Written | Yang Siqi
The "May Day" Labor Day holiday is coming to an end. These days, are you out? Because of the new crown pneumonia virus, you may stay at home for a long time, even if you go out during the holidays, you can't go far. Summer is coming, do you miss the world outside, the crowds there, the nature there? Talk to you about "nature" today.
In the face of the lovely creatures of nature, we can't help but take a few photos or stop for a long time to admire, but many times, our connection with them stops there. In modern society, speed dominates everything, and everyone rarely cares about the insects, insects, birds, birds, grasses and trees in nature. This is especially a huge absence for children who are gradually insulated from nature. To this end, Richard Love wrote the book "The Last Child in the Woods", in which he used the term "deficiency disorder" to describe children who were gradually disconnected from nature. How can we make up for this lack? It may not be enough to read informative popular science books, we need a kind of knowledge that has been captured through twists and turns, and we also need a way to explore the back of the world from daily life.
Nature Notes is an attempt. In 2008, the book "Notes on Nature" was introduced to China, and nature notes were slowly accepted by everyone as a way to get close to nature. Later, we had a variety of nature note-taking courses and nature-taking competitions, but there were no examples of how to do it to achieve better results. The first series of the recently published children's science series "My Notes on Nature" chooses to use "home" as the radius to lead children to the kitchen and balcony through words and pictures to observe and explore the natural world around them.
Because of the new crown pneumonia virus, we have to stay in a limited space, but we can also use this limited space, using a small window, through the way of nature notes, to explore the magic of nature. Good nature notes have no age limit, and the natural and aesthetic spirit contained in them will also affect people's thinking and hearts in all aspects for a long time.
The current epidemic has made us see that in the face of nature, human beings are ultimately vulnerable. How to deal with the relationship between man and nature has also become a problem that we need to reflect on from this epidemic. So, what role can nature notes play? How should our nature education be conducted? How to avoid the children of the modern city from becoming the "last children in the woods"? In this regard, around the story before and after the creation of the "My Notes on Nature" series, we interviewed the editor-in-chief of the series, Rui Dongli and Lu Yonglin.
The first series of "My Natural Notes" ("Strange Tenant", "Home has a Cute Pet", "Kitchen Exploration", "Playing with Nature", "Discovering a Bird", etc.), edited by Rui Dongli and Lü Yonglin, edited by Rui Dongli, Lv Yonglin, Qin Xiuping, Li Hang, Xiaoboji Hunan Science and Technology Publishing House, April 2020
Man and Nature: Alcatraz's bird keeper
In 1962, a unique "prison movie" was born in the history of film - "The Bird Keeper of Alcatelz"
（Birdman of Alcatraz）
。 In this film, based on true historical events, the young Robert Stroud is sentenced to life in prison for homicide, and his life gradually fades. One rainstorm night, Stroud, who had been in prison for many years, was running outside his cell when suddenly a wet and sick bird landed at his feet, and after some hesitation, he took the bird back to the cell. Under his careful care, the bird gradually healed, and the stubborn ice in Stroud's heart slowly melted. Later, a strange bird plague broke out in the prison, and in order to rescue the birds that were dying one after another, he worked hard to become a well-known ornithologist, and before that, he only received a few years of primary education.
Stills from Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).
Despite his worldwide acclaim, Stroud remained a prisoner and eventually grew old inevitably. It's just that, within his spirit, something is quietly changing. He used the true meaning of life that he had learned from nature to comfort the desperate young people in prison. He tried to live as much as he could, even measuring the size of a cloud. In Stroud, we feel nature's change in man, a change that is far more profound than we can think of. From this point of view, "Alcatraz's Bird Keeper" can also be said to be a "nature movie".
Also in 1962, a book on nature caused a great social sensation , Silent Spring. As soon as the book came out, it sparked "the most heated debate since Darwin's On the Origin of Species" and directly triggered the modern environmentalist movement. In fact, before "Silent Spring", there was no shortage of works that profoundly explored the relationship between man and nature, such as "Shaxiang Yearbook", but at that time, people were still indulging in the passion for the development of post-war industry.
The Sand Country Annals, published in 1949, are the observation diaries of Aldo Leopold for nearly a lifetime. On an abandoned farm in Wisconsin, Usa, Leopold was with the land and wrote countless nature essays and philosophical treatises. In these articles, he proposes the concept of "land ethics" and calls on people to cultivate an "ecological conscience." But like many truly important books, Leopold's writings remained obscure for a long time, until the 1960s, when the environment became more and more polluted, Silent Spring came into being, and Leopold received belated praise.
Growing from an ordinary life passerby to a nature observer and researcher is the first layer of metamorphosis experienced by Stroud, alcatraz's prisoner. Historically, many natural scientists and nature writers have gone through this process, and this is also what the Shaxiang Almanac tries to illustrate, and ordinary people can also play a pivotal role. After the 1960s, until today, more and more ordinary people in the world have joined the ranks of understanding nature and protecting nature. Rui Dongli is one of them. In 2009, 60 years after the publication of the Shaxiang Yearbook, Rui Dongli encountered a book called "Notes on Nature", which began her "transformation".
Rui Dongli, Doctor of Literature, is one of the earliest advocates of "Nature Notes" in China. In 2008, he joined the Shanghai Oasis Ecological Exchange and Protection Center as an environmental protection volunteer. In 2013, he published the book "Nature Notes" and launched the "Family Writing Workshop" with her husband Lu Yonglin. In 2014, the "Nature Charity Academy" was founded and a WeChat public account was opened, and in the past few years, the academy has carried out dozens of public welfare nature education activities for social families. (Pictured on the right is Rui Dongli, who is taking nature notes with the children)
Speaking of which, this "metamorphosis" is also a personal encounter. Rui Dongli's hometown is Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province, in the 1970s, Panzhihua's coal mining was not as unbridled as later, and the natural environment was still a relatively primitive style. When she was a child, Rui Dongli saw all kinds of mountain flowers and wild grasses, birds and animals, pushing open the window and opening the door of the house, as if "all things in heaven and earth are rushing towards themselves." Rui Dongli later realized that this was what Leopold called the "wilderness": "'The wilderness is for people to enjoy solitude'," Leopold said. In fact, children also need some moments to get along with the inner loneliness, when the inner silence comes down to communicate with all things, that 'loneliness' is very wonderful. I now understand that in my childhood I had enjoyed the great sense of well-being that Leopold had called, and now the wilderness has become a scarce resource. ”
This "happiness" has left an indelible mark on Rui Dongli's heart. Later, as the black coal kilns opened throughout the mountains, many natural beings had gone away before she really knew them, and even the homes eventually disappeared into rubble and dust. Rui Dongli also had to follow her parents to migrate with her family and become a wanderer in a foreign land. Because she had not made any records of these natural beings, she could no longer remember their appearance, leaving only deep regret and regret.
In the Sand Country Annals, Leopold wrote: "For those of us who have the opportunity to see geese is more important than watching television, and the opportunity to see a bald flower is like freedom of speech, an inalienable right." To Donri and many more people who have been close to nature and eventually lost it, Leopold spoke his mind.
Nature Notes: Crouch down and find cassia and leaf leaf
Rui Dongli recalls her encounter with "Notes on Nature": "It was a very dull evening, a very ordinary discount bookstore. However, in such an unrevocable time and space, I encountered it. At that time, the notebook "Notes on Nature" was lying on the ground with many books, but the moment I opened it, I suddenly understood that I had been waiting for it in my heart for a long time. ”
Notes on Nature (U.S.) by Claire Walker Leslie, Charles M. By E. Ross, translated by MaiZi, East China Normal University Press, June 2008
For a long time, Rui Dongli wanted to share various stories about nature with people, but she couldn't find a suitable way. It wasn't until the advent of "Notes on Nature" that she knew that she could also use "nature notes" to convey her heart. She threw herself into it with great enthusiasm, looked at the natural world around her with curiosity, tirelessly wrote and painted, and created the first natural note book in China. Under her influence, more and more people have also begun to take natural notes, including her mother-in-law Qin Xiuying. Under her guidance, Grandma Xiuying, who had only been in elementary school for a year and a half, learned to write and draw when she was nearly seventy years old, and published the book "Flax Sky".
For many domestic readers, "nature notes" seems to be a novel expression, but in fact, it is not a new thing, but an ancient way to observe nature and record nature. As a way of recording that combines handwritten text and hand-drawn drawings, it can be scientific inquiry, recording the exploration process of problems from discovery to solution, or it can be essay-style, recording our dialogue with nature in daily life.
In the process of taking nature notes, you may encounter problems involving different disciplines such as science and art, but not understanding painting techniques and no biological knowledge will not hinder the creation of nature notes. When Leslie, Rui Dongli, the authors of "Notes on Nature" and Xiuying's grandmother first wrote nature notes, they all looked at the blank space on the paper and were worried. What really matters is a passionate heart. In the long or short time of natural records, we can devote ourselves to the world, and at the same time, it also provides us with a calm background, we can not only carefully study the life trajectory of other creatures, but also carefully examine our own daily life.
"Flax Sky", painted by Grandma Xiuying, Iron Gourd Zhejiang People's Publishing House, May 2015
Moreover, both Leslie and Rui Dongli believe that there is no need to travel thousands of miles to make earth-shattering expeditions, and even if we stay at home and guard the nearest window, we can record the things that are happening in nature.
The first series of "My Notes on Nature" takes "home" as the observation radius. In "The Strange Tenant", Rui Dongli and Lu Yonglin find a small seedling growing out of the crack in the bathroom floor, like a pair of small eyes. Faced with such a situation, many of us may react to just a question: How can there be grass in the bathroom? Then, either unplug it or leave it alone. But Rui Dongli, with great curiosity, let the seedling continue to grow, while carefully observing, carefully maintaining, and also did experiments on it, thus discovering a series of interesting things. We later learned that these "little eyes" were called Cassia.
With such careful observation, Leopold mentions another small, easily overlooked plant in the Annals of sand country, the leaf amaranth. He wrote: "He who longs for spring, but whose eyes are up, has never seen anything as small as a leaf; and he who is frustrated with spring, who has his eyes down, has stepped on it and still knows nothing." People who lie on their knees in the mud in search of spring have found it — it's a lot. ”
In My Nature Notes, it is full of such details and moments. In "Home with Cute Pets", Rui Dongli, like a family, recorded the stories of the myna "Xiao Jue", the brown-headed peony parrot "Qingtuan", and the purple light moth "Tantan". In the last story, "Tantan" dies because he did not succeed in feathering, which is sentimental to read. In The Eccentric Tenant, she observes, experiments, and records with great interest the rat woman, earthworm, and jumping insect in the flower pot, the silver worm in the page specimen, the tobacco beetle in spice food, and even the cryptopter that is unfortunately squashed while sleeping. In "Kitchen Exploration", she discovered that the color of her tongue changed because she ate purple potatoes, so she explored the secrets of plant pigments; because she ate reed roots, she traced the mysteries of plant roots and stems, and used cosmic galaxies to compare the bud eyes on the rhizomes, drawing a variety of plant bud galaxy maps.
Map of the bud galaxy of kale.
A lot of ideas like that are impressive. She discovered that the larvae of the purple light moth were delicate hexagonal prismatic columns, so she made a printed art painting from the insect poop. Later, she found that plant sap would change color under the action of different environments and media, so she used plant sap as pigment to create a variety of unique paintings.
Through experiments, Rui Dongli found that if the stem of a plant is likened to a power train, then sweet potatoes and carrots are a nutrition bus.
Reading these natural notes gives people a great pleasure, which is largely due to the keen feelings and love of Rui Dongli and Lu Yonglin for the details of life. In Rui Dongli's home, whether it is the living room, dining room, study, or bedroom, it is a collection and experiment "powerhouse", and even the kitchen is filled with various bottles and cans for experimentation. Rui Dongli felt, "If the kitchen is just a place to cook, then only food comes out of it; if the kitchen can be turned into a small laboratory, then what comes out of it will not only be food, but also the spirit of scientific inquiry, the inspiration of artistic creation, and the joy of touching the mysteries of nature." ”
Inquiry-based nature notes that allow children to "date" happily with nature
In the book "My Notes on Nature", there are many "leaf amaranth discoverers" such as Rui Dongli, such as one of the authors of "Playing with Nature", Lu Yonglin's fifth aunt Qin Xiuping, Li Hang, author of "Find a Bird", and authors who are creating the second series of the series. Every author's style is different, and every book has many endless stories.
Like "Making a Game with Nature" co-completed by Rui Dongli and Qin Xiuping, it has a simple wild interest. Borrowing a variety of natural objects at their fingertips in the city and the countryside, the two competed in three rounds of game competitions - "flat boats" made of reed leaves and "colored crystal jewels" created from dewdrops on leaves, bark flutes made of willow branches and bark masks made of plane wood, as well as ox tendon grass games and "visiting the toad king", each game has an interesting process of exploring the principles of science.
In the spring of 2017, editor Li Wei saw Rui Dongli's nature notes blog, was surprised that these words and pictures were playful and cute and serious, and thought that they were good materials for making books, so he got in touch with Rui Dongli. In the process of gradual contact, they found that they had a high sense of identification with each other: in China, although many books with the name of nature notes were published, there were very few local original works that were really suitable for children to read and learn directly. So they came up with the idea of creating a series of natural notes that are "interesting and stimulate the spirit of scientific exploration in children".
Easier said than done. How do you create such a set of books? At that time, whether at home or abroad, there was no similar example to refer to, they could only move forward in the groping, and in the process of groping, there were constantly people quitting. After several years of repeated run-ins and discussions, the first series was finally released.
Grandma Xiuying and her brother "Xiao Jue".
The creation of the series involves all aspects of knowledge, but because the authors are ordinary people, have no professional background, lack professional equipment and laboratories, so every small process of inquiry is full of twists and turns. "But I think it's most interesting to have a problem, and that's the most real state of the inquiry process." Rui Dongli said, "If there is no problem and it is smooth sailing, it is no different from learning about knowledge from ordinary web pages." When we ordinary people explore, we will find that scientific exploration is not as boring and tedious as imagined, and we will also find that some of the truths that we usually take for granted are not correct. There are setbacks to make new discoveries, and the most important thing is this process of independent thinking in the process of personal observation and experimentation. ”
The natural window of the home, in the picture clockwise, are the plant area, the marine area, the insect area, and the bird's nest area.
"Nature Notes" in China, the gains and losses of nature education
Since she began taking nature notes in 2009, more than a decade has passed, and Rui Dongli's life has undergone many changes. In the past, Rui Dongli, an editor who was busy with her livelihood, often had empty moments after work, but now, she not only felt that her inner world was becoming more and more abundant, but also felt a responsibility, "that is a responsibility for nature, while popularizing nature education to more people", and she began to seriously reflect on the word "education".
With the introduction and promotion of nature notes, many youth nature note contests have been held in China, and many schools are also actively advocating. In Shanghai, some schools have introduced it into nature classes and science and technology classes, both as teaching content and as a means of learning, and nature notes are becoming more and more popular.
Rui Dongli felt that when nature notes were first introduced as a "new thing", holding competitions was conducive to its popularization and promotion, but with the widespread knowledge of the concept of nature notes, and then taking the game as the only or most important form of development, it deviated from its starting point. "The original intention of Nature Notes is to advocate that everyone be equally close to nature, and once it is a competition, it will be mixed with too many hierarchical concepts and competitive awareness." Many schools and institutions are now aware of this and have canceled competitions in favor of showing, sharing and communicating nature notes.
Nature showcases. Bark mask in Playing with Nature.
In her spare time, Rui Dongli will also take children to get close to nature, and there is an experience that makes her feel very deeply. Once in Shanghai's Zhabei Park, she asked the children to lick the rainwater and taste the rain, but none of the children took the initiative to do it, and they all looked at the parents with wide and doubtful eyes. Rui Dongli was taken aback, not expecting that the gap between the current child and nature was so deep. Later, with her encouragement and the permission of her parents, the children finally tasted the rain and found that the rain was sweet. Looking at the excited children, Rui Dongli felt both happy and a little sad.
This estrangement is a product of modern life, and under the current epidemic prevention situation, Rui Dongli also has another layer of worry: nowadays people are advocating to stay away from wild animals, on the one hand, this is a good thing for the protection of wild animals, but on the other hand, will the distance between children and nature become farther away?
Parks are the easiest place for children to get close to nature, but nowadays, urban parks are becoming more and more uniform. Zhabei Park is the most frequented place for Rui Dongli's family before moving. At that time, the park still retained its original style, although the area was small, but the layers of bushes were very historical, and many animals inhabited it. Later, when it was time to move, the park was undergoing a major renovation. Speaking of this transformation, Rui Dongli felt a little bitter. In order to meet the city's regular requirements, she said, people have cut down the seemingly disorganized bushes and replaced them with low turf, and the small trees with many branches and vines in the garden before, the winding paths, are now flat and flat, and the original style has disappeared.
Once upon a time, there was a forest of plane trees in Zhabei Park, and there were several huge magpie nests on the trees, forming a small rare community. This would have been a good thing and a good source for nature education. But one year, because a magpie could not pick up the nesting materials in the park, it had to go to the construction site to pick it up, and it fell halfway down, just hitting a tourist, so the park was complained about and all the magpies' nests were cleared overnight. This made Rui Dongli angry and sad. "In the eyes of many people, city parks are places for people to rest, but for wildlife, they are their home. If people don't change their aesthetic concepts and don't give the wild enough tolerance, we lose the tentacles that nature extends to our nearby. Without these tentacles, we can no longer perceive the real nature up close. ”
In Rui Dongli's view, nature should be rich and angular, rather than cookie-cutter gentleness. "What is the language of nature? People often use the term 'quiet, tranquil' to describe it. This is not the case. There are all kinds of creatures living in nature, all living creatures are talking and speaking, and every life form is expressing itself, which is the true language of nature. ”
Painting with plant sap.
Many years ago, Rui Dongli, who likes biology, mistakenly bumped into a doctor of linguistics. Later, she realized that the language of human beings and the language of nature are so similar. The evolution of language is like the evolution of biological species, from bottom to top, from less to more, and finally to a leafy tree.
"Linguistic genealogy holds that human languages initially had one or a few common ancestors, and in the long process of human development, languages diverged and eventually evolved into colorful national languages and dialects. Just as every language contains the code of human development and evolution, every living species also contains the code of the evolution of life on earth, and their interpretation will help solve the mystery of human development and the evolution of life. Therefore, the protection of national languages and dialects and the protection of every living species are of great importance. Without them, what we lose will be our past and history, and we who have no way of knowing our own history will become confused in the future. ”
In nature education, an important lesson is the spiritual reserve of nature. In the 1930s and 1940s, in order to allow people to reach the countryside and get close to nature, the US government built many roads, but destroyed the beautiful natural environment of the local area, so Leopold proposed: "The development of leisure and entertainment is not to build roads into beautiful countryside, but to give the human mind the ability to perceive the beauty of the countryside." ”
Looking back at the moment, Rui Dongli feels that Leopold's words are still not outdated, "Leopold has spoken such a profound truth a long time ago, but we are still repeating the same destructive behavior." Only with such a mental reserve can it be possible to know in what way to enter the wilderness, not to destroy it, but also to perceive its beauty. So now I prefer to start from home and school to guide my children to temper such a 'beautiful heart'. ”
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was known as the "prophet" of new Conservation activities in the United States and the "founder of a new theory of the Environment in the United States." The Shaxiang Annals are a collection of his natural essays and philosophical treatises.
Under the epidemic, we have transformed and created ourselves
During the epidemic period, Rui Dongli and Lu Yonglin published an article entitled "Confessions of Ordinary People or Two "Iron Dings" in the "Natural Public Welfare Academy", starting from the relationship between man and nature and extending to all aspects of social life: "Man wants to be a contrarian son of nature, wants to transcend the limits of nature on man, and uses this to stand on his own. However, man is also his own nature. Man must oppose himself and be his own contrarian son in order to be born a second time. ”
This passage written in a special state of mind condenses the two men's thinking on nature education and environmental protection for many years. Lü Yonglin, the main writer of this article, believes that "if you want to deal with the relationship between people and nature, after all, you still have to rely on the placement of people's relationships." We want to protect the environment, but we also know that people are in their own living conditions, in a chain of various entanglements of interests. On the one hand, a man will do something good for nature, and on the other hand, once he returns to his daily life, to the chain of interests, it is very likely that he will abandon the good and beautiful will that he has in nature. If the struggle between people is endless, and there is no better relief, man's desire for things, the direct or indirect plunder of nature, will also be endless. ”
So how do you slow down? Lu Yonglin said, "Man is born from nature, and he also carries or inherits the various restrictions of nature on man, so man wants to transcend." There is no problem with this, because this is the boundary between man and the beast, the root of man's human nature. But it is not enough, it can guarantee that man becomes a man, but it cannot guarantee that man becomes a virtuous man. Therefore, man needs to deny and transcend himself again—to be his own contrarian. This "self" includes not only every living individual, but also the human species, civilization and society composed of each living individual. The so-called "opposing oneself" and "being one's own contrarian" are actually a kind of comprehensive reflection and renewal of people on themselves.
Rui Dongli created a painting based on the characteristics of the flower cyan color in the purple potato juice to become alkali and turn green.
Rui Dongli usually discusses similar issues with Lu Yonglin, and one of the points she often talks about is our environmental protection of our own souls. This is also a kind of reflection, and people should always reflect on their own hearts and must not slacken off. If we just go to nature one second ago to feel good and comforted, and the next second we accept a friend's invitation to eat rare wild game, this is a pollution of the soul; we may be a little conflicted at the beginning, but in the end we will choose to follow everyone, which is the laziness of the heart.
Rui Dongli mentioned that Thoreau would go to the lake every morning to take a bath, "but bathing is actually just an external ritual, and the real purpose is to purify the soul every day." Thoreau said, 'If you don't wake up facing a life that is more noble than when you fell asleep, then there is not much hope for this day.' So he renewed his mind day by day. We are not policy makers and enforcers, but the environmental protection of the heart is something that each of us can do and can do. ”
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American writer and philosopher who was also an abolitionist and naturalist. The picture shows the cover of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's 2017 feature "Multi-Faceted Thoreau: Looking for a Man's Utopia".
Through diligent reflection, in the end our "opposition" to ourselves becomes the possibility for us to embrace a freer, broader, and deeper life. However, in order to truly realize this possibility, it is ultimately necessary to implement the transformation and creation of each ordinary person on their own. Just like in this epidemic, many things before and after, many things are calling ordinary people. Lu Yonglin wrote in the text: "Ordinary people must create the world, and ordinary people must create themselves. ”
The so-called "creation" is also the generation of inner strength. There is a plague in the outside world, there is also a plague in the heart of mankind, and many crises in human life actually originate from the daily corruption of many ordinary people, and this daily corruption will form a universal custom and cause universal power. Therefore, the necessity of "creating the world" is that if a person does not have a broader world than himself as a support, it is easy to retreat and fall in the middle of the way, and become a conformist who goes with the flow. The so-called "creation of oneself" means that although ordinary people are weak in power, they cannot exile themselves in wisdom, courage, and virtue, but should reflect on their own consciousness and unconsciousness, take the initiative to get rid of those dominant views and lifestyles in the world, and open up their own life path.
It's a long road, but it must be, and people should learn real lessons from the pandemic. In a small way, the individual act of taking notes on nature is also a kind of "transformation" of oneself, a small "revolution" of the relationship between man and nature. As the article says: "Only by handling the relationship with oneself can one handle well the relationship with heaven and earth and all things." We should all learn from Kafka and keep waging one war after another against ourselves. We must not only rebel against the corruption of all others, but also against the corruption of all ourselves. And this is the truth that Alcatraz's bird keepers have learned from nature.
Author: Yang Siqi
Editor: Xixi Xu Wei
Proofreader: Liu Jun