{"id":169,"date":"2025-11-30T11:08:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T16:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ams354-f25\/?p=169"},"modified":"2025-12-01T21:00:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T02:00:58","slug":"attention-is-the-beginning-of-devotion-mary-oliver-our-re-imagination-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ams354-f25\/2025\/11\/30\/attention-is-the-beginning-of-devotion-mary-oliver-our-re-imagination-of-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"“Attention is the Beginning of Devotion”: Mary Oliver & Our Re-imagination of Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introductory Statement<\/h4>\n

\u201c<\/span>Attention is the beginning of devotion\u201d – <\/span><\/i>Mary Oliver, <\/span>Upstream\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Mary Oliver\u2019s <\/span>Upstream <\/span><\/i>is an ode to nature and a guiding inspiration for my contribution to this exhibit. In this collection of essays, Oliver steps out of her usual poetic form into prose, encouraging readers to understand the natural world as a teacher, embracing environmental stewardship. The collection\u2019s metaphor of moving \u201cupstream\u201d frames the essays as a call to resist materialism and societal expectation, to turn towards a life that is based in continued observation and care. In this exhibit, Oliver\u2019s framing becomes a tool for imagining climate change not only as a crisis, but as a call to sustained attention and a more devoted, responsible engagement with the environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bridging together poetry, painting, photography, and music, the works invite viewers to understand nature through small acts of noticing and gestures of care. While these pieces are not images of environmental catastrophe or a call to activism, they articulate out intimate and ethical relationship to the natural world. Sally Weintrobe, a climate psychologist, emphasizes that humans often struggle to feel urgency for the climate crisis because it seems so distant form their notions of self. Hence, Oliver\u2019s work counters this divide as she draws on human experience and the natural world by forging a shared realm built on attention and care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dominic Chambers\u2019 <\/span>Leave Room for the Wind<\/span><\/i>, Vincent van Gogh\u2019s <\/span>Irises, <\/span><\/i>and Oliver\u2019s poems <\/span>Work <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Wild Geese <\/span><\/i>all point to this shared space between humans and the natural world. They reconfigure our relationship to the natural world via coexistence, not domination. Moreover, musical interpretations by Lori Laitman transform this attentiveness into sound, encouraging viewers to listen to nature, as well. Similarly, <\/span>Our World<\/span><\/i>, created by Oliver and Molly Cook, demonstrates attention in action, embodying what it means to trust and care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the broader sense of this exhibit, \u201cImagining Climate Change,\u201d to imagine the future of our planet requires us to look beyond urgent warnings alone. Perhaps, rather than merely imagining climate change, this exhibit also seeks to reimagine it, through devotion, a sustained practice of noticing and learning about what must be preserved. In turning to Mary Oliver, my contribution aims to encourage people to evaluate their relationship to the natural world, cultivating a form of care that is both personal and collective. Ultimately, this collection leaves viewers with hope that through a shared community of both attention and devotion, our climate crisis may begin to feel less distant and bleak.<\/span><\/p>\n

Collection\u00a0

<\/h4>\n
1.\u00a0Upstream\u00a0<\/em>by Mary Oliver<\/h5>\n

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In an excerpt from her short essay <\/span>Upstream<\/span><\/i>, Mary Oliver frames environmental care as an act of education and devotion. The essay\u2019s closing paragraph opens with the assertion, \u201cTeach the children. We don\u2019t matter so much, but the children do,\u201d as Oliver lists flowers, fruits, and herbs that invite children to inhabit and imagine the natural world as a fragment of their daily lives. Via this focus on the next generation, <\/span>Upstream <\/span><\/i>models attention in practice. In the context of climate change, this essay emphasizes the necessity of ecological knowledge as a form of resistance to environmental degradation. She notes that children hold \u201cthe possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit,\u201d responding to environmental extractive capitalism. The final line, \u201cAttention is the beginning of devotion,\u201d which centers this exhibit, is highlighted here through Oliver\u2019s pedagogy, showing that care begins with noticing and engaging with the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Irises\u00a0<\/em>by Vincent Van Gogh<\/h5>\n

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Vincent Van Gogh\u2019s <\/span>Irises <\/span><\/i>acts as a visual and thematic touchstone for Mary Oliver\u2019s collection of poetry, <\/span>Blue Iris<\/span><\/i>. The blooming irises, which are arranged in a vase, creates a conversation that calls viewers to take a devotional look at the ordinary, as the painting symbolizes the influence of the natural world on human life. Dr. Scott Allan, a curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum, analyzes that <\/span>Irises <\/span><\/i>resist the classification of either landscape or still life, balancing human influence and the natural world, as the flowers are contained within a vase. Within the lens of climate change, this tension demonstrates the small, but everyday ecological stakes that exist. Positioned at the beginning of <\/span>Blue Iris<\/span><\/i>, Van Gogh\u2019s painting compliments Oliver\u2019s poetry, visually representing the relationship between human and nature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Wild Geese\u00a0<\/em>by Mary Oliver<\/h5>\n

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Sally Weintrobe argues that Western society often struggles to take the climate crisis seriously because of a split between the inner self and the external world, where what feels distant fails to feel urgent. Read through this lens, Mary Oliver\u2019s <\/span>Wild Geese<\/span><\/i> resists this separation by constructing a shared realm between the human and nonhuman. In the poem\u2019s central invitation, \u201cWhoever you are, no matter how lonely, \/ the world offers itself to your imagination,\u201d Oliver portrays nature as kin. By insisting that the natural world is not distant from our human life, Oliver stitches together Weintrobe\u2019s split, actively inviting readers into this world where the human and nonhuman exist on equal footing. The figures of wild geese, described as \u201charsh and exciting,\u201d which announce our place \u201cin the family of things,\u201d intertwines human belonging with the ecological. In the context of climate change, this poem becomes a signal for attention for the world that we do exist in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


4.\u00a0Leave Room for the Wind\u00a0<\/em>by Dominic Chambers<\/h5>\n

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By omitting buildings and other markers of human development, Dominic Chamber\u2019s <\/span>Leave Room for the Wind <\/span><\/i>constructs a timeless world that is mostly shielded from human influence, besides the two children that are centered in the painting. These figures, which move with the wind as they fly their translucent kites, demonstrate a form of leisure which is only made possible by way of the natural world. At a moment when climate change is often framed within the lens of urgency and disaster, Chambers creates a type of attention for our climate that is rooted in stillness and even childish wonder. While this work may not explicitly reference climate change, Chambers, inspired by Mary Oliver\u2019s poem <\/span>The Leaf and the Cloud<\/span><\/i>, unintentionally calls for viewers to recognize what is at stake, renegotiating our relationship with nature. <\/span>Leave Room for the Wind <\/span><\/i>configures nature as a living presence that we live alongside.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. The Leaf and the Cloud<\/i><\/b>, Work,<\/em> Section VII<\/b> by <\/b>Mary Oliver<\/b><\/h5>\n

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As a companion to Chambers\u2019 <\/span>Leave Room for the Wind<\/span><\/i>, Mary Oliver\u2019s poem <\/span>Work<\/span><\/i> invites a similar reconsideration of our relationship to the natural world. <\/span>Work<\/span><\/i> follows a sixty-year-old woman, presumably Oliver, reflecting on the \u201cwork\u201d of her life and how nature has shaped her understanding of her work. In Section VII, Oliver repeats the phrase \u201cleave room\u201d for the natural world, even as she declares, \u201cSo I will write my poem,\u201d modeling the need for consideration beyond the self. In the context of climate change, this poem, which constructs humans through the lens of nature, demonstrates the natural world\u2019s role in everyday life. By the end of the poem, the repeated declaration \u201cI will sing,\u201d along with the closing line \u201cThis is the world, and this is the work of the world,\u201d becomes a form of advocacy in which Oliver shows that care for the natural world is a shared responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

6.\u00a0Our World,\u00a0<\/em>“Helping the traveler, 1965” by Mary Oliver and Molly Cook<\/h5>\n

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In <\/span>Our World<\/span><\/i>, Mary Oliver dedicates a collection of Molly Cook\u2019s photography and prose as an ode to their long-standing relationship and creative collaboration. These photographs offer a peek into Oliver\u2019s romantic relationship, but also demonstrate how by observing Cook at work she was able to shape her meaning of attention, a principle that has informed much of her poetry. In this image, which is captioned \u201cHelping the traveler,\u201d depicts a hand that is extending a spoon to feed a bird that rests on the other hand\u2019s finger. This outstretched hand symbolizes a reciprocal trust that is possible between humans and the natural world, emphasizing how attention is a practice of care. Cook\u2019s lens demonstrates how simple acts can build devotion, showing how attentiveness can sustain the living world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

7.\u00a0The Sunflowers\u00a0<\/em>by Lori Laitman and Mary Oliver<\/h5>\n
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