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Poème vocabulaire scientifique (2)/Index alphabétique; Ordre/désordre; Hommage à l' "accident"; À propos de sobre; Se Souvenir; Poème; Tableau noir...; Sans titre; VLF; Interpret In English; Untitled (to Don Judd); Plus, minues (to Mondrian); Une autre appoche de l'infini

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City as Classrooms [excerpts]

Helvacioglu, Banu

Human Nature in Nature's Nature 
Banu Helvacioglu 
There are two hiking routes in my neighbourhood. Each belongs to a university 
campus. Depending on the seasonal local politics of universities, sometimes I need 
to get a special pass to go hiking. At the outset, this local contingent politics is 
among many other factors which make me think how nature's nature turns into 
human's nature and how human nature shapes nature's nature. 
I call these two hiking routes my forests. They are not like the forests I used to 
hike in Northern Ontario. Friends who occasionally accompany me are amazed 
that I consider them forests. At best they are lush areas. Trees, plants, weeds, all 
growing by themselves, unattended by university officials. Except for the weekends 
the forests are 'all empty,' meaning there is no human visitor. During the weekends 
human visitors walk on the assigned routes and remain in designated picnic areas. 
This is one way of turning nature's nature into human's nature. Nature does not 
speak up and say I am here, in full presence. It needs no proof of its existence. It 
does not appropriate its own space by defining the number of trees, their shapes 
and colours and the types and bodies of water it contains. It does not hierarchi- 
cally and morally categorize the animals. Nature does not name the earth under 
particular routes. In short, nature does not need direction for itself nor does it 
direct human beings to any particular destiny. All these are the creations of a 
human mind, which cannot accept anything, let alone a natural presence, as is. 
I feel I am in the presence of something when the hiking routes are 'all empty.' I 
prefer to acknowledge this inexplicable presence as a forest. This brings the felt 
presence down to earth, rather than constructing imaginary scenarios about an 
exalted higher divine being. The truth of the matter is that, on happy occasions 
when my consciousness registers the simple act of walking as, "I simply walk on 
earth," I reach an exalted mental condition of acceptance. Let there be no doubt. 
The problem is not my being accepted by trees, plants, weeds, birds, and animals 
who reside in the forest. 
When I started hiking, many people tried to dissuade me from engaging in such 
a dangerous activity. The source of danger was unknown. Who knows what might 
happen? I took the risk. On a number of occasions I was made to feel like a special 
person because dogs have not yet attacked me. This, together with other fearful 
remarks made by others must have been stored somewhere in my consciousness, 
above and beyond, by my free will. The moment I enjoy the simple act of walking 
without the intrusion of my consciousness, I feel my whole presence is being 
accepted by my own consciousness. This is a miraculous moment of joy, which 
lasts until I hit a knot in my mind, which consists of unspoken not's, no's and pro- 
hibitions. They surface in moments of joy, as if my mind warns me again and 
again, "you are walking on an unknown territory, so you had better be careful." 
Then I start paying attention to my simple act of walking and the magic disap- 
pears. I transform myself from a happy wanderer into a careful walker. In spite of 
the warnings and prohibitions coming from my consciousness I do not feel threat- 
ened in the forest. My senses and consciousness do not agree with one another. 
Instead of fighting against the warnings of my consciousness, I adopted a happy- 
go-lucky attitude and diverted my attention from a meditative activity of walking 
to my surroundings. I have come to know many trees and plants, introduced 
myself to the life style of frogs and turtles, have seen light in different shades and 
colours, have witnessed the slow pace in the change of seasons, started painting, 
and have appreciated nature's silent way telling stories about everything, except 
itself. After many unexpected episodes of listening to these silent stories and fully 
enjoying the serene calm, I realized that I was destined to be a human being. My 
own nature was not the same as nature's nature. All literary metaphors like the 
windy human soul, the mountain ranges and the deep oceanic feelings in the 
human psyche started sounding banal and man-made. 
The unfortunate part of being a human is that humans want to know and antic- 
ipate everything andlor they have a desire to go beyond themselves by giving 
meaning and shape to things which simply exist. Nature unleashes and curtails 
human creativity at the same time. Many times I watched snow falling from all 
directions to the ground and compared the tranquillity of this motion with human 
motion which inadvertedly is characterized by some form of effort, exertion, if not 
violence. Can a dancer emulate the motion of the snow? Can a choir sing as effort- 
lessly and spontaneously as frogs sing in the early evening? 
These questions led me to appreciate all aesthetic creativity as a form of strug- 
gle. The irony of this appreciation is that I have started enjoying nature's own way 
of 'acting' and 'moving' more and more, and human artistic performances less and 
less. Each time I watched an artist perform I could not help but see the agony in 
their faces and the awkwardness in their bodies. Compared to any motion in 
nature, I took aesthetic beauty as a testimony to the tormented human soul, psy- 
che, and consciousness. Humans sometimes pay exorbitant prices to become spec- 
tators of aesthetic beauty, while I often enter into one of my forests with a simple 
gesture of nodding my head or showing the special permit purchased freely. Some- 
times free entry into a forest can be more agonizing than watching an artistic per- 
formance, other times it can be more fun than anything created by humans. After 
all who is to judge human preferences as agonizing, tormented, funny, or beautiful 
but humans themselves. On a grand scale of all forms of existence, human creativ- 
ity can be regarded as amusing in its ceaseless effort to discipline what is otherwise 
natural in all humans, be it voice, harmony, rhythm, imagination, or acting. 
Painting opened my mind's eyes in another direction. Compared to singing and 
dancing, when we look at a painting we do not often see the same struggle unless 
the painter chooses to show it to the spectators. Yet the painting of a landscape 
BANU HELVACIOGLU 31 
only shows the limitations of human imagination. Why has there not been a well- 
known painting of a forest at night? The richness of colours at night are so mind 
boggling that a determined painter could go insane very easily. By the same token, 
a pair of painter's eyes at night may allow the generosity of nature in a different 
light. A11 in all, the concepts we often use-light, dark, colours and shades are sin- 
ister tools to make us believe the power of human imagination. The power lies in 
not admitting that a loving, accepting relationship between a human and nature is 
an impossibility. 
The impossibility is due to the intervention of human consciousness which is a 
series of knots and not's. Human consciousness cannot accept the simple, joyful, 
playful, tranquillity of nature unmediated by an exalted divine being. It prohibits 
any 'natural,' instinctive drive in human nature. In the presence of nature, human 
consciousness has a will to death-in the sense of going outside of its own realm- 
and a will to life at the same time. I am always in awe of old and new age stories of 
prophets and masters who, after long solitary meditations in nature, are visited by 
divine light. Without exception, in each story the enlightened human turns to 
preaching andlor healing. Century after century a would-be divine power says the 
same things: humans are wounded and sheepish creatures in need of morals. To give 
and receive love is a cherished moral duty, and love itself heals human consciousness. 
Mind you, my master in the last ten years has been Hegel. Ever since I read his 
Phenomenology of the Mind for the first time, I sheepishly accepted the truth, that 
nothing original could be said about human mind. But, in this master-pupil rela- 
tionship I have always resented the fact that Hegel knew everything about moral- 
ity, religion, aesthetics, and free will, and that there was nothing new left for me to 
say. A few years ago, on a warm spring day, divine light poured from heaven right 
into my mouth. For the first time in my life I met many turtles making love out in 
the open. I immediately thought Hegel's absolute freedom. I grinned in my know- 
ing state of mind, felt triumphant over Hegel's phenomenology of the mind. At 
last, I knew something that Hegel could not conceive of. Hegel thought of absolute 
freedom as a piercing stage in the human mind, which occurs after surpassing the 
terror, the fear of death. Afterwards the doors of heaven are opened and the 
human mind becomes one with the Universal One. 
Alas, there they were, turtles, free as free can be, making love for hours and 
hours. I did not sense any fear of death in their lovemaking ritual. Turtles must 
choose their mates during hibernation. Once they are out in the open air, they do 
not waste any time with the long tedious process of flirtation. At the same time, 
they do not seem to be in a hurry, to finish up their 'business.' They do not mind 
the hard facts of life, like rolling over on the hard flat earth with hard shells on 
their backs. There were so many of them, exhibiting all different rituals that I 
could not help but watch this wonder of nature. Some seemed to enjoy themselves 
more than others; some tried all different positions. They did not always have eas- 
ily identifiable gender codes, in terms of aggression and submission. They made 
noises, which I could not decipher in terms of their emotions. Most of them did 
not mind my watchful presence, being so close to them. After the lovemaking sea- 
son was over, they went back to their seemingly solitary existence, timid and sensi- 
tive to my being near them. 
The secret was revealed. Making love without the fear of death prolongs life 
through the centuries, and is a sure way of becoming one with the universal will to 
freedom. I was about to declare turtles as the holiest of all holy animals. Then my 
heart was pierced. My romantic conception of turtle's freedom came to an abrupt, 
upsetting conclusion. 
Ever since I have developed a sense of turtles as my eternal friends, I made sure 
to greet them every spring and summer, ask about their hibernation and well being 
for the season. I could distinguish who was who by the location where they hang 
out. This summer, I came across one of them, and after the initial greeting and pat- 
ting hirnlher on the back, the turtle picked something from the ground and started 
chewing. When I looked more closely it was animal excrement, either of his or her 
own kind or some other animal kind. He or she did not take my moral interven- 
tion into account, continued eating the shit, breaking it into small portions as if it 
was gourmet food. Eternity is a condition of a puritanical mindset. There and then 
I broke my eternal friendship with the entire world of turtles. I could not possibly 
accept eating shit as a sign of freedom, nor could I remain silent. I spoke with 
them many at times, showed all the vegetation around and told them what to eat 
and what not to eat. They did not listen to me. 
After the break up, I know for a fact that they are freer than I had conceived. So 
am I in a miraculous way. A friend suggested checking the library, to find out more 
about turtles. I hesitated for a moment. Then I realized that I had lost my appetite 
for knowledge, and declared freedom from my Master Hegel's tutelage. Funny 
how, after that decision, a knot in my consciousness has been loosened. These 
days I enjoy the simple act of walking, singing with frogs in the evening and crick- 
ets at night. I might dance with snowflakes this coming winter, may my disciplined 
consciousness be willing. For the time being I continue listening to nature telling 
silent stories about the human mind, anticipating that my senses and conscious- 
ness will be in harmony with a divine laughter, yet to come. 
BANU HELVACIOGLU 33 


English

Human Nature in Nature's Nature

Peacock, Jan

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