Poets, Shamans, and the Land

Reflection of Life by Colleen ODonnell

“She taught them that the land shapes us more than we shape the land, until there is no more land to shape.”

Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

“The evidence of the therapeutic value of gardens and pets is convincing. What do we know, though, about the next step – the influence of unstructured natural landscapes and experiences in nature on human development and health? Poets and shamans have recognized that link for millennia, but science began to explore it relatively recently.”
Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We sleep in the desert
on a land full of stories
and all night the wind reads the news.

We wake to a world without word,
only scent and beauty.
The Word is written
everywhere on the land.”

Laura Girardeau, “Easter, Picacho Peak,” in what wildness is this: Women Write About the Southwest

How did I come to this feeling for the land? I do believe that the land shapes us, imprints us. I was shaped by the fog, the creeks, forests and deer, snakes, scarlet leaves, fireflies, dirt roads, hollers, honeysuckle, whippoorwills, and the rocks and mountains of West Virginia. These things flow through my veins just as surely as blood does. Every few years I return. Return and renew. Called home by some mystical force to breathe the air of my childhood, touch the dirt and trees. Cleanse myself in the cold creek water rushing down from the mountaintops.

I have driven thousands of miles, day and night, simply to return to the beginning of myself, my special mountain where my father once took my hand at the highest peak and opened my eyes to the worldspirit.

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Please visit my posts over at Greenzone Online. Here are the titles of my current posts:

Some ABC’s of Greenology
Going Green When Living with a Techno Geek
(Re)Connecting with Nature in Your Own Backyard

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Current Bedside Reading

Nonfiction
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv 2005 (Note: there is a new updated and expanded 2008 edition.)
Environment, Energy, and Society: A New Synthesis by Craig R. Humphrey, Tammy L. Lewis, and Frederick H. Buttel

Fiction
Mad Cow Nightmare by Nancy Means Wright
Indigo Dying by Susan Wittig Albert

Poetry
What wildness is this: Women Write About the Southwest edited by Susan Wittig Albert, Susan Hanson, Jan Epton Seale, Paula Stallings Yost

P.S. I will likely be temporarily cutting back on posts for the next 5 weeks as I take a class on leadership for nonprofits.