Recently, I gave the Fourth Annual Haig-Brown Memorial Lecture in Environmental Writing, in which I argued for, among other things, the inclusion of other species into personhood and human identity, and demonstrated how it might be achieved. I’m going to be walking you through these ideas over the next few weeks. To begin, an image that haunts me …

Red Root Pigweed in a Vegetable Farm, BX District, Swan Lake

There are millions of edible grains there, growing abundantly without irrigation, in a confined space, and managing their weed competition problems very well. In contemporary society, this amazing method of the earth at healing its broken skin is called “A field choked with weeds.”

Well, let us then choke our fields. The first step towards a healthy planet is to extend human identity beyond its contemporary boundaries. They are, after all, created. They are historical artifacts. They aren’t growing anything anymore:

Downtown

The Individual “I” caught in a fleeting moment in a Vernon alley.

The city of the future must include this …

The Okanagan Okanogan Honeycrisp Brought in From the Rain

I don’t mean the apple. I mean the respect. Giving is non-directional. What is given is received. Let “I” be an endangered species.