October 6, 2009
Crow Planet by Lyanda Lynn Haupt is a wonderful exploration into the everyday connections between human and wild. Even in suburban and urban landscapes, we are surrounded by wild life in all its forms: spiders, bugs, mammals, and birds. Birds are Haupt's speciality, her love, and during one difficult patch in her life, her anchor. The persistence of one crow brought her back to attention, back to the world outside herself, and back to the naturalist she was born to be. We may not all have our own "crow story" as Haupt says, but after this book, we should all be grateful to that one crow which set Haupt on the path to this glorious book.
Haupt is an engaging and ardent writer, and although I may not find all her analogies and conclusions persuasive, there is no denying the power of her wit, her intelligence, and her sincerity. It is the fact of her open eyes paired with an open mind that really drew me, finally won me over as an avid (and avian) admirer and committed follower. Follower to what? To her open call that we connect with the wild world around us, not only to save ourselves, but to save the world: "everything we do matters, and matters wondrously."
Taking crows in her own yard as the cue to examine her life and the current state of the world, Haupt makes adept connections between crow behaviors and our human ones, and between our actions and the impacts of those actions on the world around us. Crows thrive on the ecological havoc we create in building outwards, taking over more and more wild spaces and through our localized actions that affect faraway places: crows like human populations and all the detritus we leave behind us, everything from road kill to garbage to vegetable patches, and crows can adapt to climate changes, living from the subsahara to the arctic.
Haupt not only wants us to see the connections she sees, but much, much more, she wants us to make our own connections, and from those connections to take responsibility for the earth. And she wants us to do it now: we are at a point in time "when our collective actions over the next several years will decide whether earthly life will continue its descent into ecological ruin and death or flourish in beauty and diversity." By taking responsibility for educating ourselves, we are taking a step in the direction of responsibility for the planet: "This is why the attentive inhabiting of our home place matters so immensely. As we become increasingly aware that our actions are always entwined with the creatures and rhythms that constitute the natural world, we begin to cultivate that outward sensibility, from our homes to the farthest-flung secret wilds and back again."
Haupt offers a guide for starting on the road of observation and connection: Study ("select a subject, obtain a proper field guide, study it well, and you will see more than you ever have of your chosen subject -- and more than that besides"; Name things ("Names have meanings beyond themselves, carrying, curiously, more weight than other words do. It is like the difference between knowing and not knowing our neighbor's names"); Practice and have patience ("we are acquiring new skills, however slowly"); Respect the wilderness of animals ("paying attention to the line between intimate observation and overstepping"); Cultivate an obsession ("It leads to more knowledge than hapless wandering about can, and rather than narrowing the creative response, it seems, somehow, to mysteriously expand it"); Carry a notebook ("Writing is a way of seeing"); Mind the gadgetry ("we do not need to go shopping to watch birds"); Maintain a field trip mentality ("When does the field trip begin? Whenever we start paying attention"); Make time for solitude ("we watch differently, and essentially, when alone"); Stand in lineage, and with a sense of purpose ("We join the 'cloud of witnesses' who refuse to let the more-than-human world pass unnoticed").
Haupt offers these maxims as a guide as a starting point for would-be naturalists, those taking up her call to get outside of our homes and see what our urban or suburban landscape offers and to really observe and struggle to understand and know what we see. But what struck me so profoundly as I read her list of rules is that every single one of them are equally applicable to the every day living of our lives, and will elevate living to a higher level of connection and of joy. Read on and excuse the preachiness but I do think Haupt is on to something here:
Study? Yes, study the world around you, read books of fiction and non-fiction and relate what you read to how you live. Name things? Know your neighbors' names and your bus driver's, your dry cleaner's, your coffee lady's. Remember to use the names of friends and family, looking them in the eye and acknowledging them, connecting with them. Practice and have patience? We give up too easily when we fail at something. Try again and again and again, and you can get further than you thought: it is not the achievement that matters most but the process of pushing yourself. Respect the wilderness of animals? And of humans: be close and observant and available but not intrusive or bossy or gossipy (gossip crosses many lines of intimacy, none of them to good affect). Cultivate an obsession? The most vibrant people I know go through obsessive phases of study or physical endeavor or recreational occupation, and share their energy with everyone around them. Carry a notebook? Keeping a journal of special moments or encountered beauty will help you remember those times when you need the comfort of their memory. Mind the gadgetry? No, you do not need a new television or iPod or cell phone. Maintain a field trip mentality? Yes, pay attention and you will have more fun, even on the mundane trips to the grocery store. Make time for solitude? Spending time alone allows you to relax completely, without outside judgment or others' needs to be filled or any requirement of civility at all. Be wild on your own and enjoy. Stand in lineage and with a sense of purpose? Yes, join the ranks of those who live engaged and connected and observant, some of whom are famous (Walt Whitman, Benjamin Franklin, Emily Dickinson -- you don't have to be social to be connected, Jane Goodall) but most are not, while all are rewarded with a special understanding of joy.
In Crow Planet, Haupt's concern is not so much personal fulfillment as personal commitment to the world around us. In the final chapter she approaches the question of hope: what hope can we have for a planet under such daily and infernal assault? She answers the question resoundingly: "I choose to dwell...in possibility, where we cannot predict what will happen but we make space for it, whatever it is, and realize that our participation has value. This is a grown-up optimism, where our bondedness with the rest of creation, a sense of profound interaction and a belief in our shared ingenuity give meaning to our lives and actions on behalf of the more-than-human world."
Reading the wonderful Crow Planet will bring a solid acquaintance with crows and a warm acquaintance with Haupt, and should inspire within all its readers the commitment to connect and engage with the world, wild or not. From that commitment can arise the hope of saving our planet, and the understanding to make it so.
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