West Georgia Chapter  announces the appearance of Mark Warren, naturalist, composer, novelist and director of Medicine Bow a school teaching the primitive skills, crafts, foods and medicines of the Cherokee in the north Georgia mountains.

Mark’s presentation, “Design in Nature” is best described in his own words.

Nature has a quiet, invisible force always pushing plants and animals toward success. We will have a look at both the botanical and animal sides of this, with our emphasis on native plants. What we see in our lifetime is the present version of each particular species’ state of succeeding, and it is worthwhile to remember two things about this phenomenon:

• What you see before you is necessarily a view of what has proved to be successful up to now.
• But the process is still ongoing. The force never sleeps.

We can study a common feature of any plant: a prickly spine, a cluster of tiny hairs, the shape of a leaf, a color from a botanical pigment, the length of a flower stalk, a scent, a tasty flavor, etc. These everyday details of plants can be looked at from an entirely new perspective, giving us even more respect for that plant’s design and purpose. These little architectural or functional points are speaking out to us, telling us of the struggle to survive and the brilliant solutions that nature has bestowed. This program will help lead the audience to know how to listen to the story that is as old as time.

I’ll have a box of forest items to display one at a time. Each time I present one for inspection, we will address one statement and one question about its design:

• Throughout its history on Earth, this feature (say a length of fruit stalk) was not always what we see now. It has acquired this length through the experimentation process provided by nature.
• Once it was acquired, what made it successful?

Another thought-provoking part of this class in design will be identifying human inventions that were inspired by the very item we are studying.

Saturday, March 5, 2022 at 10 am
(registration 9 am)
Carroll County Ag Center, 900 Newnan Road, Carrollton, GA
Please join us for this intriguing and enlightening presentation.