“The relationship between a person and the land and the community in which they live, developed by experiential intimacy with natural processes, community and history of that place.” -Brooks
I have found myself engaged in my phenology site whether that is rituals like sitting down and just listening with my eyes closed or digging through the dirt like a little kid looking for insects. It removes me from the homogeneity and hustle of daily life and into a mindset were inquisitiveness and curiosity are cultured. That curiosity then further more engages me with my site.
My relation to this land and my deepened sense of place is very related to being a member of this space. To a member of this space I have to learn the language and learn the patterns. This pattern and language is the study of phenology. There has been some notable phenological changes recently. I felt an exhilarating rush when I correctly identified that there was a flood in my phenological area. The low herbaceous life was combed in one direction and so where the grasses. They had sandy mud on their leaves and there was build up of sticks that got caught in one direction. The stream channel was still high as well. There was a layer of sand over everything because that is the heaviest and first sediment to be dropped.
I have experience other phenological changes while at my site, like the disappearance of amphibians, the death of aquatic life, the disappearance of above ground insects, the presence of scavengers, the dropping of leaves, the slowing of bird noise, and most notably recently the stopping of cricket songs. It was strikingly apparent the lack of this noise last time I was at my phenology site. I wrote some notes about my sense of place.
“The crickets are no longer chirping this reveals the mechanical noise, how I miss their symphonies.”
“Ask for silence in a place that is “natural” and you will relieve the sounds of humans consuming the world.”
“How quiet the world would be if we just stopped for a minute.”
This leads me into my thoughts about my phenology site as a part of a bigger place. I live in a social world as well. I live in the world of Burlington as well. These noises of consumption are disturbing yet at the same time it is the world that grounds me in a social realm. The realm that helps me maintain the things that make me human. Burlington to me has community, it has people that care and a value of social capital. The places in Burlington are places and used with emotion. They are not controlled by economic impetus. They avoid homogeneity especially with the banning of big box stores in favor of small companies that have to have emotion to survive. No less though do these noises, make me pity the natural places we have left. For are they actually natural if they don’t have the “sound of rain in a primeval wood.”-Beston Symbolically I saw a cricket the noise maker who masks the sounds of consumption in my previous visits. He was crushed under the paw of a dog that came to visit me. Is the sound of nature headed down to its death knell as well?
This place has its history as a natural place. Named after Rena Calkins the last working dairy farmer in Burlington this place has always been about agriculture or woods. However, I fear for this places sense of place, I fear its degradation may be real. I was woken to this fact without the cricket and is chirping, the consumption of this area is growing and I hope in the history of this places future it can retain its sense of place.
