Dear HCN,
Rob White in his essay
“Sacred Places’ (HCN, 3/7/94) offers no alternative to what he sees
as the evil of “making” places sacred. He states that it’s wrong,
spiritually. Then what is right? Self-imposed exile from all
non-urban places? Purely scientific investigation, excising any
spiritual “response’? Absolute secrecy and muteness about what may
be, for many, the moments in their lives most worthy of
celebration? He seems to feel that writing about a place, or about
how a place changes one (and by extension any creative act that
refers to a place), is manipulation and betrayal, no matter how it
is done, or for what motive.
I still choose to
hope that all the bad writing, all the clumsy passages through wild
places, all the bragging about “finds’ are the crude shapes of what
might evolve into a deeply held and acted-upon land ethic, as
described by Aldo Leopold. There’s at least a chance that such an
evolution might take place, or is already beginning
to.
Writers like Leopold and Rachel Carson would
have resisted sneering at a “sense of wonder,” no matter how
ineptly expressed at first, knowing it to be a seed that can grow
into a more valuable awareness. The influence of that awakening
sense can become a strong force, creating an allegiance to a place;
in fact, if extended to less and less “flashy” surroundings, it can
finally allow us to love and care for the most modest, most abused
of landscapes, as Robert Michael Pyle describes in his fine book,
The Thunder Tree.
White sounds suspiciously like
the loggers I listen to in Dubois, who feel invaded on what they
consider to be their territory. I struggle with similar reactions,
especially since so many of the new lovers and seekers seem to have
a lot more money and leisure time than I do to go chasing down peak
experiences. But Mr. White isn’t going to get anywhere by simply
condemning the phenomenon of being “on the make for great places.”
Though that phenomenon has wretched effects, it isn’t going to go
away, and it might not be pure poison.
We might
begin by helping to diffuse the passion concentrated on the most
dazzling places. When people first learn about a piece of country,
they can’t see the subtleties; that takes a longer association and
more patient watching. A better way to enact our loyalty might be
in encouraging people to find the qualities they come for in a much
wider sphere.
The question of an inner vs. an
outer experience of a wild place seems to me a queer one. If you
take the position I do, that the inner and outer worlds are more or
less seamless, then whatever responses flow from a place are
included as landmarks on it, and one possible turn in the dialogue
can be towards gratitude and further attention. Maybe the “inner
process’ that Mr. White vilifies in his essay can be seen as
something to build on. The fantasy of being the first to discover a
place can give way to a different kind of
devotion.
Hannah
Hinchman
Dubois, Wyoming
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Sacred places revisted.
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