Are you breathing? Thank a tree



MK Sandford Photographer, Kucera tree, alive and well.

 

 

 

 Advances  in cell biology, genomics, psychology have given us the gift of being able to experience the Natural world in such a way that it doesn’t take away the joy and the mystery of it. Science that brings us closer to understanding the inner life of all beings.

Consider this video animation of our cellproteins undertaking the task of identifying an unwelcome guest in our cells and escorting him out. The immune system is responsible for keeping our body clean and orderly. It works day and night to keep things in order. Take a breath and listen to the music and watch your body at work.

The Living Cell

In her biography, A Feeling for the Organism, Evelyn Fox Keller quotes Barbara McClintock explaining her loving attachment to plants.

“Animals can walk around, but plants have to stay still to do the same things, with ingenious mechanisms. For instance, … if you pinch a leaf of a plant you set off electrical impulses. You can’t touch a plant without sending out an electrical pulse. There is no question that plants have all kinds of sensitivities. They do a lot of responding to their environment. They can do almost anything you can think of. … In the summertime, when you walk down the road, you’ll see that the tulip leaves, when it’s a little warm, turn themselves around so that there backs are toward the sun. You can just see where the sun hits them and where it doesn’t hit. Actually within the restrictive areas in which they live, they move around a great deal. “

Indeed when we can know that within a stately grove of alders, pines, firs, and cedars billions of cells are alive and thriving we can more simply enter into a dialogue with a tree understanding that it knows we are there. Trees tell us things. They tell us about the drought, and when rain is coming. Droopy leaves are so common that we take them for granted.  Yet those leaves Cry out "I Thirst".. Where have we heard those words before?

Does a tree have a brain, central organizing principle that guides it’s inner workings?  Plant's guidance systems are decentralized. Each cell has its own ‘brain’ called a network of cell nuclei. These nuclei are in constant communication with each other via their cell's membranes. Possibly because they are stationary trees have no need for quick responses, or to think their way out of a situation, their responses are slow and steady.  Plants respond to different levels of excitation.  I wonder if plants respond to anger or sadness or to wonder and awe. Do they know how we feel? I believe they do. Trees give us so much, they are the lungs of the planet and we depend upon them for our lives. I am so immensely grateful for the oxygen they expire, to our planet, to the shade they give us to protect us from the sun’s harmful rays. So as one local bumpersticker put it,  Are you breathing? Thank a tree.

Culture Shock and My Research Question

Every study begins with a question, often called the research question. My research question was born out of the clash between my Irish Catholic Mary worshipping culture and the dominant U.S. culture.

In my Irish Catholic World all were welcome in our home. Hobos,as they were called during the depression, who came for a handout, were brought into the kitchen for a meal.  Hospitality was the predominant value of the Immaculate Heart Community of nuns who enveloped our family in angel wings. The dominant value was " Treat all with kindness whether stranger or family."

Mary the Mother of God was the Mother of us all and I was her handmaiden, deeply concerned with the suffering of all God's people yet separated from the ways of the world.

All men and women are children of God and should not be hurt. Sex is never to be talked about. It doesn’t exist in the world of an Irish Catholic child who never questions or challenges this worldview.

I experienced traumatic culture shock when I first discovered the dominant worldview prevailing in America in the 1960s. I became part of the counterculture; I saw in it some of the qualities of my own culture. It is safe to say that I was in no way prepared to be a woman negotiating within the American Cultural Domain. As the journey continues, the clash of cultures will be made clear.

Children by Cassandra Clifford
World Water Day March 22 2009
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/03/22/march-22-world-water-day/

Without water a child can live for two weeks or less. In olden days our predecessors were blessed with pristine natural sources of water and the water spirits were their constant companions.  As our species became more resilient and resource rich we built our homes farther and farther from sources of fresh water. Fresh water becomes scarce and distant as we increase and multiply. Children around the world drink polluted water. Some say the wars over water will be as violent and deadly as the wars over oil have been .

From the Foreign Policy Blog

"More than 1 billion people live without access to safe water and 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. Today is World Water Day, and as was stated in post earlier this month, Life or Death in Each Drop, that while we in developing nations take each sip of life saving water for granted, each sip to a child in the developing world could be the drop that kills. Water for as simple as it seems is a complex and global fight, that has yet to see the finish line in sight. While many wonderful and sustainable water initiatives and programs are out there, the increasing population continues to strain the already burdened effort, and water and sanitation issue."

In my study, I was told that "seeing that they get enough to drink" was one way people care for each other. Whether it is a patient in a nursing home who depends upon a nursing assistant to bring her water each day, or a child waiting for his mother to arrive with the days supply of water, making sure that they have enough to drink is an act of care.

One of the most important conclusions I drew from my research is that it was never enough to only look at the caring dyad (patient and caregiver) to predict morbidity and mortality from dehydration. Context, and systematic factors had to be taken into account. In the nursing home participants told me that seeing that they get enough to drink was NOT something they did when staffing was short. It was not considered essential by the staff. So, to predict dehydration, it was important to know the number of staff who were working as well as knowing the vulnerability of the patient to dehydration. When staff were rushed and not atune to look for differences among patients they would simply place a full pitcher of water in the patients room. Without knowing if the patient would drink on their own, or could reach the pitcher, having water was not enough. Patients needed encouragement and sometimes assistance to reach the water or they might as well not have it at all.

In the global disaster that leaves a billion people without fresh water, or a way to clean the water, they have, having water is not enough. As climate change creates both droughts and floods, getting water to those who need it may be as simple as providing containers to collect rain water,  or a means for purifying it. This may not be a major technical feat but choosing to address it effectively may be one of the greatest ethical challenges of our time.

Could a low tech low cost solar water purlfication system bring clean drinking water?
http://www.simpleearthstructures.com/resources/Water%20Bucket%20UV%20Water%20Treatment.pdf

Our First Home

Our first home was under the sea. Our living cells were first formed in the warm bath of the ocean. Humans and other primates, in fact all mammals come from life that first began, in the amniotic sea, reminiscent of their first union in the ocean when two cells became one creature, a sponge, scientists believe. As if our cells could remember those days of old, taking their substance from the mother who bears this sea within her womb, those cells increase and multiply and in one lifetime, pass through the stages of our evolution to slowly manifest an embryo indistinguishable from lower order mammals. Only near the end of its stage of life within the amniotic sea does it become distinguishable as a human being.

Sea water flows in us and through us, in and around each and every cell. However as though we had angered the gods we could no longer survive on the salt water of the earth and were forever destined to search for the pristine waters that fell from the sky as though the gods wanted us to know that all good comes from above.  Falling from the heavens and collecting in glaciers, ice flows, underground aquifers, fresh water pours over the face of the earth and is needed to replenish our interior salten seas. In the rivers and rivulets within us, oxygen and nutrients are transported to the billions of cells that live inside our skins. Scientists now know that these cells not only carry our dna passed down to us through generations of couples, cells contain their own dna.

Man has disturbed the waters, disrupted the balance between water and ice, and as the waters rise, we find we are drowning.  It may be too late to reverse the tide coming towards us but perhaps we will be more compassionate, more aware, more respectful as the tides recede. May it be so. 

Care Really is Like Water

Continuing the metaphor of water: How we studied Care

Science and reason are ways that we humans guard against self deception.   True scientific experiements control for everything besides the variable that is being tested including the biases of the experimenters. Scientific studies are used to determine cause. For example, Does penicillin kill bacteria?  After a study is completed it is published in a journal that is reviewed by other scientists who are familiar with the field of study who can evaluate the study method and results. Science is a community process in which one study builds upon another. These studies comprise a body of work on a particular topic. These methods work well in physical, chemical and biological sciences. However in social, behaviorial, psychological and anthropological studies of human individuals and communities we have to use different methods. Usually we can demonstrate a correlation between two things. For example, shoe size and reading ability are positively correlated. This means as your shoe size increases most often your reading ability also increases. However, no one would argue that shoe size causes reading ability or vice versa. Both are correlated with advancing age in infancy and childhood. Yet neither is actually caused by advancing age.

Before scientists can study things they first need to define and identify them. Because care is so much a part of our daily lives, we hardly notice it. There are no rituals or rites for caring. No cultural markers that identify it. There is no beginning of the job of housework, there is no retirement party as there is for a career in the marketplace. Care is continuous and everlasting. Much of a woman’s life is consumed with giving care, planning care and recovering from care work.

Care is like water nurturing all life. Like water, care takes its shape, speed, form from the circumstances in which it finds it’s self. Water in the frozen north, is ice, in the mountains it rushes down stream, in the ocean it laps on the shore or rolls and heaves, in massive waves.

When I began my research, I new a great deal about how to give care but very little about how we humans think about care. What for one was compassion, for others was a days work.  I also knew very little about the extent to which it varies from person to person, setting to setting, need to need. Most of all, I wanted to know why there was so much variation in pay between the work done in the homes and nursing homes,  and that done in hospitals.  We anthropologists are used to studying humans by living with them and learning their ways. We observe, make friends, and ask questions. However like other scientists, we use checks and balances to avoid putting our own biased interpretation on what we see. One way we do this is by using statistical methods to test our observations.  My methods were developed by Louanna Furbee and Robert Benfer, my mentors and professors at the University of Missouri, Columbia where I did my research. Furbee and Benfer used these methods to understand expert knowledge of the people who actually did the work. For example they studied kinds of soil known to farmers  in Peru, and terms for illness used by Mayans in Chiapas, Mexico. These methods produces a map of the universe of the concepts, soil, illness, in which all of the differences in the ways the people think about things 'live'. So when I wanted to know how Americans think about care I studied people who are involved in caring for elders. I studied 5 nursing homes and asked the staff, the elders, and their family members what people who are caring for another do for them, who needs it, and who does it.

Picture a phone booth full of water like the one in the picture. Now picture the front and back of the booth. The front and back of the booth are made up of two lines or dimensions. The first dimension extends across the front of the phone booth. Our statistics show us that the care acts will vary along this dimension based upon how able the person is to care for their own lives. The person can be very able a young or middle-aged adult or they can be very dependent – an infant or a person in a coma. So across the front of the cube we can locate all of the possible degrees of ability inbetween those two extremes.  This dimension is shared by the bottom and top.

The second dimension that defines the front and back sides, surfaces or planes of the cube goes up and down.  Points along this line or dimension are more or less serious or critical.  A wound to the heart would be among the most acute or major threats to the life of the person. Dropping ones glasses would be among the least serious threats to the life of the person or organism.

This dimension is shared with the two side surfaces.

Now, picture the sides of the phone booth. The sides of the booth extend from the top to the bottom.

This side represents the need. How serious or life threatening is the need? Does the newborn need to be kept alive in an intensive care unit? Does the infant need a smile or a game of peek a boo? The range of variation of the threat to the life is mapped along the side of the cube. In health care this term is sometimes called acuity. How acute is the problem?

The third dimension is the distance from front to back and defines both the side surfaces, and top and bottom.  This dimension varies in terms of distance from self. How close is the care giver to the care receiver's home and heart. The recognition of mother, father, family kin, kith, clan and stranger is an ancient concept.  Intimacy between the care giver and care receiver is measured along this dimention.  Is the caregiver a stranger ? He might picks up the glasses of an older person who dropped them? Or is it a mother who is breast feeding ; daughter who is bathing an ailing parent, or a nurse who is caring for a patient? 

These three dimensions were created by a statistical method called multidimensional scaling.  Three dimensions were produced when we poured our data into a computer program that took all of the individual's questionaire responses and created a map of the universe of care, and we could make some predictions about how different people think about care and the values they place on it.  By using a computer program we are able to determine relationships among the responders to our questionaire and by thinking about how these responses differed from one another we were able to hypothosize that these are the three dimensions  that describe the shape the universe of care in the minds of Americans.  

Not only did multidimensional scaling give us the three dimensional map it plotted responses within the space. Thus, we could identify different kinds of care.  Some of these kinds of care have names: Pregnancy, Homemaking, Child care, Nursing care, Mothering, helping, kindness, compassion.  Others do not have names. They are so ubiquitous that they have never been named.  

This has been an exciting time for me. While this research was completed in 1991, I only recently understood how to explain it to you, the reader, who is unaccustomed to these methods of study,  in ways that are interesting, accurate, and understandable. So for the next few months I'll be posting the lessons learned from my research about care.

The-Maternal-Face-of-God----May-18--2012.Attentive Love, The Love of a Mother

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--The-Maternal-Face-of-God----May-18--2012.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=xyifgobZOIY

Today I Didn't Do It!

I am often told by men, that they resent being told that Care is primarily done by women. That is because their understanding of care is fundamentally different from women's understanding and experience. This picture and story illustrates graphically one prototypical example of women's work, or what happens when it is not done. I don't know the source for this entry but it was sent to me on face book with the comment below. Is it hilarious? What do you think?.

Just had to repost. This is hilarious!

A man came home from work and found his 3 children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn around garden, The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and no sign of the dog, walking in the door, he found ...an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, the throw rug wa...s against one wall, In the front room the TV was on loudly with the cartoon channel, the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel... She looked up at him, smiled and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, 'What happened here today?' She again smiled and answered, 'You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world do I do all day?...
''Yes," was his incredulous reply..
She answered, 'Well, today I didn't do it.