Spirit of Place

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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...

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.