Growing into death

The Majestic Oak...

I went to visit this tree the day after the baby robins died. I was looking for consolation and the tree gave it.

Majesty is living into death and dying into life. Death is part of all our lives - the cells that die all the time... the cells that don't die are cancer.

And death is not to end of becoming... it is the start of a stage of becoming compost....

I am reading Michael Marder's Dump Philosophy and the book's not that easy to read but the premise fascinates me: our conceptualisations, like our plastics, do not metabolise, do not compose... they are static, non-organic.... we fill up landfill sites, seas, minds, with all this undigestible shit. The way do deal with it is to encourage metabolism and metamorphosis.

let me offer a synopsis from the reviews - thanks to Gemini:

• Core Argument: The modern world, driven by consumerist excess, has converted the planet into a "dump" for waste, including microplastics and toxins.

• Phenomenology of Waste: Marder examines the effects of this, arguing it causes a "semiocide" (the killing of meaning) where nuanced thinking is reduced to mere data processing.

• Ecological and Mental Impact: The book posits that environmental destruction (ecocide) is linked to a breakdown in mental processing, where information overload acts as a "dump" that disorients and prevents collective action.

• "Dumped Dumpers": Marder highlights the irony that humanity is both the creator and the victim of this environmental and existential ruin.

• Reception: Critics describe the book as a "frightening" yet "intellectually spellbinding" look at the 21st century.