Nature is not temporary but we are

Craig Wolfe photography

My first read-through of Dorothy Wordsworth's "Floating Island" was mmm . . .I wasn't especially enraptured by it. I decided to try again by reading it out loud to myself.  By the end of the first stanza it was excruciatingly clear the spareness of words was obvious and . . .I heard myself talking out loud, "This makes all the sense in the world." 

Harmonious Powers with Nature work
On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea:
Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze
All in one duteous task agree.

In this first stanza Wordsworth focused on describing the physical state of the highest power, our known Universe-the World and some of its components: sky, earth, the forces of its nature, and how they all work harmoniously together, to bring us quite a world to live in.  Wordsworth's use of the Universe and its interconnected components sets the stage for the reader to think: how powerful, what an awe-inspiring world.
 
She then imagines or sees, ". . .a slip of earth. . .loosed from its hold. . .see it float. . .obedient to the wind.” Vivid imagery. . .of a piece of Earth coming off in some mysterious way and it changed into something light enough to float on the wind. The imagination soars.

Once did I see a slip of earth,
By throbbing waves long undermined,
Loosed from its hold; -- how no one knew
But all might see it float, obedient to the wind.

She imagines or sees the piece of Earth on the Lake, where more creatures of the universe reside, thrive and share a world:

Might see it, from the mossy shore
Dissevered float upon the Lake,
Float, with its crest of trees adorned
On which the warbling birds their pastime take.

She describes life's basic needs: "Food, shelter, safety. . ." that the birds and all other living creatures find in Nature, at the lake. The call to fundamental needs that all living things share, invokes strong feelings in the reader -- We all need these! She paints a tranquil, sublime Nature scene from where the reader can find stillness, which then gives rise to “Big R” higher, more powerful emotions.

She goes on to infer, although the birds live here, so do we (interconnectedness again) and how the world as we know it, "A peopled world it is. . ." is but a tiny world in the great scheme of the infinite universe.” She reminds us we share the same needs and space with all living creatures. This calls in the “devotion to beauty; the worship of Nature.” She moves us to think our world, large as we can know it to be, could in fact, be very, very small in the scheme of the infinite universe. And how we might be connected to the larger universe and its unknown components.

Food, shelter, safety there they find
There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;
There insects live their lives -- and die:
A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room.

Skipping a few stanzas Wordsworth closes out by describing how we might be taking a Nature walk on a pleasant day and notice a piece of our familiar physical world, perhaps a landmark, gone, without any forewarning. We may not know where it went, what it became, but we can be sure it's continuing the preordained cycle of life by dissolving to a fragment of something else, to begin the cycle all over again. Again, the worship and devotion of nature and its powerful and sublime beauty; a call to the reader's imagination.

Perchance when you are wandering forth
Upon some vacant sunny day
Without an object, hope, or fear,
Thither your eyes may turn -- the Isle is passed away.

Buried beneath the glittering Lake!
Its place no longer to be found,
Yet the lost fragments shall remain,
To fertilize some other ground.

Side bar: Wordsworth's poem conjured up a strong recollection. I lived on the East Coast in the mid-1990s. I was away from home during the great December 1998 Northwest floods which created havoc in every possible way with people, their plans, the physical world. Everyone at home was inconvenienced, all pre- and post-holiday plans had to be changed and the flood had to be “dealt with.” Most of my family lives in Oregon and Washington, so I was given many stories and pictures describing their experiences with the great flood.

The description of their experiences were words to me until the day I drove the Columbia River Gorge from Portland to Eastern Oregon in May, following the floods. I was startled beyond any words I have yet to find, when I saw that the shape of the Columbia River bed by Cascade Locks had altered noticeably. The curve had turned more snake-like, sharper, and the river's shore was now much closer to the road.

The flood and all its power, had dramatically changed a piece of nature which I had enjoyed all my driving life. I had always been able to predict the next curve and therefore go on a slight autopilot to enjoy the amazing Gorge views of river and cliffs. I had always felt until the moment I took the slight right turn onto the short stretch of road where the river bed changed, that Nature was a good thing. I had felt most secure in my familiarity of the road. Until that moment when I discovered the unexpected changes, it had been my road.

When I saw the river's bank now fixed much closer to the road, I was unexpectedly afraid, startled, disoriented, completely and wholy undone. I understood right then, right there, this was not my road, I am merely borrowing it and its experience. I felt to my depth, how HUGE and POWERFUL nature is and how truly small, really temporary, I am. Thanks Dorothy Wordsworth!

Sheer cliffs, sheer terror, don't walk there Edgar!

"Don't walk there Edgar!" I found myself thinking just that so often during a few portions of the first half of Edgar Huntly and often, during the second half to completion of the Charles Brockden Brown's story.

Page 152: "My return to sensation and to consciousness took place in no much tranquil scene. I emerged from oblivion by degrees so slow and so faint, that their succession cannot be marked. When enabled at length to attend to the information which my senses afforded, I was conscious of a time, for a time, of nothing but existence. It was unaccompanied with lassitude or pain, but I felt disinclined to stretch my limbs, or raise my eye-lids. My thoughts were wildering and mazy, and though consciousness were present, it was disconnected with the loco-motive or voluntary power."

Summary: Edgar slowly regains consciousness and with it, many painful sensations of various kinds and degrees, but soft! he has no recollection of how he arrived at the darkness, became hurt, who or what caused his unconsciousness. It takes a period of time for him to mentally process his state and once he does, he moves even more slowly, because what he discovers next about himself, he really didn't really want to know.

Edgar begins his awareness of arriving somehow in the darkness that he soon discovers is a cave, "My return to sensation. . ." which immediately and without permission, engages the reader and forces them in a subliminal way, to begin feeling and speculating. As a human being, we cannot read the words "return" and "sensation" without beginning the process of asking questions and experiencing a sensation ourselves. Why is that?

Use of the words, ". . .return to sensation," could be called creating imagery, by choosing words which makes the reader react automatically with a memory of their own or a memory of some type of sensation.

When a reader sees the word, "sensation," it's a muscle reflex reaction or another piece of imagery at work. The word "sensation" takes the reader, without permission, right into sensations or memories of sensations of their own. It's the type of word that elicits a physical reaction. Think of the word, "sky diving." What happens? It creates an automatic response.

The word "return" implies Edgar has been gone. It's human to begin speculating and wanting to fill in the blanks. If you are returning, Edgar, where have you been? If your sensations are returning, what did you lose, when, how and will you get those sensations back?

The more picturesque author may have simply said: "My jaw, ribs, head, arms are throbbing-are they broken? There is white-hot heat radiating from these places, and the pain. . . Are my ribs and legs broken? Why can't I open my eyes? And where is the light? Where. ..am...I???"

What is gained by writing more picturesque or specifically, is finite knowledge. The reader is told what is happening. There is no need to speculate or imagine. You have been given the facts.

What is lost by writing in a more picturesque style is the reader will not necessarily become engaged in the reading because there is no stimuli or imagery to force engagement. There is no need for the reader's imagination to conjure up the types of injuries, circumstances, because they have already been told.

It's a more passive style of reading; a more active style of writing. The author can spell out without ambiguity, what is taking place. The reader is able to "flow" through the reading-writing with less pause, greater understanding, less need to analyze and no invitation particularly, to participate in the story.
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Suspense vs Slash & Burn

The iconic "The Birds," Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film (based on the 1952 novella, "The Birds," by Daphne Du Maurier), was my first cinematic experience with unmitigated terror. Hitchcock so masterfully accomplished his psychological terror film, that after 40 years, I automatically cringe and look over both shoulders when I see more than four crows on a telephone line. His work was that terrifying and suspenseful.

How was it Hitchcock could take ordinary, normally peaceful black birds and turn them into a pack of relentless attack animals. Such a suspenseful, psychological storyline. . .oh, that's it. He used ordinary, therefore, unsuspecting everyday creatures and cast them in an unexpected role of blood-seeking protagonists. He formed the birds into one very large band who far outnumbered the befuddled (what did we do to deserve this?) humans and had the birds repeat their attacks. Not doors, not windows could hold the birds back or keep them out. The birds successfully repeatedly attacked the humans of the sleepy town until the movie's end, when the din faded and the quiet returned. Because no one could sure why the birds attacked in the first place, or why they quit, no one could be sure they were completely through attacking. The bird's behavior was unexpectedly terrible!

For me, terror=suspense and suspense in this case=the misuse of psychological assumptions.

When assumptions are thrown off through the use of the unexpected, the unexplained, as Hitchcock so brilliantly did with the birds inexplicably attacking, he engaged us without our permission. We became actively, not passively, involved not watching, his movie --we are his. How brilliant. . . Hitchcock, took the ordinary and twisted it enough to get the audience off auto-pilot and instantaneously involved in the movie. The viewer's minds went flying: "Did I just see that? Why did they use those animals? What are the people going to do to protect themselves?"

At this end of this particular film, the birds fall back to their normal demeanor of quiet and passive. This was their usual demeanor before they morphed into flying vampires . . .so the viewer's mind can't help but think. . ."It must be a matter of time before they do it again. . or will they. . . and what will ignite them? What will the people of the hamlet do differently to protect themselves this time?"

When I first viewed Freddy Cruger in the first (1984 film written and directed by Wes Craven) of the series, "The Nightmare on Elm Street," I felt the movie was going to be gory and predictable. I was not disappointed. There were clues abounding beginning with the title, the dark setting, the wide-pan camera angles and the plot which calls for old-fashioned from the grave revenge.

In "The Nightmare..." there were no psychological "WHAT THE" moments; instead. . .it was who, where, when and how. The storyline contained all the pieces, which were quickly, easily and predictably assimilated by the audience. Once the storyline was in place, the bloody slashing continued throughout the movie, needing only different venues and different victims to fulfill its mission. There was very little to nil suspense in this terror film -- just the use of predictable characters, motives and endings.

For the movie watcher who wants to be outfoxed and forced to think and rethink old assumptions, see a suspense-filled show.

For the movie watcher who wants to scream and have enough energy leftover to enjoy a bit of popcorn, return some text messages while they enjoy their screaming catharsis, the terror movie will always be the best choice.
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How to intro for English 372

After a 28-year hiatus, I find myself this week, back in the throes of English academia and so very extremely happy about it. I didn't mean to leave college unfinished, 22 credits short of my English degree, but I did. I didn't plan on re-attending school to finish, but I am here and plan to embrace my time in school.
I am a lifelong bookworm, fascinated with words, language, books. I wrote my first short story in third grade about my mentor grandmother, "The Tales of Poor Pitiful Pearl." I was the first woman editor of my Eastern Oregon University "Oregon East" magazine back in the early '80s and have faithfully been writing in one or more forms all my adult life.
Professionally, it's been a joyful adventure for the past several decades, meandering my way through government service--which took me from Walla Walla to Albuquerque to Washington DC and back home again. I also spent time as a Managing Editor of two small weekly newspapers; wrote a column in my hometown paper about single parenting for a decade; have grant writing certification and much more. Anything to keep writing!
I was unexpectedly downsized in September last year from Hanford and when the "return to school plan" was offered, I jumped!
My plan this minute is to complete my English BA and get some teaching credentials. I will be 55 when done and that alone feels funny on the tongue, but time flies and I must not waste a second.
Personally....I am a wife and partner to a very grand James, mother to five excellent Kids and grandma to 7 exquisite Grands. I don't know how life, bumps, warts and all, gets any better than this.
I am a patriotic US Army veteran and a polio survivor: I received a swine flu shot while in the army in 1976, which caused me to contract a very serious case of Guillen Barre polio. It's old news now, but from that experience, I became a devout believer of the power of the human spirit; I am stridently patriotic and a proud veteran.
I might be the gray-haired lady fumbling with trifocals. struggling for now, with required technology, but inside, I am the 18-year-old freckled-faced girl wearing fashionable orange cat glasses and jumping up and down waiting to receive new information and do something with it.