David Barnhill

“The Spiritual Dimension of Nature Writing”

Outline

 

Spirituality has been central to nature writing from the beginning. Not all nature writings are spiritual, but the genre is dominated by spirituality.

 

Range of sources:

Non-traditional and critical of tradition, including their own. [Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Terry Tempest Williams] Thus at times reluctant to bring up religion (Wendell Berry, Scott Russell Sanders) Range of traditions.

  • Christian: Rexroth, Dillard, Wendell Berry, Terry Tempest Williams (Mormon)

  • Asian cultures: Rexroth, Peter Matthiessen, Ursula Le Guin, Gary Snyder, Gretel Ehrlich

  • Native cultures:

    • Native Americans: Momaday, Silko, Hogan

    • European Americans: Mary Austin, Gary Snyder, Terry Tempest Williams, Richard Nelson

  • In some cases more than one: Rexroth, Gary Snyder

  • More undefined: Abbey’s “earthiest”; Bass and mystery

  • Other times eclectic.

    • Thoreau, Scott Russell Sanders draw on many.

    • Wendell Berry is clearly situated within the Protestant tradition, yet draws on Chinese culture, particularly Confucianism but also Buddhism.

 

What nature? Three traditions

1. Nature as sacred other

      • extra-ordinary & pristine: distinctive from normal

      • places not to live in but journey to and return from (but indigenous peoples may live there)

      • related to pilgrimage tradition

      • related to wildernes tradition

      • Problem: only certain areas; humanity positioned outside

2. Sacred place

      • intimacy and commitment

      • distinctive of normal: one’s own place >> home

      • Native American culture as model

      • Bioregionalism

3. Monistic:

      • everywhere is sacred

Note: These three can be combined

 

Sacred in what way?

What is relationship between nature and sacred?

  • Biblical framework: stage for religious narrative

  • Nature as focus

  • Tension: (e.g., Transcendentalism): nature as of spiritual value, but the REAL value is transcendent

  • Thoreau & Muir: nature itself sacred, especially the wild / wilderness

  • Abbey: absolute and marvelous

  • Earth-centered but with transcendent dimension

    • Dillard: an eternal beyond this world, and yet she is wholly enmeshed in this incarnational world.

    • Sanders: Ground of Being – but ground he can touch. “healing energy of wildness, in the holiness of Creation”

    • Berry

 

Themes concerning the natural world

  • Organic interrelatedness:

    • ecological & metaphysical

    • Indra’s Net

    • we are part of the web

  • Vastness

    • space

    • time: deep time

  • Vitalism

    • Nature as a whole

    • Spiritual vitality of animals

  • Ongoing creation

  • Mystery

 Themes concerning spiritual awareness & the relationship between the nature writer & nature

  • Focused attention and energy

  • Receptivity (transparent eye-ball)

  • Loss of sense of d istinction between subject/object

  • Direct perception

  • Present only

  • No meaning

  • Tension: unity with world & otherness of nature

 Aspects of “social spirituality” of nature writing

  • family and community: Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry,

  • other cultures, especially Native American

  • environmental: pollution and environmental laws

  • political:

    • Open democracy: Terry Tempest Williams

    • Anarchism: Henry David Thoreau, Rexroth, Snyder, Abbey, Le Guin

    • (anarchistic) Agrarianism: Wendell Berry

 

 

 

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Last updated: March 14, 2007