DisneyNature & Earth Day
Saturday, April 23, 2011 Mikentire 0 Comments Category : Causes , Movies , Nature
Yesterday was Earth Day, Good Friday, and the first day of freedom after finals. Thankfully the weather sensed the ecstasy in the air and responded accordingly. Warm sunlight and gentle floating clouds drifted through the sky. I went on a bike ride, worked with horses up at Mountain Horse Medical Center, and watched DisneyNature’s African Cats. The day couldn’t have been better.
I found it beautifully appropriate that Spring waited until this joyous day to come forth. The trees refused to blossom until classes were out, and the weather wouldn’t cooperate fully until we were liberated from the tyrannies of the classroom. I felt uplifted, inspired by the beauties around me. The sun illuminated the world below in her brightest and fullest colors. The Stream and Trail south of campus, Provo Canyon, and even the eyes of a stabled recovering horse all seemed to glow with the celebration of the world they are a part of.
Emily Dickinson’s poem High From the Earth, I Heard a Bird seemed to be reflective of the general mood of the day:
High from the earth I heard a bird,
He trod upon the trees
As he esteemed them trifles,
And then he spied a breeze,
And situated softly
Upon a pile of wind
Which in a perturbation
Nature had left behind.
A joyous going fellow
I gathered from his talk
Which both of benediction
And badinage partook.
Without apparent burden
I subsequently learned
He was the faithful father
Of a dependent brood.
And this untoward transport
His remedy for care.
A contrast to our respites.
How different we are!
He trod upon the trees
As he esteemed them trifles,
And then he spied a breeze,
And situated softly
Upon a pile of wind
Which in a perturbation
Nature had left behind.
A joyous going fellow
I gathered from his talk
Which both of benediction
And badinage partook.
Without apparent burden
I subsequently learned
He was the faithful father
Of a dependent brood.
And this untoward transport
His remedy for care.
A contrast to our respites.
How different we are!
I felt wonderful. Here on this day we were celebrating the sufferings of our Savior for our sins, the beauty of the natural world around us, and the triumph over another semester of academia. What could possibly make this day better? Trying to make a difference in the world.
Since its inception, I have made it a tradition to see the DisneyNature film of the year each Earth Day. Two years ago DisneyNature produced Earth, a celebration of life that followed the families of a polar bear, a humpback whale, and an African elephant. Last year Oceans debuted and celebrated the beauties of the seas. Each year, a portion of the ticket price for each ticket purchased opening week is donated to making the earth a better place. Earth resulted in the planting of thousands of trees, and Oceans made a substantial donation to the Bahamas Reef Foundation.
This year the film African Cats follows the exploits of a lion pride and a cheetah family. In my opinion it is the most beautiful of the three films so far. The filming is incredible, the narration though clearly anthropomorphized is touching and captivating. African Cats captures the dangers and beauties of birth, life, and death on the African Savannah. Each ticket purchased this year goes to helping the African Wildlife Foundation protect the Amboseli Wildlife Corridor – the migratory route of large herds and the predators that trail them between the Amboseli National Park and the Chyulu and Tsavo West National Parks.
If you weren’t able to see it on Earth Day, or if Earth Day went by uncelebrated, take a chance to go see it now. You can make a difference in this world and the best part is you get to be entertained and amazed while you’re doing it.
Don't Blow It - Good Planets Are Hard To Find
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 Mikentire 0 Comments Category : Causes , Nature
On Saturday I had my final for my Environmental Humanities class. We handed in our papers (mine was awesome and I might put in on here, but haven't decided yet), ate lunch, and shared our student action lists. Dr. Oscarson wanted us to create a list of steps that we could take to live more sustainably. As a student, with nothing it was kind of hard to come up with things I could do. Most of us talked about gardening, composting, recycling, buying local food, and being cautious with transportation. It was nice to be in a class with a group of students who care about the environment. Our readings focused on man's interactions with nature.
Throughout the course we discussed different genres of environmental discourse and read about the philosophies of gardening and ecological restoration. We each sought to "see" as Annie Dillard taught, to
live more in harmony with nature and to not be so restricted by anthropomorphism and words. I loved this class because here at BYU - a school known for its amazing conservative character - there was a group of kids taking a class on Environmental Humanities who are strong enough to see the doctrine of the church and practice it despite the apathy of their fellow schoolmates. We hiked together, read each others papers, and had some amazing discussions. And then at our final, we discussed staying active with the things we were sharing. Our professor is going to contact us in one year to see how we're doing. So today I'm sharing my list with you. Here it is:
1) Hike at least once a month. The Nature Journal I wrote for class really stretched me in that it got me to engage with nature more than I normally do. I love hiking, but somehow I never get around to it. Hiking helps us to connect to the environment and feel grateful to it and responsible for it. I feel at peace when I hike, in tune with nature and God, and it’s good for me.
2) Bike to school. Gasoline is expensive and pollutes the air. And gas mileage in the car I drive is ridiculous so both problems are awful. I got a bike for Christmas, and as the weather has been warming up I’ve discovered that biking to school saves me money and is actually faster than driving. Plus it’s fun, it reminds me of my mission and I get to be outside so it’s just great all around.
3) Buy local produce. I’d really like to have a garden and to compost…but I live in an apartment complex so we’ll start here for now. I think understanding where your food comes from keeps you ground in reality. Getting food from gardens and farmer’s markets contributes to a sense of place and saves on transportation costs. Buy Low has some nice stuff and it labels food when it comes from far away!
4) Continue to read environmental literature. This class provided me with a lot of ideas I hadn’t 
encountered before. Each work we read cites more works that can further expand my connection with environmental humanities. This is important to me because I need to grow and expand in my knowledge and my commitment to environmental issues in order to interact with nature in correct ways.
encountered before. Each work we read cites more works that can further expand my connection with environmental humanities. This is important to me because I need to grow and expand in my knowledge and my commitment to environmental issues in order to interact with nature in correct ways.5) Recycle. Cliché. I know. But as a college student with limited means living in an apartment complex, this is more difficult than it seems. Having volunteered at the Zoo and the Aquarium I hear Reduce, Reuse, Recycle a lot. But then I got to thinking. Reusing isn’t so bad. Reducing isn’t that hard either – I don’t really have that much to begin with. But recycling programs are not provided to me. I have to go above and beyond to find places that will recycle. But there are places for newspaper, paper, boxes, and plastics on campus. I’ve started to save up stuff at home to bring.
6) Establish traditions. Every year I go and see DisneyNature’s film on Earth day. Each year, for every ticket purchased, Disney makes a donation to enhance the earth – from planting trees to saving the reefs. Every year, Earth day is special to me because of this. I want to find other ways to give back to the Earth and make these traditions I carry with me for the rest of my life.
Now I'm committed. There's an old Native American proverb: We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. What are you going to do?
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| The White Swan |
Tonight I watched Black Swan for the first time. It was an interesting film that delved into some fascinating topics and was beautifully and artistically done. Natalie Portman completely deserves her Oscar®. But as much as I love her, she’s not what I want to talk about.
This film is about a dancer who is cast as The Swan Queen in Swan Lake. For those of you who don’t know about the basic plot here it is: This beautiful and naïve virgin is trapped into the body of a swan. Only true love can free her. Unfortunately her prince is seduced by the Black Swan, a seductive twin played by the same dancer. In the end the White Swan only finds freedom in her own suicide.
Natalie’s character Nina, who very much typifies the character of the White Swan, finds herself in the demanding pressure of playing both parts all the while under the overbearing burdens given to her from her director, her mother, and her understudy. In an effort to achieve perfection, Nina loses her mind as she becomes the two characters she so desperately strives to portray – alternating between the innocence and fragility of the White Swan and the seduction and violence of the Black Swan throughout the film. Her schizophrenia causes her to lose herself and give the performance of a lifetime. Even her fading words, “I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect,” convey the completeness of her transformation.
I find the film a beautiful description of what actors and artists really strive to do, though parts of it clearly don’t fit my taste. But I think what is really interesting is the subject of duality that the film breaches. The Black and White Swans live within each of us. And we are acutely aware of the battles they wage inside. Here is why I love the film: Nina’s complete embrace of both the swans as absolute and complete opposites is the destruction of her. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde portrays a similar ruin as Dr. Jekyll releases his darker side out as Mr. Hyde.
King Benjamin taught, “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19)
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| The Black Swan |
It’s easy to see how the complexity of the internal wars that are waged inside of each of us makes its way into so many works of art. Even God has something to say about it. So how are we to deal with all of this? We are literally Children of God living in very real, very carnal bodies. Is there any way that such powerful opposition can be dealt with? Is there any harmony to our being? Thankfully yes. Most of our problems come when we deal solely with one aspect of our dual nature. As we do so we become slaves to passions or pass our lives as hermits in isolation. Neither is what God intended.
We have to remember that He also taught that “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” (D&C 88:15). This union is what makes us happy. The spirit and the body are enriched and taught by one another. There are times for the proper expression of physical desires and appetites. There are other times of spiritual transcendence. But it is the union of these two natures that brings fulfillment. This is why we were sent here to learn and this was one of the lessons our Father intends us to master.
Neither the ignorant naïvety of the White Swan nor the base sensuality of the Black Swan captures who we are. The dichotomy that spirit is good and body is evil is not true either. I hope we never forget that. Because while the embrace of either side or both sides of our duality as separate and extreme can lead to fantastic performances, it will ultimately be our destruction. It is the proper treatment and sanctity for their combination that brings enlightenment. “For the spirit and body are the soul of man.”
Nature Journal: The Living Planet Aquarium
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Mikentire 0 Comments Category : Aquariums
At the beginning of the semester I contemplated what sort of meaningful service I could provide. I had secured a volunteer internship at Mountain Horse Medical Center in Park City and thought for a moment that maybe that could count. But then I realized that I was going to do that anyway: I’m a pre-vet student and I desperately need experience. So I got to thinking again. Before my mission I volunteered as a Docent at Utah’s Hogle Zoo. I loved it, but the program had changed and I wouldn’t be doing the same things. So then I visited the Living Planet Aquarium. It was wonderful. This was what I wanted to do and I quickly signed up.
Earlier I wrote about the zoological institutions and their roles in conservation. But today I want to write about something else they do. They complete us. There is something about wildlife documentaries, the Discovery Channel, and Animal Planet that makes us whole. Without a doubt, it has something to do with how removed we are from our own world. We lock ourselves away in our cities and pretend that this world has only to do with business, economics, language, and culture. And we live pretty happy lives. But something isn’t right. We eat food but have no idea where it comes from – except from the store. Sophisticated cityscapes block our views of the simple and whole. We go on living quite happily for some time in this way. Until that certain missing something accumulates with enough of other missing somethings and we feel ready to explode. Something is wrong. We buy paintings or photographs of landscapes. We make it a priority to center one of the world’s most metropolitan areas around 843 acres of hallowed park land. We build zoos, plant botanical gardens, and play in parks to remind us that there is more to life than what we live.
We do it because we realize that anthropocentrism alone is unable to answer for our experiences here on Earth. There is certainly something to our differences with the rest of the world. Language, art, science, and reasoning do separate us from the rest of our fellow beings. We will never be the puppy Dillard patted in her book. Our experiences will often be different. But these differences by themselves are not enough to satisfy us. But because of these differences, biocentrism is also not the answer. Don’t get me wrong – we are as much a part of this world as are the other organisms. They too have inherent value. But we have the ability to see and analyze what is around us. Cause and effect are not unknown to us. Eventually we could see that some of our favorites were leaving this world, that we were the cause, and that we had to take action. So finally we got around to protecting them. Why though? Because we are connected to them. We feel responsible for losing them. It’s in this mixture of biocentrism and anthropocentrism that we find true happiness. Here the wonders of the world are appreciated and cared for by the very differences that made us human in the first place.
Now back to the aquarium. Volunteering there is wonderful because I help people rediscover this feeling. The underwater world is so unknown to most of them. It stimulates a sense of wonder and mystery. For most people it’s something they’ve never seen. Looking into these aquaria reminds them that our world is more fascinating than the busyness of their everyday lives. They wander through Discover Utah and are surprised at all the things that can be found in their backyard. Then it’s into Ocean Explorer where they see octopus, sea turtles, and sea jellies for the first time. They get to touch a sting ray and it reminds them of petting their dogs. They name the rays, give them personalities, and in this interaction they bombard me with questions. From there they go on a Journey to South America where they meet cute Gentoo penguins, caimans, an anaconda, and plenty of fish that make you feel small. I love watching the wonder in their eyes. One of the volunteer posts is greeting the guests at the entrance. Their eyes seem dull, tired of waiting in line, and irritated at the impatience of their children. But something magical happens when they press their noses up to that first tank. That all melts away. Eyes light up, brows soften, and intrigued smiles spread across faces.
I love volunteering at The Living Planet Aquarium and plan to keep on doing so. Each time I get to teach people about some of the most fascinating animals. I get to preach the gospel of conservation to an audience that has had their hearts softened by the fantasies of nature. But most of all I get to bring them back in touch with the environment and bring them back to real life.
Nature Journal: Beyond Life
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Mikentire 0 Comments Category : Nature
To be honest, our class trip to Goblin Valley and Little Horse Canyon began way too early after way too late of a night and I felt that I had to go. But after some nice chat, a good nap, and a long drive we found ourselves at our destination and I found myself in love with everything around me. The thing I love about Utah is how fantastically different one location is from another. And here in this land of sculpted stone and warm red sands I felt like I had left home but somehow was discovering another. I have been in similar landscapes hundreds of times. There was something different here though. It was my first time in a slot canyon and I could feel the forces that had carved this piece of artwork into the crust of the earth.
The whole day my mind was filled with erosion. I could see water flowing down the sharp curves and sudden drops but then quickly filling up the narrows. The wind whipped at my back kicking up the minute remains at what had once been this great canyon. It slashed the walls as it made its way up the canyon, eddied in small pools along the canyon vertices, and carried parts of us to who knows where. I felt this canyon was changing me too. This unseen water and these invisible winds were shaping me right here right now.
It made me think of the power of such natural forces. The movement of rock, air, and water more often than not fall short of our notice. Our gaze usually falls upon ourselves – we’re pretty selfish that way. But when we do look out beyond ourselves – beyond the human – we tend to focus on other organisms: trees swaying, fish swimming, moles digging. Almost as if the mediums they are engaging are somehow separated from us. It takes something drastic to get our attention. The earth has to seize and send tremors through rock and stone, great waves result to hurling themselves from their depths, while high and low pressure winds find each other to create monsters that tear through our cities. And then we finally notice. But in this quiet canyon, I was connected to these systems without headline or disaster. They were a part of me.
This earth is awesome by itself. Some of the most impressive scenes in this world are ones devoid entirely of life. Lightning flashes across the sky and waves crash all on their own. And everything in Goblin Valley seemed to be struggling for life. But they were the afterthoughts. It was the fantastic rock formations that took the center stage. I find it interesting that biocentrism – not ecocentrism – is the opposite of antropocentrism. It should really be somewhere in the middle. The raw elements of the earth are as much a part of our environment and our relationships to it as are the organisms we share them with.
I love the dynamism of this place. The world is full of mystery. The rocks we look at today didn’t always look like this. A great portion of Utah used to hide underwater. Glaciers carve homes and ecosystems into living hillsides. Erosion and formation battle each other in a never ending series of mountains, canyons and valleys. 99% of all living organisms are extinct. They came, they lived, and they vanished. They had their time leaving their marks for us in the rocks. We aren’t much different. We too are leaving our stories. And I hope they’re good ones. Hopefully we will stop leaving the marks we do now. Hopefully the stories we will leave will be ones full of heroism and responsibility, of virtue, conservation, and character – and I hope those are the ones that we can leave deep – etched forever in the stone for all to see.
Nature Journal: Memories
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 Mikentire 0 Comments Category : Animals
Today we put my dog Beau down. He’s had cancer for a while now and for the last couple months he’s continually lost weight. I got a call last night from my mom informing me that he couldn’t stand up. So naturally, I left what I was doing to be with my dog in his last hours. When I arrived it was clear that he was going to have to be put down. My family didn’t seem to agree – he’d be fine in the morning right? I slept by his side, waking up periodically to make sure he was still breathing. But morning came and he wasn’t better. I talked my parents through the euthanasia process – something I’ve seen quite a few times in my time as a pre-veterinary student. I was surprised by a cold unfeeling and a momentary panic that my future career was going to leave me without emotion or soul. But things are different when it’s your dog.
When the lights that leave those eyes are the same ones you’ve cherished for the last eleven years it isn’t the same at all. This animal isn’t a client you’ve just met – he’s your family. The emotions you feel aren’t empathy or sympathy. They’re real, they’re yours and they’re strong. So sure enough when the time came, I found myself emotional, teary-eyed, and secretly grateful that my previous experiences with putting animals down hadn’t robbed me of my chance to grieve. We took him home and buried him in a small corner of the front yard. While digging his grave, we came across some of the bones of Ginger, our Golden Retriever who had died over five years earlier. I felt like Dr. Brennan from Bones– torn between the emotion of the moment and the intrigue of the science before me –wondering how such a bare frame held something I loved so much and amazed at how the beautiful arrangement worked so perfectly.
We held a little funeral service. Each of us went around sharing our favorite memories of Beau. I loved his intelligence and his mischief. My mom could see him as a puppy. Matt saw the adorable father he was and the ridiculously cute puppies he sired. Meagan thought of the ‘weddings’ we had performed for him and Ginger, and later him and Bailey. And Mitch reminded us of his great temperament and never-ending companionship. We sat on hallowed ground as tears streamed down our reminiscent faces.
All this got me thinking. What makes this small spot of dirt tucked behind our trees and corned by our fence so sacred to me? The remains of two animals? What makes these animals so special as pets or this house as my home? Memories & Relationships. We take parts of our souls and we infuse them with the world around us. We feel, breathe, and live in these places. They are as much a part of us as we are a part of them. We are a relationship-oriented species. We bond with the homes, animals, and landscapes we associate with. We have pets because they freely give the companionship we seek and reflect our own wishes and desires. We form nations because we first developed mutual bonds with each other. Our art and our words scream these relationships. And with these relationships there are times we won’t forget, moments that inspired us. Ones that made us laugh, cry, cringe, or hide. The never-ending cascades of memories continue to strengthen these relationships. This is what makes space place, house home, and pet family. I wrote earlier about the connectedness of the world. But it isn’t just ecological connectedness that makes this world beautiful. This world is beautiful because we, as humans, have formed these relationships with everyone and everything around us.
When camping you are always told to ‘leave it better than you found it.’ Ecologically speaking, I think we only know enough to limit how much we mess it up. At best, our efforts are really just to make the land ‘prettier’ than it was when we came. But spiritually and emotionally? I hope we form bonds with each piece of land we visit and each animal we encounter. I hope our souls communicate with those around us. And I hope it does leave both parties better. So here’s to you Beau: you certainly did just that.
