image by nakedfowl

Michael Pollan is an expert storyteller. He has the natural facility to tell the story of evolution from the perspective of plants and animals. He looks at an alternate perspective of why certain plants have dominated our agricultural heritage and how that came to be.  He places himself in the shoes, or rather roots of such plants as lawn grasses, potatoes, and orchids.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a free talk by Pollan at P.S. 1 in Queens, titled, “Taking the Plant’s Point of View.” P.S. 1 was the perfect place for him to speak. 
The evening was gorgeous and sunny, blue skies with a few fluffy cumulus clouds. Throngs of people gathered, locating friends along the long line that stretched around the block. Being near the end of it, I was one of the last to get in.

Originally, the event was scheduled to be held outside, in the P.S. 1 courtyard, amidst the outdoor exhibition, P.F.1., but due to a pending threat of rain, museum organizers chose to move the talk to a gallery inside the museum.

Anticipation within the gallery turned lecture hall was fantastic. Attendees were densely packed in chairs and on the floor, so the room became a sea of people, wooden floor peeking through in thin strips. Overhead was a revolving mirror reflecting each person’s movements and summery dress, and it quickly became hot and stuffy from all the body heat. I found a seat in the overflow that spilled out through one of the three archways into the hall. I couldn’t physically see Pollan during his speech, but there was a speaker right in front of me—a great spot indeed as it was considerably cooler outside the gallery and somebody handed me their red tush cushion.

Pollan finally arrived and quickly thanked us for, “…spending a Friday night, in August, in Queens, on the opening day of the Olympics” with him. His talk was about perspectives, the human perspective versus that of plants.  He stated that the evolutionary trajectory of the plant world may not be going in the same direction as the evolution of humanity. I personally wonder how we can make that bridge. The birdlike architectural construct of P.F. 1 in the courtyard visually represented a visual representation of how differently we need to think to find solutions to difficulties we face in our relationships with the non-human natural world. 

Pollan started the evening off, asking us to consider a point of view that is plant and animal centric, rather than human centric: “We divide the world into subjects and objects.  We are the subject and nature is the object.  What if this point of view is all wrong?” What if we “looked at the world from the point of view of the plant or animal? What does this idea get us? Does it get us good, clear results?”

He clearly stated that he is not the founder of this other point of view, but that this perspective can be found in the work of Jared Diamond, Steven Budiansky and Charles Darwin.

Pollan’s fascination with learning about a plant or animal’s take on evolution began in his garden ten years ago, while he was planting potatoes under a blooming apple tree. While planting, there were lots of bees buzzing about attracted to the apple blooms. He asked himself, “What do I and those bees have in common? What is the relationship between the apple blossom and the bee that is similar to this piece of potato and myself?”

He observed that an apple tree is stuck in place, so it needs the bee to move its pollen. His role was similar to the bee’s, and is a sense he had been seduced by a photograph of the potato in Ronniger’s seed magazine. And so this epiphany has inspired the writing of The Botany of Desire, the Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and future work to come.

I must admit that Pollan’s point of view, or rather the plants’ point of view he assumed, unnerved me. While I agree that the human perspective is only one among many, I feel somehow powerless and slighted as a human to believe that our ability for self-reflective consciousness is not the pinnacle of evolution. Pollan offered another take: plants are not interested in consciousness. They do have wisdom and intelligence, of course—they have adapted to all kinds of ecosystems. I did not know that rice has 50,000 different genes, as compared to the human’s mere 23,000.  Pollan theorized that plants have an evolutionary path that differs from ours, which is why, “they evolved with angiosperms (flowering plants) who got animals to work for them.” 

Pollan’s description of the relationship between Tongue Orchids and wasps during fertilization was an invitation to become enchanted with the workings of how these 2 species mutually benefit each other. It reminded me of a recent movie I saw with my nieces, Horton Hears a Who. Horton is enthralled to learn of the microscopic world of Whoville, an entire community that exists in a tiny speck that gets caught in the pink spikes of a clover head, much as the audience was fascinated by Pollan’s in depth guide to orchid sex.

He went on to share with the audience the tremendously hopeful, solar-based (as opposed to fossil fuel based) farm of Joel Salatin, a Virginia farmer. Salatin, who raises grass fed animals for meat and eggs, organizes his farm to mimic nature. Each animal’s perspective is honored, so his cows graze on 100% grass, producing Salad Bar Beef, and his pigs produce pigerator pork—the term refers to pigs’ natural propensity to burrow through compost piles and newly cleared land.

Salatin is a self described “grass farmer”.  Pollan defines him as a playwright, balancing many points of view on the land that he farms. Salatin believes that “fixed structures are what’s wrong with world agriculture.” So he brings the animals to the grass with moveable fences and coops, one species after the next dancing outdoors in the sunshine.

I can’t help but see the similarities between this change in agricultural design to a change in how and increasing number of Gen X and Yers beyond are designing their lives based on travel, service, and adventure. I just finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, who believes that fixed structures (i.e. large houses, clutter, and most grown up toys) are outdated.  Ferriss calls himself a lifestyle designer and promotes a life based continuous education and service often through travel and living in a variety of places. He believes that the point of it all is to become more developed, and to experience the range that life offers while still young, not to acquire more stuff and defer life till after retirement. This theme of fixed structures being transcended and replaced by more fluid and natural rhythms is one that keeps popping up in my thoughts about the future.

Towards the end of Pollan’s speech, his overarching message was that although we know much about this emerging ecological perspective, we still need to cultivate it into something we feel in order to live as members of the biotic community, rather than rulers of it. He strongly asserted that we aren’t going to address issues of healthcare or climate without talking about food.  According to Pollan, this is where human creativity comes in, “What’s important now is to make these things we know, things we feel as well. Which is why this is a project for writers and artists…and gardeners who best know how to take ideas and make them stick.”

I was fortunate to be sitting next to an artist, Mark, who sketched a picture of the crowded doorway in front of us. The synchronicity of the moment was perfect, and he agreed to send me a copy to accompany this article.  Thank you, Mark, for putting Pollan’s message to ink and paper. And thanks to Michael Pollan for putting the plants’ eye view into words, making it something we can contemplate as well as feel.