Chthonic comes from a Greek word that refers to gods residing in the underworld (Persephone) as well as those animating the soil and enabling the harvest (Demeter). [Mercifully, the ch is usually considered silent.] More broadly, “chthonic” is used to describe the local spirits of various religions that inhabit and protect specific caves, springs, trees or mountains (kami, pixies). By contrast, rulers of the heavens (Zeus, Yahweh) tend to have more universal concerns and responsibilities.
We use “chthonic” to suggest the essence of the Franklin project, a series of land-based initiatives based on our understanding of the particular evolution and characteristics of one specific place, the combined properties of two 19th century farms in Delaware County, New York. We arrived there in the 80s with no connection to the area and, as city people, no sense of how the land we now owned had arrived at its present state.
It was the size of the tract that raised questions about the appropriate point of view to use to guide its management. Five acres is real estate. Five hundred and fifty acres is land, in this case a complex terrain of hills, woodlands, streams and all manner of artifacts of human interventions, both intentional and unwitting.
The idea of Franklin Chthonics is to develop a program for deepening our conscious, informed engagement with this tract of land. The initiatives comprising the program tend to involve several broad, sometimes overlapping themes and goals.
The first is to maintain a measure of continuity with the specific history of the tract and the region it almost perfectly represents. The structural integrity of the dairy barn was restored and the springhouse retained as the source of water for the farmstead. The use of fields for hay, feed corn and grazing livestock by neighboring farmers was continued. Hemlock and white pine were reintroduced to steep embankments. The practices of cidering, sugaring and foraging wild leeks were revived and made part of the annual calendar. Smoking meat and fish was restored with the construction of a smokehouse. The farm’s solid waste “dump” was excavated and interesting new scrap we find is added to its artifacts. The oldest uses of the land, hunting and harvesting trees for lumber and firewood, continue today.
A second category of projects is to establish places for experiences that tend to be obscured by urban life and media saturation, activities “as old as the hills”: contemplating still and flowing water, stalking and being stalked, using fire for spectacle and celebration, communing with a massive tree, making stone cairns to memorialize friends.
Another type of land modification practiced by FC is to amplify the particular character of an existing site for a congruent purpose, often as the field for an invented game. The interior of the barn, with its paired haylofts and central bridgeway, suggested an enormous court for a goal-scoring game; “barnball” with four balls simultaneously in play. A large field of shoulder-high goldenrod was mowed into the form of a labyrinth with two miles of paths. A steep, concave hillside has become an amphitheater. The rubble of a disused bluestone quarry is progressively assembled into sculpture at annual “Are You Goldsworthy?” events.
The project has always coexisted with the land’s parallel function as a conventional second home. Here again, the scope of the land, as well as the range of amenities that have been developed, have called for it to function as more than a country house for a single family. Franklin Chthonics has evolved into an informal social experiment of sorts, with the idea that it can establish a small community of stakeholders and develop a culture with sustained traditions.
Of course, absent a large endowment, this implies that Franklin Chthonics should be a self-sustaining economic entity able to maintain its infrastructure with income balancing its expenses. With the expansion of its residential capacity now underway, the goal of making a venue for retreats, classes and events is within reach.
A speculative goal for Franklin Chthonics is to add an educational program using this land to illustrate the turbulent evolution of our region’s rural environment. The Ash Extinction Project and Preserve can be one exhibit of a tour FC might offer. The Inventory of Species project, now in planning stage, could be a unique resource for learning the identities of life around us and how the makeup of that community is changing with startling velocity.
What follows is an impressionistic account of the history and character of the land of Franklin Chthonics in two parts. The first is a brief sketch of the social context that shaped the evolution of this area. The second is a quick description of some aspects of the land’s environmental context. It bears repeating that these notes are impressionistic and in no way scholarly or verified. Their value, such as it may be, is only in helping an imaginary person understand the thinking (such as it may be) that has informed “the chthonic project”.