agricultural runoff and wastewater discharge are cited as the main contributors, and exacerbated by the underlying clay pan which contributes a high sediment load. The central portion of the river, around the confluence of the Conestoga and Speed Rivers, is the “most impaired”.
Wastewater plants, intense agriculture, and urban runoff are cited as the main contributors. Effects are seen in downstream eutrophication., Increasing concentrations of total ammonium, chloride, and phosphorus are being seen in Waterloo Region. Chlorides are particularly high in the lower Speed River, likely from road de-icing and water softening salts persisting through wastewater treatment. Spills from the wastewater treatment plant bypasses pose “significant threat” to the river of “acute and immediate impairment to water quality”. In 2004 there were over 70 spills in the Grand River, most of which were from wastewater treatment plants of secondary treated water.
Pesticides are not thoroughly tested for. Neither are pathogens or bacteria. No mention is made of testing for pharmaceuticals, petroleum, or other toxins.
The recent discovery of chromatography and spectroscopy technology has made possible testing for more complex chemicals, but the lack of economic resources limits the availability of equipment and staff to do such testing. As well, the knowledge regarding how chemicals exist in combination and in context is incomplete. Recent studies using this technology have shown that wastewater treatment plants “only partially eliminate[d]” antibiotics such as tetracyclines and sulfonamides and are considered “point sources for antibiotic contamination (Yang et al., 2004).
Global change is another vector of large impact upon the system. The continuing trends of urban development and population growth are increasing pressure upon already stressed groundwater supplies. High water use is contributing to lower water quality; this is a local and global trend. As well, increasing water sales to American markets are also placing pressure on many Canadian areas, such as nearby Guelph, which is considering building a freshwater pipeline to the stateside market.
2.2 Region of Waterloo: Conclusions
The Region of Waterloo operates a very large water supply and treatment system. This system is leading to groundwater contamination and depletion in the area. Concurrently, pollution and contamination levels are rising. A major limitation is our lack of capacity to test for many contaminants: the time, man-power, technology, and research have not been funded yet. Of our known pollution, it is wastewater treatment plants that pose the highest threat to the health of the Grand River.
3.0 Alternatives: Towards Sustainability
Clean water is necessary for life; not only is it a prerequisite for human life but planetary health depends on it. We are polluting water at a rate higher than natural planetary processes can purify it. As a result “nearly all surface water bodies within and near urban-industrial centers are now highly polluted” (Biswas, 2005). According to Biswas a water crisis might occur, but not for a lack of water, but because of failing water quality, and insufficient for water treatment technology. Large, high-tech, treatment plants have a high cost and large ecological footprint. They require a high energy input to construct and to maintain. Especially for developing nations, which is most of the global population, currently insufficient investment is available for the treatment facilities necessary to maintain a high quality water supply (Biswas, 2005).
While some argue that large, high-technology systems hold the most hope for the task of cleaning our ever-increasing load of polluted water, many will argue that biological systems are more affordable, and truly sustainable. The success of a wastewater treatment system is dependant on how well the system functions as a whole and within its environment. It must be suited to the bioregion and to the community.
A sustainable treatment process must be: a viable economic investment for a community in both the developed and developing worlds; of mutual benefit to the community and the ecosystem; provide habitat for biodiversity; and be designed for flexibility in its long term biological functioning.
3.1 Alternative Solutions
Alternative methods do exist. If, to begin with, human feces and urine (blackwater) and washing water (greywater) are allowed to remain separate, our task of maintaining a clean water supply and cleaning dirtied water is greatly eased. Feces and urine are both very high nitrogen sources, a requisite of all soil and plant processes. Composting human waste before returning it to the fields is an ancient practice, and currently being cautiously used in the Waterloo Region (Region of Waterloo, 2006b). Saying goodbye to the flush toilet has the dual effect of conserving water while greatly reducing the toxicity of the municipal water treatment load.
Many methods exist for the cleaning of water. The following is a list of techniques and the vector they are effective in. Often, these methods are used in combination with another.
Table 1. Techniques, method, and results for water cleaning strategies.
Adapted from Adin and Asanno, 1998, except for * taken from Bononomo et al, 1997.
Technique Method Results
Aerobic bioactivity metabolism by bacteria removal of organic matter
Oxidation pond: aeration and sunlight reduce solids, BOD, coliforms, bacterial,
and ammonia
activated carbon physical adsorbtion removals hydrophobic, and organic
compounds
lime treatment precipitate metals softens and disinfects
from solution using lime
reverse osmosis pressure membrane removes salts, and pathogens
UV radiation ultraviolet exposure disinfects, purifies
duckweed * removes organic cleans, denitrifies
3.1.1 Greywater Systems
Two trends in greywater systems currently prevail, roughly categorized as the constructed wetland and a Living Machine (patented). A constructed wetland is an outdoor system that uses soil, water, plants, and microorganisms to purify water mimicking the natural wetland system (Magmedov, 2003). A Living Machine is primarily an indoor system constructed of a series of tanks each containing a different mini-ecosystem which function together to clean water in up to four days (Wolovitz, 2000). Both systems cultivate water-cleaning microorganisms through accentuation of habitat.
A constructed wetland is based on the ecology of a natural wetland. They generally consist of multiple beds containing media, such as sand, soil and gravel, planted with aquatic plants, such as cattails, bulrushes, reeds, and sedges. Multiple mediums of varying diameters are critical for cultivating quantity and diversity of microorganisms, as is a diversity of plants. Plant roots provide habitat and the carbon necessary for microorganisms to denitrify water. Often systems will incorporate vertical and horizontal flows to increase aerobic activity.
The following list is a few of the many research projects containing elements that might successfully be integrated into a sustainable, community water treatment system:
- Vertical Flow Constructed Wetlands (Kantawanichkul et al., 1999). Researchers in Thailand are using constructed tanks filled with gravel and planted with grasses or papyrus, and vertical flow to filter water from Chang Mai University; results show coliform removal was 99.9% and overall 90% removal efficiencies even when in high flow.
- Constructed Wetlands for Cold Climates (Smith et al., 2006). Researchers in Atlantic Canada have run dairy wastewater through a constructed wetland year-round to determine that, with continuous and steady hydrolic flows, and with mulch and snow for insulation, biological activity can remain high enough to remove 62%-99%.
-Duckweed Wastewater Treatment ponds (Bonomo et al, 1997): Italian researchers concluded that while cold winters limited this method, otherwise results proved high cleaning efficiency and high production of biomass and habitat.
Living Machines were created and patented by John and Nancy Todd of the Ocean Arks Institute. These systems involve a set of connected tanks containing complete aquatic ecosystems, providing habitat for a diversity of beneficial bacteria indoor environments to clean greywater. In these systems, the water is first collected and held in a closed anaerobic environment and treated to anaerobic decomposition for about three days; the water then is transferred to a closed aerobic tank, where it is aerated and allowed to off-gas. From there, the water is run through a series of tanks housing aquatic ecosystems of varying depths and species; these tanks are designed to maximize surface area to house high beneficial bacterial population.
The Living Machine at Findhorn, Scotland was designed in 1993 and serves approximately 300 people per day. It lives in a 10m x 30m greenhouse, and takes approximately 8 days to clean water (Findhorn, 2005). Living Machine systems are currently used in the Toronto Body Shop bottling plant, at Ben & Jerry’s headquarters, and a number of other high profile locations.
3.2 Vision of the Ideal: the Community Greywater Garden
Water, food production, humans, and human waste are a connected system. Currently this system is primarily fueled by petroleum at every stage, and heavily dependant on water subsidies. Regardless of the remaining quantity of available oil, the high environmental and economic costs will likely necessitate that we produce and maintain the majority of our basic resource in our own bioregions. History is revealing a lack of efficiency in centralized systems. Scientists, philosophers, activists, even theologians are calling for an urgent shift to bioregionalism (see Thomas Berry, Jane Jacobs, David Suzuki). If we look at the impressive new bodies of knowledge collected through systems theory, community development, and permaculture, then the idea of mimicking natural systems, using the pattern of systems nesting within systems, becomes imperative (see Fritof Capra, Donnella Meadows, David Holgrem).
Water and food are linked; everything needs water to grow, clean, to digest, and cook. Both plant growth and water cleansing occurs through bacterial action. Becoming more aware of these processes, so to create responsible, efficient and healthy food and water production is imperative. Linking these systems at a home, community, and watershed level is necessary. An entire social, system shift is necessary to accompany these structural changes to our living patterns.
For the city of Cambridge, Galt in particular, I imagine three or four large, community managed, water treatment centers. Consisting of multiple constructed wetland systems, multiple Living Machine systems, compost areas, and systems for specific contaminations, a variety of local bacteria, fungi, ecosystems, and knowledge can be cultivated there. These centers can process any water that has no other system, process heavily contaminated waters, and supply biological and intellectual resources. These local water treatment centers have the dual function of water treatment and nursery centers, supplying appropriate and adapted varietals of the micro and macro organisms necessary to create home greywater systems. The community level systems could create a level of knowledge sharing within the watershed, and cross-watersheds.
As water becomes a more lucrative resource, more households and communities will want to, and need to, reuse water. Clean water is preferable. In some cases, households will want to have a garden, thereby having the knowledge, energy, feasibility and desire to maintain a greywater system. They might have their own system of rainwater collection, water storage, water cleaning, and food creation. In other cases, groups of dwellings will chose to share the chores of garden and water system. Ideally, the community would care for both indoor and outdoor systems; especially in a climate with a more severe winter, a greenhouse with a LM would cleans water much quicker, contribute to winter food production, and could provide a great community space for the winter months. Good design, with close attention to the particular ecology, community, and local needs, will be specific to the site and context.
3.4 Alternatives: Conclusions
Globally, we are polluting our water at a rate faster than natural process can clean it. Conventional wastewater treatments plants are expensive, have a large ecological footprint, and, as revealed by studies of the Grand River, they create the most known pollution. Current research stresses the need for more efficient water treatment, and attention to water quality. Knowing that investment for new, expensive WWTPs is not always available, sustainability must be defined as economically viable for both developed and developing communities, consisting of a small ecological footprint, of mutual benefit to the community and local ecosystems, fostering biodiversity, and designed for flexibility in its long term functioning.
By keeping separate our greywater from blackwater, we greatly increase our capacity to efficiently clean water. Greywater systems have been created on a many scales, both indoor and outdoor, in warm and cold climates. Constructed wetlands are usually for outdoor application and can be designed for varying scale and climate. Living Machines are a patented design from Ocean Arks Institute have been functioning successfully in a number of indoor locations for over ten years.
Ideally, while still subsidized by inexpensive energy sources, we begin to shift WWTPs to using biological systems. WWTPs can cultivate locally adapted and effective species for greywater treatment, functioning as both treatment plant and nursery. The community can then support the building of more indoor and outdoor greywater systems of varying scales, for households and communities, facilitating greater water re-use with less embodied energy.
4.0 Side Effects
The effects of the implementation of an integrated system of bioregional food production and biological water treatment both creates and necessitates a complete social, cultural, and ontological shift. This shift is being widely called for throughout the peace movement ( see Thomas Berry, David Suzuki, Derrick Jensen). If one looks only at the economic vector, such a shift is inconceivable and unprofitable. However, if one looks at the effects of such an integrated system on local biodiversity, global and community health – physically, socially, and spiritually-, as well as food and water quality, a positive relationship of mutual enhancement is found.
Some possible side effects might include an increase in biodiversity as habitat is created, increasing air quality, an increase in groundwater quality and recharge, deepening sense of community pride, deeper understanding of biological process, an increase of knowledge regarding biological process capable of decomposing the residues of chemical era, etc. Side effects would likely also include an increase in local food productions, which would affect the local economy and employment. The effects of such a systems on the planet, humans and non-humans would be overwhelmingly positive if one deems biodiversity and life as positive.
The greatest challenge to this proposition is creating a social movement towards saying goodbye to the flush toilet. This idea is incomprehensible to most. From this perspective the greatest resistance would be met. The implications of such a move would be mass water conservation as well as much less water contamination. It is possible, indeed likely, that tertiary industries would be created to process and recycle the composting of human waste.
As stated, looking through the economic vector such a system is not plausible; indeed, it is problematic. Such self-sufficient, ecological models of local production do not fit profitably in current economic frameworks.
From a short-term perspective, it is possible that the transition of WWTPs from conventional to ecological models could provide job opportunities in research, and community education. Community design processes could greatly help ameliorate the shifting economic patterns. It is in the transition from our current economic system to an ecological system that possible negative side effects lie, as it is uncertain that the transition will occur without crises. Indeed, if we can shift to a network of resilient, locally adapted, flexible systems with built-in redundancy, while subsidized by petroleum energy, maintaining our water quality would be more likely, and fostering of sustainable community development could be supported.
5.0 Conclusions
The Region of Waterloo supplies water to nearly half a million people from 126 wells, and treats the wastewater in seven main WWTPs. This is resulting in the depletion and contamination of groundwater. As well, the watershed is becoming increasingly polluted from urban and agricultural runoff, as well as from pharmaceuticals in municipal discharge. The greatest known damage is occurring from spills from the municipal WWTPs. The current organization responsible for testing the Grand River’s water quality is not equipped with the necessary equipment to test for presence of quantity of many known contaminants.
The first step in improving water quality is keeping solid waste separate from wastewater. Greywater can be treated much more safely and easily than blackwater. Methods alternative to convention are being explored in both the scientific and sustainability communities. Constructed wetland systems are receiving much scientific attention currently, and have shown the most positive results in warm, though strategies are being studied for cool climates. Living Machines are a patented design from Ocean Arks Institute; they are for indoor or greenhouse application and have been successfully installed in a number of high-use, high-visibility commercial locations. Both systems rely on biological processes to cleanse water of toxins and impurities.
Natural systems have the capacity for self-organization, self-repair, self-reproduction, and a great ability to adapt thereby fitting our definition of sustainable. By first creating a nursery and research site in our municipal WWTPs and using a community design process, we can create a network of systems that function in to create food and community while cleaning our water for reuse.
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