This piece is inspired by “Twenty-Two Short Lectures” by Mary Ruefle from Madness, Rack, and Honey (Wave Books, 2012).
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There’s a misguided prevailing sense that past generations somehow remain present with us. That their knowledge, perspective, and (most importantly) skillsets are safely preserved somewhere. Skills that I don’t have, that no one I’ve met has, yet they must still exist somewhere.
Someone must know how to can dandelion roots, build a leaded glass window, carve a canoe from a tree, orient an outhouse safely away from drinking water, crossbreed apple varietals, brew mead from honey, derive cloth from flax, navigate by the stars, breed silkworms, dig a well, use a candle as an alarm clock, build stone structures without mortar, condensate water from desert winds, share food and land with untamed species, distill a tincture, make paint from snail shells, weave a basket, train a flock of homing pigeons, tie bobbin lace, stretch a deer hide, thatch a roof, fletch arrows, marble paper, craft an orrery, string a marionette, and construct a loom.
Someone must be preserving that knowledge, right? Such important, fundamental, society-building knowledge can’t just be lost.
But where is it? How is it accessed? Who is teaching it?
How do I reconnect with such foundational, land-based, earth-centric, indigenous knowledge in a post-modern society hell-bent on disrupting and discontinuing it’s own existence? Is this the effect of a juvenile country unable to reconcile with it’s past, or indicative of the species as a whole?
We suffer from the shifting baseline syndrome of handicrafts. Believing that everything that came before is preserved or, perhaps more troubling, that it is not worth preserving. Moving forward in a self-destructive, headlong run toward extinction. Or at least towards a less-creative future.
These aren’t skills to learn from reading. They must be taught, practiced, perfected, and passed down. How do we make the time when there is competition for every second of our attention?
How can we afford to not make the time?
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Melissa Proulx | Author 