Dighton Rock State Park, taken by author Oct. 2020
Dighton Rock State Park in Berkley, Massachusetts is a place that informs who I am. I was fortunate enough to grow up near this hidden gem of a state park, and I am fortunate now to still live near it. Growing up, my mom had a family daycare and would often take us on small field trips to Dighton Rock to walk through the trails, play in the open grassy spaces, eat a picnic lunch, and, if we were lucky, check out the small museum devoted to figuring out the mystery of who first carved Dighton Rock. As I got older and my mom gave up the daycare, we didn’t have much money, but we always had Dighton Rock. My mom and I would often (and still sometimes do) go to the park to eat lunch or take a quick walk. Even now I take my dog for walks here often and bring friends to this special place whenever I can. My fiancé and I are even considering getting married here! I am fortunate to live in a rural area on a little over an acre and a half of land, with lots of trees, plants, and wildlife, and almost no light pollution. Even so, Dighton Rock is so important to me as a quiet place to sit and be with nature, away from the responsibilities of home. It is situated on the bank of the Taunton River, which if you read my very first post on here, you know is something very important to me. Dighton Rock has informed my views on the importance of national and state parks, as well as other protected land areas. As Terry Tempest Williams writes, “Each of us belongs to a particular landscape, one that informs who we are, a place that carries our history, our dreams, holds us to a moral line of behavior that transcends thought. And in each of these places home work is required, a participation in public life to make certain all is not destroyed under the banner of progress, expediency, or ignorance. We cannot do it alone. This is the hope of a bedrock democracy, standing our ground in the places we love together” (Williams 19). Growing up with Dighton Rock practically in my backyard has made me want to fight for it and places like it to remain untouched by human development. The roughly 100 acres of woods with a small grassy area is home to so much wildlife and is an area where they can all live free from the threat of hunting or property development. It fostered in me from a very young age a love and care for nature and the environment. Given what is happening currently with what is essentially shaping up to be an attack on our national parks and protected spaces, a place like Dighton Rock has made me want to stand up and fight. Our democracy is all about governing by the will of the people, for the people. If enough people come together and stand up for what they care about, change can happen. Even now, I see so many of my friends on social media coming together to speak out about the attacks on our parks. This is creating a community of like-minded people. Our connection to the natural world, to the places that are important to us, is the reason for this growing community and for people participating in politics. While Williams was speaking of the desert in Utah and the fight for land conservation in the Western United States, the concepts she writes of still hold true. She writes that for those who have experienced the natural beauty of a place, the idea of loving and honoring the land (“making love to the land”) in a non-exploitative way, “is not hard to understand: falling in love with a place, being in love with a place, wanting to care for a place and see it remain intact as a wild piece of the planet” (Williams 16). That is how I feel with Dighton Rock, and I can easily translate that feeling to other natural spaces, regardless of where they are. Williams writing of the Castle Rock community coming together to fight land development and try to switch to sustainable ranching and logging practices (Williams 15) gives me hope for democracy; for the power that comes from people coming together for a common cause brought about by a shared belief or upbringing.
Dighton Rock State Park, taken by author Oct. 2020
Writer Barbara Kingsolver writes in her essay “Knowing Our Place,” “People will need wild places. Whether or not they think they do, they do. They need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and ice ages. To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all who love their lives as much as you do, and none whom could possibly care less about your economic status or your day-running calendar” (Kingsolver 2). Wow. What a powerful and important statement. I wholeheartedly agree with Kingsolver’s assessment that we all need wild places. The world is huge and life on Earth expands so much further than just us. It is nice to be reminded of that sometimes. To be reminded of our insignificance, to be reminded that our problems are small and that the things that matter in day to day life don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Nature doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, it is going to treat you the same way and you are going to be able to experience it no matter what your socioeconomic status. It is a nice break and a reset. But, most importantly, while showing us how insignificant we are and that there are an immense number of species on this planet who all have lives they deserve to live just as much as we do, we are also reminded how important our choices are to the future. “Wilderness puts us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully” (Kingsolver 2). We need to be reminded that our choices impact more than just us and that our choices matter.
The great thing about nature is that anyone can experience of it, regardless of where they live. Nature is all around us. Bugs, birds, grass, weeds, parks, green spaces, a houseplant or small garden. All of it can be experienced by anyone, regardless of if they live in a city or a rural area, regardless of if they are rich or poor. You just have to look for it.
Sources:
Kingsolver, Barbara. “Knowing Our Place.” UMassD WGS 307 Blackboard: Understanding Place Learning Module. https://umassd.umassonline.net/ultra/courses/_36339_1/cl/outline.
Williams, Terry Tempest. “Home Work.” UMassD WGS 307 Blackboard: Understanding Place Learning Module. https://umassd.umassonline.net/ultra/courses/_36339_1/cl/outline.
Hi Elizabeth,
Thank you for sharing.
I was also intrigued by Kingsolver’s statement about nature, “none of whom could possibly care less about your economic status or your day-running calendar” (2). While nature may not discriminate, unfortunately society/humanity still does. And it is this interpersonal discrimination which contributes to greater environmental degradation in diverse communities. If “place + people = politics,” then political action which harms social groups will ultimately cause harm to the Earth as well (Diamond). Conversely, if action harms nature, this will inevitably harm humanity, though not equally. Williams writes, “wildness cannot be taken for granted… [the loss of nature] is the drowning of a way of life” (6). People with a greater understanding of the complex relationship between humanity and nature, who have a profound respect for wildness (whose lives, perhaps, depend on nature in more obvious ways) may experience greater harm when nature is exploited.
As bell hooks mentioned, “Working in conditions where the body was regarded solely as a tool (as in slavery), a profound estrangement occurred between mind and body’ and ‘estrangement from nature…made it all the more possible for black people to internalize white supremacist assumptions about black identity” (364). She also argues, “the way we regard land and nature will determine the level of our self-regard” (368). Those most harmed by environmental destruction will not be the privileged white people, but people of underrepresented social groups (people of color, women, etc.) as social inequalities can be exacerbated by environmental degradation (Yang & Kaplan). Therefore, we must ensure our efforts to protect the environment include diverse areas, where some of the greatest damage has been done. We should recognize how, even though nature itself is unbiased, human/social bias influences all aspects of life. I agree with Kingsolver; our choices do matter. Thus, in order to protect the environment and people, we need to choose more sustainable options, while challenging systems of inequality. We can begin to do this by encouraging a closer connection with nature.
Piper
Works Cited
Diamond, Cora. “Anything But Argument?” In The Realistic Spirit. MIT Press. 1991. University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, myCourses, WGS 307-7101: Ecofeminism: Philosophy & Practice – On-Line (2025 Spring CE1). Accessed 20 February 2025.
hooks, bell. “Touching the Earth.” Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, Trinity University Press, San Antonio, 2011. pp. 363-368. University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, myCourses, WGS 307-7101: Ecofeminism: Philosophy & Practice – On-Line (2025 Spring CE1). Accessed 20 February 2025.
Kingsolver, Barbara. “Knowing Our Place.” n.p. n.d. University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, myCourses, WGS 307-7101: Ecofeminism: Philosophy & Practice – On-Line (2025 Spring CE1). Accessed 20 February 2025.
Williams, Terry Tempest. “Home Work.” Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, kindle edition, Vintage, 2008. pp. 3-19. University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, myCourses, WGS 307-7101: Ecofeminism: Philosophy & Practice – On-Line (2025 Spring CE1). Accessed 20 February 2025.
Yang, John and Sarah Kaplan. “Why Hurricanes Can Cause Thousands More Deaths in the Years After They Hit.” PBS NewsHour, YouTube. 12 October 2024. Web. youtube.com/watch?v=SDttBHaXAg0. Accessed 20 February 2025.