Exploring Dynamic Eco-Calendars for a Modern World
Do you ever wonder where the seasons went? Sure, it is a bit below zero in the Netherlands right now, but temperatures have been pretty humid throughout winter. Rain, no ice, thin sweaters and no snow boots. In the Netherlands, our indoor, climate-controlled offices keep us oblivious to the time and seasons. However, our bodies remain tethered to natural cycles. This disconnection has allowed us in the West to grow and consume beyond our planet's limits. To rediscover our biological and ecological connection, I invite you on a journey to Pongso no Tao island and a step back in time to the pre-Christian Dutch delta.
(c) wondermash / Marjolein Pijnappels
Exploring ecological calendars, most notably those of the peoples of the Pamir Mountains and the island of Pongo no Tao, I envision pathways to future modern societies living attuned to ecological and geological cycles and time scales, as part of the project Re-Syncing Humans to Habitat.
For over a year I worked on a book chapter for the book Changing Seasonality, an effort to capture the diverse ways people all over the world are coping with climate change and disrupted seasons. This chapter and a forthcoming article on ecological calendars is inspired by conversations I had with Sutej Hugu, a native from the island of Pongso no Tao. Tao are struggling to live with climate change and the ruins left by nuclear dumping, ecosystem degradation and cumulative consequences of disregard for local and indigenous people, their lands and wisdom.
I’ve been searching how to implement his wisdom in my work, careful not to appropriate what isn’t mine. Sutej urged me to ‘take what I thought would help’ and make it my own thing, similar to how the elders of Tao retell the stories to the next generation and altering these. He politely refused any co-authorship and was hesitant about being acknowledged at all, as this would not benefit him or his community.
The chapter explores how in the west we can envision our own ecological calenders, a means to attune to cycles of nature (including those within our own bodies) and digging deep for our own ancestral roots. Ages ago there lived a tapestry of Germanic-Celtic tribes on these lands, renowned for their ‘barbary’ (thanks to succesful Roman propaganda), but who also had a deep connection with the land, especially its forests and trees and who would meet with elders in the forests to communally decide the future of their communities.
I go deeper into what this might look like in a forthcoming article in Science & Society, published later this year, using speculative fiction as my tool.
You can find the book Changing Seasonality here under Open Access publishing and here’s the article on exploring ecological calendars for modern times. It is an inspiring book many great people worked on for over a year and some of whom I met in Norway for a seminar on Repatterning Time last september.