6/01/01

The Sweet Breathing of Plants: Women Writing on the Green World
edited by Linda Hogan and Brenda Peterson

Russian Formalists had a concept called "ostranenie," illustrated by the above passage from Shklovsky’s Theory of Prose. Ostranenie is roughly translated as "to make new," or to alienate one from the expected and the typical so that it can be seen in a new and an inspiring light. Theoretically, great art does this; The Sweet Breathing of Plants illustrates, similarly, that the paradigm through which we view the natural world can also result in an invigorating renewal of our desire for communion with it.

As editors Linda Hogan and Brenda Peterson remind us in the book’s preface, "The green world has long been the province of women" (xi). Divided into celebrations and meditations upon all facets of nature, The Sweet Breathing of Plants, through essays, stories, and poems by both well-known women authors (Isabel Allende, Alice Walker, Carolyn Kizer, Zora Neal Hurston, Paula Gunna Allen, Jane Goodall, Rigoberta Menchu, etc.) and newer voices (Lesa Quale, Susan Orlean, Laura Bowers Foreman, Donna Kelleher, etc.), both illustrates this claim of women’s possession of and intimacy with nature and moves this claim towards a place both of imperative action and of true empowerment for women.

The most striking aspect of this book is the truly peaceful and intensely loving attitude each of these women takes towards her respective subject. Claudia Lewis, in her essay, "Ode to Mold," is able to view even fungus in a new light: "the older I get, the more I appreciate the paradox of continuity and change, that life is wholly connected, a sustained, enduring expression of meaning, however mysteriously it is transformed" (29). This intense love for the natural world results from the subtle way these authors create estrangement from the typical manner of viewing nature.

In the preface, the editors state that "outrage begins in love" (xiv). This outrage, subtly yet inescapably present throughout these works, is reflected in Mary Crow Dog’s essay, "Peyote." Crow Dog moves beyond a traditional description of peyote toward a more potent understanding of what it means to her people, stating that "our only fear is that the whites will take this from us, too, as they have taken everything else" (72). Fiercely, Crow Dog is able to indirectly show that the natural world is not something to be annihilated or overpowered, and, that, by implication, the act of destroying the natural world has greater implications than almost anyone is able to comprehend. The many facets of nature are intimately united with these authors’ existences; what happens to parts or to the whole of the natural world also happens, in some way, to each of us.

Paula Gunn Allen illustrates this in her essay, "The Woman I Love Is a Planet, the Planet I Love Is a Tree." "We can heal," she states, "We can cherish our being" (83). This healing becomes a true imperative when the persecution that many women have faced for their connection to the natural world is made clear. As Jeanne Achterberg illustrates in her essay, "Fate of the Wise Women," "in spite of the sanctions against them, some women [healers of the Middle Ages] continued to practice" (105). The obviously indomitable spirits of these women can easily be extrapolated to illustrate the unconquerable psyche and vivacity of both women in general, and of nature itself. The similar power shared by both women and nature is one that has been sought after and often callously destroyed. Acheterberg reflects that "women who offered remedies or who promised magic in times of stress possessed an awesome power, because healing, even the simple domestic kind, is power of a very basic nature" (115).

This unity between women and nature is seen through a more scientific lens in Rachel Carson’s essay, "Earth’s Green Mantle," excerpted from Silent Spring. In simple and direct terms, Carson shows that "the earth’s vegetation is part of a web of life in which there are intimate and essential relations between plants and the earth, between plants and other plants, between plants and animals" (140). These, to Carson, are sacred relationships, those that many of us disturb without considering either the literal or the metaphorical consequences. The repercussions, Carson illustrates, are not only financial, as we are often led to believe, but are deeper, "infinitely damaging… the long-range health of the landscape and… all the varied interests that depend on it" (144).

Such intensely negative outcomes are related by Sandra Steingraber in her essay, "Living Downstream," which details her struggle with cancer and illustrates the striking associations between pesticide use and the rise of cancer, especially in women: "women born in the United States between 1947 and 1958… now have almost three times the rates of breast cancer than their great-grandmothers did when they were the same age" (185). Tampering with nature has intense consequences, not only physical but somehow deeper, too, fundamentally shaping the manner in which we approach the world.

The concern of "who speaks for the plant world?," as proposed by Linda Jean Shepherd in her essay, "My Life with Weed," illustrates the problem that we "take plants for granted; yet they give us life" (207). Trees are not merely products, as Brenda Peterson illustrates in her essay, "Killing Our Elders": "the nowadays notion that people, like parts, are replaceable and that old parts are meant to be cast aside for newer models is a direct result of an industrial age that sees the body and the earth as machines" (241). Peterson implies that we are not "seeing the forest for the timber," intimating that our obligation to a world that sustains us is primarily to change the paradigm through which we view it and to rearrange the value system to which we are accustomed.

It is this needed indebtedness, combined with a true stewardship of the natural world--realizing "how little is enough" (Kathleen Norris’ "Dreaming of Trees," 219)-- that this collection’s work of "making new" implores us to feel and to turn into potent action.

These works of art truly do allow us, as readers, to "recover the sensation of life." It is nearly impossible to separate the "women’s issues" in The Sweet Breathing of Plants from the environmental and societal concerns. However, the unity of the anxieties makes this collection not only more coherent but also intensely potent and quite touching. Reading it in its entirety left me with two reactions. One was a poetic sense of tenderness, feeling both appreciation for my connection with the amazing beauty and strength of the natural world and melancholic guilt for the massive amount of damage humankind has done to it. The other reaction was a sense of angry inspiration, leaving me with a true desire to protect both the natural world and our collective psyches however I can. Therein lies the truly feminist and particularly environmentalist nature of this collection merged into one imperative: act on the connections; do not let your unity with the natural world and your rage at its devastation destroy you. The Sweet Breathing of Plants fulfills Viktor Shklovsky’s imperative to "make unfamiliar." Truly, it is a paradigm-shifting text and an all-around powerful work.