10 Spring 2011 Applegater
Elephants on the Edge:
Applegate Library
The Jackson County Library Ser-
vices are offering adult computer training
classes beginning the end of April. The
Basic II Computer Classes will be held at
the Jacksonville Library on three different
Wednesdays:
April 27 from 2-4 pm,
Session One: Word processing.
May 4 from 2-4 pm,
Session Two: Photo Editing.
May 11 from 2-4 pm,
Session Three: File Management.
May 18 from 2-4 pm,
Session Four: Review and Practice.
Now is your chance to catch up
with those younger members of our com-
munity and learn some computer skills.
The Applegate Library has a new
volunteer teenager, Makena Grigsby, who
is helping at our library every Friday af-
ternoon from 2-6 pm. She is there to help
you with questions and is doing some of
the work that our librarians love to share.
The March display case has been
decked out with work from the Southern
Local author to speak at the
Applegate Library on April 17
Oregon Stitchers. The Southern Oregon
Stitchers is a chapter of the Embroidery
Guild of America whose mission is to
stimulate the appreciation for embroidery.
Their chapter puts up monthly displays at
local libraries and they share their embroi-
dery at Hanley Farm during the summer.
They meet on the third Saturday of each
month, usually at the Presbyterian Church
in Central Point.
Our library has presented several
programs this winter and spring, among
them “Music, Music, Music” with the
Accidentals, and the Applegate Valley Cats
and a visit from Chelsea Rose who is part of
the Southern Oregon Historical Society’s
“Windows in Time.” Chelsea’s program
is: “On and Onwards: Finding and Map-
ping the Applegate Trail.” Chelsea is an
Applegate resident and is an archeologist
with SOU.
We are looking forward to the read-
ing and book signing by Gay Bradshaw
on April 17 at 3:00 pm. when she talks
about her latest publication, Elephants on
the Edge. Be sure to join us for this event.
We’ll provide the refreshments!
Joan Peterson • 541-846-6988
Ruch Library
Friends of Ruch Library Annual Meeting
Saturday April 16, 2:00 pm
Library friends, one and all, please
join us for the Friends of Ruch Library’s
(FORL) Annual Meeting, Saturday, April
16, 2:00 pm, in the library’s Community
Meeting Room. Short (45 minutes), but
sweet. We’ll report on 2010 accomplish-
ments (2010 Saturday hours, yea!), share
2011 plans, and elect Board Members and
Officers. You’ll be able to meet our new
branch manager, too!
If you donated to support our 2011
Saturday hours, you are eligible to vote for
the Friends’ Board Members, so come cast
your vote, too. And if you want to increase
your support for our library by becoming a
Board Member, speak up now! Call Kaye
Clayton, 541-899-1044, or Pat Gordon,
541-899-7655, to learn more. After the
biz, Janeen Sathre will help us plan our
next hike…..
Hiking the Applegate
with Janeen Sathre
Saturday April 16, 2:45 pm
at Ruch Library
The Applegate area has a great se-
lection of trails from easy to very difficult.
From dry oak forest to alpine meadows.
You can have spring flowers from April
to August. You can see the Pacific Ocean
and Mt. Shasta from the same mountain
peak. We have our own little Wilderness
area with some of the most spectacular
forest, water, or views any hiker wanting
to get away from it all could ask for. All
of these trails are on public land, waiting
for you to enjoy.
Come and learn which trails are
well maintained and great for the once-in-
awhile hiker and learn about some hidden
gems for serious hikers, too. Plus, discover
some terrific library resources to guide
your next hiking adventures!
Presenter Janeen Sathre is a fifth
generation native of the Applegate. She
walks many of the same trails her grandfa-
ther walked in the early nineteen hundreds
when he worked for the U.S. Forest Ser-
Janeen Sathre
vice and manned the Fire Lookouts. Some
of the trails whisper stories her father told
of trail cleaning and fire fighting here in the
Applegate. Her favorite trails have flowers
and water and spectacular views.
No charge; donations for the library
appreciated!
Pat Gordon (541-899-7655
“We don’t stop hiking because we grow old, we grow old
because we stop hiking.”
—Finis Mitchel
G
ay Bradshaw, a local Ap-
plegate resident, holds
doctorates in both ecol-
ogy and psychology and is the director
of the Kerulos Center. She has recently
published a groundbreaking book of
research entitled Elephants on the Edge.
It is not a happy book, but one that will
hold your mind and emotions for days,
maybe even years. It is a story about
the relationship between humans and
elephants, but goes beyond that with
insight into our relationships with all
of the natural world.
Each chapter begins with a scene
that sets the mood for the intrigue of
reality to follow.
“Dawn comes slowly on the
veldt. With the touch of morning
light, each still-life character wakens
into slow motion. But there is nothing
measured in the young bull elephant
racing toward the feeding rhinoc-
eros.” And the reality of the chapter
begins.....“What possible connection
could there be between a murderous
elephant and a murderous human sepa-
rated by thousands of miles? Humans
may kill with disturbing frequency, but
historically, inter- or intra-species vio-
lence is uncommon among elephants.”
As we read on through the chap-
ters, Bradshaw points out “science’s
new appreciation of species’ mental
and emotional overlap, and in particu-
lar, how much people and elephants
share, down to the very level how we
each become who we are.....Science
has rendered species differences on the
level of cultural differences rather than
biological ones.”
Bradshaw goes through case
after case of abuse of elephants by
humans and how these abuses lead to
the disintegration of the species both
by psychological damage as well as
physical elimination through culling
and hunting.
Most of us have discovered
elephants in zoos and circuses, but
Bradshaw points out in her chapter
entitled “Where Does the Soul Go?”
that “Captivity in zoos and circuses is
unsafe and fails to preserve essential
ingredients for a species: physical, so-
cial, psychological, cultural, emotional
or genetic characteristics. The notion
that captivity allows species to thrive is
also belied by low fertility, infanticide,
and transgenerational stress effects.”
So our zoo and circus experiences are
not experiences of “elephant reality.
”In fact, by our participation in their
attractions, we are also participating in
animal abuse.
Bradshaw points out that work
is being done to restore elephants’
souls in many parts of the world. One
example is Elke Reisterer, a massage
therapist, who makes twice-monthly
pilgrimages from her home in Santa
Cruz, California, to tend to elephants,
tortoises, giraffes, snakes and emus at
the Oakland Zoo. Elke even travels to
Kenya, Thailand and India to treat ail-
ing Asian and African elephants using
her “listening hands.”
Bradshaw concludes her book
with this message that “To save el-
ephants, we must let go of the very
things that have protected us from be-
ing treated like them: our self-appoint-
ed dominion and privilege.” She says
that, “what befalls the elephants befalls
humanity. If we lose the elephants, we
lose ourselves.”
This is a difficult book to read,
not because the language or the science
is inaccessible, but because it tells us so
much about ourselves, and not all of it
is easy to hear.
In the Appendix on page 253,
Bradshaw lists “Ten Things You Can
Do to Help Elephants.” All of these
suggestions can be taken to heart. #10
is “Buying Choices.”
She recommends, when giving
a gift to a friend, family member or
associate, send a donation in his or her
name to a nonprofit organization that
supports wildlife protection.
We can all be participants in
saving elephants on the edge (as well
as ourselves).
A reading and book signing by
Gay Bradshaw takes place on April
17 at 3 pm at the Applegate Library.
Refreshments will be served.
Joan Peterson • 541-846-6988
Gay Bradshaw and friend.