Showing posts with label Numina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Numina. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Earth Speak: Envisioning a Conversant World
I was looking forward to presenting this at the Association for Women and Mythology Conference in New Mexico, but unfortunately I have had to cancel because of illness. But I just felt like posting it again anyway................brings back the revelations of that wonderful trip!
Earth-speak:
Envisioning a Conversant World
By Lauren Raine MFA
""Speak to the Earth and it shall teach thee"
Job 12:8
In 2018 I attended a conference
on sacred sites and dowsing at Pewsey, in Southern England, called the Gate
Keepers Conference (1), an
annual conference of dowsers, mythologists, and Earth mysteries researchers who
have been investigating sacred sites throughout the United Kingdom, as well as
intentional pilgrimage to them, for many years.
I also undertook my visit as a personal pilgrimage, visiting in the
course of my time in the U.K. Avebury, Silbury Hill, Glastonbury, Arbor Low,
and other sites.
My introduction to this adventure took some
fortitude. After a 15-hour flight from
Los Angeles, I waited in line 2 hours in Customs, then made my way to
Paddington Station in London, then to Swindon by train, and finally to Avebury
by bus. By the time I stepped off the
bus, I was, perhaps, in an altered state of consciousness from utter
exhaustion. I stepped from the bus to
see, perfectly aligned with my sight, rising from the morning’s mist, the great
prehistoric monument of Silbury Hill,
the mysterious Omphalos of an ancient world.
When I saw Silbury through the
mist, what opened before me was a vision of a time when the entire landscape
was the sacred body of the deity, a cyclical mythos of an animated Earth that
ensouled and enlivened and enstoried every hill, spring, river and forest
within a cosmology of conversant belonging.
I will never forget that moment of revelation.
Situated just south of Avebury,
Silbury Hill is Europe's tallest prehistoric structure. Michael Dames, in his book THE SILBURY
TREASURE (2) demonstrates persuasively that Silbury, like
other "Neolithic Harvest Hills" associated with nearby henges and
standing stones, literally represented the pregnant belly of the Great Mother,
and was associated with a certain time of the agricultural year, in particular,
the harvest of July/August.
Why has this interpretation of
Silbury never been seen before? Because,
Dames points out, to do so one must make a kind of paradigm shift into an
alternate view of his-story. “Silbury “Michael
Dames writes,
“Conveys a philosophy which is of exceptional
relevance to the modern world. Silbury
has been reduced to an enigma because of the attempt to impress upon it
concepts such as kingship, personal property, and individual male glory. Who
put “King Sil” into Silbury? We did,
because we wanted him there - a superman chieftain with a super treasure and
hundreds of slaves, so vain, so aggressive, so acquisitive, so preoccupied with
eternal fame, that he could provide us with a monumental tomb and
treasure. All treasure finding attempts
have failed because the builders belonged to a society for which such concepts
had little importance, or even meaning.
And yet, since their compelling priorities are not entirely absent from
our values, we can appreciate something of what the original Silsbury treasure
was, especially since the future of our own civilization may give us urgency
and humility to tender our investigation.” (3)
Geomantic
reciprocity occurs as human
beings bring intentionality and focus to a particular place, making it a holy
or sacred place. This communion with place becomes more active as
place itself accrues story or mythic power
in the memory of the people, and in the memory of the land. Sacred places have both an innate and a
developed capacity to bring about altered states of consciousness, especially
if people come prepared within the open, liminal state of pilgrimage or
ceremony. And myth is the language spoken to engage the
numinous presence.
I also went to Glastonbury in
Somerset as part of my journey to visit the famous Chalice Well. Glastonbury is Avalon
- the source of the Arthurian legends, the land of Merlin, Arthur and the Lady
of the Lake. Once the hill now called
the Tor was surrounded by a lake. During
the Middle Ages Glastonbury was the home of the great Gothic Cathedral of
Glastonbury and its community of monks, a place of universal pilgrimage. The Cathedral was destroyed by Henry the
VIII, and the Abbot executed, after the Abbot refused to leave the Catholic
church.
Dowsers Caroline Hoare and Gary Biltcliffe
(5) write of the “crossing
of the Michael and Mary lines” at the Tor, a prominent point of interest to
those investigating Earth energies. The
Tor also features a tower, once part of the destroyed Abbey, visible from miles
away, that stands atop the famous hill.
They also speak of the more mutable “Dragon lines” of serpentine force
that weave throughout this highly energized area. Underground springs originate in the area of
the Tor, springs that have been renowned for their healing powers since long
before the advent of Christianity. Now
called the "Red Spring" and the "White Spring”, where these
springs emerge, at an underground chamber and at the Chalice Well Garden, are
still revered by pilgrims who come to them from around the world. The red color found at the Chalice Well is from
iron oxide deposited by the spring. The
White Spring deposits calcium, leaving a white residue.
The Avalonian springs are famous as part of
the ancient mythic landscape of Avalon…………. but in truth, there are hundreds if
not thousands of once revered historical and prehistoric wells and springs
throughout the UK, many of them still named for St. Brigit, the ancient Goddess
of the Isles of Britannia. The Chalice
Garden, for me, is infused with presence, with the Goddess local devotees call the Lady of Avalon. She
is the Genus Loci of Avalon, what the Romans called Numina. (6)
The garden of the Chalice Well
looked different, as the last time I had visited had been high summer. It was deserted, and I was able to sit before
the Well in meditation alone. I took
water from the springs to bring home, and then walked around. What popped into my mind, as if I heard it spoken, was odd - the words
"Covenant Garden". When one is on a Pilgrimage, it is
important to pay attention to whatever occurs, internally or externally. As I walked among winters sleeping apple
trees and bright red holly berries, I wondered:
what could "covenant garden" mean, and why had I
thought of it?
I remembered the name of the
English Goddess Coventina. According to
Wikipedia,
Coventina was a Romano-British goddess of
wells and springs. She is known from multiple inscriptions found at a site in Northumberland
County, an area surrounding a wellspring near Carrawburgh on Hadrian’s
Wall. (7)
A Triple Goddess of wells and
springs was certainly appropriate for the Chalice Springs of Glastonbury. Interestingly, the word Covenant, like
"coven", "convening",
etc. refers to a gathering of
people to reach a harmonious agreement, which can include an agreement
that is holy in some way.
Such musings then led me to imagine
the famous "Ark of the Covenant", which was said
to hold writings and objects of Biblical veneration, as well as containing "God's sustenance for man" which was
called Manna. Manna was the food,
variously described as different substances or grains, which was provided by
God to feed the people.
"Manna" has also come to mean a kind of inherent numinous
power that may be found in a place or an object.
The Ark
of the Covenant, described in the
Book of Exodus, was a gold-covered wooden chest
containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. It also was supposed to contain “a golden jar
holding manna, and Aaron's rod, which budded". (8)
Interesting: holy food and a budding rod or tree. The Garden is indeed a "harmonious
agreement" between earthly beings of all kinds. And "Manna" is the food provided by
the Garden, which I view as the sustaining power of nature. Aaron’s
"rod that blooms “could also be seen, from the viewpoint of a
feminist mythologist like myself, as a
symbol originally belonging to the ancient Hebrew and Middle Eastern Goddess Asherah,
who was often represented as a
tree. In the days of the Old Testament,
She was an important deity, and was represented as a rod, or "Asherah pole”. (9) The
practice of carrying "Asherah poles" was apparently fairly common in
the early days of the Semite tribes, although the Patriarchs later eliminated
this custom, along with the Goddess, as the Hebrew deity became exclusively
male.
It could be
said that a Garden is a "Covenant" achieved by many beings to reach a
divine agreement. THE GARDEN OF THE
COVENANT.
As I was leaving the Chalice Garden,
I saw a tiny metallic heart on the ground.
I was going to take it, but then it occurred to me that perhaps someone
left it as a token or as an offering, and it wasn't right for me to take
it. I put it back on the ground and took
a picture. I was amazed to see that the
camera showed light surrounding the little shape in the photo! So I took two more, and they came out the
same. A Green Heart ………
Perhaps the Earth is Speaking to
us all the time, we’ve just forgotten how to listen. I believe there are ways to renew that conversation,
to attune we once again to the voice of place, and hence, to see Place once
again as sacred. How might we live, how
might we act, if we saw the world with such a vision, as both Covenant and
Conversation?
"To the native Irish, the literal
representation of the country was less important than its poetic
dimension. In traditional bardic
culture, every place had its legend and its own identity.... what endured was
an ongoing conversation with the mythic landscape."
R. F. Foster (10)
In so many areas of the UK the
21st Century can seem like just another layer atop a pentimento of a much older
landscape, one that proceeds our short view of history. Of course, this is true everywhere, but it
seems so much in evidence there. That
"pentimento" visible just below the surface is circular, serpentine,
and full of standing stones, henges, magic wells, and ley lines. What, as theologians and
"geologians" for the future, might we recover, re-learn and re-invent
from it?
With the evolution of monotheism
and patriarchal religions that increasingly removed divinity from both nature
and the body, and in the past century the rapid rise of industrialization, we
have increasingly looked at the world from a "users" point of
view. Places with their unique qualities
and beauties become "resources" instead of living lands. Renunciate religions have also served to de-sacralize
earthly experience, further complicating our crisis. Yet every early culture has insisted that
nature is full of intelligence and intelligences that inform, bless, heal, and
communicate, often through the multi-dimensional language of myth and altered
states of consciousness.
Contemporary Gaia Theory, developed by
James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (10),
proposes that the Earth is a living, self-regulating organism, responsive and
evolving. If one is sympathetic to Gaia
Theory, and the innate interactive intelligence of ecosystems, it follows that
everything living is responsive and conversant in some way, in ways both
visible and invisible. I believe we need
to learn to "speak with the Earth" again, not in some abstract way,
but intimately, beneath our well-rooted feet, in our creative hands entwined
and webbed among a great planetary collaboration. The "Covenant" of the Garden.
How do we regain our niche in that great “Covenant”? One answer is through “re-mything” culture. Myth is, and always has been, a way for human beings to become intimate with what is ultimately vast, deep, and mysterious. Our experience changes when Place becomes "you" or "Thou" instead of "it". We can renew our conversation, and change our paradigm, by looking back as well as forward, to a time when "nature" was about relationship with the land. Relationship in which cultures, individuals and religions were profoundly embedded as both story and as living metaphor. And some places were places of special power, places of pilgrimage.
References and Notes:
1. The Gatekeeper Trust, “Dreaming the Land – Working with the
Consciousness of Nature", Annual
Conference 2018, Pewsey,
Wiltshire, UK https://gatekeeper.org.uk/2018/05/dreaming-the-land-annual-conference-2018/
2. Dames,
Michael: The Silbury Treasure: The Great Goddess Rediscovered, 1976,
Thames and Hudson, London
3. Dames,
Michael: The Silbury Treasure: The Great Goddess Rediscovered, 1976,
Thames and Hudson, London, Page 76
4. Deveraux, Paul: Earthmind: Communicating with the Living World of Gaia,Paul Devereux; John Steele; David Kubrin, 1992, Inner Traditions, Vermont
5. Biltclilffe, Gary and Hoare, Caroline: The Power of Centre, 2018, Sacred Lands Publishing, Dorset, UK
6. Cambridge English Dictionary (2019):
numen / (ˈnjuːmɛn) /, noun plural -mina (-mɪnə) (An ancient Roman religion) a deity or spirit presiding over a place, a guiding principle, force, or spirit
7. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia;
“Coventina”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventina
8. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia;
“The Ark of the Covenant”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant
9. An Asherah pole was a sacred pole (or sometimes a tree) that was used
in the worship of the Goddess Asherah. The Asherah pole was often mentioned in
the Old Testament as one of the ways the Israelites sinned against their God by
worshipping other gods. The
"Asherah pole" was mentioned in the Judeo/Christian Bible a number of
times, including Exodus 34:13 (NIV): "Break down their altars, smash their
sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles." The Israelites were
commanded to destroy any Asherah pole they found - however, it seems that the
custom, as well as the worship of Asherah, was absorbed and retained
nevertheless by Israelites for a considerable time. For more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah_pole
10. Foster,
Roy F., Modern Ireland: 1600 - 1972,
1990, Penguin Books, N.Y
11. Lovelock, James with Margulis, Lynn:
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, 1979,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, England.
Friday, June 8, 2018
Chubasco! Monsoon! Waiting for the Rains...........
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| "Our Lady of the Desert Spring", performance from "The Awakening", a Play directed and produced by Annie Waters in Willits, Californis (2013) |
In Southern Arizona, June is like January in, say, Minnesota - we just try to endure and survive it. It's mind boggling hot in June, and dry, the month when fires start, when plants and people wilt, when kids fry eggs on the pavement a few times before becoming bored with it all. Shimmering heat waves seem to rise from the asphalt pavement of parking lots, and people hurry from one air conditioned space to the next.
We, and the parched and thirsty land, await Monsoon Season. Chubasco, the great magnificent storms that, if all is well, begin in mid July and last sometimes into September. The storms that seem to roll in the afternoons, announcing themselves with thunder and lightening, the delightfully scary and loud darkening of the sky, and then Boom! A blessed wall of water descends (if the Thunder Gods are so inclined).
Suddenly the streets fill with water, a river runs down Broadway, cars stop, and a few of us just stand in the rain getting drenched by the blessing of it all. And then, just as quickly as they rolled in, the Katchinas, Chubasco, the Numina of the waters.........blow away, off to some other part of the desert. Then you stand amazed at the river your street has become, the sound of emergency vehicles and car horns are heard (because there are always fools who try to drive in the midst of the downpour), magnificent rainbows are seen over Tucson, the pungent scent of chapparell is ubiquitous, and all are refreshed.
Within two hours, the streets are dry, and seemingly overnight, the desert has greened and flowered. Most of our water for the coming year comes from the Monsoons - if these patterns of rain should change, life here would cease. Water is life. Yes, we love our Monsoons!
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Story Masks: "The Bone Goddess"
I love stories, discovering the stories that "wrap themselves around old bones" and wrap themselves around each of us. With masks, the story is as much a part of the mask as the mask itself. Masks are by their very nature "vessels for Story", stories ever evolving in mysterious ways. If you let the mask "talk to you", much can be revealed. While re-visiting the Superstition mountains not so long ago, I remembered an encounter I had once with a persona of the land, a Numen of the mountain. She spoke, I listened. Her name, I think, was the Bone Goddess.
THE BONE GODDESS
I was the first one.
I am this land,
and you no longer know
me.
Ah well. So what. I've been here a long time.
A long time.
In the beginning, I was alone.
Alone in this place.
Me, and
Old Man Mountain,
sleeping beneath the hot sun.
Running when the sun was young,
waking up the People in my country:
Ho, Hare, Snake, Mallow, Saguaro.
There
were more People then.
Some have gone.
We spoke together then, laughed more.
These ones, these new ones,
they think they own the place.
Ha! They dig and dig,
but they will not find me!
Listen, I will tell you something,
since you have come here
with your hands empty.
You are full of holes.
Sometimes a person stands up and just walks outside
and keeps on walking into the sun, and does not know
why.
There comes a time when you have given so much of yourself away
there
is nothing left, when you have become transparent,
when you can be seen through
to the bone,
when your spirit has become woven into bad things.
That's when you find yourself in my country.
Walk into the desert
sit beneath a cholla and be silent.
Notice the shapes of bald mountains.
Old Man, sleeping.
The shape of his
shadows,
the shape of the sky, the color of shadows.
That is when you must find
beauty
in a cholla
crack in the sun like an old bone.
That's the time when you
must collect your own shadows.
I may help you.
Bring your offerings if you wish,
I will
give them to the Bird People, the Mouse People, the Lizard People,
walk in the shimmering heat,
the silence, you may find me.
If I want you to.
I may tell you stories that wrap themselves around old
bones,
around quartz and turquoise, pottery shards,
stories of Snake and Coyote
and
cracks in the land like a spider web,
full of light.
And I may not.
I was the first one. This is my place.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Wassailing Celebrations
I wrote about a synchronicity involving bees recently, and it brought back that notion of living in a “conversant” world. Instead of seeing "nature" as "other", or a "resource", we could see ourselves, as earlier cultures did, as having a mythic, even friendly and reciprocal, relationship with the extended community of life we inhabit. When we talk to the trees, the animals, even stones………..we might just might begin to notice that we get a response sometimes!
For example, there is the old English custom of “telling the bees” when someone has died in a farm family, and documented cases of a swarm of bees turning up at the funeral. Or “wassailing”, singing to trees in celebration of Christmas. Who is to say that the apple trees don’t enjoy being part of the festiivities? How would our world be a different place if we saw apple trees as being our generous friends, or inviting bees to the funeral of those they have lived among?
Although Wassail is popularly a spiced cider drink, often with brandy added and served hot, originally it included the Yuletide custom of singing to the trees, in particular, the orchards of apple trees from which the celebratory drink came. The spiced cider was offered in honor to the trees, and around the time of the Solstice, wassailers would prepare traditional wassail – soaking pieces of bread, cake or toast in it – and travel from apple orchard to apple orchard singing and offering to the trees, in order to ensure a good harvest for the coming year. Wassail-soaked pieces of bread or toast were then left at the trees’ roots or hung in the trees’ branches to appease the tree spirits and feed them well until the next harvest.
Like the Romans' offerings and small farm shrines dedicated to the "Numina", the spirits of place that assisted them with their crops and orchards (the indigenous Roman Goddess Pomona, whose name meant "apple", originated as a Numen of the orchards), this custom, which is still practiced with a lot of good cheer in some rural areas of England, reflects that ancient pagan sense of "reciprocity" with an intelligent, spiritually inhabited natural world.
Here's what goes on in Whimple, England to this very day: (http://www.whimple.org/wassail.htm)
Our ritual follows the traditional well-tried and tested ceremony of our predecessors with the Mayor in his robes of office and the Princess carrying lightly toasted bread in her delicately trimmed flasket, whilst the Queen, wearing her crown of Ivy, Lichen and Mistletoe, recites the traditional verse. The original Whimple Incantation has been retained:
Here's to thee, old apple tree,That blooms well, bears well.Hats full,caps full,Three bushel bags full,An' all under one tree.Hurrah! Hurrah!
Her Majesty is then gently but manfully assisted up the treein order to place the cyder-soaked toast in the branches whilst the assembled throng, accompanied by a group of talented musicians, sing the Wassail Song and dance around the tree. The Mulled Cider or 'Wassail Cup' is produced and everyone takes a sample with their 'Clayen Cup'.
I read recently that our habit of "toasting" may go back to Wassail revelries. "Waes hael" revelers would say, from the Old English term meaning "be well". Eventually "wassail" referred less to the greeting and more to the drink. The contents of the Wassail bowl varied, but a popular one was known as 'lambs wool'. It consisted of hot ale, roasted crab apples, sugar, spices, eggs, and cream served with little pieces of toast. It was the toast floating on the top that made it look like lamb's wool. The toast that was traditionally floated atop the wassail eventually became our "toast" - when you hold up your glass and announce, “Let’s have a toast,” or ”I’ll toast to that,” you’re remembering this very old ritual of floating a bit of toast in spiced ale or mulled wine or wassail in celebration.
Wassailing – visiting neighbors (and much appreciated, friendly trees), singing carols and sharing warmed drink – is a tradition related to the Winter Solstice with ancient roots indeed.
I found a good Wassail recipe, which I've taken the liberty of sharing at the end of this post. I don't know if I'll be going out to sing to the Saguaros this Solstice, but who knows what I might end up doing if I drink enough Wassail with brandy. I'm sure the Saguaros wouldn't mind the attention.
Happy Wassailing!
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| Photo by Martin Beebee |
Compiled in The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton
From the South Hams of Devon, recorded 1871:
Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayst bud
And whence thou mayst blow!
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats full! Caps full!
Bushel--bushel--sacks full,
And my pockets full too! Huzza!
From Cornworthy, Devon, recorded 1805:
Huzza, Huzza, in our good town
The bread shall be white, and the liquor be brown
So here my old fellow I drink to thee
And the very health of each other tree.
Well may ye blow, well may ye bear
Blossom and fruit both apple and pear.
So that every bough and every twig
May bend with a burden both fair and big
May ye bear us and yield us fruit such a stores
That the bags and chambers and house run o'er.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
James Swan and the Spirit of Place
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| Avebury |
Dr. Swan has published numerous books about Numina, the Spirit of Place. His book "The Power of Place" draws on 26 presentations drawn from the five year Spirit of Place symposium held in the US and Japan between 1988 and 1993. I wish the symposium was still happening, because I believe people like James Swan, and Gloria Orenstein, are among those who are helping us how to have a dialogue again with the earth.
I'm kind of academic, so I guess what I'm doing here is gathering voices to help me understand what "numina" means to me.....in essence, I want to know how we can speak to the Earth, and how people have spoken to the Earth in the past, and elsewhere. I agree with Swan - I think this understanding is so very vital to us now. It's a blue moon......seems like a good time to share another article that I've reflected on over the years.
The Spirit of Place Symposiums:
Seeking The Modern Relevance of Ancient Wisdom
By James A. Swan, Ph.D
________________________________________
"Modern man will never find peace until he comes
into harmony with the place where he lives." Carl Jung (Pantheon, 1964)
________________________________________
Introduction
The ancient Greeks spoke of the "genus loci," or spirit of a place. They sited a shrine to honor the Earth Goddess Gaia at Delphi in Greece because the unique personality or spirit of that place was divined to be especially suited to Gaia residing there. Understanding the forces that drew the early Greeks to reach that decision may well be a concept that is at the very root of developing sustainable human societies on earth and creating tourism programs that maximize the unique values of each destination.
Like trees, the human spirit needs roots, and a primary root of the psyche is in the land. Psychiatrist Carl Jung was an explorer of those deeper regions of the mind, the unconscious, where symbols and primal energies originate. Jung declared there were two types of unconscious: personal, which is unique to each person, and collective, which is shared by all humans, and seems to have loose boundaries with other objects and creatures (Dell, 1968). In our sleep, the unconscious comes to the forefront, and Jung observed that people tended to have dreams of a similar archetypal nature when sleeping at certain places. Jung called such place perception "psychic localization," and asserted that it was an important part of human nature.
East Indian scholar Ananda Coomaraswamy agreed with Jung about the unique association between place and consciousness and noted that myths were frequently linked to certain places. He coined the phrase "land-nam," a term derived from the Icelandic tradition of claiming ownership of a place through weaving together a mythic metaphor of plants, animals and geography of a place into a unique mythic story (Luzac, 1935).
The spirit of place plays a strong role in traditional societies, where it is commonly held that each place has a personality and some places are associated with spiritual sentiments. Ancient wisdom deserves respect and preservation, but what additional value may such concepts as the spirit of place have for modern society?
The Spirit of Place Symposiums
From 1988 to 1993 my wife Roberta and I produced a five-year series of annual symposiums -- The Spirit of Place: The Modern Relevance of An Ancient Concept -- seeking to help restore the wisdom of the past about the significance of place and explore its meaning to modern times.
Each symposium was begun with an open call for papers, inviting people from all disciplines and cultural heritage backgrounds to share in a common quest for understanding the subtle power of place. Nearly 300 speakers participated in the programs, four of which were held in the United States -- University of California at Davis, Grace Cathedral, Mesa Verde National Park, and at the San Rafael, CA, Marin Civic Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright -- and one was held in Sendai, Japan. Speakers represented disciplines as diverse as aerospace engineering, biophysics, psychology, architecture, biology, law, history, anthropology, music, dance and art. Members of 20 different American Indian tribes participated with speeches, music singing and dancing, along with others from Eskimo, African, Polynesian, and Oriental ethnic backgrounds. The rule that was used to organize such a diverse group was that they had to participate as peers, equal experts in whatever their profession.
Thus panels blending a salmon fisherman with a physicist and an aerospace engineer with priest and a farmer became a common search for truth where many new alliances were forged. At each program, we concluded with a performance inspired by special places. Artists who performed included flutists Paul Horn and R. Carlos Nakai, dancer-choreographer Anna Halpern, keyboard artist Steven Halpern, Japanese recording artist Jun Hirose, and the rock-fusion band Earth Spirit.
Lessons of The Spirit of Place
In producing these programs our principle goal was to explore the modern validity of this ancient concept. We did not to try to start a spirit of place movement. Rather, we hope that what has taken place will set the stage for others to conduct programs that will advance our understanding of the power of places everywhere. In these five programs, listening to nearly 300 speakers, formally and informally, we heard common themes emerge. The following are some of these shared areas of agreement:
1)Among indigenous cultures all around the world, the belief in the existence of special places of power and spirit seems universal. It is commonly believed that some places have spiritual powers, and these places are normally seen as cornerstones of traditional cultural belief systems. Modern society has often not paid much attention to sacred places, which is a source of great concern to traditional cultures. Another concern is that modern cultures tend to see places as only having value to the past or to other cultures, rather than to society in general.
2) At each of the five Spirit of Place symposiums researchers and designers from many disciplines agreed that gaining a sense of place is a very important part of their work, yet there is very little research on this topic or professional organizations seriously investigating the topic. Modern people are often aware of the unique spirit of a place, but do not have a vocabulary to express their feelings, except through art.
3) A characteristic style of art seems to arise from a geographic region; it is a voice that speaks to us through indigenous art of the spirit of that place. Drawings, paintings, carving, sculpture, stories, songs, poetry and dances, are all fed by the spirit of a place. The artist's mind is not so encumbered by the constraints of intellectual reasoning and so it becomes a more clear channel for the unconscious to expressed. He or she gives voice and form to the spirit of the land.
4)The experience of place is multi-faceted and influenced by culture, personal uniqueness and modality of awareness. There may be many more sensory processes by which we perceive the earth and nature than modern science and psychology are willing to admit. Ancient traditions such as Chinese Feng Shui assert that we have at least 100 senses to perceive place. The needs of modern society for ecologically conscious design suggests that in the training of designers we should seek to cultivate the inner designer as well as training professional skills.
5) Each place has a unique quality which in turn influences what can best be done there.
The built environment can serve as an amplifier of the powers of a place, or it can negate the influence of locality, yielding what Frank Lloyd Wright called "cash and carry architecture." Architecture and design that honors the spirit of place and gives it meaning and form expresses beauty and nourishes health and creativity. Architecture is ultimately a ritual in structural materials.
6)The act of making a pilgrimage to special places is among the oldest acts of human respect for nature and spirit, and one of the least understood and appreciated by modern society, despite the facts that we undertake pilgrimages by the millions each year. Psychology needs to better understand the value of pilgrimage to human life as it may be one of the most important ways that we can discover our meaning, find health, and be inspired, as well as build reverence for nature.
7)The lack of feeling connected to a place, especially a place where one lives and works, can be an important source of mental and physical stress. People need to feel peaceful where they are, and maintain a psychic connection with a place of natural beauty if they do not reside in one. Actor James Earl Jones, who gained his awareness of the power of place by growing up on a dirt farm in northern Michigan has observed: "I have always thought it quite wonderful and necessary to keep connected to nature, to a place in the country landscape where one can rest and muse and listen" (Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1993).
8) Geomancy is the spiritual parent of modern design. Many ancient geomancies understand the importance of the relationship between place and personal experience and take elaborate measures to insure people are harmonized with the spirit of a place. When principles of design from Feng Shui and other geomancies are applied to modern buildings and communities, positive results occur. We need to set aside our limiting beliefs and appreciate the power of such approaches in the same fashion that western science has acknowledged the healing values of acupuncture, even though modern science cannot prove the existence of the life force chi and other geomantic concepts.
9)Modern science is beginning to measure the subtle properties of place. We now know that air ions, electrical and electromagnetic fields do influence health and well-being. More research needs to be devoted to the study of subtle environmental fields. Documenting the existence and value of these fields, may well lead to a whole new art and science of design with modern science and ancient wisdom working together.
10) In a Spirit of Place keynote, psychologist Robert Sommer observed that people can become "a voice" for the spirit of that region as much as for a human community or a relationship. John Muir, for example, seemed to embody the spirit of Yosemite Valley. The Lakota holy man Black Elk was a voice for the Black Hills of South Dakota. Rachel Carson was inspired by Cape Cod to write about "the sense of wonder" in nature as well as the dangers of pesticides to ecological balance. Becoming a voice for the land creates a "psychic anchor" that seems to be important to mental health.
11) The spirit of place concept is less understood by modern society, and one result is that conflicts about the value of place can and do arise between traditional and modern cultures.It is easy to flame the fires of conflict in such situations, creating enemies to raise funds to wage wars that should never have to exist. This kind of self-righteous scapegoating is as exploitive as developers who wish to commercialize sacred places for the sake of pure profit. The more difficult task is to build bridges of respect and cooperation between traditional and modern cultures, but it is the only path that can lead us to greater harmony and understanding.
12) We need new laws and land-use categories that facilitate honoring the power of place, including recognition of sacred places. Creating the public policies that yield such laws will require cross-cultural communication, cooperation and understanding unprecedented in modern society.
Conclusion
The consensus among participants in the Spirit of Place Symposiums is that we must rediscover the wisdom about the power of place and turn it into practical concepts that will guide modern people to live in harmony with the earth, as well as show respect for ancient traditions. Learning to plan and design with respect for the unique spirit of each place is a touchstone of responsible eco-tourism that respects traditional cultures and provides important benefits to modern culture as well.
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This paper is drawn from Dialogues With The Living Earth by James and Roberta Swan (1996)
Bibliography
Coomaraswamy, Ananda. 1935
Jones, James Earl. 1993 Voices and Silences. New York, NY: Chas. Scribner's Sons, p.358.
Jung, Carl 1964 Civilization In Transition: Vol. 10 Collective Works of Carl Jung New York, NY: Pantheon.
Jung, Carl 1968 Man and His Symbols New York, NY: Dell.
Lawrence, D.H. 1923 Studies In Classical American Literature. New York, NY: Thomas Seltzer and Sons, p.8-9.
Swan, James 1990 Sacred Places: How The Living Earth Seeks Our Friendship Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company.
Swan, James ed. 1991 The Power of Place Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.
Swan, James and Swan, Roberta 1996 Dialogues With The Living Earth Wheaton, IL: Quest.
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