Reflections on Issue Twenty
Blanket of Winter
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Thank you to everyone who had a chance to read Issue Twenty over the past week. For those who have yet to read it, the reflections from other readers below may be a good starting point, or you can read “Blanket of Winter” first.
The Understory reflections between issues are intended to share thoughtful comments from subscribers that expand upon and challenge parts of the previous issue. While there are only a few comments to share this week, I am grateful for them, as well as the comments that rest within the minds and notations of readers. I’ve heard from multiple subscribers this week—most of whom have never posted comments— assurances of how much they enjoyed the essay. So while I can only share those comments made publicly, I also want to acknowledge the many more that were made silently. If you are one of those and feel so compelled to make your comment available for others to read, I hope you will share it.
I too have been further reflecting on the essay, particularly within the context of the blanket of winter lifting from the southern United States. Lives were lost and hundreds more were poisoned by carbon monoxide as a result of bringing generators and grills indoors in a desperate attempt to stay warm. While some communities are still having to boil water to make it safe to drink, power has been restored and the aftermath of the “polar vortex” is now largely a political and financial one. What are we to interpret and learn from the energy system collapse in Texas about how to keep our communities safe in unprecedented climactic circumstances?
While some leaders have attempted to use renewable energy as a convenient scapegoat for the situation in Texas, scientists have presented data showing it was the failure of natural gas infrastructure, not renewables, that fueled the collapse as shared by Robinson Meyer in The Atlantic and Ezra Klein in The New York Times. The systemic failure of the Texas grid was understandably received with widespread disappointment and anger—not only in underperforming infrastructure, but also in the arrogance of perceived resilience in autonomy. In that remorse is not just a disappointment for the moment, but a broader recognition of the fragility in the very machines we depend upon as our artificial life support systems. As was demonstrated, more often than not, we have no backup.
If winter is the time when stories flourish—to transfer lessons of survival for future winters and other seasons—what are the stories that have been told this winter and those that still need to be? I am reminded of the title that Robert Whittington bestowed upon his friend, Thomas More—a man for all seasons:
“More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.”
The climate crisis requires leaders for all seasons. It remains my sincere hope that other leaders will have been so transformed by this Winter that they too will see the changed reality of our world. That they will recognize our exposed vulnerability due to how we currently inhabit the earth and lead us towards a more sustainable future.
As Shared by Peter Tavernise
“Regarding what we have forgotten, I was completely unaware of the information conveyed in your passages from Rachel Carson about the levels of sea temperature-depth variations in Winter. How marvellous to consider the layers of the ocean rising and falling like blankets of currents, alternating between covering and consolidating the minerals and nutrients, and then stirring them upwards to where they are needed in the spring. The beautiful and intricate Sargasso ecosystem of My Octopus Teacher comes to mind.
Somehow I knew before I even reached the section that you would visit the Windigo. The Accidental Gods podcast I was listening to last night with Manda Scott was retelling this story, in context of the apparent infection of our entire society with this cultural virus. The request was for us to wake up from our somnolence and to become the active agents of our own healing.
On dreaming—I'm resonating with the concept that dreams change with the seasons. My own dreaming has shifted dramatically since last Summer and Fall, when I experienced an incredible outpouring. Even my dreams seem dormant in these months of Winter.”
I went in search of the Windigo reference in Accidental Gods, and serendipitously ended up completely immersed in Episode 58 with Glenn Edney on the sentience of our oceans, some of which will be featured in Issue Twenty-One. Per the point about Rachel Carson and the underwater journeys in My Octopus Teacher, it was clear from Edney’s storytelling how important our somatic relationships are in being able to intimately see and feel. The top-view into the depths of the ocean often creates a deceptive illusion of nothingness below. But just as Carson also described the hibernating insects resting beneath the layer of bark, surfaces invite us to venture inwards rather than perceive externally. The same understanding could be applied to our surfaces of perpetual winter—ice sheets and glaciers.
It is in part by drilling ice cores that we unearth “frozen time capsules” that enable us to understand changes in climate over geological time. These ice cores sample the composition of the atmosphere and climate conditions across hundreds of thousands of years with greenhouse gases, volcanic activity, and solar intensity captured inside. Just as with Carson’s and Edney’s understanding of the ocean, by seeing deeply below the surface, we can better understand the depths of life and the interrelationships that make it possible.
“This issue's tone matches the pace and feel of Winter, and is a great reminder of all we have misplaced (not lost, simply not remembered). ‘Our cultural loss as an industrial society is that we no longer gain meaning from natural surroundings.’ This is that high-context culture Tyson Yunkaporta talks about, as opposed to a conceptual-homogeneous culture. Context is fostered and the way all may best thrive is through strengthening those connections and by increasing diversity.”
Once again, Peter provides a gentle nudge to shift me back into place. Yunkaporta’s writing about high– and low–contexts provides a very useful guide here. Yunkaporta actively resists the term “lost” in a cultural context, because it would represent a complete severing of historical lineage to Ancestors. Instead, he offers that it is “low-context cultures” that are spaces of disconnection from place and community. In his words, “Every Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person carries at least a small piece of our knowledge, no matter how much people may claim to have ‘lost’ culture.”
I enjoyed Yunkaporta’s example of how even in a low-context environment, the high-context way of being creates a kind of invisible distinction in something as basic as how different people shop for groceries:
“Aunty at the supermarket; her experience of shopping is different from the other customers, with family values and a sharing economy embedded in kinship shaping her process of selecting food in those gleaming, regimented aisles. She struggles against the cheerful music promoting individualism, product promotions and strange categories for sections of foods that do not match her extended family’s dietary habits and her honoured role in that process. She holds a map in her mind of the landscape of her loved ones’ cultural nutrition needs, complex and interrelated. And she follows it. This is a methodology unsullied by paper or binary code. There are no exotic feather-encrusted displays and performances associated with this, so it holds no interest for the colonists who consume our culture—it has no economic value— so it remains invisible. And so it remains intact.”
Yunkaporta challenges us to consider what a high-context culture would look and feel like in all its manifestations. Falling short of that (of which most of our modern environments do), we can carry our own deeply connected senses of place and community into low-context environments to retain the cultural connections.
See Peter’s comment in its entirety and add your reflections to his
As Shared by Mitch Taylor
“A timely article that gives us all a wise nudge to look at the winter that surrounds us and see it in a different light. It urged me to make a paradigm shift from looking at Winter as something to overcome, suppress or negate to looking at Winter as nature's own way to recharge, rebuild and ready itself for growth in the coming new year. Winter is a necessary quiet time that we can all use to likewise prepare ourselves for each successive spring. We must acknowledge that we are an integral component of the rhythm of the natural world and embrace it.”
I continue to wonder what it looks like, specifically within an urban context where buildings are specifically designed to insulate us from season effects, to intentionally live within the rhythms of the seasons. Maybe it is in part continuing to live at least part of our days outdoors in the cold, as we would in more comfortable seasons. To fill our tables with food that is harvested during the months we consume it in our own hemisphere, or preserved/frozen from other seasons to be eaten in the hungrier times. To bring plants into our homes not just to protect them from Winter’s bite, but also to continue living amongst other species as we turn more of our days indoors. To rest more often and deeper. And to do what is so antithetical and unavailable in our pandemic moment—to increase our social gatherings to make Winter a richer time of stories.
And then I think of Barry Lopez pitching his tent next to the Thule’s karigi in hopes that ghosts there would enter his dreams. Instead Lopez just found himself dreaming about travel corridors in the land, and returning to his own narratives. He could not rest under the blanket of winter, but rather curl up alongside it. Perhaps, for now, that embrace will be warm enough.
See Mitch’s comment in its entirety and add your reflections to his
I hope this week between issues provides the space for further discovery and reflection. Go forth and make a difference in the week ahead. See you next Saturday with Issue Twenty-One.
Adam
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Why I Write The Understory
We have crossed the climate-change threshold from emerging to urgent, which demands a transformative response. The scale of the issue demands not only continuous focus but also the courage to take bold action. I've found that a persistence of climate consciousness improves resilience to the noise and distractions of daily life in service of a bigger (and most of the time invisible) long-term cause.
The Understory is my way of organizing the natural and human-made curiosities that capture my attention. Within the words, research, and actions of others lies the inspiration for personal and organizational journeys. I hope that my work here will help to inform not just my persistent consciousness, but yours as well.
Thank you, as always, for these fresh perspectives and ways of being.
Responding to Mitch's comments - yes, the invitation is to see Winter for what it is, and thus link ourselves back up to natural rhythms. In Strozzi Somatics, they talk about Awakening, Increasing, Containing, and Completing. Winter can be that time of completion and recharge before we, and the land, awaken again to Spring.