What did you do this summer?

Our local zinnias have fought the good fight... 

バウムクーヘン

Our first drawing prompt in "Religion of Trees" was deliberately unintimidating: tree rings. A piece of cake compared with drawing most leaves, or canopies, let alone root patterns. Better yet, students might work out with their pencil tips the implications of the eloquent account of reading tree rings in the essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer which was one of our texts for the day.

To the untrained eye, the cookie [tree slice] is inscribed with what every school-child recognizes as annual rings in a tree stump. One ring is laid down for every year of growth, each one outside of the next so that the sapling years are in the centre and recent history just under the bark. You can count them up to know how old the tree was when its life was interrupted by someone with a saw. 

To read that story I slide the cookie under my stereomicroscope, at low magnification. What seemed uniform is anything but. Some rings are clear and even like pine floorboards, others wavy and dark. Some as wide as a pencil eraser lie next to a series each year as narrow as a thread. Like the human autobiography, there are good times and bad, years when the rains did not come but the caterpillars did, and spans when all she had to do was stand in the sun and grow like the sky was calling. 

I zoom in further and catch my breath at the beauty of the cells, lined up in continuous files linking young ones to their ancestors in an unbroken lineage. It is strangely moving, an intimate privilege to read a private diary after the death of the writer. This very cell is a word, a day in the life. Unlike the book I am reading, this story is not made of marks on a page which represent a life, the tree has written its story in the life of its own body.

Our drawing sessions are just five minutes long, so I trusted nobody would get bogged down in individual cells, but perhaps they could bear them in mind as they secreted ring after ring with their pencil tips. I'd described the movements of our pencils in our sketches as our class's analog to the work of tree roots. (Reading responses are leaves.) 

Most students produced some version of concentric rings, some aware that almost no tree grows perfectly symmetrically. But two went in an unexpected direction: their tree rings were spirals. "To convey the continuity of life," one explained. Kimmerer had noted that 

The only punctuation comes with winter when the pen is laid down.

but the class nodded enthusiastically. For us one-pointed beings - no mass of meristems are working simultaneously for us, at least as conscious individuals - this use of a single line to generate space and evoke time made a lot of sense.

The image above is tree rings and a piece of sometimes spiral cake: Baumkuchen!

Duty calls

"Theorizing Religion" started yesterday, too, and with a surprise. When we went around the room with introductions, more than half of the 17 present indicated they were Religious Studies minors. (This course is the only requirement for the minor, leading several to quip that they were here because they wanted to be, but also because they had to be.) Terrific news - this is more minors than we've had in a while! But it's also a little confusing. To declare the minor one is supposed to meet with the director, which is me ... but most of these faces were new to me. No worries - we'll be talking now!

We talked a lot about the set of images that have kicked this course off since zoom days, revealing the familiar combination of overflowing curiosity and gaps in religious literacy which animates the course. We have work to do, and even the unexpected minors are up for it!

Squirrel's eye view

First day of classes! 

A little unnervingly, everyone registered for "Religion of Trees" showed up and right on time, though we were in an out-of-the-way classroom with only a most truncated view of any trees. (You can just make out the Lang courtyard maples - if you know to look for them - through the lower window). I promptly sent them off in pairs to Washington Square Park to greet the old English elm, and when they returned we shared a cornucopia of verbal and visual responses, which allowed students to introduce themselves and their interests in a compellingly organic and, well, organic way. So much more interesting than the usual "I'm an nth year majoring in x," a feast of insights and queries from anthropology, botany, literary studies, psychology, art...

The caretakers of the elm took note of this interdisciplinary attention, too. Many students described the tree's resident squirrels. One even told of an encounter with one, as he'd come close to the great trunk and looked up only to find himself being watched. Before the squirrel scampered away, it let him - and so us - understand that, for a squirrel, able to climb and descend at will, "the trunk is a horizon."

Suddenly I remembered that Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse myth, is traversed only by Ratatoskr, a squirrel, who connects the worlds it links bringing messages from the eagles above to the serpents below. 

The squirrel's eye view might be guiding for us this time, mediating between the sessile trees and what Robin Wall Kimmerer, in our first reading, calls our "herky-jerky" animal existence. ("White-Pine," 427)

Back to school

Just in time for the new semester (we begin Monday), my syllabi!

None of the classes is new, having been last taught in Fall 2021, Fall 2022 and Spring 2023, respectively, but all have been more or less significantly updated. Theorizing is incorporating Universe of Terms (auditioned in After Religion last semester), bringing back a section on classic texts (Hume and Schleiermacher, welcome back!) and exploring the inaugural issue of the new journal Queer Trans Religion. After Religion brings in the religion of Earthseed, Islamic feminist environmentalism, Amazonian animism, and the story of the COEXIST bumper sticker. And Religion of Trees, which didn't have a chance to run its full course last time, is kitted out with more botany, two field trips, and "wild card" sessions exploring the gendering and racialization of trees - and how the history of religion has been (mis)represented by tree diagrams; under the guidance of an undergraduate academic fellow we're making a zine, too! 

I"ll keep you posted, not least to help myself keep them distinct.

Tree worshiper

At a welcome event for incoming students:

STUDENT: 

Oh, you're the one teaching the class on worship of trees! 

ME: 

It's not worship of trees. It's "religion of trees."

STUDENT: 

But that's what it means, right?

I think trees are totally worthy of worship!

ME: 

All trees?

STUDENT: 

I like the idea of a giant tree that connects everything. That's a thing, isn't it? And old trees are so amazing. I saw some redwoods once...

ME (gesturing to the trees in the courtyard) 

Do you feel that connection in those trees?

STUDENT (not looking at them):

I guess. Have you heard how trees communicate

with each other through fungi?

ME: 

I have.

STUDENT: 

Your class was my second choice, but sadly I didn't get in.

ME: 

Sorry to hear that.

Don't trust anything it says

Our provost's office has sent around suggestions for responsible integration of generative AI into classes, with some sample language for syllabi. I quite like these, from courses at the University of Pennsylvania:

You may use AI programs e.g. ChatGPT to help generate ideas and brainstorm. However, you should note that the material generated by these programs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise problematic. Beware that use may also stifle your own independent thinking and creativity. You may not submit any work generated by an AI program as your own. If you include material generated by an AI program, it should be cited like any other reference material (with due consideration for the quality of the reference, which may be poor). Any plagiarism or other form of cheating will be dealt with severely under relevant Penn policies. 

That's from a class on bioethics and the law. An entrepreneurship class is even more gung-ho:

I expect you to use AI (ChatGPT and image generation tools, at a minimum), in this class. In fact, some assignments will require it. Learning to use AI is an emerging skill, and I provide tutorials in Canvas about how to use them. I am happy to meet and help with these tools during office hours or after class. Be aware of the limits of ChatGPT: 

• If you provide minimum effort prompts, you will get low quality results. You will need to refine your prompts in order to get good outcomes. This will take work. 

• Don’t trust anything it says. If it gives you a number or fact, assume it is wrong unless you either know the answer or can check in with another source. You will be responsible for any errors or omissions provided by the tool. It works best for topics you understand. 

• AI is a tool, but one that you need to acknowledge using. Please include a paragraph at the end of any assignment that uses AI explaining what you used the AI for and what prompts you used to get the results. Failure to do so is in violation of the academic honesty policies. 

Be thoughtful about when this tool is useful. Don’t use it if it isn’t appropriate for the case or circumstance.

I'm sure ChatGPT will come up in my classes, but the kind of work demanded in a seminar makes it less of a threat than for some other kinds of instruction. It came up when I was talking with the TAs for my upcoming lecture course "After Religion" today, too. Since the opening and closing assignments either ask them to reflect on personal experiences or work in a creative medium to articulate a personal vision, ChatGPT will be of limited use. The more bookish midterm essay prompts are specifically about very specific readings in juxtaposition, so ChatGPT may draw a blank there too. 

But there is one assignment where I though ChatGPT might sneak in, and maybe to the good: a 3-minute video on a contemporary movement or phenomenon of interest to the students, an assignment included as much for the benefit of the class - so they become aware of a variety of topics - as for the individual students. Though they'll still have to generate the content and narrate it, it's an obvious case where ChatGPT might promise to help.

I just confirmed it, asking "Write me a three-minute presentation on Vale do Amanhecer" (the example I offer in class for this assignment) and receiving an effective presentation in nine paragraphs, each with a title - just right for a ppt. Students in a hurry often have a hard time distinguishing minor details from major factors, and I've found student presentations consistently weak on providing enough framing context to help their audiences engage what they're talking about. ChatGPT's blandly competent format would be better for the class.

I'm not about to let students bypass research, though. Remember: 

• Don’t trust anything it says. If it gives you a number or fact, assume it is wrong unless you either know the answer or can check in with another source. You will be responsible for any errors or omissions provided by the tool. It works best for topics you understand. 

And presumably the topics they choose will be ones they have ideas or questions about, if not yet understanding. Could this perhaps motivate meaningful research and reflective work after all, as well as more user-friendly presentations?

Hey, I've just done something recommended in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Instead of ignoring it or trying to forbid it, try to find ways of using generative AI in your field or course in a meaningful way. As promised, seeing what it can and can't do in a setting I understand offers a new vista for assignments. 

Decomposition

Fungi at the base of one of the clutch of leafless red maples in the Lang courtyard grove, definitely not a good sign.

SAN --> JFK

Hilary

Sunset

 Calm before the storm

Hilary Tracker

Speeding up and hitting land sooner (from Accuweather's Hilary Tracker)

Dew art

Hilary

Hurricanes and tropical storms don't usually come anywhere near Baja or Alta California, but evidently nobody told Hilary.

Wallking on sunshine

Orchard rows

Back through the Central Valley on our way back to San Diego.

Vertigo

A friend took us on a quick overnight trip to San Francisco, where he used to live. The city's roller coaster topography was especially gripping as we zipped about in his Cooper Mini; my heart is still in my mouth from going over the precipice of Leavenworth! But what most gripped me was the Palace of Fine Arts, which I'd not visited before, perhaps because my view of the city is shaped in ways I hadn't realized by Alfred Hitchcock's film "Vertigo" (but we did also just go to Big Basin Redwoods).  It's a weird place. 

Constructed in plaster and wood for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, architect Bernard Maybeck "designed [it] to evoke the sadness and beauty of looking at a Roman ruin." He might have planned it before the great earthquake of 1906, but the strange statues  

of weeping women, their backs to us, their heads and arms hidden, will have had special resonance then. The place was rebuilt in steel and concrete in the 1960s, and now looking more like Roman ruins   

than ever. But what made it increasingly uncanny was the nature around it. This included huge spiky-leaved plants with alien-looking seedpods (giant rhubarb?), red-eared slider turtles, and an overgrown island full of predatory birds (great blue and black-crowned herons) poised to pounce. Very creepy! 

What does Kim Novak's character in "Vertigo," channeling a ghost and pointing to a redwood section, say? Here I was born, and there I died.

Sempervivens?

Today we visited Big Basin Redwoods State Park, which was devastated by a wildfire in 2020 this month. At the time, it seemed the first time 

famously fireproof California redwoods had fallen prey to fire, but three years on most of the trees are apparently recovering! 

The weather was gorgeous, all the new growth radiantly green - but you're not supposed to be seeing more than the occasional patch of blue sky in a coast redwood forest. A ranger suggested we go to nearby Henry Cowell State Park to see what Big Basin looked like and - perhaps in several decades - will look like again.

It was probably wise to see these parks in this sequence... Meanwhile, giant sequioas caught in recent fires have not been as lucky.

Agribusiness

Road trip! Up through California's Central Valley, where tomato truckers race and almond orchards wither, to the Bay Area. 

Lush

Hummingbird channels Henri Rousseau at my parents’ house

UAP

Noticed an orb-weaver apparently suspended in mid-air at dusk, and after dark discovered it had woven a web, tethered to the Torrey 

Pine on one side, the edge of the roof, twenty feet away, away on the other - presumably it let the wind from the ocean blow it up there.

Flourish

A delightful curlicue epiphyte at the San Diego Botanical Garden.

Kingdom of predation

I asked ChatGPT to write a description of a swamp white oak in the style of annie dillard's "pilgrim at tinker creek."

In the quiet realm of the wetlands, where time trickles like honeyed water and the chorus of nature's creatures harmonizes in perpetual symphony, there stands a singular sentinel of grace and resilience: the Swamp White Oak. Annie Dillard herself might have found her heart stirred by the intricate dance of life that this arboreal marvel invites us to witness.

Picture, if you will, a gnarled and ancient oak tree, its trunk wrapped in a weathered tapestry of time, etched with the stories of seasons past. The limbs, like the gnarled fingers of an old sage, extend outward in a gesture of wisdom and benevolence. With each gust of wind, the oak's leaves respond like a choir, rustling in harmonious conversation, revealing the music of existence.

But it is not solely the oak's outward form that captures the imagination; it is the hidden world beneath the surface that truly enchants. Its roots, like curious tendrils, delve deep into the rich, damp earth, exploring the hidden mysteries of the swamp's underworld. They intertwine with the secrets of the soil, forging connections with creatures unseen, a symposium of roots and creatures engaged in a silent dialogue that predates human thought.

In the hush of twilight, when the marshland seems to exhale its final breath before the stars emerge, the Swamp White Oak undergoes a transformation. Its leaves, those same leaves that had whispered in daylight, now become a canvas for the artistry of moonlight. Each leaf becomes a delicate vessel for silvered luminescence, reflecting the celestial glow as if the very heavens were painted in miniature.

And so, dear reader, in the heart of the swamp, where life and death intertwine like vines in an intricate dance, the Swamp White Oak stands as a testament to the enduring beauty of the natural world. It beckons us to ponder the interconnectedness of existence, to hear the symphony of leaves and roots, and to embrace the profound and eternal rhythm that pulses through every living thing. Just as Annie Dillard found revelation in the minutiae of Tinker Creek, so too can we find wonder in the humble, majestic Swamp White Oak – a silent witness to the grand tapestry of life.

I wasn't satisfied with this response: Dillard focuses on the violence as well as the beauty of nature, I wrote. ChatGPT turned on a dime:

In the heart of the wild, where beauty and brutality dance an intricate duet under the watchful eye of nature's unyielding gaze, stands the Swamp White Oak - a paradoxical emblem of both splendor and savagery. Annie Dillard's discerning lens would surely have captured the intricate interplay between these contrasting forces that shape the life of this ancient sentinel in the swamp.

Imagine the gnarled visage of the oak tree, its twisted limbs like contorted contenders in a relentless battle for light. These branches, adorned with leaves as delicate as a butterfly's wing, bear scars and wounds inflicted by storms that have raged through the seasons. Dillard's pen would have traced the stories etched upon the oak's rugged bark - tales of survival and resilience, eternally entwined with the primal violence that courses through the veins of existence.

In the mire beneath the oak's roots, a kingdom of predation unfolds with every ripple on the surface of the water. The swamp's murky depths conceal a relentless cycle of life and death, where the struggle for sustenance is both cruel and essential. Amidst the verdant expanse, predators prowl, and prey retreats, forever enacting the primal ballet of survival. Dillard's poetic prose would articulate the rawness of these encounters, finding in them not just brutality, but an inherent order amidst the chaos.

As twilight descends upon the swamp, the Oak's canopy transforms into a stage where shadows and moonlight waltz in intricate choreography. But even in this ethereal display, there is a hint of menace, a reminder that the beauty we adore can cast a shadow that conceals darker truths. In Dillard's voice, the moonlight would become a spotlight on the stage of existence, illuminating not only the grandeur but also the harsh edges that define the boundaries between life and death.

In the brush of wind against leaves, in the rustling underbrush that may herald a predator's approach, Dillard's adept prose would unravel the tension between the serene and the savage. The Swamp White Oak stands as a living testament to the duality of existence - an embodiment of both creation and destruction, tenderness and ferocity. In the spirit of Annie Dillard, we are compelled to not only embrace the beauty of nature's ballet, but to also recognize the dissonance and discord that give it depth and meaning. 

Stunned, I couldn't resist adding: What about the "tree with the lights in it"?

In the midst of the swamp's shadowy embrace, where the pulse of life beats like a heart and the tapestry of existence weaves its intricate threads, stands the enigmatic "tree with the lights in it" - a revelation waiting to be unveiled in the spirit of Annie Dillard's perceptive prose.

Imagine a Swamp White Oak, its gnarled form a testament to the ages it has witnessed. But what sets this oak apart is not just its physicality, but the luminous aura that emanates from its very core. Dillard's words would paint a portrait of this arboreal wonder, a masterpiece fashioned from the dance of light and shadow, beauty and mystique.

As day succumbs to the tender caress of dusk, a metamorphosis takes place. The oak's leaves, bathed in the ethereal glow of moonlight, become iridescent gems, each one radiating a delicate luminescence. These "lights," as Dillard aptly coins them, are not mere reflections but the tree's soul, aglow with a quiet brilliance that speaks of secrets whispered by the universe.

The "tree with the lights in it" becomes a beacon in the obscurity of the swamp, a guiding star for those attuned to the subtleties of nature's rhythms. Dillard's words would unravel the layers of symbolism, delving into the juxtaposition of light against darkness, revealing how even in the murkiest corners of existence, there exists an iridescent magic waiting to be discovered by those who dare to truly see.

In this luminous spectacle, Dillard's prose would echo with the awe and wonder of a seeker standing before a sacred mystery. The tree's illumination becomes a metaphor, a profound reminder that even in the midst of life's trials and tribulations, there exists a luminescent core that defies the encroaching shadows. It speaks to the resilience of the spirit, the undying spark that persists amidst the storms that rage around us.

Annie Dillard's pen, like a brush dipped in moonbeams, would paint a portrait of the "tree with the lights in it" that transcends the tangible and touches the sublime. It would unveil not just a natural phenomenon, but a profound insight into the delicate balance between beauty and enigma, fragility and endurance - a masterpiece that evokes contemplation and reverence in equal measure.

I'm relieved. This is clearly bullshit again, though only readers of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek will know.

White sage

ROM

Some friends took us to a new art center up the Hudson informed by the work of a Japanese abstract painter named Kikuo Saito. He was part of a world of kindred artists, each of whom is represented by one work. We liked this sculpture by William Noland, called "Read Only Memory" (1985-86).

Overview

Our flight to San Diego took an unusual southerly route today, but it offered the familiar story of human interventions in towns and fields, lines and grids and circles, progessively succumbing to the contours of the land.

(The plumes of smoke from distant fires were new.) It did occur to me, though, as I gasped with slow rapture at majestic water patterns etched in even the flattest-seeming of dry terrain, that it's a little incongruous that a child of landscapes like these should be thinking new thoughts the gift of trees. ... Or not!