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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Spirit of Place |
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Moth 5236 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 00:33
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When I get 'em, I listen. Just don't get 'em at many sites. Always get some sort of feeling of course. Can't you lot go to bed so I can concentrate on writing? :^D Bye for now love Moth
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Shestu 373 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 00:43
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I would wager a bet that you pick up on stuff that you dismiss as stuff.... It is not as if some have it and some don't we all have it. Just so ya know, I'm 7 hours behind ya. It is now 5:25PM. You wont hear another peep from me!
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Moth 5236 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 00:57
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Ha! Peep all you like! Just to explain clearly and lucidly (you'll be lucky!) what I'm getting at, the stuff I dismiss as just stuff is just stuff. Maybe it's just me, but the stuff I ALWAYS get is not sufficiently important 'spiritually' to ME, to attach the name 'spiritual' to it. In broad terms I guess you COULD argue that anything a place makes me FEEL is spiritual. But personally, I only really think in terms of 'labelling' (in my own head) a feeling as being 'spiritual' if it feels 'important' in some 'bigger' way. For example if it makes me 'come over all unnecessary' (I'm so eloquent!) as occasionally does happen at a place. Going for a while now. Lot of love Moth
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Shestu 373 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 06:14
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'Come over all unnecessary' Not sure what you mean Moth, but I used to put spirituality in one box, challenge in another, love and dealing with family in another etc. I've come to the notion that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.... don't believe anything happens without a reason. From my experience there is divine order in everything. Nothing or everything is sacred it all depends on my point of view and in the end I am the only one that can bring sacredness to anything, cuz it begins inside of me and the world reflects back to me my point of view. If this makes no sense to you it's no big deal.... in the end it is all good/god. Namaste Love Shestu
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wychburyman 951 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 08:21
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all of those for me
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 08:23
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That list is pretty much my list. I'd possibly re-order it and maybe put a little more on the 'spiritual' side, but not 'spiritual' in the sense most 'spiritual' people mean it. I actually prefer the phrase 'essence of place' .... sorry. Oh, and about the ADD .... I'm only just coming to realise (at 36 years old) that I do suffer and always have suffered from this. I used to be called 'hyperactive' as a kid. Now they have a disorder for it. Visiting shite sites is a little obsessive for me ... I do need to collect them all. Everything else is a bonus. I just add landscape study to my visits to rationalise it all.
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Wotan 606 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 10:08
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for me its a sense of past - the relocation of the psyche into another time and space, away from the headlong rush of the 21c to a time when the land was younger, and magic and wonder slept beneath every hill. and its a nice place to paint too!
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 10:08
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Tombo, I too have read your Spirit of Place essay in your weblog. I wish I didn’t lack the edification to discuss it with you on an equal basis. Since I suspect I’m a lot older than you it gives me the uncomfortable feeling that I haven’t used my time as well as you. On the other hand, I’ve probably eaten more curries, so I guess it all evens out. But in one small way I can talk to you about this on an equal basis. You’ve said you agree with me about the dominance of aesthetics. I find that striking, because it’s pretty unusual for people to cite that as a specific constituent of their understanding of Spirit of Place (atmosphere, beauty, natural energy, yes, but nothing more specific). So far as I’ve been able to analyse my own reactions I’ve concluded that for me Spirit of Place IS aesthetics. I’ve actually been forced to that conclusion, as I’ll explain in a minute. You mentioned you’d like to do some sort of scientific survey of people’s reactions to ancient sites. (I don’t know why you don’t set something up here). If that is your interest then my own testimony might be of use to you since I am at the extreme end of the spectrum of possible reactions: I am a rationalist par excellence, always have been. From the age of six when I sat in my local church, listening to Sunday School stories, surrounded by the signs of faith erected by eight centuries of my elders and betters, and still had the nauseating arrogance to think they and the teacher were deluded purveyors of crap, right through my adult life, I’ve always been consistent and absolute in thinking there was nothing, anywhere, that didn’t connect to the every day world. Rationalism isn’t stubbornness, it’s nature, and you and those who aren’t afflicted should think of us as worthy of sympathy since we are condemned to live smaller lives than you! So that’s the state I was in when I came to ancient sites a few years ago. Obviously my reactions were positive, for all of the reasons that everyone else here would feel. Plus, I’ve always been a Natural History freak, so that added even more punch in nice settings. But that was it, full stop. It was all what it was, the makers were long dead and nothing was left but what I could see and touch and therefore appreciate. Then I got into painting and poetry. Nothing to do with ancient sites, but it had the effect of widening my eyes even wider to the natural world and I got onto a whole new level of pleasure from being exposed to it. This wasn’t an hysterical religious experience, you understand, and I still think Wolverhampton is a dump, but driving through the British countryside in June became an absolute feast as never before. Continued, as too big...
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 10:10
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As I was saying.... Then I had my Big Thing. I found that, as often as not, this feeling was magnified hugely at ancient sites. When Shestu talks of spititual experience at ancient sites I guess it’s reporting precisely the same intense feeling of appreciation that I have. But no way can I call it spiritual, other than if that means utterly rational. My affliction remains entirely uncured. And yet, here I am, after a long and wicked life utterly and exceptionally untroubled by the least glimmering of spirituality in any area, going specifically to ancient sites and having intense feelings of appreciation of place that people like Shestu would happily embrace and understand as being spiritual. Oh, shit, how can I rationalize the position, and avoid admitting that Shestu might be right and I’ve been blind all my life? Well, maybe I can’t, and I should admit that I’ve been given a late glimpse of what I’ve missed. I can live with that, I’m not prejudiced against knowing the Truth, whatever it is. But the thing is, the curse of rationality is that it’s a nitpicker, and it won’t let me entertain spirituality until I’ve explored every other possible explanation. And it’s forced me to come up with aesthetics as an explanation, or at least a theory, as to why I have “spiritual” experiences at some of these places. Quite simply, I think the ancient people had a heightened capacity to appreciate the beauty of “place”, (what I call aesthetics) compared with us, , and sited many of their monuments accordingly. What more human? I speculate that our involvement with towns and buses and Big Brother has dulled us, whereas their lifelong immersion in exclusively natural surroundings made appreciation of it part of their fabric of being, not merely a weekend wonder. So I speculate that our “spiritual” experience at these places is the result of our being able to appreciate, fleetingly and dimly, what they appreciated naturally and effortlessly. For us, a degree of effort is required. Thus, those who are able to entertain the concept of spirituality, often talk of needing to make themselves “open” to the spirit of the place. For poor saps like me, cursed with Rationality, we can sometimes get to the same position of appreciation by apparently irrelevant training of our minds by constantly peering round an easel. So that’s my testimony on the subject. The Rationality v Spirituality debate is an artificial construct when it comes to these places. Their Spirit is their beauty, but it’s a beauty beyond every-day observation, requiring us to view it with different eyes. Hence, it effectively lies within a different, largely forgotten dimension. If it’s that, we can all agree without quarrelling.
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pebblesfromheaven 853 posts |
Jun 27, 2003, 10:16
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You have hit my nail so precisely with all that. I can agree, I am not religious really, but I can appreciate Place. Sites are more often than not in a good location, either through intent or just from the fact that they have been left alone to just be themselves. I have real problems trying to Put Myself in Their Shoes. It's a talent some just don't possess. But it doesn't mean we can't appreciate things. .o0O0o.
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