Paige Bier_29 Sept._Student Choice III: Appalachian Trail

On September 25, we had the opportunity to listen to a young woman named Sarah talk about her journey on the Appalachian Trail. To say I was impressed by the amount of miles she has walked would be an understatement. It was the first time I saw someone share their reflections from their journey, which was really special. I had no idea how far they walked day-by-day or how important it is to go into town when given the opportunity. I also watched “Appalachian Trail 2011: Frenchy, Hippy Kippy, IB, BOTWFNJ” to learn more about the hardships of the trail. Professor Redick admits the hardest part of the Appalachian Trail is to eat right. We see this demonstrated through the man on the trail who would mix lucky charms, pop-tarts, and other foods together in a Ziploc bag for his “meals”. Seeing pictures of the after-math of the trail is very moving as these hikers have lost tons of weight and have undergone a life-changing experience. I am interested in learning more about peoples’ journeys along the Appalachian Trail.  

It and Thou

                I found these excerpts from Buber particularly meaningful as I fell that I am at a stage in my life where I am coming to understand more and more what it means to look at other people as subjects rather than objects. I want to talk about a specific time in high school when I had a sudden realization that the life forms that were sitting next to me in class and walking through the same hallways as me were individuals who had their own projects and views of the world.

                For the majority of my time in high school, I was oblivious to this idea that each person I was interacting with was their own and had their own project. My whole thought process was thinking how I could get the most out others and how I could make them fit into my project. For the most part, my project throughout high school was trying to figure out how I was going to get pot to get high for the next week. My focus was on me me me. I think that this quote from Buber is an accurate depiction of how I was living in those years:

“The detached I is transformed–reduced from substantial fullness to the functional one-dimensionality of a subject that experiences and uses objects–and thus approaches all the ‘It for itself” (Buber)

Everybody that I was coming in contact with was no longer a “you” but an “it” that I wanted to get the most out of. They were nothing more than “an aggregate of qualities, a quantum with a shape” (Buber).

                It was not until I had a very profound religious experience where I encountered the God of the Bible in such a way that I was a “thou” that was worth dying for. I realized that by Grace I no longer was working for my selfish project in this life, but instead part of an infinitely large project for this God. After this my whole view of people changed. I began encounter the world for the first time instead of experiencing it. I was concerned for and contributing to other people’s projects. When I approached people, I did not have anything, I was purely standing in relation with this other “you”. To me, this can be a scary experience. I like to have neat lines around everything that I do and around the people that I meet, but if I am truly encountering a “you”, I have to realize that a “You has no boarders” (Buber). Even in myself that can be scary to think about. I like to put boarders up in myself to make sure I always know what is happening, but in reality if I am a “you” to somebody else, I can never fully be known, even to myself.  My relationship with others has finally become “unmediated” as I come into conversations with no expectation for myself except to encounter this other person on a fundamental level.

Guest Speaker

 Having spent the past summer in the African bush (wild) for three months, I really enjoyed and related to Sarah/Faith. While in South Africa I was extremely removed from civilization, for three months I didn't hear music or see a TV. I was training to be an african ranger and it was quite tough. Coming out of the bush it was difficult for me to find people to which I could relate, I would be out of sorts in big crowds and such after having been in nature for so long. While there were tons of ups, there were also lots of downs, where I felt myself wanting to give up, exhausted and missing my family. For the first time since arriving back from Africa, Sarah seemed like someone who completely understood what is is like to be so removed. It is incredibly rewarding to experience these types of travels and adventures but the realizations you come to about yourself can be heavy. I loved hearing about her travels thus far and it really made me start to feel that little push that I normally get when it's been too long since the last time I've gone on an adventure. Doing the AT after hearing about her experiences is something that I could most definitely see myself trying to conquer. I want to get my trail name! Thank you for having her come in, it was extremely inspiring for me.

Guest Speaker Class- Peyton Anderson

Post on the guest speaker in class on 9/25- Peyton Anderson

I really enjoyed the guest speaker during Thursday's class.  It is so interesting to hear about her experiences during her hike Southbound so far.  I can't imagine being on the trail for that long traveling.  I think it would be a great learning experience for a person to learn more about themselves.  I could never personally do that long of a hike, I like the outdoors but I don't think I could go that long away from home.  I think it would be interesting to see what you find out about yourself and about others along the way.  As faith mentioned that she met a lot of people along the trail and has befriended some of them.  Her experience sounded wonderful and it was a very enjoyable class to hear from someone who was in the middle of a journey.

Reciprocity as Relation

        In Martin Buber’s (1923) I and Thou there is a lot of deep, enriching material. I decided to focus more on one specific topic in it and that topic is reciprocity. First of all, before I even get into the reading, reciprocity is a very essential value that everyone can relate to. As children, we grew up learning about reciprocity in our family and also in grade school. Reciprocity became something we constantly strived for and it gave us insight on affirmation in all types of scenarios. For example, we would seek reciprocity growing up as children and one way we went about that was by expressing ourselves to our parents and waiting for their response. This may have occurred by saying something inappropriate, asking simple questions, making different gestures, etc. Then, based on their reaction is where we would see their reciprocity and were able to learn what was, and wasn’t okay to do.

            I am a communication major and have recently been studying the tradition of phenomenology. According to Craig (1999), this specific tradition is a “dialogue or experience of otherness” (The Field of Communication, pp138); in other words, it is the study of communication in which we grow and learn from others and experiences. Reciprocity plays a vital role in phenomenology because it allows us to grow and learn from others by our experiences with them. When we are in class and we make points or ask questions to our professors and they respond by either countering our points or answering our questions they are simply reciprocating to us and providing us with the ability to grow and learn in that experience. This is a vital part of life because it is not only something that is with us in certain points of our life but it all points. Hence the first example I gave as we incorporated reciprocity as children and the second example I used as we also incorporated reciprocity as young adults.

            Buber (1923) states that “relation is reciprocity” and I think that when he talks about relation he is making a point that this relation can come from anything: human to human relations, God to human relations, etc. I will try to dive deeper into my thoughts of how each relation exists… first starting with human to human.

            Human to human relations is likely the most obvious relation considering it occurs every day. In our lecture on Tuesday we discussed how treating others in reciprocity means we see them as subjective beings; therefore, they exist as a “You” and not an “It.” This is so because we are not defining or limiting who they are; rather we are engaging ourselves into their life and investing consciousness in our conversation with them. We are “[treating] others the way we would like to be treated” (The Bible- Luke6:31) and that can be shown by how we are not treating them as a third person but first person thus acknowledging their existence of being ‘there.’

            God to human relation is a little different in the sense that it may not be as common as human to human relation depending on the person. In this instance I think of the Phenomenology of Prayer and how Benson (2005) mentions the encounter with Samuel and the Lord. I think because God is not visibly present we, more times than not, tend to view him more as an objective deity than subjective. I think that is why it takes Samuel three times to hear God’s voice until he finally realizes it is actually God calling to him. Buber (1929) mentions that “Man lives in the spirit when he is able to respond to his You” and I think that is the problem so many of us deal with and what Samuel was dealing with. We, and he, are yet to live in the spirit of God because we have not yet responded to our “you.” Once we are able to do so we then see God’s interaction with us as a more direct, first person, kind of presence and not a distanced third person presence in which the relation is utterly “It” and not “You.”

References

Benson, B. E., & Wirzba, N. (2005). The phenomenology of prayer. New York, USA:
     Fordham University Press. 

Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory, 
     9(2), 119-161. 

I-It vs I-Thou | Ali Tarlton

“The ego does not participate in any actuality nor does he gain any.  He sets himself apart from everything else and tries to possess as much as possible by means of experience and use.  That is his dynamics: setting himself apart and taking possession–and the object is always It, that which is not actual.  He knows himself as a subject, but this subject can appropriate as much as it wants to, it will never gain any substance: it remains like a point, functional, that which experiences, that which uses, nothing more.” (114)

This is, in my opinion, the single quote that best sums up Buber's point about subjects versus objects. Maybe it's because I'm a shameless hippie, but during discussions about Buber's work my mind always goes back to our use of nonhuman animals for things like food, clothing, and entertainment, and to our dependence on non-renewable sources of energy. I suppose in my view, when I read Buber, I read "ego" as being the ego of mankind as a whole. Mankind thinks of itself as a subject (and even some human beings as being more object than subject), and everything else - animals, the environment, etc. - as objects to be used. This mindset has fostered an unsustainable and destructive use of our resources as well as very poor stewardship of the planet. I firmly believe that the changes necessary to mend the damage to the environment and to the other species with which we share this earth will begin when we as humans start seeing the other inhabitants of this world as fellow subjects, and not objects. When we stop looking at other species (both plant and animal) and asking ourselves "what can X do for me?" and instead ask "what unique things do they bring to the earth? what niche do they fill?" it will only make sense to try and make a world that can sustain all of us, and true technological and spiritual innovation will cause a revolution of sorts.

“I require a You to become; becoming I, I say You.  All actual life is encounter.” (62)

Reflection on It vs. Thou [Rachel Hunter]

 Reflection on 'It' vs. 'Thou'

It vs. thou – it’s a tricky distinction one must make when entering into the world around us. When will we choose to give an ‘other’ the benefit of contribution and the chance to communicate with us? What constitutes their entitlement? Perhaps it is the fact that they live or that they were created for any purpose at all… if that were the case, it only seems respectful that we would give it the chance to communicate with us and become a ‘you.’

Sometimes, it seems like the only circumstance that we would allow an ‘other’ to respond is when there is no risk that the ‘other’ will be harmed in the foreseeable future. For example, when I was a little girl, I was given a stuffed animal bear… obviously, I figured the name ‘Beary’ suited her well, so Beary was her name. Notice I refer to Beary as “her” rather than “it.” She sat safely on my bed for the majority of the day and there was no risk of her being taken, destroyed, or disappearing, so I figured that it was safe for me to allow this It to transform into a You. If, however, my parents brought home a stuffed animal and told me that they were giving it to my friend as a gift, I would not have allowed any sort of significance to manifest in that bear.

As a young girl, I projected feelings and emotions onto my stuffed animal and pretended that it was real. By pretending that my stuffed bear was real, I actually began to see myself as an I, which ended up opening my eyes to heightened sense of self-worth. I only really did this when I was alone or when there were few other people around me. It simply wasn’t necessary for me to revert to this tye of I-You relationship between me and my bear when I was surrounded by lots of family and friends… it only happened when I felt alone or needed to feel protected, like when I was playing in a room by myself or when I was on the brink of falling asleep alone in my room at night. Perhaps it was a mechanism I used to cope with feeling alone. Buber explains, “I-You establishes the world of relation” (56), so it would make sense that in my relation-less moments, my stuffed bear suddenly came to life and communicated with me.

Rather than simply experiencing my bear, I encountered her. In my youthful mentality, I felt that she protected me in my times of loneliness. This explains why some nights, I had great difficulty falling asleep without Beary by my side. According to my 6-year-old reasoning, I knew that this stuffed animal bear must have been created for a purpose, and it made sense in my young mind that her only purpose was to protect me. Why would she been given to me in the first place – to simply sit there and gather dust in the corner, left unseen and untouched? No, obviously she was made for a legitimate reason, and that reason must have been important enough for (1) a designer to imagine her, (2) a manufacturer to create her, (3) a store to find her interesting enough to stock her on its shelves, and (4) my parents to go out and spend their money on her. I reasoned that her creation must not have been in vain. Thus, the bear’s significance became extremely evident to me, and the It quickly became a You.

I believe that this model manifests itself in many other scenarios when one might feel alone – whether it is beneath the trees, on a mountaintop overlooking the vast expanse of valley, or lying on the ground under a black blanket of sky, speckled with stars. In our loneliness, we allow an “other” to speak, and subsequently, we don’t feel so alone anymore. This is when we allow the It to become a You. Although we may sometimes allow an It to become a You in these times of solidarity, the transition often occurs simply out of our own current need… the new You maintains the qualities of an It, by serving my desire to be known. Though it may look like a subject, the You actually remains an object. It’s ‘You-ness’ only exists to serve my desires to be known and feel loved, which actually causes it to remain as an object. It’s an interesting dilemma...

Connection vs. Distance (Landscapes of the Sacred)

"Man becomes an I through a You"-Martin Buber

I believe this to mean the people around us contribute our being for we become who we are as our peers, parents, co-workers, professors, etc. form our thinking, behavior, attitudes, and beliefs. The I-Thou relationship is present is this instance.

My mother has carried such as a huge impression on my identity, or being. Clothes was one of many areas she controlled-to a certain age, of course. Her choosing my clothes dictated what I was to wear to school that day. After turning thirteen (an estimate), I started choosing my own clothes for I was old enough to select what clothes were appropriate for me. My mother serves as a "You" for she is a subject with whom to understand, filled with emotions, opinions, and ideas.  She is not an "it" that is to be experienced, but a person to encounter. My upbringing shaped my worldly perspective as she taught me valuable lessons in teaching me how this world works. The skills she taught me (cooking, doing laundry, ironing, etc.) prepared me for my adulthood so I can, one day, live independently and begin my own life the way I choose. This relationship matches this quote: “Every developing human child rests, like all developing beings, in the womb of the treat mother–the undifferentiated, not yet formed primal world.  From this it detaches itself to enter a personal life, and it is only in dark hours when we slip out of this again (as happens even to the healthy, night after night) that we are close to her again. (76-77).  Though I'm old enough to live on my own (if I was employed with sufficient income to buy an apartment), my living arrangements are limited to my parents household, coupled with my reliance on them for basic necessities.

My parents both offer me wise counsel as they relate their own experiences in helping me make wise choices to avoid my enacting the same mistakes they committed. They encourage me to be aware of my surroundings, be versatile in knowledge (stay up-to-date with current events), conduct myself with confidence and self-respect, among others. They try to equip me with life skills for they are aware fully of what the world offers and what it can do to me. My family ties exemplifies the "I-You" relationship because it is unmediated: nothing intervenes between my parents and me.

Contrast to an I-Thou relationship is the a "I-It"-a relationship where one treats the other as an object, rather than a subject. 

Sandy Bottom Nature Park is a site where I tread through without, consciously, engaging with it. Though I'm there physically, I not there spiritually for listening to music distracts me from connecting to my environment. As I'm absorbed in my thoughts, I attend more to my music and my thoughts than what the nature park offers. This echoes what Belden Lane says about being there, but not being there. "Being bodily there present is never identical with the fullness of being to which humans can be open in time and space"(29).

As I immerse myself in my pop music, my thoughts run rampant, filled with memories of my interactions with others. This self-awareness about my conversations with people ties into the phrase, "cogito, ergo sum"(I think, therefore, I am.)" My ability to think confirms my existence.

 

 

 

It vs Thou | Logan Jones

Logan  Jones

Reddick

9/25/14

It vs. Thou

      Humans are a very selfish beings naturally. We make it out as if everything revolves around us, like we are the center of the universe. When in fact we are nowhere near the center of the universe. As humans we assume that we are the most important thing on Earth. We forget that there are millions of other organisms that inhabit this planet besides us. Not just animals and people, but there are plants, bacteria, and other menial organisms. People forget that plants have a sense of soul and the environment around them. They are not inanimate objects as most would subconsciously think. Some people would see plants as an It, when they are really a Thou. They function and have a purpose just as humans do. When we are talking about It and Thou there is a difference that many bypass. It is something we can’t relate to on an emotional level, but still has physical presence. Whereas Thou is something that has a physical form that you can relate to. In most situations It can be both organic and non-organic, while Thou is always organic. 

      Martin Buber explains that, “The It-world hangs together in space and time.  The You-world does not hang together in space and time. The individual You must become an It when the event of relation has run it course.” (Buber 84) This shows that you can have multiple Its but only one You/Thou. If you add multiple Its together you get a group, a force that is greater than just one It.  As the Its get put together they become more relevant. An example is a cut down tree. As one tree it only has about one functional purpose, which is to be burned to make fire. But if you have many cut down trees you can make something much more helpful than a fire. You can make a house, which is way more functional than one tree. Now if you try and put multiple You’s together it won’t work, because You can not become any more powerful than it already is. Let’s say You comes across a situation that takes a lot of thought to fix. You is not able to fix it without the help of It and vice versa. Go back to the firewood example. The It was practically useless until the You took many other Its and put them together to make a bigger It. Although this new It is bigger and more functional, it is still useless without a You. Though It and You are two different beings they can interact and often do. It depends on You to have a presence and to take a form. 

      I see It and Thou/You as two being that react to one another. They are two very different beings, yet rely one one another. We see it happen everyday, even in the classroom. The professor is teaching, he/she is the You or Thou, and the It is the subject being taught. Though it has no spirit or being it still effects the You, because without the It the You would have no purpose. From reading the excerpt from Buber’s book I elicited that It and Thou rely on each other, though they are two very different beings. One reacting to the other in a reciprocating fashion. Over and over time after time, the same cyclical event.

References:

Lane, B. C. (2002). Landscapes of the sacred: Geography and narrative in American spirituality. JHU Press.

It vs. Thou- Kelly Malloy

Lane’s four axioms, as seen in the book The Phenomenology of Prayer, are very informative and straightforward when describing how a place is considered sacred. When I began reading his axioms, I couldn’t think of a place that was sacred to me, simply because I trying to find a place that I had made sacred. I soon realized I was overthinking it, and I needed to find a place that chose me. Over this past summer, I spent a week sailing with my father and uncle around the Island of Saint Martin/ Sint Maarten, which is located in the French West Indies/ Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean. Before this week on my uncles boat, I never understood why sailors would refer to their boat as “She” because I had only ever tread on sailboats. I treated the boat as an object, an It, and never found a reason to treat it differently. After my week living on “Silver Living”, I now understand why sailors will refer to their boat as a subject, a Thou, or a You.

The first day on the boat we decided to make the 10 mile passage across the open sea to the island of St. Barthelemy. After fixing some minor engine issues, we began our passage. Suddenly, a storm descended upon the boat, and the seas grew to 10-12 feet. Within a matter of minutes, chaos began, with no coast guard to call if we needed help. The sails were ripping, the engine smoking, tools flying overboard, rain so hard you couldn’t see which direction you were headed. We fixed the most urgent problems first, working from “what can I help with to stay afloat?” to “how do we get back to land?”. After what seemed like hours, we got our bearings, and limped back to where we came from, the Dutch capitol of Philipsburg in St. Maarten. I check the time, assuming we were gone for over 8 hours and that it was time for dinner. It was only noon; we had been at sea for less than 3 hours. I was shocked at how slow time had gone by, considering how much had gone wrong during our attempted passage.

During this first day at sea, and different encounters throughout the rest of my week, I really began to understand the personality of the sailboat; when she would be “happy” and the engine would start without a problem, or when she was “mad” and it would take us hours to figure out what was wrong with her before the engine would work.

I believe the experience I had with this sailboat was different than most other experiences pertaining to a sacred place. For example, you can either treat a tree as an object, or a subject with its own project. But a sailboat isn’t living, or growing; a sailboat’s only purpose is to serve you, which is a characteristic of an object. Yet I still feel a connection with this sailboat in a way that I believe makes it a subject, or a Thou. I feel that I could personify the sailboat, “Silver Lining” in an accurate way that describes her personality.

This experience taught me that a sacred place doesn’t have to be physically living or even growing for you to form a strong connection to it.

Martin Buber, The realm of I and You

                “Simply moving into an allegedly sacred place does not necessarily make one present to it.” (Lane,29) Often times upon entering a space, the mind simply isolates the presence of the being to strictly remaining in the realm of the self. Solely experiencing the surroundings, and experiencing them as objects. The whole objective process is kept to the self, the “I” as Martin Buber states in I and Thou. The “I” is an ego focused on self interest, never to be seen in isolation. Buber explains two relation prevalent in the world, the relation of I-it and I-you. He defines the relevance these relations have in the universe as “Experience belongs to I-It, I-You establishes the world of relation” (56).

                 Buber introduces these relation as lenses in seeing the world in more than one light. I-you is a subjective relation containing two subjects encountering one another, while the I-it relation contains one subject and one object. If the I is surrounded by its, and the its are all surrounded by boarders, then the I is trapped in its own self centered gate. Much like when wandering through woods and only experiencing nature, surrounded by all this life yet cut off from all of it in a sense. By doing so, a barrier is set between you and it, and the I becomes a spectator, a outsider looking in. Objectifying nature, nature becoming a resting place, a source of tinder, a natural resource. Simply entering the space doesn't make one present in it, being there but not there. However, by seeing the space as a cornucopia of different species and living organisms, just as you. Soon realizing that, even including you, there is just one living breathing organism, no boarders, no limitations, and undefined. Buber illustrates his idea of limitations and boarders for “…wherever there is something there is also another something; every It borders on other Its; It is only by virtue of bordering on others.  But where You is said there is no something.  You has no borders.  Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing.  But he stands in relation.” (55) By participating with the space, instead of being a spectator looking from the outside in, the thoughts, the soul, and the being are intermingling with that of the You, creating almost a watercolor effect. The two blend, no defined boarders to distinguish one from another.

               Art is not simply a process where an individual uses tools to create. Art is a force itself that takes the individual on a journey through its will combined with that of the artist, because they are one. when painting, my soul becomes the watercolor on the paper, blending together, acted upon by my ego, gravity and the form within coming through the plane. “This is the eternal origin of art that a human being confronts a form that wants to become a work through him. Not a figment of his soul but something that appears to the soul and demands the soul's creative power.” (60) Whenever I am confronted by others on how I devise ideas for all of these works, I always answer, I don’t. While painting, I never have a complete idea of what is going to appear on the paper. I explain that I simply experience life but  life itself  manifests itself through me. Michelangelo spoke about the form already in the marble, working with the artist to be manifested externally. "The form that confronts me I cannot experience nor describe; I can only actualize it." (61) The internal force has a desire to be depicted externally, this can be said for all life.

              Overall, I believe that the relation between I-it and I-you varies for every ego, being that every ego differs from the other.

References:

Buber, Martin. I and Thou. New York: Scribner, 1958. Print.

Lane, Belden C. Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2002. Print.

Sarah Robertson

9/25/14

It vs Thou 

Martin Buber breaks down the words It and Thou into objects and living beings. Buber says that I is broken down into two relations, encounters and experiences. The I that goes with encounters is broken into Thou and You, both subjects. The I that deals with experience is broken into It, She and He; one subject and one object.  The difference between encounters and experiences is that experiences are confined to you and happen in your thoughts. A subject is doing while an object is acted upon, the object does not have a story. An It is a thing and has borders. Thou is more personal while It is depersonalized. Every It borders on other its. It, reality of thing, only exists on borders of others, It has a limit. Where You/Thou is said to have no borders.  

Buber has opened my thoughts up to a new perspective. I personally agree with what Buber has to say. I believe that It has boundaries and refers only to objects.  One should not call a person an It because it dehumanizes them. They have a name and gender and mainly they are a living being.  An It is an object that is not a living being, and object that does not sustain or create life. Thou is a more personal word. Thou refers to people and experiences and has no boundaries. A He or She is not an It. A He or She is not an object. A He or She is a person, therefor a Thou. Thou comes with experiences which living beings have. A Thou cannot have boundaries because experiences do not have boundaries. One cannot put boundaries on experiences. Because Thou has no boundaries one must be referring to a living thing when they call that thing a Thou. When Buber talks about spirit he says that “Spirit in its human manifestation is man’s response to his You...” To me Buber is saying that in order to experience spirit man must be You, he cannot be an It. An It cannot experience spirit. Spirit has no boundaries and neither does Thou. It has boundaries, therefore It cannot experience spirit. This just shows that when referring to an It, one must be talking of something that has boundaries, an object. When one is referring to a Thou, they are speaking of a human or anything that can create life and has no limits.

It vs. You

How does our interaction with a place relate to our experiencing it as an object, an "it," versus encountering the place as a subject, a "thou?" 

Our interaction with certain places will vary depending on the place and it's important to us. Grammar rules tell us that places should be replaced by the preposition "it" which in my opinion limits the personal significance of the place. When thinking of a place as sacred, it is important to become as familiar with that place as possible. Buber's book touches on the idea of relationship with a place when he writes "I-You establishes the world of relation (56). Just as you would get to know a person very well before entering in to a relationship with them, you would need to gain a personal relationship with your sacred place before it really became sacred. In order to move past the experience of a place, action must be taken to begin building a relationship. By replacing "it" with "you," we open up opportunity for building a relationship with a place in the same manner as getting to know a person. This mindset will have you start noticing characteristics about how the place makes you feel, what unique qualities the place has, and other characteristics beyond the external sights. These are all qualities we start to notice with people the more we get to know them. 

My personal example of how perspective can change involves a creek. I chose this location because it is a significant feature of the camp that I work at. If we think of the creek as an "it" it will be simply a stomping ground for young children and a source of water for adventures. However if we personify the creek it becomes a peaceful habitat full of living creatures that possesses a sacred serenity for those who choose to encounter the water passage. By changing this perspective we also open up the opportunity for the characteristics of the creek to speak back to us. This can be interpreted differently between individuals but it makes the relationship between creek and human reciprocal. I agree with Buber's statement "Relation is reciprocity.” (58) because it further opens the door for the idea of a relationship between man and nature. Relationships are not one sided but rather a combined effort of two parties. In my opinion this is important to understand because it is the basis for the purpose of replacing "it" with "you."