Biography
Tyler Mark Nelson is a first-year student pursuing an M.A.R. in Religion and Ecology at Yale Divinity School. Born in Minnesota, his research interests include ecotheology, ethics in the outdoor recreation industry, ecospiritual liturgies, and environmental communications. Prior to his graduate studies, Tyler worked in horticulture for several years, including a large-scale greenhouse, vermiculture operations, and an organic lavender farm.
Paper Abstract
For over three decades, Wendell Berry has challenged the readers of his Sabbath poetry to consider what it means for nonhuman creation to inhabit the Sabbath. A recurring motif in his collection of poems, written during and/or inspired by his weekly Sunday walks across his Kentuckian farmland, is the Sabbath of trees. In an age of rampant restlessness, exploitative economics, and environmental degradation, perhaps humans would do well to "go among trees and sit still," as Berry writes, that our "stirring becomes quiet" and we become grounded enough to reflect on our ways. My paper proposes that Berry's motif of the Sabbath of trees is a compelling ecopoetic lens through which we can reconsider topics of work and rest, community, and celebration. To expand upon Berry's ecopoetic conceptions of creation and Sabbath, I will draw upon the agrarian work of theologian and philosopher Norman Wirzba, as well as Berry's essays. In the spirit of Berry's dogmatically-untethered thinking on Sabbath, this paper aims not to systematize his sabbatical silvic motif. Rather, my intent is to use Berry's embodied ecopoetics as a springboard for recommending similar sabbatical rituals in nature-spaces.