SENSUOUS WONDERMENT, AN 'ORDINARY' LOVE

The sense of wonder expressed by Amy (see Animistic Ecology of Gaia) was reiterated throughout many participants' interviews, and often connected with purely sensory experiences. This deep appreciation was not dependent upon any particular knowledge of how the rainforest ecosystem functions, or any spiritual belief system. It was wonderment and joy in pure experience.

As Lyn Taylor, an organic farmer and mother of three, said laughingly, "Smells great!". Susan, another alternative lifestyler, described the rainforest in the following way. (I have reformatted it as a poem.)

"Fresh. Full of life.
Ticks, lice, leeches and wait-a-while.
Red clay, mud.
Beautiful, beautiful creeks and water, clear running water.
Closed in amongst it all."

Tanya, the alternative lifestyler who described the rainforest as "hard to get through", also painted the following picture of simple sensory ecstasy, aesthetic pleasure, and love of place.

"Miraculous. (...) Well, I LOVE it. I love being IN it. I love it when.. you know we've had HUNDREDS of butterflies through these trees out here.. they were just flitting.. you ever see birdwings, lacewings.. just hundreds of them.. after the rain, wow. Those sort of things are things that make you think "WOW! What a place to be living!" you know. Yesterday I was sitting up here on a chair on the roof and a Ulysses was down here and I watched him flitter all the way up here.. all the way.. and all the way up to me.. and he came up and he flittered.. and went all around like this. And flittered off again. THOSE are the things..."

She and other participants reminded me that the sacred experience of simple love, caring, and affection for nature should not be forgotten in studies of 'spirit of place'. One of the strongest experiences I had during my research was interviewing conventional farmers and discovering the depth of emotion they felt in relation to the land⁽¹⁷⁾. In my very first interview, I asked Mr Danaci, a 67-year-old cane farmer, what motivated him to plant and care for trees on his property. In his thick Italian accent, with tears in his eyes, he told me

"Because that tree and that spot that it live, you like to see grow, is not in the way for anything. So, instead to destroy it, you like to see.. you see grow steady steady.. like you see your children grow steady steady. Almost the same as the tree. (...) You plant, and you always go and look whether it come out of the ground. Then it starts to shoot out, and grow, steady steady, and you always keep an eye, that you see it grow nicely. You enjoy to see it."

Although it is difficult to convey his response solely in words, the depth of feeling intimated by the link between his love of family and his love for nature is obvious. In this form, a 'love of nature' is as ordinary as a 'love of family', and is a sacred experience not often alluded to in ecophilosophical literature. Mr Danaci's words also express the sacred nature of growth. By becoming aware of and appreciating the 'life-force', the power of regeneration, then the edge of the rainforest, farmland and even very degraded areas all becomes sacred. People can be motivated to engage in environmentally responsible behaviours not solely by the desire to protect the sacred mysteries of intact, undisturbed rainforest, but by enchantment with the processes of life itself.

The simplicity of re-enchantment with nature, and its availability in many places, was well expressed by environmental activist Linda Thomson.

"But I think you can be there ANYTIME. It's just a matter of relaxing enough and getting in touch. Or tuning your vibrations to what ever is out there I guess. I don't even know what I mean, but it's just THERE."

While discussing the relationship between spiritual experience, ritual and sacred places, she said

"You don't have to go through any rigmarole to get there, sort of thing. (...) I think it's very much to do with the situation you're in yourself, you know, if you're in peace and harmony yourself, then you're quite open to relating outside yourself, and if you're NOT then you find it difficult to make a connection."

In contrast to my own very intense and shadowy emergence into the rainforest, experiencing the very depths of my soul at the same time as the spirit of the forest, it seems that for others this is not necessary. Could it be that plunging to the depths of the mythical 'other' may not be required to authentically connect with the 'spirit of place'?

"So if I'm at peace and I'm feeling happy ... the experience of a butterfly and a flower, it's just a MAGNIFICENT thing in itself, and you can see the whole thing happening. You can almost FEEL what the butterfly feels, you can feel what the flower feels."

FOOTNOTES
(17) This was a very humbling and transforming for me, as I became aware of my own prejudices. I had thought that because these people were directly involved in environmental degradation through their use of chemicals and deforestation, they were unlikely to have a deep spiritual connection with nature.

[Return to EDGE OF THE SACRED RAINFOREST]