I recently started reading Bodas de Sangre -- Blood Weddings, a play written in 1985 by the tragic Andalucían poet Federico García Lorca. I only just started the second act, but up until now in Lorca's fatalistic plot the leading female character is en route to the wedding where she is supposed to get married to a man for whom she has a sadly curt, forced love. She has just had a distressing conversation with her married ex-boyfriend -- distressing due to the conspicuously mutual attraction that spikes their exchange.



I bring up this book because, though it takes place in and is informed by my current home region of Andalucía, I have found few cultural references that I could really relate to. That was until today, when I took a day trip out to the campo -- the countryside -- and read the following passage in Bodas de Sangre:

Padre: Yo quiero que tengan muchos. Esta tierra necesita brazos que no sean pagados. Hay que sostener una batalla con las malas hierbas, con los cardos, con los pedruscos que salen no se sabe dónde. Y estos brazos tienen que ser de los dueños, que castiguen y que dominen, que hagan brotar las simientes. Se necesitan muchos hijos.

Father (talking to his supposedly soon to be sister-in-law): I hope you have a lot [of grandchildren]. This land needs arms that don't ask for pay. It's the only way to keep up the battle against the weeds, the thistles, and the rocks that come from who knows where. And those arms have to be those of the family's, have to punish and dominate the land, have to make the seeds sprout. Yes, the life demands many children.

Climbing the hills around the tiny pueblo of Espiel, nothing was more beautifully displayed than the dominance of nature and its intractable forces. We began our trek walking up a paved road:


which soon gave way to an overgrown dirt path:


which promptly disappeared, as we treaded through knee high grasses rarely touched by human skin:


Why do people love to explore nature, anyway? It often seems to me that what draws us is that aura of innocent virginity found on any given mountain, field or forest. It's an organic peace that simply can't be found in the urban jungle.

But at the same time, nature wouldn't be itself without its infinite, unsentimental brutality of growth. What do I mean by that? To take a less romantic view of the world, there is no manmade structure or living being that natural forces will hesitate to tear down and swallow up.

Ashes to ashes,
dust to dust.
Stones to stones:


and die we must:



It's not always easy to remember when you live in a city, but I really believe that humans are just one of many species inhabiting this earth. And we should try to act accordingly. Nature is beautiful, but it is not charitable. It is giving, but it is indomitable.

Much of my reasoning comes from a powerful book I read a few months ago, called The World Without Us. Written by Alan Weisman, it uses history, architectural and natural science, and scary pollution statistics to paint a picture of what might happen to the earth if humans were to suddenly vanish. The third chapter, called The City Without Us, talks about New York City after the disappearance of humans. Particularly astonishing is how vulnerable its massive bridges are to the relentless waves of nature's forces:

The bridges are under a constant guerrilla assault by nature. Its arsenal and troops may seem ludicrously puny against steel-plated armor, but to ignore endless, ubiquitous bird droppings that can snag and sprout airborne seeds, and simultaneously dissolve paint, would be fatal. Del Tufo [Manager of the George Washington Bridge] is up against a primitive but unrelenting foe whose ultimate strength is its ability to outlast its adversary, and he accepts as a fact that ultimately nature must win....

Every connection is vulnerable. Rust that forms between two steel plates bolted together exerts forces so extreme that either the plates bend or rivets pop....

Three times in the past 100,000 years, glaciers have scraped New York clean.

So what of the man vs. nature dichotomy? What's going on in man and nature's relationship?

It's complicated.