I'm currently on an National Endowment for the Humanities summer grant taking place at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, studying environmental history and countering hillbilly stereotypes with a group of 6 program coordinators and 30 teachers from around the country. I love the company and the field trips, the learning and the food.
And I love staying on a campus that has sight lines like these:
The following are observations from the first week.
July 11, 2018
We went out to the Black Mountains and the view was astonishing. Up at the top of Mount Mitchell, and still better, across the saddle to Craig's Peak, every direction around was 6,000 foot mountains of rolling lush green. Speakers and readings suggest that Appalachia is home to the greatest biodiversity outside of rain forests and oceans, such that the variety of trees and plants and animals gives the forest canopy an ever richer variety of greens. I don't know about that, but looking and seeing close range after range and not a trace of us almost anywhere was inspiring.
On Tuesday morning I got up early enough (Eastern Standard Time) to go running and finally get into the city center; and I ran through some super fancy neighborhood with gorgeous old and enormous houses and ran to Thomas Wolfe's birthplace and back.
And then the lectures that
morning were better too because it was about Cherokee stories and not
about rocks and corn and deforestation, which, it turns out, stories
I've trained myself to like better! We compared four versions of the
Cherokee story on the origin of strawberries, which all revolve around
the idea that husband and wife are bickering, wife runs off and away,
then a flower is put in her path but she doesn't stop, a huckleberry is
put in her path and she doesn't stop, then a strawberry is put in her
path, and she stops to behold and smell and taste the fat red fruit
she's never before seen, at which point either the husband catches up or
she remembers she loves him, and they're back happily ever after. The
different versions are telling. We had extra time on Tuesday because we
were supposed to be working on lesson plans, but nobody did. Instead, I
went back to Asheville's city center and had prickly pear beer which tasted more slight than botanical. I wanted to try the pimento cheese and pickled green
tomato sandwich, I was firmly dissuaded by my southern companions, who
said it was common foodstuff and too great a risk.
This day, July 11th, was my favorite so far. We drove to the town of Cherokee. On the outskirts, we drove to what looked like a field, and we were there for two hours. But it wasn't just a field. We were first brought to the river cane lining the banks of the river and given a great and important history of what is an American bamboo (thinner, used for basket weaving, for solidifying the soil, for grain, for much more). And then we went and sat on a concrete foundation, where Chief Joyce Dugan spoke to us. It turns out the field just to our right had one of the sacred mounds of North Carolina, which they left unsigned because the Cherokee didn't want the tourist traffic. And Chief Joyce was a wonderful speaker, talking us through important decisions points she'd made--as superintendent of schools, then as primary chief, including buying these fields (and 300 acres) out from under a man who charged a big price, spending money on culture rather than roads, and eventually paying out for a gaming group who set the Cherokee up with a casino.
We visited the school the tribe built too. It was palatial, never-ending, and deeply thoughtful of the communities needs and desires, outfitting it with state of the art athletics and vocational and art facilities, various kinds of therapeutics and other healing resources, and everywhere, messages about the sacred path, the elders. Arts include folk art and what they called traditional art. And everyone takes Cherokee. And when they get to high school, they take syllabary too--the written language the scholar Sequoyah devised. And they can also take Spanish. There is a plaque in the theater dedicated to Chief Joyce. This is a community that clearly cares for its children, in minute, careful ways. The casino funds this. Money from the casino also pays for health care of residents and all university education is free (unless you flunk out). That's half the casino money. The other half pays $10,000 to each person. By the time a kid graduates from high school, they have about $200,000 available to them, although now only $5,000 is released then, and another $5,000 at age 21, and then the rest at 25, when they're responsible enough to receive the rest. This is a school population that doesn't have to worry about affording college, but they still struggle. And the houses people live in are very small, if they're not trailers. The money is not making people rich. Instead, it's being used to teach and care for the community, the culture, and the land.
Maybe
my favorite moment of all was hearing from the Cherokee linguist, Tom
Belt. He is one of only 200 native speakers left of Cherokee, and he
talked for over and hour about the relationship of language to the heart
and to place. He said Cherokee is a verb language and very precise, and
you don't know the meaning of Cherokee uphill and downhill without
living among the Smokies. He spoke with great passion and depth about
language and land. I'm not with my notes right now, so I can't get
further. But we were all moved, knew we were in the presence of an
elder, and we were convinced in those moments that compassion and
humility and goodness resided in recognizing the sacredness of the land
we trod and the creatures who shared it with us.
After listening to Tom Belt, I was thinking about the idea of sacred
land. To hold anything as sacred means to outwardly and inwardly
experience something with humility and respect, and that might extend
into other relationships, too; but to view the land itself as sacred,
rather than some external, over-there shrine or god, means not just
humility and respect, but something operational and eternal, because
you're going to use the land, play on it, harvest it, by necessity. To
view the very land as sacred, that humility and respect must be there,
but also a deep gratitude and care, and an obligation to be worthy. To
go from that to the Trump administration efficiently ripping apart
families already fleeing horrors and then not even tracking where the children and parents were separately sent is deeply
absurd and disturbing. Nothing can be sacred in such a scheme
And I love staying on a campus that has sight lines like these:
The following are observations from the first week.
July 11, 2018
We went out to the Black Mountains and the view was astonishing. Up at the top of Mount Mitchell, and still better, across the saddle to Craig's Peak, every direction around was 6,000 foot mountains of rolling lush green. Speakers and readings suggest that Appalachia is home to the greatest biodiversity outside of rain forests and oceans, such that the variety of trees and plants and animals gives the forest canopy an ever richer variety of greens. I don't know about that, but looking and seeing close range after range and not a trace of us almost anywhere was inspiring.
On Tuesday morning I got up early enough (Eastern Standard Time) to go running and finally get into the city center; and I ran through some super fancy neighborhood with gorgeous old and enormous houses and ran to Thomas Wolfe's birthplace and back.
And then the lectures that
morning were better too because it was about Cherokee stories and not
about rocks and corn and deforestation, which, it turns out, stories
I've trained myself to like better! We compared four versions of the
Cherokee story on the origin of strawberries, which all revolve around
the idea that husband and wife are bickering, wife runs off and away,
then a flower is put in her path but she doesn't stop, a huckleberry is
put in her path and she doesn't stop, then a strawberry is put in her
path, and she stops to behold and smell and taste the fat red fruit
she's never before seen, at which point either the husband catches up or
she remembers she loves him, and they're back happily ever after. The
different versions are telling. We had extra time on Tuesday because we
were supposed to be working on lesson plans, but nobody did. Instead, I
went back to Asheville's city center and had prickly pear beer which tasted more slight than botanical. I wanted to try the pimento cheese and pickled green
tomato sandwich, I was firmly dissuaded by my southern companions, who
said it was common foodstuff and too great a risk.
This day, July 11th, was my favorite so far. We drove to the town of Cherokee. On the outskirts, we drove to what looked like a field, and we were there for two hours. But it wasn't just a field. We were first brought to the river cane lining the banks of the river and given a great and important history of what is an American bamboo (thinner, used for basket weaving, for solidifying the soil, for grain, for much more). And then we went and sat on a concrete foundation, where Chief Joyce Dugan spoke to us. It turns out the field just to our right had one of the sacred mounds of North Carolina, which they left unsigned because the Cherokee didn't want the tourist traffic. And Chief Joyce was a wonderful speaker, talking us through important decisions points she'd made--as superintendent of schools, then as primary chief, including buying these fields (and 300 acres) out from under a man who charged a big price, spending money on culture rather than roads, and eventually paying out for a gaming group who set the Cherokee up with a casino.
We visited the school the tribe built too. It was palatial, never-ending, and deeply thoughtful of the communities needs and desires, outfitting it with state of the art athletics and vocational and art facilities, various kinds of therapeutics and other healing resources, and everywhere, messages about the sacred path, the elders. Arts include folk art and what they called traditional art. And everyone takes Cherokee. And when they get to high school, they take syllabary too--the written language the scholar Sequoyah devised. And they can also take Spanish. There is a plaque in the theater dedicated to Chief Joyce. This is a community that clearly cares for its children, in minute, careful ways. The casino funds this. Money from the casino also pays for health care of residents and all university education is free (unless you flunk out). That's half the casino money. The other half pays $10,000 to each person. By the time a kid graduates from high school, they have about $200,000 available to them, although now only $5,000 is released then, and another $5,000 at age 21, and then the rest at 25, when they're responsible enough to receive the rest. This is a school population that doesn't have to worry about affording college, but they still struggle. And the houses people live in are very small, if they're not trailers. The money is not making people rich. Instead, it's being used to teach and care for the community, the culture, and the land.
Maybe
my favorite moment of all was hearing from the Cherokee linguist, Tom
Belt. He is one of only 200 native speakers left of Cherokee, and he
talked for over and hour about the relationship of language to the heart
and to place. He said Cherokee is a verb language and very precise, and
you don't know the meaning of Cherokee uphill and downhill without
living among the Smokies. He spoke with great passion and depth about
language and land. I'm not with my notes right now, so I can't get
further. But we were all moved, knew we were in the presence of an
elder, and we were convinced in those moments that compassion and
humility and goodness resided in recognizing the sacredness of the land
we trod and the creatures who shared it with us.
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