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FAUNA ANUAF An Environmental Humanities Literary and Art Magazine

Spring 2022

TABLE OF CONTENTS Front Cover: Winter Isolation, Anand Parikh '25

Table of Contents: Anand Parikh Page 3: Environmental Humanities Student Advisory Board

Page 4: Letter from the Editor, Ayla Fudala, Environmental Humanities Program Coordinator

Pages 5 & 7: Emilie Pilchowski '22 Pages 6 & 8: Maggie Libby, Curator of Digital Discovery & Engagement, Special Collections & Archives

Pages 9 & 11: Pilar Fuentes '22 Pages 10 & 12: Erin Coughlin '23 Pages 13-16: Sam Onche '22 Pages 17-18: Carol A. Hurney, Associate Provost, Faculty Development & Diversity, Founding Director, Center for Teaching & Learning

Page 18: Zoky Zhou '24 Pages 19, 20, & 22: Chris Rodiger '22 Page 21: Rory Hallowell '24 Page 23: Rowan Karpa-Wilson '23

Page 24: Erica Lee '24 & Nicki Chaput '22

Pages 25-26: Emilie Pilchowski Page 26: Joephie Lam '24 Page 27: Lucia-hope Markoe '25 Page 28: Adam Venturella '23 Page 29-30: Noah Milsky '25 Pages 31-34: Mahika Gupta '23 Page 34: Chris Rodiger Page 35 Emilie Pilchowski Page 36: Zoky Zhou Pages 37-38: Lucia-hope Markoe Page 38: Zoky Zhou Page 39: Upcoming Environmental Humanities Courses

Page 40: Get Involved with the Environmental Humanities

Back Cover: Calving, Anand Parikh

Arcadia Anand Parikh

ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES STUDENT ADVISORY BOARD

Lucia Middleton '22 Student Chair

Rory Hallowell '24

Lucia-hope Markoe '25

Eden Mayer '25

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader,

Welcome to the fourth issue of FAUNA, an environmental humanities literary and art magazine created by the Colby Environmental Humanities (EH) Student Advisory Board and the EH Program Coordinator. The goal of this magazine is to highlight extraordinary environmentally themed creative works by Colby students, staff, and faculty, and to spread the message of EH across campus and beyond.

This year's issue begins with a contemplation of the landscapes that shape us, and their complex and often traumatic histories. I would like to acknowledge that the land on which Colby stands is the territory of the Wabanaki Confederacy, to whom each one of us is indebted. The magazine then moves on to a celebration of metamorphosis, rebirth, and the shifting seasons, a never-ending cycle of which we are all an intrinsic part. We then turn from the land to the sea, diving below the waves to appreciate underwater flora and fauna, learning about their intricate beauty but also the manifold dangers which threaten them.

If you too feel a connection to the natural world and concern for the issues facing it, and find joy in expressing this connection creatively, then the environmental humanities are for you. If you turn to the last two pages of the magazine, you’ll find information on the English with Literature and the Environment concentration, a list of all the EH courses you can take next year, and information on how you can join the EH Student Advisory Board and submit your own work to FAUNA.

Thank you for reading. I hope that you enjoy the magazine!

Ayla Fudala Environmental Humanities Program Coordinator Center for the Arts and Humanities

LIVING LANDSCAPES EMILIE PILCHOWSKI

As a kid, I always loved photo albums. I would sit for hours on the couch with my grandma and would ask her over and over, “Mamie, who’s this, who’s that?” Together we would pore over pictures of my extended family and ancestors, tracing the silhouettes of people. Over and over we would repeat the sequence of names and relationships. Emilie, la c'est Philipe, fils de Tatie Nicole et Isaac, papa de Tiffany, Jessica, et Stevon, mon neveu, et le cousin de Maman. As we recited these names I soaked in the stories and relationships that precede me, the stories that make me, me. This practice of naming between my grandmother and I were practices of remembering, evoking, honoring, and celebrating the past. A practice of bringing the past into the present and carrying it over into the future. I think of landscapes in the same way, in the sense that landscapes too are carriers of multigenerational stories.

How can we come to understand our environment without a deep awareness of how people are linked to the land?

How can I understand myself without a deep understanding of how I am irrevocably shaped by and tied to landscapes?

I am of volcanoes and tidal waves. Ocean waterways and alizé winds. Volcanic eruptions and mushrooming clouds pushed my ancestors from Martinique to Guyane. Towering swells carried my grandpa from Guyane to Europe. The alizé winds of Guadeloupe embraced me as a child.

Landscapes aren’t passive backdrops in our world but are rather active beings and participants in multi-species relationships; they respond to and shape our behaviors. Histories are kept alive in many different forms and these landscapes are living histories.

My professors often tell me, “Visit museums”.

Museums where stories and people are turned into artifacts guarded by thick glass. Colonialism excavates and gatekeeps stories, transplanting them into foreign landscapes and concrete buildings. Colonialism renames and erases entire stories, peoples, and lived experiences from a space.

Isn’t this a trauma not only to people but to the landscape? Isn’t this an extraction, an action of separation and alienation?

Extraction: a practice that tears into lands and bodies, leaving marks and crevices behind.

Acknowledge Native Lands Maggie Libby

When I think of extraction I first and foremost think of relationships and how extraction shows up in the body. What it means to be touched in ways that take and take and take away from you until there is seemingly nothing left. Touched in ways that make you feel foreign in your own skin.

I think of the motion of trauma traveling through me, how it enters on days when I’m sitting in the car, heart pounding, memories flashing and tears flooding my eyes, and how it exits with every exhale of my breath.

But how does trauma move and show up in the landscape?

I think of the madrones on the coast. The madrones rising from the sides of the cliffs at unbelievable angles. Their roots anchored in rocks on the cliff side and the trees precariously hanging on for dear life above the overlook. I think of these madrones as reaching into the gulf, reaching for the people, reaching for the stories and names that have been pushed off the landscape.

How can we go about repairing these spaces in which landscapes and people have been separated, lived experiences minimized and erased?

How can we honor and recenter stories?

I think of public lands like so-called Ebey’s Landing where I worked this summer, and our effort to create more inclusive signage on the trail. Signage as a means to bring back the ancestral names of landscapes. Signage as a means to name and shed light on the stories that exist within the landscape, in the same way that my grandmother would name and bring life to photo albums. And I think of the power in reclaiming names in my own personal healing as a survivor, not a victim.

We speak things into existence. Words create worlds, words create dialogues and paradigms and frameworks. Words can expand or limit our understanding of how we see ourselves within the world. And in being intentional in the words we use, signage along with names can be a practice of remembering, evoking, honoring and celebrating the past. It can be a practice of bringing the past into the present. And a practice of carrying it over into the future.

Because our futures are flexible. They are malleable. Pliable. They are living. Just like us. Just like the landscapes.

What Will Be, Works Both Ways Maggie Libby

THE PRIMROSE MOTH PILAR FUENTES

On the eighth full moon, she rose again from her resting place and felt an overwhelming urge to liberate herself from the thick cuticle casing. She had finally outgrown it, and the dark orange exoskeletal shield impeded her newly developed body. During the eternal slumber, this casing was essential. It helped her remain intact as her body intuitively dissolved each individual cell from the inside-out, transforming itself into something more malleable. Over the course of a few months, her tissues became formless goo inside the casing. She remembered nothing, except the rhythmic pattern of her quiet breathing as she dwelled hidden in the fathomless underworld.

Once her flesh was completely disintegrated, her body began to reassign functionality to her newly materialized cells, which then assembled her beautiful imago in a natural genetic cascade. Using her deep breathing as a predictor for this orchestrated event, she completed her material change.

Awakening to an entirely new form was foreign but instinctual. She jolted her wings perpendicularly to crack through the pupal casing. While she had managed to slowly wiggle upwards in the soil during her pupal stage, she had not yet fully emerged above ground. Frantically, she clawed at the compact layer of soil and leaf litter that surrounded her broken pupal cell and acquainted herself with all the microbes in the soil using her feet to taste them. There was a sweetness in the topmost organic layer that contrasted with the bitterness of the deeper soil. She noted the difference and knew she was close to penetrating the surface. Freedom was within reach, and she could literally taste it. After a few more persistent and vigorous movements, her enormous eyes registered the moonlight. The light was an end to her odyssey in the underworld.

Following her escape, she looked back at her resting area and quietly lingered above her open casing, which greatly resembled the seed capsules of the common evening primrose that she had devoured as a larva. As she stood there silently, she recalled how her pupal stage felt like a period of death and rebirth that was attuned to the evening primrose’s blooming cycle.

Veneration of the common evening primrose was a spiritual component vital to the moths’ survival. It was a common belief that the origin of her species derived from the heavenly Oenothera who had birthed the first moths from her flowering shoot. During this event of creation, the goddess Oenothera had bequeathed all moths the celestial power to navigate through the night so that they could easily find the plant blossoming under the shimmering light of the moon. It was only in darkness that the plant presented itself in full bloom, revealing the sweet nectar buried in its heart.

Reflections Revisited Erin Coughlin

In daylight, the plant would wrap its petals around the moths, keeping them in a protective embrace until nightfall.

She was grateful to the heavenly goddess for her rebirth. No longer was she confined to the large limbless form that had awkwardly dragged along the ground and vegetation. Appendages erupted from her abdomen and her entire body was covered in yellow and rosy setaes. She had a bright yellow patch on her median, two pale hindwings, and a pair of blushcolored forewings with yellow tips on the ends. She was a figure of absolute beauty, made in the image and likeness of her creator.

Now at the beginning of her journey as an imago, she felt celestial cues which oriented her towards the nearest ledge. After climbing up the woody branch, she used the power of the heavenly primrose to engage in transverse orientation and took off in the dead of the night. That moment was the beginning of achieving her life purpose. She would spend the rest of her days consuming the holy nectar and distributing the spirit of Oenothera across the forested terrain.

Reflections Erin Coughlin

Heart of Rose Sam Onche

Mind Maze Sam Onche

Two Roses Sam Onche

Awakening Sam Onche

SEEDLING

CAROL A. HURNEY Veils, screens, nothingness. Stop piling things on rails and be the transparent, pure white snow that covers the ceiling. When white is a color, yellow should be brilliant yellow, like grains of life swirling in wood.

I am bent over turning and pushing up, revealing nothing, yielding yellow. Brilliance. I am veins of leaves, in my seeded depths of roots, facing the sun, moon. Drooping. I am movement even when I’m still.

I fell in the snow. I sat there contemplating the process of getting up and realizing that now I have to contemplate getting up. Under the street, I spin—thrash, announce my presence, encourage, show off.

Girls smile. Boys pound.

Corners. Lines. Uneven. Cracks. Peek through the black asphalt. The corners of the mouth are like an empty womb, smooth lips crack like germination. That line in the window is uneven like a child’s face and many unknown life forms.

Hamburgers sizzle. Waves crash. Water slides. Cows moo. Cups drown.

I am the proudest sunflower. I have strength. I am full of promise. I decorate the world.

City grids line the face, a surface where cells convene and the texture becomes rough. Where to put the bend, the crease? Which parts are essential? All the cells we see are dead. Living cells in volcano eyes map to the mountains of shoulders.

Rough rope, damp skin, unkempt sheet, hard bed, rigid wall. This morning.

Really? Of course. And? Can we climb ropes of hair out of ourselves? Can we escape the transparent power locked in our cells? Is the sunflower destined to bend and yield its seeds to the earth? Are we destined to bend our will on others?

Cut the rope. Burn the dampness. Whip the unkempt. Dismantle the bed. OWN THE WALLS.

Here I come to save the day.

Toys with stories about soldiers and triplets, from the hallway, window, on your left and right. next to the gun, through the trigger hole, out of the tiny eyes of the pig, between the legs, against the moon, and into the cornea.

Come out from behind the yellow wall, talk to the yellow haired people, welcome red lips, follow the yellow arrow up the arm, plant seeds in all the scarves.

Stepping on the Leaves Zoky Zhou

View over Long Pond Chris Rodiger

Seaward Mills Brook

Afternoon Sun at Hazel’s Cove

SEASONS

RORY HALLOWELL The woods the woods Alive and swell again

Their rest is over Their branches bend

The snow is gone Melted and absorbed The birds once more Chirp their favorite song

The pollen is heavy Dusty and yellow The mood is chill Calm and mellow

The sun still sets Only now with vibrant color The shades of red Beyond the sky reach forever

It is spring time now Time to walk Time to swim Time to fish Time to hunt Time again to watch the flowers As they blossom to beauty Time again to count the hours To skiing weather The next snow shower

Changing Seasons on the Mesalonskee Stream Chris Rodiger

LOON

ROWAN KARPA-WILSON sun scales clouds cling snow sinks ash climbs moon loiters winds beg sands shivers sea churns reeds sway waves lapse woods hum hills cry embers end bridge bends bones bleach recollect it wilting ferns white moths dead loons

Dawn of the New Era Erica Lee

Cabin in the Woods Nicki Chaput

C H L O R D E C O N E :

THE ONGOING LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM EMILIE PILCHOWSKI

One of my favorite places to this day remains my grandparents' backyard. When my mom sent me from Seattle to Guadeloupe to live with my grandparents, I grappled to find familiarity within the new Caribbean environment, and the backyard was the first place that felt like home. My grandparents owned a fairly large plot of land that bordered a cow pasture leading directly to the ocean. We grew papaya, christophine, igname, passion fruit, limes, calebasse, and much more. Here, I learned the cultural ties to land and food, and deepened my understanding of my heritage and ancestry.

Guadeloupe has a long history of environmental degradation tied to colonialism. The island’s landscape is dominated by sweeping fields of sugar cane and bananas, a legacy of the colonial plantations that profited from slavery. These plantations have degraded the environment through the use of monocrop agricultural practices, fertilizers, and rapid deforestation. Chlordecone, a toxic pesticide used extensively on banana plantations, has had particularly detrimental effects. Known in the scientific field as C10Cl10O, this organochlorine compound and colorless solid is an obsolete insecticide, related to Mirex and DDT.

While the use of chlordecone is currently banned, it is still present in the soils, continuing to poison the land and spreading into the ocean. With heavy rainfall, the contaminant that was once trapped in the soil has been released into rivers and the ocean, contaminating fish and seafood. The effects of chlordecone are varied and not well documented; however, it has been linked to prostate cancer. Guadeloupe and Martinique have the highest rates of prostate cancer in the world. Coincidentally, both islands were historically important banana exporters and experienced decades of chlordecone use.

Our current landscape cannot be separated from the histories and legacies of colonization. Growing up, I was taught to be mindful of the contaminants in the soil. I was told not to eat too many root vegetables like igname, a potato variety, since they are believed to have higher concentrations of chlordecone. Colonialism has directly poisoned the island for generations to come.

In light of Guadeloupe’s colonial history, my grandparents' backyard was not only rebuilding the resiliency of the land by cultivating native species, but also reclaiming space in a world that has historically invalidated one's identity. Their diverse garden was a challenge to the colonial use of space. The island is dominated by sweeping fields of sugarcane, legacies of the sugar plantations centered around inequity by devaluing previous forms of land use and livelihoods for the benefit of Western Europeans. Restoring the landscape and replanting native species are key to both the conservation of biodiversity, and the preservation of local culture. It means bringing back traditional medicinal plants, growing local food for traditional recipes, and connecting to your ancestry. In this sense, my grandparent’s backyard was a means to reclaim power within a larger context of environmental degradation and settler colonialism.

Bridge at Reserva Betary Joephie Lam

THIS WOVEN OCEAN LUCIA-HOPE MARKOE

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore! Dream! Discover!” —Mark Twain

This Woven Ocean on my wrist Journeys from the tiniest spark of infatuation To the expanse of the Caribbean Sea Each ridge in the pattern Each wave in the ocean

This Woven Ocean is each line I coiled Each piece of rigging that pulled against my palms Each plate, a hallowed memory of vibrant sunsets and sunburns Of being peacefully woken by invasive rain to a new, salty day Of blood and sweat and tears and jubilation and fortitude Of late nights on the bow, blooming intrigue in hammocks under the stars

This Woven Ocean on my wrist is first breaths underwater And summersaults in a coral and golden sunshine-filled cavern It is the pressing feeling in my lungs as I deprive my body of breath So I can witness the pellucid turquoise reflections and echoes of an underwater cave

This Woven Ocean on my wrist is a constant reminder That I conquered fears which had lived in me since childhood That I jumped off of rock formations into the painfully salty burn of water below me That I learned new skills That I made new family That I found new passions

THE LIFE OF A COLBY AQUARIUM KEEPER ADAM VENTURELLA

My name is Adam, and I’m a Colby student who loves his dorm room fish tank. In my single in Heights, I have a twenty gallon planted aquarium with about thirty fish. The centerpiece of the tank is Fabio, a Mikrogeophagus altispinosus (more commonly known as a Bolivian Ram) and he is the boss of the tank. I also have several Danio fish from Myanmar, and Neon Tetras from South Africa. The tank’s ecosystem is completed by exotic reddish-orange plant species from Asia and South America, as well as a plant called Ludwigia repens which is native all across the US.

I inject my tank with Carbon Dioxide gas because CO2 is an essential energy source for plants. I manufacture the gas by mixing citric acid and baking soda in a steel tank. This produces an exothermic reaction, making the tank extremely cold and frosty. I then inject CO2 into my aquarium until the pH drop checker turns green, indicating a healthy pH level of about 6. At this point, the plants begin to photosynthesize, and you can see tiny bubble trails leaving the underside of the leaves, from their stomata. I also dose liquid fertilizer, such as nitrogen, potassium, and glutaraldehyde, and set the tank temperature to about 72-76 degrees Fahrenheit. I do a water change once every two weeks, changing 50% of the tank water, and add fresh re-mineralized water again, using two five-gallon buckets. The aquarium also includes two stone islands that stabilize the pH based on their mineral content.

My tank is automated on a timer to be fed once every twelve hours, and has the lights and CO2 turned on at 12:00 pm and off at 9:00 pm for a nine hour photoperiod. I make sure my plants are adequately fed with micro and macro nutrients like nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, iron, and calcium. During the day my plants open up, but during the night they close. They grow about half an inch every two to three days, and require weekly trimming. Sometimes I can see my fish exhibiting breeding behavior, chasing each other in tight circles.

If you’re interested in setting up your own small aquarium, please feel free to contact me at aavent23@colby.edu. I’d be happy to answer your questions, or show you my tank. As a fish keeper I'd like to say a friendly farewell….blub blub blub…..blub blub.

American Lobster, Oyster, and Walleye Noah Milsky

A TRIP TO THE LAKE MAHIKA GUPTA

We woke up before the sun so we could watch it rise over the frozen lake. It was the beginning of March, and already most of the heavy snowfall had stopped, leaving giant grassy patches amidst small heaps of snow. I sat on the couch in the living room of the cabin we had rented, curled up with a fuzzy white blanket while Aster did some light yoga. Ronnie stumbled down the stairs just as the beginning hues of red peeked between the trees over the ice. He collapsed on the couch next to me and rested his head against my shoulder as I threw the blanket over him. Andy padded down the stairs next as the rays began casting down on the lake surface, a thin layer of frosty snow preventing their complete reflection.

“Ready for a little morning pick me up?” Aster asked with a grin. I smiled and stuck out my tongue.

Winters in Maine last from mid-November to April, with the highest amount of snowfall in the month of February. In the 20th century, the average winter temperature was 15.6 °F, so that even during the pockets of relatively warmer weather, the air temperature remained low enough to ensure that lakes would stay frozen throughout the entirety of winter. Lakes would on average ice-out in late April and remain safe enough to walk on through mid-March. Experts in these matters would say it’s not safe to walk across a frozen lake unless the ice is at least four inches thick, and it’s not safe to drive a standard automobile on it unless the ice is eight to twelve inches thick.

At eight AM after we had all awoken, Ronnie glanced out of the window and noticed a Subaru doing donuts on the lake. We all crowded around to gaze in awe at the sheer nerve of the driver. Whether or not the ice was actually eight to twelve inches thick we didn’t know, but what we did know for certain was that as the sun got higher and higher in the sky, there was no way the Subaru would have stayed afloat.

We piled out of the side door, grateful for the cool air and escape from the overheated cabin. It should have been too cold for a t-shirt and crocs, but I welcomed the icy air. The others started cautiously stepping out onto the lake, sliding around on the patch of clear ice before stepping onto the sticky comfort of the frost.

“Damn, this is really fun!” I laughed as I joined my friends on the ice. In the distance, I heard the sound of a faint crack, but I didn’t think much of it. After all, it was still winter.

“Did you hear that?” Esra asked looking behind him, grabbing Andy’s shoulder. Andy paused for a moment to listen.

“We should get off the ice,” Andy said quietly. Just then, we heard a louder crack rip through the air, commanding our silence.

“Guys, we have to get off the ice, now!” Esra yelled at us, moving as quickly as he could through the frost and onto the ice without slipping. The rest of us following suit, trying to get back to shore as fast as we could. Am I supposed to be scared? I thought to myself as I slid back through the patch of clear ice and scrambled onto the dock. It didn’t seem like we were in much danger of the ice giving way underneath us. But then again, I didn’t grow up in a place where lakes froze over. We sat on the dock catching our breaths, the seemingly unchanged lake lying ominously before us. I glanced at Esra who was pacing back and forth behind the dock talking to Andy. Maybe they had just gotten a little freaked.

“Hey guys, was that always there?” Phoebe asked. We followed her gaze to see that a thin crack had formed in the ice, right where we were standing moments ago.

According to my research, there are many signs that can indicate a frozen lake is too dangerous to walk across. The first thing to check for is the color. Clear, thick, blue ice is generally safe, while frosty, dirty looking ice tends to be of a weaker constitution. The next thing to check for is cracks and other deformities that could compromise structural integrity. Ice can lose up to 40% of its strength along a crack or fissure, and 75% of its strength in an area where two cracks intersect. Even if, by observation, the ice passes these two tests, it’s recommended that you take a stick with you and tap the ice ahead of where you’re walking. If you hear a hollow or dull sound, it means the ice ahead is not safe. And finally, as Dave Bergstrom of the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board said,

If your gut tells you it’s not safe, then don’t go out. A lot of it comes down to common sense. Respect the ice.

“I guess we just never needed to learn about these things in California,” Aster was saying. We were back in the living room, sitting around the coffee table. I was mindlessly fidgeting with a Rubik’s Cube and drifting in and out of thought while Esra and Andy talked about the cold weather safety lessons they had grown up with in New England. It was new information for Aster, Ronnie, and I, who had grown up on the west coast without a snowflake in sight.

“Yeah, I mean ice safety is one of the first things that was drilled into my head as a kid,” Esra said, shaking his head. “These are the exact situations they warn us about, where you’re out on the ice and everything seems fine, until it isn’t, and you’ve fallen through the cracks and you drown because the ice has closed above you and you have no way to get out.”

Esra would swear that in that moment we all flirted with death, while Andy said it was unlikely that the ice would have actually broken under our feet and even less likely that we would drown trapped under it. But, as always, better safe than sorry.

According to the New Englanders, the amount of dangerous ice signs has been on the rise over the years. Esra was an outdoorsman and had a killer survival instinct, not just for himself but others, and had proven that time and again in the wilderness. But even he was at a loss for what to do when an elderly couple and their dog started walking on the lake, creeping further and further out onto the ice. He wanted to find a way to warn them, wanted to call 911 and tell them that people were on the lake in dangerous conditions. Because once something happened, it would be too late.

The rest of us stayed frozen in our seats, uneducated and uncertain about what was the right thing to do. I kept thinking to myself that they must know the area better than we did. Surely, the elderly couple knew the ice better than us college students. Looking around the room, it dawned on me that none of us had any capability of deciding what was right or wrong here. Even Esra, with his years of outdoor experience, was struggling to come to terms with this situation. Every year provides an unprecedented, volatile winter, so knowledge from past experiences becomes less and less useful.

Before anyone could really come to a decision on safety and our moral obligations, the couple and their dog returned to shore.

On February 14th , 2021, a ten-year-old boy died in a Tennessee pond while trying to rescue his sister. Two days later, a seventy-seven-year-old woman died after falling through ice in a lake in Idaho. Four days after that, a seventeen-year-old girl fell through the ice to her death in a pond in Oklahoma. Every year, the number of winter drowning-related deaths increases, and it is directly correlated with increasingly warm winters.

We constantly hear that it is the job of the younger generation, of Gen-Z, to save the environment. As we shift away from the Holocene and into the Anthropocene, we leave behind the environmental rules and regulations that had once been gospel, and propel ourselves forward with the knowledge that we are in the midst of a major environmental shift not experienced by previous generations.

I was so ready to assume the couple on the ice had more experience in these environments, assuring myself that they must have known better than we did, and that very well might have been true. But it still remains that every year, the ice-out dates of lakes change, moving earlier and earlier, driving us along this paradigm shift into a world we all have yet to experience.

Some of us are experiencing the Anthropocene’s effects more quickly and drastically than others. For the past few summers, deadly forest fires have raged in the area surrounding my hometown, burning down cities, leaving a great part of California a desolate land. However, even that does not compare to how climate change has affected daily life for people in Southeast Asia, who rely heavily on a steady monsoon season.

The precedents that have been set by the previous generations when it comes to outdoor etiquette and navigating the climate are becoming increasingly obsolete. The laws of nature that we have observed throughout the years rarely apply to the human race in a direct sense, and already these laws are being rewritten by the human hand. But what’s written in those laws depends upon the upcoming generation, the first to grow up during this epoch shift. And as written in one of my favorite comics, “…we’re grownups now. And it’s our turn to decide what that means.”

Soon, the post-wildfire, post–apocalyptic California will line up with an anthropogenic New England, a time when the polar icecaps have melted, and drought begins to rear its ugly head. Or maybe we’ll approach the event horizon of climate change and stop, or at least greatly slow, with the mass implementation of clean energy sources.

Or maybe I’m just tripping.

Frozen Lake Chris Rodiger

NATURAL DISASTER EMILIE PILCHOWSKI

In elementary school I learned the Saffir-Simpson scale Category 1, Category 2, Category 3, Category 4, Category 5 Natural disasters Like the very hungry caterpillar Spiral motions that waste everything down We are left in a landscape of displacement and dispersal

Accelerating with reckless abandon We are the drivers of our isolation Building in hurricane motions of entrapment

Born and raised in the shadow of armored sea walls We are children of bioengineered cities and shorelines The ocean is barricaded Concrete slabs guard resorts and highrises from the restless waves White caps and rip currents kept at bay Our rivers are tamed Straightened and dredged until they lose all personality

Hurricanes around our heads Enhance, consolidate, fortify Always coming and going

The Bloody Sin Zoky Zhou

WEIGHTLESS

LUCIA-HOPE MARKOE I crouched down, my feet gripping the white fiberglass beneath me. The waves rocked the hull, challenging my balance, and a few distant shouts lingered in the background. I gathered my equipment, preparing to leap overboard off the port midship. The rest of my crew prepared themselves on deck as I rifled through the colorful, square-shaped weights, collecting my needed reds and blues. After having donned the rest of my kit, I checked in with my dive partner and stepped off the boat into the waiting Caribbean Sea. My buoyancy control device (BCD) allowed me to slip only a few inches below the turquoise surface before lifting me back up. As my head punctured the gentle waves, I felt the the familiar feeling of floating that accompanies diving. My BCD and the saltwater in which I was immersed held me up.

As I descended, I felt another familiar feeling: weightlessness. Despite having an air tank—the carrying of which is an arduous task on land—strapped to my back and a twelve pound weight belt secured around my waist, I felt featherlight and liberated as I approached the topaz seafloor. My thighs were not constricted by skinny jeans. My belly was not being suppressed by the waistband of a pair of chinos. There was no damaging underwire to dig into my ribcage. My feet were encased only by a comfy pair of diving booties and fins, and my bikini bottoms rested unobtrusively on my hips.

As I reached the seafloor, my eyes darted around at the other girls in my crew. The Parisian needed only eight pounds at the most. The Greenwich native needed maybe ten pounds. I required twelve or fourteen pounds—meeting or surpassing the needed weight of my male peers—on my weight belt just to stay submersed for an entire dive. While earning my Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Advanced certification, I completed progressively more challenging dives, using up more air and therefore lessening the weight of my tank. I was forced to add more weight to my belt with each dive. I consulted my instructor about the reoccurring problem and he assured me it was perfectly normal. Even though he is one of the most comforting people I’ve ever known, I continued to feel insecure about the amount of weight I required in order to have a successful and controlled dive.

After another two and a half years of exploring the sea and growing as a diver, I now require half of the weight I started with. Since then, I’ve also worked my way to my first professional certification, so I am now able to assist new divers and lead dives. During January of this year, while training for my pro certification, I was paired with a beginner-level diver. She began to experience trouble with her buoyancy and floated to the surface.

I thought back to a dive when I had to fight with all my strength to maintain my depth. The dense saltwater was insistently carrying me back to the surface as my tank got lighter with each breath I took, and my weight belt was not sufficiently grounding me. I felt this feeling of foolishness again when I was unable to stop the diver’s uncontrolled ascent. At the surface, she began to apologize, saying she tried her best to remain submerged and wasn’t sure what had happened. I assured her that she had absolutely no reason to apologize and that she handled the situation beautifully. I also explained that divers use more air at deeper levels, especially new divers, and this causes one’s tank to decrease in weight. As I said this, I began to realize that I shouldn’t criticize myself either. I had grown so much as a diver that I was now helping others learn to dive. I was reminded of how proud I am to have the wonderful opportunity to help less-experienced divers through the challenges that I faced as a new diver.

Diving gives me the perfect balance of security and thrill. These factors convince me to relinquish some of the control I have over my body to the sea time and time again. At the same time, diving allows me to have a certain sense of autonomy, and confidence in my own skills. In spite of these embarrassing moments, diving has remained my haven. When I’m in the sea I never feel as though I need to be lighter, like I’m taking up too much space with my figure. When I dive, I am doing something healthy for my body. The ocean has enough space for me.

Zoky Zhou

I’m not too heavy for the ocean.

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GET INVOLVED WITH THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES! Delve into the Environmental Humanities with the English with Literature and the Environment Concentration! For those English majors with a passion for the environmental humanities, we would like to promote the major concentration, English with Literature and the Environment (ENLE). English majors at Colby have the opportunity to focus their research through the lens of the environmental humanities (EH). Colby is one of only a handful of colleges in the US to offer an environmental literature concentration, so being a part of this program is truly a unique opportunity. To learn more, visit the EH website at web.colby.edu/environmentalhumanities/ and click on the English with Literature and the Environment page under the Students tab.

Want to submit to FAUNA? Email your environmentally-themed art and writing to next year's EH Student Advisory Board Chair Rory Hallowell at rory.hallowell@colby.edu and you could be published in our next edition. No writing submissions over four pages please. To learn more about our submission guidelines, and read previous editions, please go to the EH website, and visit the FAUNA webpage under the Students tab.

Want to join the EH Student Advisory Board? Go to the Colby EH website and click on Student Advisory Board under the Students tab. Fill out the application there, and email it to SAB Chair Rory Hallowell.

Another great way to get involved in the Environmental Humanities at Colby is to take one of our fantastic EH classes. See the list of

upcoming EH classes on the next page.

You can also like us on Facebook.

To learn more about the Center for the Arts and Humanities, like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram @colbycah, or visit our website at cah.colby.edu.

UPCOMING ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES COURSES Fall 2022 AY221: Of Beasts, Pets, and Wildlife: What Animals Mean to Humans, Menair AY256: Land, Food, Culture, and Power, Mills AR297A: Nature Now: A Photographic Exploration of Allen and Benner Islands, Green AR297B: Printmaking as Transformation in Ecological Thinking, Lilleston AR397B: Animal Modernities, Harkett EN283: Environmental Humanities: Stories of Crisis and Resilience, Walker EN350: Another World is Possible: Ecotopian Visions, Schneider-Mayerson EN357: Literature and Environment, Schneider-Mayerson EN493N: Seminar: 17th-century Literature and the Natural World, Sagaser GM297: Animals, Hybrids, and Machines: Franz Kafka and the Non-Human, Ellis HI348: U.S. Environmental History, Jacobson PL126: Philosophy and the Environment, Peterson RE218: Global South Asia: Literature, Art, Environment, Singh WP115I: First-Year Writing: Landscape and Place, Megan

Jan Plan ES224: Creative Environmental Storytelling, Williams

Spring 2023 AM228: Nature and the Built Environment, Lisle AY464: Anthropology of Food, Mills EA120: Nature in East Asian Literature and Culture, Besio EA242: Development and Environmental Issues in Contemporary China, Zhang EN120H: Language, Thought, and Writing: Animal/Human/Machine, Walker EN283: Environmental Humanities: Stories of Crisis and Resilience, Schneider-Mayerson EN493I: Seminar: Narrating Deep Time, Walker ES118: Environment and Society, Bruesewitz HI1XXA: What is Nature? The U.S. Environment and Histories of Settler-Colonialism, Slavery, and Capitalism, Jacobson IT246: Wild Writing: A Comparative Experiential Approach to Ecopoetics (in English), Cannamela PL243: Environmental Ethics, Peterson SP3XXC: Environmental Knowledge, Imperialism, and Resistance, Millones WP115I: First-Year Writing: Landscape and Place, Megan