Discovering a Sense of Place

wales-countrysideWhen I was a teenager growing up in Cardiff, Wales I would often go on walks to the hills that surrounded the city.  It was a beautiful area of farms, meadows, and heavy woodland.  One particular wood held a special significance for me because in the deep shade of its forest canopy there were three little streams that came together at a single point.  I loved to visit this place of convergence and just sit and contemplate the little rivulets flowing together under their cover of ferns and woodland flowers.

What made this place so significant for me?  It was long before I knew anything of meditation or even of spiritual awareness.  It certainly had little to compare to the church services I had attended.  And yet something in my soul responded to the quiet beauty of this ordinary place and I felt as though I were beholding a part of nature’s mystery and order.  Arising from my simple watchfulness I always felt renewed and ready to go back to the world of football games, school and girlfriends with a greater sense of possibility.  Today I would probably call those times gazing at the streams in the wood mystical experiences, moments of recognition where inside and outside, Spirit and matter are one.  But the feeling was not high fallutin’ in any way.  It was simply real.

I believe that we have all experienced similar moments of connection with nature and to place.  When such a connection is made we realize that wholeness or holiness is all around us and that it interpenetrates the world we live in.  So often, though, the busyness and complication of our lives takes up most of our energy and those times of connection and attunement seem like pleasant but unrealistic dreams.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Coming into relationship with nature and finding a sense of place in our environment are not luxuries and the special preserve of nature mystics and poets like Wordsworth, Thoreau, or W.B. Yeats.  They are essential components to living a purposeful and contented life.

Study after study has demonstrated that children from urban settings who have been introduced to nature, to trees, and even to pets are better adjusted and less violent than those who have not received these opportunities.

In his 1992 book The Voice of the Earth, professor, historian, and author Theodore Roszak coined the word ecopsychology to describe a worldview that connects psychology and ecology.  In his understanding, mental health cannot be understood simply in the narrow context of the modern social world and the built environment.  True mental and spiritual health arises in the wider, natural world and humankind’s natural affinity with its variety, harmony, and beauty.

And this reconnection to a deep order of things can begin quite simply with a walk.  As the great naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, John Muir, wrote, “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

These ideas of a deeper sanity and peace offered by the natural world are gaining currency in the mainstream press also.  As I was writing this article I picked up a copy of USA Today and, as if by synchronicity, the headline in the life section read “A holy place big as all outdoors – believers connect with God outside religious structures.”  Yes! In the article that followed Rabbi Jamie Korngold, author of God in the Wilderness wrote that “You can make yourself so breathless with wonder and exhaustion that you can’t say no to God”.  This visceral approach grounds us in the vitalities of the body.  The breath and the heartbeat are God’s rhythms coursing through our own bodies.  The body of the universe (outside) and our own physical selves (inside) become one.

Rabbi Korngold was talking about skiing and hiking in the mountains, but I strongly believe that the divine is found not only in special places of spectacular beauty but in the ordinary environments of our everyday lives.  In support of this Rabbi Korngold further comments, “You can have a similar awe experience watching rain on a city windowsill.  You can have it with every breath.  You can get spiritual endorphins going in your own backyard.

I certainly understand that there is room for the Sedonas and the Yellowstones and other power places on our planet.  But God is not limited to certain places at the expense of others.  Preserving the National Parks and the wilderness areas is of crucial importance.  It is also important to protect the integrity of our cities, towns, farms, and fields.  Seeing everything as a commodity, a piece of raw land to be developed impoverishes our souls just as it degrades the sanctity of the land.  Native Americans were overwhelmed not so much by the guns and the sheer number of settlers during the westward expansion of the 19th century as by these settlers’ worldview of nature as object.  In a sense this view, incomprehensible to the native peoples, broke their spirit of integration and interconnectedness and threatens to break our spirit too unless we reclaim the sanctity of the natural world that surrounds us.

How do we accomplish this?  A necessary first step is to actually become involved with nature where you live.  Going for a walk and noticing what is around you can be revelatory.  No matter where we live we can observe the phases of the moon, for example, and enjoy the delicate sliver of the new moon in the early evening sky and the triumphant glow of the full moon’s silver orb.

I must admit that there were times as a Unity ministerial student when I had simply had enough of classroom learning and I would step out into the lakeside trails at Unity Village for a long, renewing walk and, as Wordsworth wrote, “Let Nature be my teacher.”  I always returned with a better attitude and a sense of having received something valuable to bring to my studies.

Like the moon, all of nature moves with a rhythm and harmony that is intimately tied to our own internal rhythm.  Observing this order of things is deeply satisfying and contributes, as Theodore Roszak would say, to our mental and emotional health.  Keep a journal and notice the patterns and rhythms that occur and reoccur in your life.

In the garden at the church where I minister in Fort Worth we look forward to the annual migration of the monarch butterflies and the hummingbirds.  At my home I welcome the exuberant antics of the cedar waxwings in winter and the arrival of exotic bugs and beetles in summer.  (I live in Texas, after all, where exotic insect species seem to flourish.)

A bird table or feeder can add a new dimension to your backyard and can attract birds that we did not know existed.

Look around your local environment for forgotten or undeveloped gems.  In Fort Worth there is a 160 acre area of rolling hills very close to downtown that is now, quite miraculously, preserved as a natural area of prairie and open woods.  It contains over 500 flowering plants and is a haven for wildlife.  This area was a lover’s haunt and a dump until its intrinsic worth was appreciated by the ‘Friends of Tandy Hills’ and they prevailed upon the local government to protect it.  It is a victory for nature and those who dare to champion the natural world and a place available to all to experience the beauty of God’s creation.

Many cities have tree ordinances and some have a heritage tree program that protects fine tree specimens in the city’s neighborhoods.  Check out the provisions in your own municipality.

And, at a simpler level, you can work to get your own backyard designated as a wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation.

In Wales, the land of my birth, there are many vestiges of the sacred in nature and a deep remembrance of things being divine.  A few miles from my hometown is an ancient well dedicated to St. Mary.  I believe it was a sacred spring long before Christianity and its origins are lost in pre-history.  Around the well are hawthorn trees, whose flowers and fruit represent Christ’s life and sacrifice.  To this day those seeking healing or transformation leave items of clothing fastened to the branches of these trees, so many handkerchiefs and slips of cloth flutter in the wind above this bubbling well.  Is there magic in this place?  Do the waters have a healing quality?  Perhaps, perhaps not.

What fascinates and inspires me is the fact that people, for literally thousands of years, have come into relationship with the water and the wind and the trees through their prayers, their presence and their offerings.  Their intention has sanctified this place and so the presence of God is more keenly felt.  When inside and outside are combined at the place of our focus, at the still point of our opened hearts, then miracles of healing are possible.

So, this is our work, our joyous responsibility as human beings involved in a larger creation.  Not to journey to Wales to pay homage at a holy well (although that might be fun too!) but to acknowledge and appreciate the presence of Spirit in the grass growing beneath our feet, in our own place where heaven and earth meet in the magnificent involvement of the human with the divine.

1 comment on “Discovering a Sense of Place”

  1. Judy

    Thanks so much for the thoughts, Paul! It made me recall years of growing up in a house with the perfect tree for climbing- it becoming my refuge to escape to whether I was happy, sad, confused…I also spent many weekends at a Girl Scout camp that had what was called the “Green Cathedral” where we would have Sunday morning services. It also brought me to a place of peace and serenity and closeness to God that was not quite matched by my actual church building. My time spent in the mountains and at the seashore also instills in me that feeling of closeness to God that is hard to duplicate. But, you are right, just spending time out in my own yard listening to the birds and watching the squirrels can bring a peace no matter what else is going on in my life at the time. God can certainly be found anywhere, but some how nature is where He is the most approachable!

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