Seasons of Life

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=160 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="06aa0c00dduajq.png"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="lives_and_places.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lives and Places: An Invitation to Envir"><U>Home</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writing_your_life_in_place.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Writing Your Life in Place"><U>Writing Your Life in Place</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="resources.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Resources"><U>Resources</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I><B>Facing the Change: Citizens Respond to Global Warming</B></I><I><B>:</B></I><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Lucida Handwriting" ><I> </I></FONT></div> <div> <B>An Invitation to Environmental Autobiography</B></div> <bR> <div> Writing Your Life in Place</div> <bR> <div> <I>Seasons of life: Environmental experiences across the life-course</I><I> <A NAME="back_to_top"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></I></div> <bR> <div> I have developed writing exercises based on these topics both in adult education and in college settings, both as an approach to writing autobiography and as a way to engage certain issues of environmental experience and value. Each topic suggests both a <B>life-period</B> and a <B>theme; </B>the progression of life-periods is of course particularly relevant for autobiography, but you can also chuck the life-course framework and use the themes and questions for first-person environmental writing (in the teaching context, it's especially good if you can pair these personal themes with the historical or philosophical themes of the larger course content). I would encourage you to mix and match these ideas, and develop them into larger assignments, in whatever ways seem most useful for your own writing and teaching! Note also that most of these topics involve attending to the built and social/familial environments as well as to the natural world; you may of course emphasize whatever aspect is most relevant for your own teaching, writing, and living.</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#1__before_you_were_born_your_family_s" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>1. Before you were born: Your family's environmental history</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#2__early_childhood_people_nature_and" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>2. Early childhood: People, nature, and places</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#3__adolescence_the_underside_places" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>3. Adolescence: The underside: places of danger, pain, and fear</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#4__teenage_years_private_spaces_and" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>4. Teenage years: Private spaces and public faces</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#5__late_teenageearly_adulthood" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>5. Late teenage/early adulthood: Leaving home and coming somewhere new</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#6__adulthood_home_and_home_making" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>6. Adulthood: Home and home-making</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#7__adulthood_work" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>7. Adulthood: Work</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#8__adulthood_away_from_home___travel" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>8. Adulthood: Away from home - travel and familiar places</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#9__outer_destruction_and_inner_renewal" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>9. Outer destruction and inner renewal</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#10__your_future_what_do_you_most_want" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U><B>10. Your future: What do you most want in this world? </B></U></A></div> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="1__before_you_were_born_your_family_s"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>1. Before you were born: Your family's environmental history</B></div> <div>      Where do you come from? As part of answering this question, think back to where your family comes from - geographically, culturally, socially - and the patterns of environmental belief, experience, and action that have shaped your family over the past 100 years (or as far back as you can find out). How did your forebears live on the land? What places were important in establishing family identity and continuity? What values and goals did your ancestors bring to their natural and built surroundings? Do you have any continuing connection to the places of your family past? Can you see the influence of your familial legacy in your present environmental choices, beliefs, realities, and dreams? </div> <div>  <A NAME="2__early_childhood_people_nature_and"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>2. Early childhood: People, nature, and places</B></div> <div>      Describe a particular place that was important to you during early childhood (under age 10, if possible), with as much detail and specificity as you can (including your thoughts and feelings about the place). Pay particular attention to the interactions between people, natural places and beings, and the built environment (perhaps most often home) in your childhood creation of a sense of place. How did that place help create and unify - or, destroy and disintegrate - your family and your personal identity? To what extent were you drawn to nature itself, on its own terms? To what extent was nature an important element in your family and social life? As an adult, what feelings come over you when you reflect upon your childhood experiences of place and nature? Do you ever return to those places? Have any of your childhood places been destroyed by sprawl, pollution, etc.? What feelings and insights does that provoke?</div> <div>  <A NAME="3__adolescence_the_underside_places"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>3. Adolescence: The underside: places of danger, pain, and fear</B></div> <div>      Describe in as much detail as you can a specific place, thing, or incident that you experienced with feelings of terror, fear, anger, or revulsion, age 10-15. From where did this danger come - the natural world itself, the built environment, other people, or your own emotions/psyche? How did you respond to the presence of danger or evil in your world? How did such experiences affect your attitudes towards other people, the built environment, the natural world - or yourself? </div> <div>  <A NAME="4__teenage_years_private_spaces_and"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>4. Teenage years: Private spaces and public faces</B></div> <div>      Describe two places of your high school years: (1) a private (though not necessarily solitary) place in which you felt most yourself, perhaps in which you first began to realize you were an independent person - a special place in nature, a place of individual work or athletic activity, etc.; and (2) a public place, in which your relationships to family, friends, or society shaped much of the meaning and color of your experiences, persona, and activity in that place. How did the sometimes-conflicting elements of individuality and social connection shape your evolving relationship with your environment?</div> <div> <B> <A NAME="5__late_teenageearly_adulthood"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>5. Late teenage/early adulthood: Leaving home and coming somewhere new</B></div> <div>      Describe the first time you left home, and what it was like to come to a new place "on your own." [For many students, this may refer to leaving home for college.]. At that time in your life, what aspects of your family home most held you or repelled you? How did this shape your decision as to where you would move next - or the way in which you approached and settled into that place? What modes of activity - physical, intellectual, imaginative, or social - helped you explore, understand, or feel safe and alive in this new place? What about the new place blew you open? Did a relationship with nature play a role in the transition? How did this experience change how you felt toward your familial home? </div> <div>   <A NAME="6__adulthood_home_and_home_making"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>6. Adulthood: Home and home-making</B></div> <div>      Describe your present living situation, or a previous living situation that was especially important to you in adulthood. Does/did this place feel like home? If so, why?  In particular, think about the process - the choices, luck, actions, and dreams - by which a place comes to feel like a home; did it feel that way at the start, or only after much time and effort? How did the sort of "home-ness" that you feel/felt in that place compare with how you felt about home as a child - or with what you had always dreamed a home would/should feel like? If that living arrangement doesn't/didn't feel like home, why not? Did/do you feel that as a loss or lack? What is the place(s) of nature in your domestic life and everyday activities? How do your lifestyle, consumption choices, and work or recreational activities affect the natural world? </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="7__adulthood_work"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>7. Adulthood: Work</B></div> <div>      Begin with a quick review of your work history (including youthful, temporary, or unpaid employment), paying special attention to the physical environment and geographical location of each job (including immediate environment, access to nature/outside, social environment, and local setting). Reflecting upon common characteristics of your past workplaces, delve also into the feelings associated with each place, especially feelings of energy, empowerment, challenge, and fulfillment: What type of work environment is most stimulating to you? In what settings are you most productive? What work activities and places have felt most fulfilling and meaningful to you? How do you feel in your present workplace - what do you love, what might you want to change about the setting and location of your present work? Going beyond the immediate worlkplace, think about the ways in which your concrete work activities affect the larger world - socially, economically, and environmentally. </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="8__adulthood_away_from_home___travel"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>8. Adulthood: Away from home - travel and familiar places</B></div> <div>      Reflect upon your adult modes of experiencing the world away from home, of escaping or gaining a different perspective on the usual patterns of everyday life. When you want to "get away," do you usually find yourself wanting to travel somewhere new and adventurous, to explore new parts of yourself and of the world? Or do you find yourself returning to the same special place year after year, perhaps at the same time of year, becoming gradually more familiar with and connected to that particular place? In either case, how do you perceive the world, especially the natural world? Do you seem to have struck a fruitful balance between traveling to new places and returning to familiar places? How do your choices and activities affect the ecology of the places you visit? </div> <div>  <A NAME="9__outer_destruction_and_inner_renewal"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>9. Outer destruction and inner renewal</B></div> <div>      (a) Describe some particular experience, from any period of life, that has brought you face-to-face with either environmental destruction or death in nature. What were the causes of this destruction or death? Were you implicated personally? Putting aside for the moment the usual demands to "save the planet," let's take some time to explore and honor the feelings and confusion that arise from such experiences of death and destruction. How can we start to combat the despair or paralysis that often arise when faced with such issues? </div> <div>      (b) Describe what you would consider a spiritual connection to nature, focusing on an actual experience that you have had, from any time of life. Pay attention both to how you thought and felt in that situation <U>and</U> to what it was about that natural place that brought about or supported the spiritual experience. How do you understand the larger powers of the world, whether natural or religious? How do your experiences of nature help you feel connected to your spiritual roots?</div> <div>  <A NAME="10__your_future_what_do_you_most_want"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>10. Your future: What do you most want in this world? </B></div> <div>      Reflecting back over the sorts of issues mentioned above, ask yourself: Am I happy with my present patterns of experiencing and living in the physical environment? What types of experiences and relationships do I want more of - settling down or getting away, newness or familiarity, time in nature or time in the city, etc.? Are there any particular areas you want to work on more - particular places or natural beings you want to spend more time with, particular areas of knowledge relating to the environment (science, art, history, etc.) that you want to delve into further, particular actions in the human realm (from gardening to becoming an environmental activist) that you want to do more of? What are your dreams for the future as far as your relationship with special places and with the natural world as a whole? </div> <bR> <div> <I>Copyright (c) 2006 Steven Pavlos Holmes</I></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#back_to_top" TITLE="Seasons of Life"><U>Back to Top</U></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>