Practicing Good Manners

I recently read a quote from the poet Gary Snyder, who says he tells his students that “good manners requires you to get to know the names of the plants and flowers and birds. That's etiquette." In fact, when a fellow hiker asks me the name of a bush and I don’t know it, I feel a little embarrassed, as if I’ve invited someone over and don’t know the names of all my guests.

 

When I first moved to Colorado, I bought Peterson’s Guide to Wildflowers, a small hardback book with color plates of common flowers, both their Latin and informal names, where they were found (subalpine meadows, for example), and when they bloomed. Over the years, the pages have become worn and watermarked, with an occasional dried flower as a bookmark, and the book has been supplemented with other wildflower guides, with bigger photographs and more detailed information.

 

In that time, I’ve learned not just the names of flowers but to recognize the families (pea or aster). Over the years, I’ve become familiar with the common birds, bushes, trees, and grasses, even a few fish and turtles. 

 

Names by themselves, though, don’t mean much. The house wren doesn’t know that we’ve given it such a prosaic name. Around the cabin, I know it more for its lilting, clear song in spring. The name is just a convenient label. But giving something a name forces me to stop and examine the number of petals on the flower or the kind of bark and needles on the tree, so I can identify it. It’s a tool for awareness.

 

And being able to identify the world around me is more than an ability to impress people with my knowledge.  Once I know the name, I can find out more about each living thing and discover how complex the natural world is. That’s not just a bird or a tree or a squirrel, but a ponderosa that can live to be 200 years old or a chickaree (gray squirrel) that feeds on pine cones in the tops of the ponderosa all winter long or the mountain bluebird that’s one of the first birds to return to the mountain meadows in spring.

 

With Gary Snyder’s encouragement, I’m determined to learn everything: what kinds of ants build hills around my cabin;  the name of the gray, papery lichen that clings to the boulders along Cabin Creek; why some of the willow bushes along the valley bottom have red bark and others have yellow; and the name of the butterfly (above) that feeds on the thistles every fall.

 

The more I find out, the more I see how all of life is interrelated. If the ponderosas are killed off by the pine beetle, the chickarees and birds that feed off of these trees will die, too. This web of life has been created over thousands of years. The more I learn, the more I’m awed. I guess that’s just good etiquette.

Comments

[shoney]

Thank you for using Gary Snyder as reference....I kept expecting poetry and I wasn't disappointed, this piece reads like prose poetry. The naming of things has an importance, it is an honoring and an art.
After 6 years in Colorado I still can't find the names of plants I see on the trails here, I try, but...nor can I always remember the names of dinner guests.

[Julene]

Thanks for this encouraging reminder. I totally agree with you, but haven't slowed down enough since I moved to the Rocky Mountains--17 years ago now--to open the wildflower books that I bought with the best of intentions. When I lived in the desert, I learned many of those plants and it was wonderful to realize that I COULD learn them. Now, with your encouragement, I've resolved to try again here.

[Laurel Kallenbach]

You're right: Knowing the names of things in nature is wonderful. And even though the birds don't know the name we've given them, I love the language of names. For instance, in Belize, I snorkeled for several hours a day finding exotic-sounding fish: Queen Angelfish, surgeonfish, clownfish, parrotfish, sergeant major, blue tang, damselfish, Purplemouth Moray eel, mantis shrimp.

[Kathy Kaiser]

Laurel, I agree with you. As someone who loves language, I find the names beautiful and evocative in themselves.