The World from the Water

Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. Chapter VI THE WORLD FROM THE WATER1 Introduction We come to know an environment by engaging the landscape. We do this by experiencing its processes, learning about its historical meanings and its geographical characteristics, and appreciating its values. These values emerge when we focus our attention primarily in the present tense of perceptual experience, on the experience of our senses: seeing, hearing, touching; feeling the wind on our faces, the ground beneath our feet and the sound, look, and touch of water as we move in the nature we meet and the nature we have made. Such perceptual experiences of environment as these, by that fact, possess value including, in a primordial sense, aesthetic value. The experience of aesthetic value is part of every kind of environment, even though this value may not always be dominant and may not always be positive. Experiencing environments aesthetically is, in fact, an embodied argument for the importance of environmental values. Furthermore, an aesthetic encounter is a way to approach environmental education by helping to cultivate feelings of care and responsibility for the earth. Each environment provides an opportunity for a distinctive aesthetic experience. Water environments have a distinctive character of their own, and this chapter continues the study begun in the previous chapter. An environmental context in which water is the central component has a powerful sensory impact. Because it engages us perceptually on a basic level, it is profoundly aesthetic and at the same time it also determines our very orientation in the world. We considered in the last chapter how the perspective from the water changes our perception of the coast. Taking our position from the water instead of the land alters our orientation and transforms our very sense of environment. 94 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. This chapter carries the transformative perspective of the water forward by considering water as a full and inclusive environment in its own right and explores its aesthetic implications. Experiencing the world from the water provides an unusual perspective and one that varies with the particular kind of water environment we participate in. For a water setting can influence how we understand ourselves and our place in the world. We experience the water in many different ways. In a country like Finland and states in the United States such as Minnesota and Maine where the water is never far away, its presence becomes part of our experience of landscape. We regard a water environment most often from a safe distance, as when viewing a lake from a nearby hill or building or standing on the shore. Sometimes we meet the water from the deck of a ship. Our association grows more intimate the closer we come to its surface, such as by sailing a boat or paddling a kayak. Perhaps the most intimate encounter of all is in swimming. Let me begin by describing several different experiences on the water. The first recounts a canoe trip I took some years ago down the Genessee River, a river in central New York State in the United States. Mark Twain's account of piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi River in the nineteenth century offers another way of looking at a water environment. A still different kind of orientation comes in knowing the land from the sea that is suggested by Buckminster Fuller's nautical geography. Swimming is the last in this sequence of water environments, and it offers a still different kind of experience. After considering these environmental experiences, I shall offer some general observations about the world that we come to know from the water. Finally, I want to consider what this aqueous perspective can contribute to environmental education. A canoe trip down the Genesee River When I went with a friend by canoe down the Genesee River one spring, our purpose was not free-spirited adventure. It was rather to experience a region from the river that so decisively formed its landscape.2 The Genesee begins in the Allegheny Mountains of northern Pennsylvania 95 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. and winds its way northward, impeded by dams, coursing over falls, rushing through gorges, and slowing and widening until, after a journey of some 145 miles across the full breadth of New York State, it reaches Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes that span the northeastern and north central border of the United States with Canada. There it joins a slower and greater flow eastward, emptying into the great St. Lawrence River, until its waters eventually merge with the Atlantic. During the course of its travels, the Genesee passes through varied terrain, from the hills of the southern tier of New York State, through the gorge and over three great falls at Letchworth State Park, across the undulating farmland of Livingston County until, within the urban reaches of Rochester, it passes over the Niagara Escarpment in three more striking waterfalls and, broadening, flows its final few miles to the lake. The experience of paddling a canoe for three and a half days down the last sixty miles of its length provided unusual insights into that landscape. Because the river flows for nearly all that distance between high, steep, and wooded banks, its low-lying surface made the surrounding countryside almost entirely invisible. We were, in effect, in a riverine forest, with a surprisingly rich variety and quantity of wildlife, even though the larger landscape is mainly agricultural, becoming urban only at its northern extremity. Yet all along the river, even when bordered by fast, noisy highways as we entered the city, the wildlife inhabiting its banks was an intimate and absorbing attraction. Moreover, following the tortuous course of the Genessee provided a curious experience of directionality. Its meanders are so numerous and sharp that the easy curves of the river's forward movement brought us into every relation with the sun, which was now on our backs but soon after in our eyes. As time changes when one is on the water, so does space, for distance on the river has no relation to distance on land. But what struck us most was how few signs there were of any significant human activity. We found an abandoned recreational vehicle mired in the mud flats below the Mt. Morris dam where we began and later, on two occasions, the carcass of a car half absorbed by the steep bank. In only a few places had trash been dumped over the high bank and, in Rochester itself, the river was 96 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. remarkably clean. We were in what is known as a gallery forest, a linear environment of parallel tree and shrub growth separated by the open space of the river. This largely untouched forest had been shaped by the erosive action of the river and it follows along the river’s high, eroded banks and sharp bends. While some large old trees raised their limbs high above the banks, most of the tree growth was more moderate in size, limited perhaps by the river's incessant process of reshaping its course and thus the landscape. This, in fact, was one of the most striking features of the scene, the continuation on a more gentle scale of the same process that had formed the entire valley thousands of years earlier. All about us were signs that this benign river could become a fierce torrent, gouging out thirty-foot banks, toppling giant old trees, washing away acres of soil to deposit them on the inside shore of its many bends and build up new fields, only to cut through them, too, years later. The banks of the river were littered with the whitened corpses of great trees, many of them hidden beneath the surface of the water, waiting to snag an unwary boater. All we saw of their presence was an occasional branch and sometimes a mere stick poking above the surface. Other trees leaned precariously over roots that were mostly exposed, ready to topple in a strong wind or from a corrosive current. We saw strange evidence of the river’s maraudings in the bizarre sight of a large trunk buried prostrate ten or twenty feet below the top of an eroded bank and protruding toward the river, threatening our passing craft like the cannon of some great warship. A different, more delicate sign of the river's more recent action appeared in the tiny, narrow terraces cut in the mud along the steep banks, following every bulge, curve, and angle as carved by the moving edge of the water. While the visual setting betrayed few indications of a changing human presence, our other senses were more revealing. The dominant sounds were the quiet splash of our paddles and the calls of birds in the trees high above, the delightful accompaniment of woodland canoeing. At times we could hear the water ahead flowing over a rocky obstruction. The noise of the internal combustion engine has come to signal and surround human activity, and while we had the good 97 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. fortune to escape its drone for most of the trip, such sounds of human activity were not entirely absent. We could hear an occasional small airplane and even passed through the ambient sounds of a small airport. The roar of a tractor filled the space briefly on a couple of occasions. On one of them the farmer was plowing so close to the bank that we actually exchanged waves with him. But traffic noise is the most salient mark of human activity, and this would warn us of an approaching bridge. As we neared Rochester, this noise became increasingly insistent, yet, oddly enough, it actually diminished as the river moved into the city. Paddling past the mouth of Black Creek and toward Genessee Valley Park, the quiet and the forest returned. Smells were unavoidable. We noted a number of pipes and conduits, large and small, draining into the river. From some there emanated the froth and smell of soap. Still less pleasant was the effluent from sewage treatment plants and the chemical smell from industrial activity. None of these, fortunately, was frequent. On a few occasions we found fishermen along the banks, hopefully more knowledgeable than we about the quality of the water. As one glides along a secluded river, large things become monumental and even small ones are notable. We were startled by the great bulk of a power catamaran stranded on a bar, blocking all but a narrow passage to its left. Later, on the last leg of our journey, the enormous concrete arch of Memorial Bridge served as a magnificent gateway to the lake. Among the more modest sights were hornets' nests hung like Japanese lanterns from trees at intervals along the river, clearly visible among branches that had not yet leafed out. But one of our greatest delights lay in the wildlife we observed: jumping fish, one of them a foot long, deer, many muskrats in and out of the water, possibly an otter, and signs of beaver even on the river bank in Rochester. We were not expert birders nor could we remain as patient and motionless as one needs to, but the long list of unmistakable sightings that we gathered surprised us.3 As the Genessee approaches Lake Ontario, the gorge declines into hills and then flattens out, the river widens, and some marshy areas appeared, covered with the stalks of the previous year's reeds, adding variety to the scene. Near the lake, marinas take over, and we ended at Ontario 98 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. Beach amid the swells coming in from the lake and the activity of other boaters. The scene was in striking contrast to our previous three days, for only on the last did we encounter a single other boater on the river. What is most striking in this descriptive account of the water world of a small river is how predominantly sensory a domain it was. All the senses joined in an acute awareness of the perceptual qualities of that environment: sight, smell, hearing, tactility, kinesthesia, all inseparable in our sensory immersion in the riverine setting. This trip combined several interests – research, the practical demands of guiding the canoe and finding a suitable place to pull out each night, and recognizing animals, birds, and the other things we encountered. But most pervasive and powerful was the aesthetic character of the experience, a character that was always present and dominated all other interests. Mark Twain on the Mississippi River Mark Twain, who spent years piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi River, was struck by the contrast between the aesthetic delights of the river and the practical demands of navigating it. In Life on the Mississippi, Twain likened the surface of the water to a book, unreadable to the passenger who could not decipher its script, but revealing its secrets with complete lucidity to the attentive eyes of the river pilot. Because the river was constantly changing, he found it a book that always needed to be re-read, with ‘a new story to tell every day’. The untutored passenger might notice a faint dimple on the surface of the water, but the pilot would read it in italics, in capital letters and with exclamation points, for it told him that beneath the surface a rock or a wreck lurked that could tear a gash in any vessel. ‘The passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter’. 99 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. Once Twain had mastered the language of the Mississippi, all its beauty vanished for him. He wrote poetically of the qualities he had once enjoyed; of a certain sunset when ‘a broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was /broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled train that shone like sliver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with new marvels of coloring’. Unfortunately, this did not last, for when Twain became a seasoned river pilot he no longer enjoyed the loveliness of these features but saw each of them as a sign of changing weather or a dreadful hazard. ‘Now when I had mastered the language of this water, and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me which I loved. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone out of the majestic river!’4 100 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. Buckminster Fuller's recasting of geography The sea imposes a very different outlook on environment. There is a natural reciprocity between the water and the land, although its character varies with the configuration of the shoreline. The terrain always begins at water level and rises, sometimes beyond the low, flat sweep of a marsh, sometimes abruptly with the steepness of a rocky outcropping, a hill, or a high cliff. The natural shoreline itself is never straight. Its curves, coves, bays, and harbors all call out in different ways, inviting one in for shelter from the wind and protection from waves, bringing us ashore, warning us to keep a safe distance, or merely offering a more intimate sense of the details and textures of the edge — its plants, flowers, creatures, material. In every case, however, the shore faces the water, whose magnetic influence profoundly affects the structures people build there. These often possess a welcoming quality, whether they are homes and villages, piers or docks, for they tend to lead the eye and perhaps the foot inward and upward. But a different perspective of the shore is possible. The visionary designer Buckminster Fuller was a life-long sailor, and that experience supplied his creative imagination with a unique environmental perspective. As we noted in Chapter 5, Fuller regarded of the shore as the edge of the water instead of thinking of the shore as the edge of the land. Knowing the land from the vantage point of the sea gives us a remarkably different sense of the nature of our world. For the sailor, motion is unceasing and universal. ‘He sees everything in motion, from the slopping of the coffee in the pot to the peregrinations of the major magnitude stars’. Only the pole star ‘seems to float motionless as the world’s mooring buoy in the sky’.5 The orbiting of the moon and the sun, the rise and fall of the tide, the imperious claim of physical laws that cannot be ignored or overlooked: the direct presence of all these marks the difference in the nautical environment. It led Fuller to transform the geography of the planet into different ways of reconfiguring its land and water surfaces, a reconfiguration that resulted in alternative maps of the world. He then proceeded to re-write the history of the spread of civilization on the basis of an evolving sailing technology 101 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. whose adaptive boat designs reflected the prevailing wind currents. Whatever we may think of Fuller’s speculations on geography and the history of civilization, what is important here is how our experience is transfigured when we consider the land from the standpoint of the water. We realize not only that we are continually part of a constellation of motions but that, because of our ever-changing position, we must constantly reconsider how we stand in relation to everything else. Basic experiences are transformed. We become intensely aware of the process of entering and leaving, whether a dock or a harbor. Our eyes continually search the horizon and the sky for signs of changing weather. We find ourselves constantly reassessing our direction and distance in the light of changes in our position and the conditions of sky, wind, and water. Even moments of rest are only temporary, for we can quickly haul anchor and sail on, and our neighbors and surroundings are themselves constantly in flux. The sailor is caught up in a world both dynamic and unstable. Swimming Last and most briefly, I want to mention the water world of the swimmer. Swimming is the most intimate of water experiences, and since we all emerge at birth from the amniotic fluid, we may even say that we enter the world by swimming. No environmental experience involves a more direct physical encounter. The eye is of minor importance for once, as the physical urgencies of ‘being in the world’ usurp the relative safety of visual distance. What is perceptually distinctive about swimming is that it is almost entirely tactual.6 We live in the water as active bodies, feeling its weight, its force, its density, its temperature tactually and kinesthetically. The basic processes of living in the world are here physically present and peremptory. The water environment of the swimmer is unlike any other. While our buoyancy varies with the degree of salinity, water, being denser than air, always supports us, so that the pull of gravity is lessened and may even seem to disappear. This can affect our sense of direction. Without 102 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. the advantage of the airplane pilot’s navigational instruments, divers have been known to lose their sense of where the surface is and drown by swimming downward in a futile attempt to reach it. The feeling of being suspended in a liquid medium is perhaps the fullest experience of physical equilibrium we can attain without venturing into outer space. It provides direct experience of our immersion in environment, which is a fact of every environment, even though this is less apparent when the principal medium is air rather than water.7 Knowing the world from the water What do water environments tell us about our world? Are they so different in degree from land environments that they become different in kind, so that the two have little in common? Consider how the features that order the world change when one comes to know it from the water. As we saw in the last chapter, motion is constant and our position always changing. For one thing, the force of gravity relinquishes its hard and rapid downward thrust.In place of the rigid, unyielding surfaces of the land, the water is soft, more like a coiled spring than a hard floor. And its pull is not only downward but sideways, undulating and rolling with the ever-changing contour and press of the waves, swells, and currents. Movement takes on a different character. The sharp and regular geometry of the land gives way to an irregular shoreline of coves and points of land, and the course we follow is often made uneven from the action of wind and current. The smaller the boat and the closer we are to the surface of the water, the more pronounced these irregularities become. Movement is slower than on land, too, and often we cannot head straight to our destination but must move obliquely, tacking a sailboat into the wind or a canoe into the waves, or avoiding a strong wind directly from behind by tacking downwind and, even in the case of a large vessel, altering course to follow a channel or avoid a storm. On a river, of course, one is also bound to follow its unique curvilinear shape. Movement, moreover, does not reflect the abruptness of the land-locked traveler’s actions. There are no sudden starts or stops; everything happens with a kind of elasticized slow motion, almost dance-like in its graceful transitions. Sound, too, is different on 103 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. the water. Its usual reliability in helping us determine distance and location can no longer be trusted. Sound travels more clearly and farther over water, but the influence of humidity, wind, and fog make it hard to estimate its distance and direction. In fog, for example, the ringing of a bell buoy may be distorted, so that at times one cannot tell whether it is coming from in front or behind. Such divergences from our usual experience produce a different kind of world, a world in which we must live in a different way. Because of constant changes and irregularities in wind and water, it is difficult to predict what will happen next and this demands constant observation and careful attention. Space is profoundly altered, losing much of its regularity and its abstract independence of conditions. So, too, does time change, for it is deeply affected by weather conditions, speed, and movement. Furthermore, both space and time tend to be elongated. All this unevenness leads to dissimilar experiences of distance, depending on the particular water environment and our mode of moving in it. But despite the striking contrast with the land environment, the basic features of our water world may not be not so very different from how they seem on land. They emerge instead more insistently and dramatically on the water. The world from the water is a world of constant motion and change, features that are less apparent on land, where the built environment gives us a deceptive sense of stability and control. Yet motion and change are as incessant and inevitable on land as on water. And with the movement of change comes an elasticity of time and space, all three inseparable from one another. For time is influenced by how we are moving in space, and our sense of space tends to be shaped by the time it takes to traverse it. We are also more likely to be liberated from the tyranny of the clock when we are on the water, for here we are freer to bend our sense of space and time to the conditions in which we must function. This is true on land, as well, for when people have the opportunity for greater freedom and flexibility, they do not hesitate to seize it. And on both land and water, we inhabit a world of natural forces, a world that is vulnerable to their vagaries. Our awareness of these conditions of experience depends on the care and acuteness with 104 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. which we notice the perceptual qualities of our environment. Both worlds of water and land are worlds of perceptual experience, of sensings on which we reflect and out of which we build the different ways we have of understanding the human world. From such experiences come those bodies of knowledge that give shape and order to the world we inhabit: history, the different sciences, and the various arts. But the water environment, by the prominence it gives perceptual experience, grants the aesthetic dimension a central place. What can the special demands of functioning in a water environment contribute to our understanding of the aesthetic? Convention has it that aesthetic satisfaction is incompatible with the practical interest we take in things, and Mark Twain carried this over to his experience as a river pilot. But is a sharp opposition between the practical and the aesthetic inevitable? Perhaps it may result more from a culture that opposes the beautiful to the useful than from the necessary exclusion of one from the other because they are conceptually contradictory or experientially impossible. In fact, one of the striking features of this changed world of the water is the way in which the aesthetic serves a practical function at the same time as it provides sensory interest and delight. The splash of the paddle, the ripple of water against the hull, the wind pressing the sails and whistling through the rigging, the feel of the water against the swimmer’s skin as hands and arms force the body through its fluid medium – all these are equally sensings and signs, perceptual pleasures and indicators of how to proceed. They tell us about the influence of current and leeward drift; they say something about how and in what direction our boat or our body is moving and how these forces are affecting our course. This is a world rich with sense and meaning, both of them inseparable in situation and experience. Of course, the balance of the practical and aesthetic aspects varies with the specific occasion. Sometimes the distinctive beauty of the water spreads over the whole scene. We experience this when sailing on a broad reach in a fair breeze, with wind, hull, sails, and helmsman in perfect accord, full of delight in the exhilaration of the moment. Water’s beauty also emerges when paddling or rowing a small craft in a breathless calm across the mirror surface of the water 105 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. during morning or evening twilight. At other times the demands of controlling one’s vessel and surviving the powerful forces of wind and waves predominate, as when clawing off a leeward shore, sailing on a hard slog to windward, or running rapids in a canoe. Much of our experience on water, as on land, displays a more even balance of beauty and practicality, and one of the many virtues of a water environment is the insistent presence of the aesthetic under all conditions. The four water environments I have described offer valuable insights for enlarging our understanding of environment. Paddling down the Genesee or any river shows us the force that water has in creating its own place by influencing, even determining, the shape of the land. Piloting a steamboat down the Mississippi actually exhibits the relevance of aesthetic perception in presenting practical signs for achieving a safe passage. Knowing the land from the standpoint of the sea suggests that the fundamental characteristics of the water environment may provide a truer understanding of the human world. And, finally, the environmental immersion in swimming gives us a direct experience of the fusion of our bodies with the perceptual world. Environmental education and the water environment Let me turn, last of all, to the special contributions this engagement in the water environment can make to environmental education. For this is education not only about environment but also about how we might live harmoniously in the world. First and most directly, the water environment encourages attentiveness to details and signs in nature: It teaches perceptual acuteness. Part of the special pleasure we find in the water is that every change of wind, light, water surface, and motion is experienced immediately. But at the same time these changes tell us much about the particular environment we are part of and how its shifting appearance both reflects what may be hidden and anticipates what may happen. This leads us to realize that things are not always what they appear to be. Experiencing water environments teaches us to place in question the meaning of the obvious, especially the 106 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. regularity and predictability of the land. Appearances may be deceptive and very different meanings may lie beneath the surface. This is a valuable lesson not only for knowing nature but for politics and social life, as well. This larger and deeper understanding can encourage adaptability to constantly changing conditions. Guiding ourselves on the water, whether as swimmers, paddlers, or sailors, is never a sleepy or haphazard matter. One is always thinking ahead, considering possible developments and planning for various contingencies. Living in a water world provides an invaluable lesson in forethought and resourcefulness. This constant activity of perceiving, understanding, and responding to the situation gives us a rich and valuable lesson in living within the processes of the natural world. In particular, it exemplifies the reciprocity of natural forces and conditions, how these are not discrete objects and events but are interrelated and continuous. Most of all, the water environment forces us to see ourselves as an inseparable part of those processes. We are immersed in the world, which is at the same time a world transmuted by human agency. And, like Spinoza, we come to discover the ultimate unity of nature and to recognize as the human place is a part of the natural world. This is all too easy to overlook in the urbanized culture of the developed world, with its intangible and abstract computer model of knowledge, inquiry, and thought. Finally, water environments lead us to respect natural processes. They give us a sober sense of human proportions and limitations. Because water environments are largely not human-made and so are not in the image of human culture, we are forced to recognize the limits of our power. Recognizing this with our bodies as well as with our understanding is a profound environmental lesson. To live, then, as a harmonious part of the natural process is to be most truly human. Perhaps the world from the water can best help us grasp this most important lesson of all. 107 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. 1 NOTES This chapter originally appeared in a Finnish translation by Tommi Nuopponen entitled ‘Maailma vedestä käsin’, in Vesi vetää puoleensa [Water Allures], edited by Yrjö Sepänmaa and Liisa Heikkilä Palo (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237. It has been revised and is reprinted by permission of Maahenki Oy. 2 This was a trip the author made in May 1994 with Richard Gilman. 3 The list includes cliff swallows nesting in the eroded banks, numerous red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures soaring overhead, and many great blue herons and kingfishers, along with the cedar waxwing, plover, short-billed dowitcher, Baltimore oriole, phoebe, yellow warbler and other unidentified warblers. Common birds included the redwing blackbird, cardinal, robin, blue jay, mallard, mourning dove, and goldfinch. We sighted an owl which we could not further identify, as well as many sandpipers. On two occasions pairs of Canada geese with goslings, far from their bolder city relatives, put on a dramatic display of defensive and protective behavior. The exhibition of bird life continued into Rochester, where we saw the yellow warbler, common yellowthroat, black-and-white warbler, common grackle, herring gull, mallard, great blue heron, redwing blackbird, kingfisher, and barn swallow. 4 ‘This sun means that we are going to have wind tomorrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling “boils” show a dissolving bar and a changing/channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the “break” from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?’ Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1874 and 1875). (New York: Harper, n.d.), pp. 77-80, 258-259. 5 R. Buckminster Fuller, ‘Fluid Geography’, in Ideas and Integrities (New York: Collier, 1969), p. 120. 6 In long distance swimming, this changes, for the sound of one’s breathing overpowers all the other senses. 108 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics and Environment, Theme and Variations on Art and Culture. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Also appeared in Vesi vetää puoleensa (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 2002), pp. 228-237, 276-277. 7 For an account of an extended experience of swimming, see Roger Deakin, Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey through Britain (London: Vintage, 2000). 109