Wild trees are titans that have yet to be explored or have never been explored, much like life itself. Before the characters of The Wild Trees, Steve, Marie, and Michael, found and climbed them, nobody knew a thing about them, but the secrets of the forests were just waiting to be found. These characters touched only the edge of everything that's possible within the forests and their own personal lives, they made discoveries that would lead to more questions and discoveries about the biology of a mystery and the unpredictability of living. There is so much about the trees and themselves yet to be discovered as they progress throughout the book--things about the forest like how high the tallest tree is and if there's a limit to their magnificence. They haven't quite found those yet, as trees grow every year--and like humans, they are ever-changing. Anything is possible with these trees, just like with the lives of humans, and the characters are just reaching the outer edge of those endless possibilities.
Steve, one of the main characters that is introduced in the first chapter, did things that nobody had done before--he climbed a redwood tree without any gear, discovered the biodiversity in the canopies, and saw the significance of tall trees like Giant Sequoias and Coastal Redwoods. He found lichens and huckleberries and all sorts of things, things no one would ever think would exist up there. And as he progressed through life and up the trees, he found love and friendship with the oddest people (as Marie realized, "There was something sweet about this man who could be so kind with his strange friends, so passionate about trees." (Page 197).), all different and important like the lichens were to the tree. Without the lichen, the tree couldn't have fertilized the variety of life in its canopy--"It was a garden in the sky containing tones of dirt, along with sheets and beds of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes. The canopy soil has been accumulating in Atlas for unknown numbers of centuries. It is composed of a mixture of rotting redwood needles, twigs, the roots of plants, and dust from the sky. The soil is apparently being fertilized by rotting lichens and twigs and redwood needles." (Page 149). Like the biodiversity thriving in the trees, Steve's friends were part of a chain events that helped him grow. Without them, he wouldn't have overcome his fear of heights, which he would have never thought possible when he had it, and he wouldn't have chosen the life of a biologist and explorer. Without Amanda LeBrun, he wouldn't have learned heartbreak, and if she hadn't left, he would have never met and loved Marie, who climbed beside him and propelled his career and life forward. He never thought it would be possible that his first wife would leave him, and after she did, he never thought that he would fall in love ever again. His first marriage was like the fall of Telperion, a tree he had climbed that had been tilting--he thought it would last a few more decades or centuries before it cratered, but sooner than he had ever thought possible, he had witnessed the death of a titan.
Marie, like Steve, climbed a tree without any equipment, but she was just a little girl. She never thought that she would ever become a professional tree climber, and yet she did. She grew up climbing mountains and rocks, and she didn't think she would ever fall--not until she took a forty-foot whipper and decided not to climb again. She couldn't have ever predicted that she would ever do that. And then one day, she decided almost out of the blue, that she would study trees. "While Marie Antoine had been rock climbing, she had often noticed trees growing along the cliffs. She had been able to look horizontally into their crowns, and had been close enough to some of them to almost reach out and touch them. She would often pause in climbing, staring into the trees. 'They were Douglas-firs dripping with lichens and mosses and things growing on them,'" (Page 142) this was the moment she realized she was interested in forestry. The unpredictability of her thoughts and actions--from being a sweet innocent girl who cared for a mother who unexpectedly developed bone cancer, to being a troublemaker as a kid, to becoming a daredevil in college--is almost like how trees would randomly grow extra trunks or sprout small bonsai trees. The possibilities were there, but no one ever thought of them. When she was studying Lobaria Oregania, or lettuce lungwort, she started out riding a crane and reaching out to grab the lichen from the trees. She had many questions she hoped these lichens would answer, but she also knew that the crane was only reaching the edge of the forest--there were much more lichens than just the ones in the outer-ring, and so many more possibilities existed deeper within the rain forest. "The only thing she knew for certain was that even if she spent the rest of her life studying lichen, whatever she found out about it would be almost nothing in comparison to what remained unknown about the tall temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest." (Page 179). She saw the opportunities to explore, especially when Steve offered them to her, and she took them--and she went beyond the borders of her limits and grasped the biology few others dared to grasp.
Michael, on the other hand, didn't take any risks. Like Steve, he had acrophobia, a severe fear of heights, except that in his case, "If he got too near a window on a high floor, his acrophobia would kick in and he would get an urge to jump out the window. It was as if some demon inside him were whispering, Jump, just do it--it's gonna be interesting. At those moments, he experienced an alarming sense of curiosity about what it would feel like to actually sail down through the air to his death." (Page 41). His father was a rich real estate investment company man with high expectations for his son, but Michael always did something surprising like change his name and disappointed him. Michael went to college to major in engineering after a series of indecisive events that included forestry and chess, as he had an ingenious ability to tinker with objects and come up with cool inventions. However, he never went through with it and dropped out after his father abruptly cut him off financially, and he was on his own. But as he tried to figure out his life, he saw the redwood trees and figured that the proclaimed tallest tree wasn't the tallest at all--"Michael had been walking around lots of redwood groves, and he knew that he'd seen taller trees." (Page 48).--and he decided that he would find the world's tallest tree. He also figured, "He had been around the redwoods long enough to know that in places the redwood terrain was nearly impossible to get through. . . there were no roads or trails, no easy way in. He sensed the existence of blank spots on the map of North America--along the coast of California, no less. He had a strong feeling that the most inaccessible parts of the redwood forest along the North Coast had never been thoroughly explored. The world's tallest living thing was out there, somewhere, perhaps hidden in a lost valley." (Page 49). He knew it was possible that there was a tree taller than what tour guides and signs claimed, and he spent the rest of his life searching for it. Of course, along the way, he had a few odd and boring jobs and gained a girlfriend whom he would later marry, his talent for tinkering came in handy when he created cheap measuring devices to aide him in his quest, and through a series of connections made by fate, he met Steve. And from there, without warning, the two became close friends. Michael didn't expect to be the first one to see Steve break down, or that Steve would be the one to make him climb a tree for the first time. Nor did he expect that he would actually find the world's tallest tree--he did. "Using their lasers, they estimated that Hyperion was close to 380 feet tall. . . . Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor had discovered one of the crown jewels of nature on earth." (Page 282).
Like the trees, their lives were unpredictable and even when they knew the possibilities, they never thought they would delve into the unknown as far as they did. And when they did, they found that things were new but ancient, wonderful and mysterious, beautiful as well as shocking, and exciting beyond belief--things they could have never dreamed of. The lure of secret places high above the ground had drawn them all in and helped them discover little wonders about their world and themselves, but the mysteries they solved were only the beginning. While they went beyond the edge of the possible, they created a new border, with new things yet to be discovered and new questions waiting to be answered.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Nature Essay
The Wild Trees
Preston describes the wild trees as living "at the outer limit of biology, on the edge of the possible." Many of his characters seem to also live by this concept in their lives, near-deaths and through their discoveries. Analyze how this concept manifests itself in different aspects of the story (different aspects might include setting, characters, plot, etc.).
---
Wild trees are titans that have yet to be explored or have never been explored. While they look impossible to climb, the characters of The Wild Trees, Steve and Marie and Michael, all prove that it's completely possible--they climb the trees and prove that there is life in them. Before then, nobody knew a thing about them, but the secrets of the forests were just waiting to be found. There is so much about them yet to be discovered, like how high the tallest tree is and how they grow to be that high and how old they are and if there's a limit to their magnificence. They haven't quite found it yet, as trees grow every year--and like humans, they are ever-changing. So anything is possible with these trees, just like with the lives of humans, and the characters are just reaching the outer edge of those endless possibilities at their fingertips.
Steve, one of the main characters that is introduced in the first chapter, does everything that nobody had done before--he climbed a redwood tree without any gear, and discovered the biodiversity in the canopies when he was at the height of his life. He found lichens and huckleberries and all sorts of things, things no one would ever think would exist up there. And as he progressed through life, he found love and friendship with the oddest people, all different and important like the lichens were to the tree. Without the lichen, the tree couldn't have made those patches of soil in the air that fertilized things like the huckleberry bushes. Steve's friends were part of a chain event that helped him grow. Without them, he wouldn't have overcome his fear of heights, which he would have never thought possible when he had it, and he wouldn't have chosen the life of a biologist and explorer. Without Amanda LeBrun, he wouldn't have learned heartbreak, and if she hadn't left, he would have never met and loved Marie, who climbed beside him and propelled his career and life forward. He never thought it would be possible that his first wife would leave him, and after she did, he never thought that he would fall in love ever again. He didn't think that he would drive six hours to just see her, and end up too shy to kiss her--nor did he think that he would end up marrying Marie.
Marie, like Steve, climbed a tree without any equipment, but she was just a little girl. She never thought that she would ever become a professional tree climber, and yet she did. She grew up climbing mountains and rocks, and she didn't think she would ever fall--not until she took a forty-foot whipper and decided not to climb again. She couldn't have ever predicted that she would ever do that. And then one day, she decided almost out of the blue, that she would study trees. This was when she realized that in all of her years of climbing, she hadn't been looking at the rocks or the sky, she had been looking at the trees growing on the side of the mountain. The unpredictability of her thoughts and actions--from being a sweet innocent girl who cared for a mother who unexpectedly developed bone cancer, to being a troublemaker as a kid, to becoming a daredevil in college--is almost like how trees would randomly grow extra trunks or sprout small bonsai trees. The possibilities were there, but no one ever thought of them. When she was studying Lobaria Oregania, she started out riding a crane and reaching out to grab the lichen from the trees. She had many questions she hoped these lichens would answer, but she also knew that the crane was only reaching the edge of the forest--there were much more lichens than just the ones in the outer-ring, and so many more possibilities existed deeper within the temperate rain forest. She saw the opportunities to explore and she took it--and she went beyond the borders of her limits and grasped the biology few others dared to grasp. She even did this with Steve, as she thought about different futures with him after their second meeting.
Michael, on the other hand, didn't take any risks. Like Steve, he had acrophobia, a severe fear of heights, except that in his case, whenever he was someplace high he would get this urge to jump, wondering what would happen and what it was like to fall through the air and into the arms of death. He always pushed the possibility out of his mind and never went any place high. His father was a rich real estate investment company man with high expectations for his son, but Michael always did something unexpected like change his name and disappoint him. Michael went to college to major in engineering after a series of indecisive events that included forestry and chess, as he had an ingenious ability to tinker with objects and come up with cool inventions. However, he never went through with it and dropped out when his father unexpectedly cut him off financially, and he was on his own. But as he tried to figure out his life, he saw the redwood trees and figured that many areas of the map were blank where these giants grew, and that the proclaimed tallest tree wasn't the tallest at all--and he decided that he would find the world's tallest tree. He knew it was possible that there was a tree taller than what tour guides and signs claimed, and he spent the rest of his life searching for it. Of course, along the way, he had a few odd and boring jobs and gained a girlfriend whom he would later marry, and through a series of connections made by fate, he met Steve. And from there, without warning, the two became close friends. Michael didn't expect to be the first one to see Steve break down, or that Steve would be the one to make him climb a tree for the first time. Nor did he expect that he would actually find the world's tallest tree--he did.
Like the trees, their lives were unpredictable and even when they knew the possibilities, they never thought they would delve into the unknown as far as they did. And when they did, they found that things were new but ancient, wonderful and mysterious, beautiful as well as shocking, and exciting beyond belief--things they could have never dreamed of. The lure of secret places high above the ground had drawn them all in, and the mysteries they solved were only the beginning. While they went beyond the edge of the possible, they created a new border, with new things yet to be discovered and new questions waiting to be answered.
Preston describes the wild trees as living "at the outer limit of biology, on the edge of the possible." Many of his characters seem to also live by this concept in their lives, near-deaths and through their discoveries. Analyze how this concept manifests itself in different aspects of the story (different aspects might include setting, characters, plot, etc.).
---
Wild trees are titans that have yet to be explored or have never been explored. While they look impossible to climb, the characters of The Wild Trees, Steve and Marie and Michael, all prove that it's completely possible--they climb the trees and prove that there is life in them. Before then, nobody knew a thing about them, but the secrets of the forests were just waiting to be found. There is so much about them yet to be discovered, like how high the tallest tree is and how they grow to be that high and how old they are and if there's a limit to their magnificence. They haven't quite found it yet, as trees grow every year--and like humans, they are ever-changing. So anything is possible with these trees, just like with the lives of humans, and the characters are just reaching the outer edge of those endless possibilities at their fingertips.
Steve, one of the main characters that is introduced in the first chapter, does everything that nobody had done before--he climbed a redwood tree without any gear, and discovered the biodiversity in the canopies when he was at the height of his life. He found lichens and huckleberries and all sorts of things, things no one would ever think would exist up there. And as he progressed through life, he found love and friendship with the oddest people, all different and important like the lichens were to the tree. Without the lichen, the tree couldn't have made those patches of soil in the air that fertilized things like the huckleberry bushes. Steve's friends were part of a chain event that helped him grow. Without them, he wouldn't have overcome his fear of heights, which he would have never thought possible when he had it, and he wouldn't have chosen the life of a biologist and explorer. Without Amanda LeBrun, he wouldn't have learned heartbreak, and if she hadn't left, he would have never met and loved Marie, who climbed beside him and propelled his career and life forward. He never thought it would be possible that his first wife would leave him, and after she did, he never thought that he would fall in love ever again. He didn't think that he would drive six hours to just see her, and end up too shy to kiss her--nor did he think that he would end up marrying Marie.
Marie, like Steve, climbed a tree without any equipment, but she was just a little girl. She never thought that she would ever become a professional tree climber, and yet she did. She grew up climbing mountains and rocks, and she didn't think she would ever fall--not until she took a forty-foot whipper and decided not to climb again. She couldn't have ever predicted that she would ever do that. And then one day, she decided almost out of the blue, that she would study trees. This was when she realized that in all of her years of climbing, she hadn't been looking at the rocks or the sky, she had been looking at the trees growing on the side of the mountain. The unpredictability of her thoughts and actions--from being a sweet innocent girl who cared for a mother who unexpectedly developed bone cancer, to being a troublemaker as a kid, to becoming a daredevil in college--is almost like how trees would randomly grow extra trunks or sprout small bonsai trees. The possibilities were there, but no one ever thought of them. When she was studying Lobaria Oregania, she started out riding a crane and reaching out to grab the lichen from the trees. She had many questions she hoped these lichens would answer, but she also knew that the crane was only reaching the edge of the forest--there were much more lichens than just the ones in the outer-ring, and so many more possibilities existed deeper within the temperate rain forest. She saw the opportunities to explore and she took it--and she went beyond the borders of her limits and grasped the biology few others dared to grasp. She even did this with Steve, as she thought about different futures with him after their second meeting.
Michael, on the other hand, didn't take any risks. Like Steve, he had acrophobia, a severe fear of heights, except that in his case, whenever he was someplace high he would get this urge to jump, wondering what would happen and what it was like to fall through the air and into the arms of death. He always pushed the possibility out of his mind and never went any place high. His father was a rich real estate investment company man with high expectations for his son, but Michael always did something unexpected like change his name and disappoint him. Michael went to college to major in engineering after a series of indecisive events that included forestry and chess, as he had an ingenious ability to tinker with objects and come up with cool inventions. However, he never went through with it and dropped out when his father unexpectedly cut him off financially, and he was on his own. But as he tried to figure out his life, he saw the redwood trees and figured that many areas of the map were blank where these giants grew, and that the proclaimed tallest tree wasn't the tallest at all--and he decided that he would find the world's tallest tree. He knew it was possible that there was a tree taller than what tour guides and signs claimed, and he spent the rest of his life searching for it. Of course, along the way, he had a few odd and boring jobs and gained a girlfriend whom he would later marry, and through a series of connections made by fate, he met Steve. And from there, without warning, the two became close friends. Michael didn't expect to be the first one to see Steve break down, or that Steve would be the one to make him climb a tree for the first time. Nor did he expect that he would actually find the world's tallest tree--he did.
Like the trees, their lives were unpredictable and even when they knew the possibilities, they never thought they would delve into the unknown as far as they did. And when they did, they found that things were new but ancient, wonderful and mysterious, beautiful as well as shocking, and exciting beyond belief--things they could have never dreamed of. The lure of secret places high above the ground had drawn them all in, and the mysteries they solved were only the beginning. While they went beyond the edge of the possible, they created a new border, with new things yet to be discovered and new questions waiting to be answered.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Nature Writing
The Wild Trees
Choose two of the following: 1 and 3
1. How did you react to the idea that even in the 21st century, there are still parts of California (and the world) that are completely undiscovered? What does this make you think & feel?
At first I thought, "Oh, there are plenty of places in the world that are undiscovered--like the sea", but then as I read on I was sucked into this whole different world--it was a forest growing inside of a forest high up in the air and I thought, "I want to see that!" and it made me wonder if there were other places like that. I doubt there's anything like that underwater, unless they've got little humans or something living down there, then that would be something to see. Or mermaids. Anyway, as I read through the book, I kept wondering if any animals would show up, but there weren't many that I knew--there were little shrimp, which completely surprised me and made me stare for a while at the picture in the book, and they looked more like ticks than shrimp. And they talked about rain forests and jungles and stuff too, but I had to wonder if those were as explored as these redwood trees were. Were there life in those trees? Was there a hanging garden somewhere in Asia too? Or even Africa. It makes me excited and I wonder how beautiful it will be when it is discovered.
2. Preston describes the wild trees as living "at the outer limit of biology, on the edge of the possible." Many of his characters seem to also live by this concept in their lives, near-deaths and through their discoveries. Analyze how this concept manifests itself in different aspects of the story, and how it might play out in the future of environmentalism.
Wild trees are titans that have yet to be explored, and while they look completely impossible, an able-bodied and knowledgeable person can climb it--it is possible. The characters, Steve and Marie and Michael, all prove it--they climb the trees and prove that there is life and that there is so much yet to be discovered, like how high the tallest tree is and how they grow to be that high and how old they are and if there's a limit to their magnificence. They haven't quite found it yet, as trees grow every year and like humans, they are ever-changing.
3. Before people started exploring the tree canopies, many people assumed it was like a desert up there (barren of life). It turned out to more like a coral reef (teeming with biodiversity). Why were so many people so wrong? Why did they make the wrong assumption? What lessons should we learn from these discoveries?
I think a lot of people just didn't know that a whole different type of tree could grow on another type of tree, or that berries or shrimp or worms or salamanders could survive and thrive all the way up there. A regular tree that we can see in our front yards or along the streets or anywhere else, they don't have miniature bonsai trees growing off of them, they don't make smaller copies of themselves and get wider as they go up. The thing is though, from below, nobody could see into the canopy of the redwood trees, and so they couldn't even guess the magnificence of it. All they saw were leaves and bark--they didn't see a brownish spot crawling around or that the leaves belonged to different trees or that berries and fir needles and lichens fell into little plots and fertilized it as if it were the ground. It's human nature to jump to conclusions, and once they do, it takes the impossible to prove to them that their assumption was wrong.
Choose two of the following: 1 and 3
1. How did you react to the idea that even in the 21st century, there are still parts of California (and the world) that are completely undiscovered? What does this make you think & feel?
At first I thought, "Oh, there are plenty of places in the world that are undiscovered--like the sea", but then as I read on I was sucked into this whole different world--it was a forest growing inside of a forest high up in the air and I thought, "I want to see that!" and it made me wonder if there were other places like that. I doubt there's anything like that underwater, unless they've got little humans or something living down there, then that would be something to see. Or mermaids. Anyway, as I read through the book, I kept wondering if any animals would show up, but there weren't many that I knew--there were little shrimp, which completely surprised me and made me stare for a while at the picture in the book, and they looked more like ticks than shrimp. And they talked about rain forests and jungles and stuff too, but I had to wonder if those were as explored as these redwood trees were. Were there life in those trees? Was there a hanging garden somewhere in Asia too? Or even Africa. It makes me excited and I wonder how beautiful it will be when it is discovered.
2. Preston describes the wild trees as living "at the outer limit of biology, on the edge of the possible." Many of his characters seem to also live by this concept in their lives, near-deaths and through their discoveries. Analyze how this concept manifests itself in different aspects of the story, and how it might play out in the future of environmentalism.
Wild trees are titans that have yet to be explored, and while they look completely impossible, an able-bodied and knowledgeable person can climb it--it is possible. The characters, Steve and Marie and Michael, all prove it--they climb the trees and prove that there is life and that there is so much yet to be discovered, like how high the tallest tree is and how they grow to be that high and how old they are and if there's a limit to their magnificence. They haven't quite found it yet, as trees grow every year and like humans, they are ever-changing.
3. Before people started exploring the tree canopies, many people assumed it was like a desert up there (barren of life). It turned out to more like a coral reef (teeming with biodiversity). Why were so many people so wrong? Why did they make the wrong assumption? What lessons should we learn from these discoveries?
I think a lot of people just didn't know that a whole different type of tree could grow on another type of tree, or that berries or shrimp or worms or salamanders could survive and thrive all the way up there. A regular tree that we can see in our front yards or along the streets or anywhere else, they don't have miniature bonsai trees growing off of them, they don't make smaller copies of themselves and get wider as they go up. The thing is though, from below, nobody could see into the canopy of the redwood trees, and so they couldn't even guess the magnificence of it. All they saw were leaves and bark--they didn't see a brownish spot crawling around or that the leaves belonged to different trees or that berries and fir needles and lichens fell into little plots and fertilized it as if it were the ground. It's human nature to jump to conclusions, and once they do, it takes the impossible to prove to them that their assumption was wrong.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Contest
1. Post a link to the contest
2. Summarize the basic requirements including entry fees, contest deadlines, permission forms, file sizes, and other requirements.
It's free, the deadline is Dec 2, you need an account, and the file requirements are 4MB max, JPEG (or GIF), and 5 images max. There doesn't really seem to be a theme other than nature. And apparently you need to be 18+ years of age...
3. Evaluate your work against their requirements. Will your work be accepted?
I'm not the right age but I'll try to enter anyway. I meet thee size requirements (I had to make some smaller actually).
---
1. Post a link to the contest
2. Summarize the basic requirements including entry fees, contest deadlines, permission forms, file sizes, and other requirements.
It doesn't seem to have a deadline, but seeing as it's a contest for 2010, I'm guessing that it will be open till then. There is an online submission form. The theme is ocean views, up to 20 images can be submitted, and it costs 25$. The images must be Low Resolution Jpeg files (500 KB max), approximately 6" on the longest side at 72 pixels per inch (ppi), colorspace RGB (ProPhoto or LAB color space is preferred), and 16-bit.
It also says "Identify each electronic image file with your First and Last name. Use an underscore to separate the brief species name and location. Make sure the file name ends in .jpg." like "DavyJones_Orca_PugetSound.jpg" so I think mine would be something like "LynnLe_Heron_LaPlayaBay_SanDiego.jpg".
They also ask for a background of the photo: Title (name of subject), Location, a Caption, Camera details, Lens manufacturer, Aperture, ISO setting (for digital cameras), Flash, Tripod and Head, and Other.
3. Evaluate your work against their requirements. Will your work be accepted?
I can probably enter the "All living things that depend upon the oceans: fish, mammals, birds, plants, etc., in or near the water", "Natural feeding, breeding, and other behavior", or "People enjoying the ocean environment" categories with two of my essay photos, and I can easily meet the size requirements with Photoshop. I can also submit a bunch of other photos I took that I didn't use. ---
1. Post a link to the contest
2. Summarize the basic requirements including entry fees, contest deadlines, permission forms, file sizes, and other requirements.
Parental consent is needed for anyone under 18.
Picture of the month/week: up to 2 photos, any theme related to nature, JPEGs 500 KB max at 72 ppi.
Photos, Features, and Stories/Assignments: Up to 20 photos (the document says 20, the website says 5), digital manipulation must be disclosed in the caption, High Resolution JPEGs 500KB max at 72 ppi, 12" on the longest side, and "save each photo and name it with your first and last name and a very brief
description (example: JaneSmiley_butterfly.jpg)".
description (example: JaneSmiley_butterfly.jpg)".
3. Evaluate your work against their requirements. Will your work be accepted?
For "Photos, Features, and Stories" I think I can enter the "Essay or Features", "Photography in Action", or "The Green Pages" category.
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