To Love the Earth:

The ecological vision in Gary

Snyder's Ecopoetry

by Noah Niehaus
University College Maastricht, the Netherlands
Part 1: Introduction

American poet Gary Snyder once listed what the Western societies are in need of:

More women in politics; religious views which do not exclude nature and
do not fear science; political leaders who have worked in schools,
factories or on farms and write poems; intellectuals who studied history
and ecology and who like to dance and cook; poets who do not care about
literary criticism. “But what we need most is people who love the earth.” 1

The aim of this essay is to investigate the ecologist vision in Gary Snyder's ecopoetry, that
is, to investigate, first, what it means to ‘love the earth’ in terms of a basic understanding of
humans and nature, second, how this can be done, and three, why we need people who do
so. For that purpose, I will examine a number of Snyder's poems from different stages of
his oeuvre that can be considered representative of the poet's world view.
In short, I argue that Snyder's basic concept of nature involves a deep
interconnectedness to the point where the human realm is not separate from nature as a
whole, partly derived from Buddhism. A thorough understanding of this notion results in a
joyous, playful relationship with the world and in gratitude for all other entities of the
whole. To 'love the earth', then, one must engage in the 'real work': acquiring a sense of
place for the region where one lives, understanding and whole-heartedly taking care of it.
This goes hand in hand with a reinforced sense of oneness through physical work and
possibly Buddhist practice, and a general focus on purifying and training the mind, so it be
able to thoroughly internalise the abstract ideas Snyder presents and to act accordingly. All
this is necessary because unmindful leaders, backed by ethnocentric attitudes in the
Western world, threaten to destroy nature on a large scale.

Part 2: About Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder was born in 1930 and grew up on the American West Coast. He studied
1
http://www.fr-online.de/kultur/literatur/sprache-ohne-schlamm/-/1472266/4454068/-/index.html,
retrieved on 25 October, 2010, translated from the German by N.N.
anthropology and Oriental languages. His career has been 'a remarkable combination of
the academic and the contemplative, spiritual study and physical labour' (Maxwell 1994):
the jobs of his early years included logging, being a fire lookout in the mountains and
working in trail-crews. During the 1950’s, he was part of the wider Beat movement, with
Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac belonging to his close friends. Snyder moved to Japan in
1956 to study Zen Buddhism there for twelve years. Ever since coming back to the US,
Snyder has followed his own doctrine of ‘reinhabiting the country’ by living in his self-built
house on the foothills of Sierra Nevada. From the 1970’s on, his writing grew more
essayistic and analytical, striving for ecological and social change, as well as illuminating
issues of Eastern history and thought. In 1986, he began teaching literature and writing at
the University of California, Davis. Snyder is considered one of the leading contemporary
ecopoets.
In 1974, Snyder received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his volume Turtle Island.

Part 3: Analysis of exemplary poems

In order to first acquire a basic understanding of Gary Snyder's view on humans and the
natural world, it seems appropriate to begin with the first question: What are the
prerequisites for ‘loving the earth’?
The most important notion is the Buddhism-informed idea of man and nature
ultimately being one. This can be seen in ‘By Frazier Creek Falls’ (from Turtle Island).
Here, the poet paints a harmonious and strong picture of a nature scene, seen from ‘lifted,
folded rock / looking out and down –‘: under a ‘clear sky’, the creek ‘falls into a far valley’,
the ‘strong wind’ in the pines, whose trunk bodies are ‘straight, still’. Following a line of
silence, holding one's breath, as it were, the reader is told to ‘listen’. The wind in the trees,
the trickle of the creek reveal: ‘This living flowing land / is all there is, forever’ – this is a
Zen way of seeing the world: hills, rivers and trees flow into each other, there a no clear
boundaries – ‘We are it / it sings through us -- / We could live on this Earth / without
clothes or tools!’ Neither are there clear boundaries between us, human beings, and
‘nature’: the land ‘sings through us’, the boundaries are blurred to the point where we ‘are
it’. This can be linked to both ecology and Buddhism, which play the major roles in
Snyder’s oeuvre. In ecology, man is by virtue of his biological constitution part of nature,
thus inextricably intertwined with everything that surrounds him, be it animals and plants
he feeds on, air he breathes or forests and rivers. In Buddhism, the ‘illusory notion of a
separate ego’ is to be given up, in order not to feel as a lone, restrained entity, but as part of
all. Nature is strong and self-sufficient here: the ever-changing, ever-flowing land is ‘all
there is, forever’, and Snyder invites the reader to feel as a non-separate part of this
inciting, vibrating, vivid world. The last two lines, following a dash and concluded by an
exclamation mark, seem like a sudden insight, a remembering: as though the speaker had
forgotten that the ‘land’ is in fact rich and energetic by itself and that ‘clothes and tools’,
probably alluding to the more complicated technology of modern human life, are not
fundamentally necessary for humans to live their lives.
In ‘Ripples on the Surface’ (from No Nature), a similar notion of man and nature
ultimately not being separate entities can be discovered: starting from the different forms
of ripples different water animals produce, Snyder states that ‘Nature’ is ‘not a book, but a
performance, a / high old culture’, where ‘[e]ver-fresh events’ are ‘scraped out, rubbed out,
and used, used again’. The ‘living flowing land’ comes into mind: nature is not a static
world for humans to look at, but a process, a ‘high old culture’ even; it indicates grace and
refinement. This ‘vast wild’ is now juxtaposed to ‘the house, alone’, followed by the notion
‘the little house in the wild, / the wild in the house.’ Civilisation is in nature, nature is in
civilisation; civilisation even seems ‘little’ compared to the ‘vast wild’. Thus intertwined,
the boundaries between 'house' and 'wild' disappear: ‘Both forgotten. / No Nature. / Both
together, one big empty house.’ Since we are part of nature, the mere concept of nature is
void; there is no ‘nature’ as opposed to ‘where humans live’, but everything, all beings
inhabit the same ‘big empty house’ – together. As Tan (2009) puts it, ‘[t]o erase arbitrary
or political boundaries is to follow the natural, ecological boundaries.’ In the term ‘empty’,
another Buddhist influence is visible: in Buddhist philosophy, all form is considered
‘empty’ of a particular innermost, defining being; rather, objects flow into each other, on
the basis of ‘emptiness’, and all human ‘labelling’, classification, is, though of practical use,
secondary and misleading. Thus, civilization and nature flow into each other; we are part
of nature, nature is part of us.
As we are but a part of nature, feelings of human superiority are naturally
erroneous. Accordingly, in ‘Pine Tree Tops’ (from Turtle Island), a certain humbleness
towards nature can be found. A mystical atmosphere is invoked, depicting a ‘blue night’
with ‘frost haze’, glowing sky and moon, ‘pine tree tops’ that ‘fade / into sky, frost, starlight’
(again, a blurring of exact boundaries between phenomena), the only audible impression
‘the creak of boots’. The poem concludes with ‘rabbit tracks, deer tracks, / what do we
know.’ The reader is here taken to a slightly tense night scene, which expands into the
unknown: the pines ‘fade / into sky’, the creak of boots probably resounds in the silence of
the night, and, most importantly, the ‘rabbit tracks, deer tracks’ lead deep into the forest,
signs of a reality to which humans have little access. Again, we have here a world which
functions by itself, the observer being but a ‘we’ in the last line. In this respect, the poem
concedes that the human view is rather narrow: an infinity of events take place outside of
it. Interestingly, the last line ends with a full stop instead of a question mark. It expects no
answer; it resounds into the ‘blue night’, the wide human/non-human world. Here, a ‘Zen
feel’ is evoked. One dwells in not-knowing, in a world unravelling by itself, where human
control is not needed and human superiority is an egocentric illusion.
In poems such as ‘By Frazier Creek Falls’ one can get the impression that Snyder is
overly romantic in his view on nature, pursuing unrealistic, effusive ideas while screening
out its obvious harshness. ‘Old Woman Nature’ (from Axe Handles) shows this is not true.
‘Old Woman Nature / naturally’ possesses ‘a whole room full of bones!’, a ‘scattering of
hair and cartilage’, a ‘bone flake in a streambank’, a ‘purring cat, crunching / the mouse
head’. Despite these remnants of merciless violence, the ‘sweet old woman / calmly
gathering firewood in the / moon’ is – ‘Don’t be shocked’! – ‘heating you some soup’. The
old woman ‘naturally’ has these atrocities in her world. She is ‘sweet’ and calm; and, as the
idyllic land in ‘By Frazier Creek Falls’, she is generous, ‘heating you some soup’. Thus, the
violent aspects of nature are very much seen; still, on the same level or even underneath it,
but either way inextricably linked with it, there is a calm, generous benevolence for those
who immerse into the natural world.

We have described Snyder's concept of nature as a continuous flowing process resting on a

fundamental interconnectedness of all beings, which naturally results in human
humbleness. Yet, the harshness of nature is not overlooked, but rather integrated into a
feel of all-encompassing benevolence. Thus we can now proceed to the second question:
how to ‘love the earth’. What can human beings do to return to a healthier relationship
with the natural world, according to Gary Snyder?
Two basic principles underlying all subsequent action might be found in gratitude
and joyfulness. In 'Prayer for the Great Family' (from Turtle Island), man is, in accordance
with Snyder's ideas explored in the first question, part of the universal 'Great Family',
alongside Mother Earth, Plants, Air, Wild Beings etc. The 'Great Sky', 'Grandfather Space',
is married to the 'Mind', which implies a love relationship of (human) consciousness and
the empirical world - thus intertwined in a joyful, loving way. 'Gratitude' to Family
members is prayed for, praising their respective qualities, such as Mother Earth's 'rich,
rare and sweet' soil. Each stanza is followed by the wish that “in our minds so be it”. Thus,
from the interconnectedness springs loving gratitude, which is to be internalised on a deep
level.
Joyfulness is equally evoked in 'Song of the Taste' (from Regarding Wave), where
sex and eating, both as reproductive activities, and the flux of food and eater, of lover and
lover (whose mouth in turn is 'of bread') are skilfully interwoven to a joyful song of mutual
permeation. Fruit are 'the fleshy sweetness packed / around the sperm of swaying trees',
we eat 'the living germs of grasses'. In sex as on the larger level of interconnectedness
through food, 'we' (humans and other beings) eat 'each other's seed / eating / ah, each
other.' This interconnectedness, joyful and a bit raw (since we also eat 'the bounce of the
lamb's leap / the swish in the ox's tail'), engender the 'Taste' in the title: the taste of
individual lives overlapping and intruding each other – joyfully.
Equipped with these general attitudes, one is ready for 'the real work'. In 'I Went
Into the Maverick Bar' (from Turtle Island), the speaker goes into a countryside bar, where
a conservative atmosphere prevails and dancers 'held each other like in High School
dances / in the fifties'. He acknowledges a certain charm in the 'short-haired joy and
roughness -- / America -- your stupidity'. When the speaker and his company leave,
however, 'under the tough old stars -- / In the shadow of bluffs', he comes 'back to myself, /
To the real work, to / “What is to be done.”' The 'real work' here is opposed to a rough,
conservative, average American life. It is regained under 'the tough old stars', the real work
is thus outdoors. The 'bluffs' can be cliffs along the freeway, but they can also be bluffs in
the sense of false promises that night life and the American everyday 'stupidity' make – it
is charming, but the 'real work' is somewhere else, and it is where oneself is, thus the true
state of a person: simply what really is 'to be done', man's real vocation as part of the
natural world. Tan (2009) quotes Snyder saying the purpose of 'the real work' is 'to make
the world as real as it is, and to find ourselves as real as we are within it' (p. 203). This
'becoming real' is achieved through physical labour: in 'What You Should Know to be a
Poet', Snyder recommends to 'work long, dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted /
and lived with and finally lovd.' In a 1977 interview, Snyder stated:

If there is any one thing that's unhealthy in America, it's that is is a

whole civilization trying to get out of work – the young, especially, get
caught in that. There is a triple alienation when you try to avoid work:
 first, you're trying to get outside energy sources/resources to do it for
you; second, you no longer know what your own body can do where
your food or water come from; third, you lose the capacity to discover
the unity of mind and body via your work. (GS Reader, p. 100)

The real work is thus partly to gain self-sufficiency and a (Buddhist) oneness through
labour.
Related to this, Tan (2009) quotes Snyder saying 'for Americans, the real work is
becoming native to North America.' (p.204). This development of sense of place, of being
native, can be seen in 'For All' (from Axe Handles). After a vivid, joyful description of an
autumn mountain scene, the speaker 'pledge[s] allegiance to the soil / of Turtle Island,'
(this being Snyder's Native American-derived term for North America) 'and to the beings
who thereon dwell.' Allegiance is pledged to the natural world of Snyder's home continent
just like others do to the U.S. flag. This implies loyalty and responsibility towards humans,
animals and plants alike.
A means to develop this sense of place is to 'learn the flowers', as Snyder
recommends in 'For the Children' (from Turtle Island), or, as an answer to the poem's title
'What You Should Know to be a Poet', to know 'all you can know about animals as
persons. / the names of trees and flowers and weeds. / the names of stars and the
movements of planets / and the moon.' This practical acquiration of knowledge and
understanding will deepen people's ties to their surroundings and make them feel native to
a certain area with certain characteristics – as opposed to place-ignorant, ethnocentric
modern (urban) lifestyle.
Once one knows one's place, one can even help the land. In 'Control Burn' (from
Turtle Island), Manzanita bush 'crowds up under the new trees' and 'a fire can wipe out
all'. Hence, the speaker 'would like / with a sense of helpful order, with respect for laws / of
nature, / to help my land / with a burn' – like the 'Indians' did it '[b]efore'. Even harsh
measures are thus justified, as long as 'helpful order' and 'respect for laws of nature' are
maintained. A good indicator, for Snyder, are the 'Old Ways' of indigenous people.
Another crucial means to achieve a harmonious relationship with nature is to train
one's mind consciously. In 'Prayer for the Great Family', the wish 'in our minds so be it' is
uttered. In 'What You Should Know to be a Poet', the aspiring artist is told to know her
'own six senses, with a watchful elegant mind'. In 'To Fire' (from Regarding Wave), the
speaker, having burnt unuseful possessions, concludes with: 'Let me unflinching burn /
Such dross within / With joy / I pray!' In these examples, we see that Snyder aims at a real
inner transformation, naturally informed by his Buddhism, which stresses scrupulous
observation and gradual inner change. Only if our attitudes are profoundly altered can we
perform beneficial actions regarding the natural world.

Now that we know how to 'love the earth' – by being grateful and joyous existence,
performing the 'real work' by establishing a sense of place and acting out of respect and
deep knowledge of the natural world and ultimately by internalising these ideas and
purifying our minds –, we can proceed to the question why this is necessary. What caused
Snyder to write his poems and essays?
In 'Mother Earth: Her Whales' (from Turtle Island), written after attaining a UN
conference on environmental issues in 1972, Snyder accuses the world's political elite of
'flapping' 'like vultures' near 'a dying Doe' – our planet. Brazil is condemned for exploiting
the jungle, Japan for hunting whales, even medieval China for its first massive acts of
deforestation. Snyder provocatively asks: 'How can the head-heavy power-hungry politic
scientist / [...] paper-shuffling male / non-farmer jet-set bureaucrats /Speak for the green
of the leaf? Speak for the soil?' Snyder's anger is directed against an elite very little
educated in ecological matters, which egoistically and egocentrically pursues its own
interests, oblivious to the wider consequences of their actions.
To add a historical dimension to this, it is helpful to look at the section 'The Groves
are down' from Myths and Texts. Here, Snyder condemns logging, especially in areas
dominated by 'Old Ways'. As culprits he names 'the prophets of Israel / the fairies of
Athens / the thugs of Rome / both ancient and modern'. 'Luther and Weyerhaeuser', who
bulldoze the groves, are made to sound like a building company – a bitter side blow against
Christianity, even surpassed by the notion of '[s]awmill temples of Jehovah / [...] sending
the smoke of or burnt / Live sap and leaf / to his eager nose.' Here, clearly, the so-called
Judaeo-Christian tradition is identified as the primal source of ethnocentric acting, to the
point where mass-deforestation bears traits of a Holocaust, hailed by 'Jehovah' or at least
people's notion of God.
To sum up, in our epoch, according to Gary Snyder, ill-informed leaders destroy the
earth with short-sighted, selfish decision-making. On the everyday level, destroying nature
is business: accustomed to a 'Judaeo-Christian-Greek-Roman-Western' mode of thinking,
the natural world is seen as alien and inferior to human beings and thus exploited
ruthlessly. Evidently, Snyder's notion of nature and man being fundamentally one, as seen
in the first question, is widely forgotten in the modern world. Therefore, different mental
sets, which include nature, are needed, as well as a new senses of 'being native'.

Part 4: Conclusion

We have seen that Gary Snyder's notion of 'loving the earth' is expressed mainly in a loyal
attitude to 'one's land', and ultimately in leading a simple but joyous life in harmony with
nature. This derives from the idea that man and nature are no separate entities and that
human superiority is therefore erroneous, and is informed by amongst others Buddhist
and Native American philosophies. As nature is increasingly being destroyed by unmindful
'civilised' humans, according to Snyder, it is time for a change in attitudes.
Facing global warming and the 'environmental crisis', Snyder's decade-old ideas
seem all the more important today. In this, his vision of a humble, clear-minded humanity
acknowledging its dependence on the well-being of other life forms could prove very
helpful. Unfortunately, ideas such as his reach mainstream society only very slowly; in
Snyder's case, this is of course also due to his use of non-Western concepts and imagery,
which are hard to decode for those unacquainted with the home culture of those ideas. Yet,
as environmental issues can be expected to gain in importance over the next decades, we
might be in for a Gary Snyder revival sooner or later.
Part 5: References

All poems from:

The Gary Snyder Reader (1999), Counterpoint, Berkeley.

Maxwell, G. (1994). About Gary Snyder.

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/snyder/life.htm, retrieved on 25
October, 2010.

Shepherd, F. (2005). Ecology and Criticism of Modern Civilization in Selected Poems of

Gary Snyder. http://www.garysnyder.bplaced.net/Gesamtseite.htm, retrieved on
25 October, 2010

Tan, J. Q. (2009). Han Shan, Chan Buddhism and Gary Snyder's Ecopoetic Way. Sussex
Academic Press, Brighton/Portland.