STUDY QUESTIONS

David Barnhill

“The Spiritual Dimension of Nature Writing”

1. What is the range of religious sources that nature writers have drawn on? How do you react to writers who draw from unorthodox (e.g. Christian mysticism) or foreign religions? Are there authentic and inauthentic ways of being influenced by or espousing such spirituality?

2. What have been the various ways (“trajectories) that nature writers have responded to the issue of “what is nature?” What are characteristics of each way? What are the problems and limitations with those responses? In what ways can they be combined? Do you see nature in any of these ways?

3. What have been the various ways that nature writers have depicted nature as sacred? What exactly makes nature sacred, and how much? What tensions have there been? How do these different views compare to yours? What have been the beliefs about the relationship between nature and the sacred that you been brought up with?

4. What have been the major themes in nature writers’ depiction of nature? What are nature’s qualities? How does it work? How are things related? How would such views affect your moral responsibility to nature and the way you live your life? How does you conception of nature differ from these?

5. What have been major themes in nature writers’ discussions of spiritual awareness and the relationship between the nature writer and nature? Can you relate to these descriptions? have you ever experienced the world this way? Would you like to? If so, what would it require?

6. What does the author mean by the “social spirituality” of nature writing? What are the aspects of the social and political dimensions of nature writing? How are they related to spirituality? Do you think politics and spirituality are related in these ways? If not, why not?

7. What have been the main ideas, values, and perceptions that have been the most compelling to you? Why? What ideas, values, and perceptions leave you cold? Why?

8. Look again at Leslie Marmon Silko's essay "Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination." In what way and to what degree is spirituality a part of this essay? What is that spirituality?

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