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Mariah Harrod
Professor Dan Manheim
English 386
5 October 2015
Matter is Voidness
Our reality is one of constant flux. The universe exists in perpetual motion transferring
energy across time and space. It is this fact that corroborates the central tenet of Buddhist
philosophy: matter is voidness. Voidness does not here mean emptiness. Rather, this pithy adage
translates to the idea that no material “self” exists because no singular entity functions
independently. Our epiphenomenon that an isolated “self” exists is the impetus of human
suffering as it births our attachments and aversions to certain perceived entities, distracting us
from the inherent wholeness of our summation. The Buddhists suggest that the only way to
relinquish this suffering is to abandon our belief that we exist separately. But humans have
evolved in such a way that discerning entities and categorizing them has aided in our survival.
These schema often cloud our judgment of the environment, causing us to see good and bad
where neither exist and to act impulsively and destructively upon these dichotomies.
These meditations fill my mind as I drive away from the anthropic industrialization of
Centre College and toward the greenery of the Central Kentucky Wildlife Refuge. My
preoccupations are abruptly interrupted by the presence of a black vulture posing boldly over the
deteriorated carcass of an opossum sprawled across the road. Immediately, my brain reacts with
repulsion and even a tinge of fear as I gaze back at the feathery form of the scavenger so
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lackadaisically motivated to move from the path of destruction which also provided its meal.
Soon, however, the dark winged creature launches into the sky. Vultures, both in our
metaphorical language and within our subconscious, carry a distinctly pejorative connotation
associated with their propinquity to labor-free carrion. We often call humans who reap rewards
without due process by the same name, yet these organisms have earned their survival like any
other—simply by receiving mutated genes and by learning to adjust to surroundings.
The black vulture (Coragyps atratus) is one of two species of vultures in Kentucky, the
other being the turkey vulture. The latter has a naked pink face not unlike a turkey while the
black vulture has an equally bald black face. The adaptation of the featherless head is a product
of scavenging evolution. The increased surface area of feathers encourages bacterial colonization
on the faces of vultures continually digging into rotting animals; thus, the vultures which did not
carry this trait were healthier and more likely to survive and reproduce. And reproduce they
have, as evidenced by the relatively high frequency of their sightings at present. Both species are
often called “buzzards,” a misnomer arising centuries ago from settlers mistaking these dark
birds with the morphologically similar European hawk “bussard.” Between the two species of
Kentucky vultures, only the black vulture takes live prey. This act has earned the bird notoriety
amongst cattle keepers, who have reported observing black vultures feasting on stillborn, sick, or
dying cows and the occasional perfectly healthy calf. Yet for all their spookiness as harbingers of
death, these birds fulfill important roles within the biosphere. Vultures, unlike most animals,
carry special digestive compounds which kill bacteria from rotting carcasses. Accordingly they
can quickly consume and regenerate nearly obsolete food matter for further decomposition to
imbue the soil upon which we depend with recycled nutrients. Thus every step of the trophic
system is sustained cyclically.
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As I step out of my car the moist, earthy smell of saturated forestry wafts up to my brain.
Scrutinizing the proximate plants enclosing the path, I identify the classics: maples, oaks, ashes,
pines. Looking toward the ground for mosses such as the miniature jade-green spheres of
Polytrichum juniperum, I spot a familiar trifoliate form. Instinct admonishes me to step back.
Curiosity draws me near. Stepping off the trail and into the underbrush, I screw up my eyes near
the plant, which I now notice has several companions in propinquity. The three leaves of the tiny
plant are a matte luna-moth-green, hairless, with a reddish stem… with petioles growing
opposite, not alternate. This is a baby box elder—as are its surrounding kin—and not the glossy,
coppery-colored poison ivy I had anticipated greeting. Both plants, while young, strongly
resemble the other due to their similar trifoliate leaves with the central leaf toothed along both
margins and the peripheral leaves toothed on the outer margins. But the seedling of the Box
Elder, or Manitoba Maple, grows leaf petioles across from each other, rather than in an
alternating pattern like poison ivy. Another subtle distinction to be made is that the maple
seedling has a long red petiole, which as the plant ages will sprout more than the poison ivy’s
standard three leaves to carry multiple leaflets; poison ivy is only red at the node where the
petiole meets the stem and always sprouts sets of three leaves. My skin could breathe a sigh of
relief as the threat of an uncomfortable rash is alleviated.
Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), doubtlessly present somewhere else in the
undergrowth, receives the brunt of many hikers’ and landowners’ hatred. Its potency paired with
the ability to colonize even marginalized forests has led to the application of herbicides to deter
the plant. Its forms are highly variable—a ground plant, a woody vine, a shrub—revealing a wide
range of adaptations to dynamic environmental conditions. Because plants are immobile, they
cannot flee from predation. As a result many species have evolved chemical defenses to ward off
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attacks; this is the case with poison ivy. Toxicodendron radicans produces urushiol oil, which
inflames the exposed skin of allergic humans yet does not bother dogs, cats, birds, or other
animals. The creamy white berries produced by the plant actually provide nutrition for forest
critters. Downy woodpeckers, robins, crows, bluebirds, and turkeys all consume the fruit, thereby
propagating plant embryos throughout the forest. Other birds have been observed using the hairy
filaments of the vine to build nests, and white-tailed deer eat the vegetation itself—to no
inflammatory detriment. Perhaps we can deduce that the oil which irritates human skin is a
product of natural selection targeting human abuse. In this case, our initial hatred of the plant
should be shamed, discredited. Poison ivy, like the Batman character, merely erected defenses
prolonging a serendipitous present in the fight for life and the right to exist when mere existence
is a temptation or affront to others. Life is a zero-sum game, and so it goes. But we need not take
life if not to sustain it—we need not destroy everything that unsettles us.
I walk deeper into the breezy embrace of families and companions of trees, tuning in my
ears for recognizable bird calls. The storm earlier largely hushed the usually energetic avian
crowds, though I discern the high-pitched chuckling of the downy woodpecker and the raucous
Jay! Jay! Jay! of the blue namesake from the expiring autumnal canopy. The change of scenery
from manicured lawn and dorm to native landscape has both placated and invigorated me, but the
groundskeeper mandates vacating the premises by sunset. Daylight is waning as I begin the
journey back toward my gas-guzzler. While I shuffle through the darkening woods, I forcibly
recognize and ignore my instinct to jump at every leaf rustle. It is, after all, in our diurnal nature
to be wary of the absence of light. Perhaps this is why humans worship light to such an acute
degree, why we equate light with goodness and enlightenment but darkness with evil and
deception. Possibly we cannot survive without embracing our own humanity and tendency to
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distinguish objects which are ultimately not individual, but we can cease dichotomizing our
environment and associating certain truths about the world with “good” and “bad.” The
perpetuation of this mindset is the root of our ecological crisis. We must endeavor to overcome
our avarice for life and immediate comfort to understand that all lives are equally evolved and
inextricably intertwined, or we must accept the fate of unsettling a macrocosm we have ignored.
Buddhists state that suffering is caused by our perceptions of self-identity and the
subsequent desires arising from our clinging to protect ourselves. Surprisingly, this same tenet is
what reveals science to be insufficient in the quest for knowledge. To isolate any entity ignores
the interwoven fabric of nature and confuses direct causes with true causes. It is not the vulture
which supports the decomposition of carrion, nor is it the box elder which produces alarmingly
suspect leaves; rather it is the entirety of our reality which produces a grander pattern giving
birth to a singular, constantly moving reality. Nothing is stagnant or alone. This reality is not one
of malignance nor benevolence, though we may see flowers as good because of their perfume
and harmlessness to human life. Our reality simply is, and we will never as a species relieve our
suffering or the suffering of the species we exploit if we cannot renounce the fallacious
dichotomy that good and bad exist objectively.
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Works Cited
Brill, Steve, and Evelyn Dean. "Poison Ivy." Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal
Plants in Wild (and Not so Wild) Places. New York: Hearst, 1994. Print.
Lecture with Professor Haskett. 30 September 2015.
Office Discussion with Professor Burns-Cusato. 25 September 2015.
“Problems with Vultures.” Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
Commonwealth of Kentucky. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.
"Vultures." Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky, Inc. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.
"Weed of the Month: Eastern Poison Ivy." Blood Horse. University of Kentucky's College of
Agriculture, 28 Jan. 2011. Web. 2 Oct. 2015
