Circles, stones, stories

From Dwellings, an essay collection by Linda Hogan of the Chickasaw nation:

" 'All beginnings wear their endings like dark shadows," says astronomer-physicist Chet Raymo. And maybe they do. If endings are foreshadowed by their beginnings, or are in some way the same thing, it is important that we circle around and come back to look at our human myths and stories. Unlike the cyclical nature of time for the Maya, the Western tradition of beliefs within a straight line of history leads to an apocalyptic end. And stories of the end, like those of the beginning, tell something about the people who created them....

"Without deep reflection, we have taken on the story of endings, assumed the story of extinction, and have believed that it is the certain outcome of our presence here. From this position, fear, bereavement, and denial keeps us in the state of estrangement from our natural connection with land.

"We need new stories, new terms and conditions that are relevant to the love of land, a new narrative that would imagine another way, to learn the infinite mystery and movement at work in the world. It would mean we, like the corn people of the Maya, give praise and nurture creation.

"Indian people must not be the only ones who remember the agreement with the land, the sacred pact to honor and care for the life that, in turn, provides for us. We need to reach a hand back through time and a hand forward , stand at the zero point of creation to be certain we do not create the absence of life, of any species, no matter how inconsequential they might appear to be. "

"It is in our nature to need stories," inventor/philosopher Jag Bhalla agrees. "They are our earliest sciences, a kind of people-physics. Their logic is how we naturally think. They configure our biology, and how we feel, in ways long essential for our survival. Like our language instinct, a story drive -- an inborn hunger for story hearing and story making -- emerges untutored universally in healthy children. Every culture bathes their children in stories to explain how the world works and to engage and educate their emotions. Perhaps story patterns could be considered another higher layer of language. A sort of meta-grammar shaped by and shaping conventions of character types, plots, and social-rule dilemmas prevalent in our culture."

"The sense of being immersed in a sentient world is preserved in the oral stories and songs of indigenous peoples," writes cultural ecologist David Abram, "in the belief that sensible phenomena are all alive and aware, in the assumption that all things have the capacity of speech. Language, for oral peoples, is not a human invention but a gift of the land itself."

The lands around my dwelling
Are more beautiful
From the day
When it is given me to see
Faces I have never seen before.
All is more beautiful.
All is more beautiful.
And life is thankfulness.
These guests of mine
Make my house grand. 

- Eskimo song

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.

- Gaelic blessing 

The Dartmoor imagery in this post is by American photographer Stu Jenks, who visited Chagford recently and found much inspiration on the moor. Stu and I have been friends since my Arizona days, when our studios were in the art-infested Tooleshed Building in downtown Tucson. To see more of his work, please visit his Fezziwig website & blog, where he'll be adding other images from his travels in England and France in the days to come.

The passage by Linda Hogan is from Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (W.W. Norton & Co., 2007). The quote by by Jag Bhalla is from "It is Our Nature to Need Stories" (Scientific American blog, May 8, 2013). The quote by David Abram is from The Spell of the Sensuous (Pantheon, 1996). Photograph titles are identified in the picture captions (Run your cursor over the images to see them.) All rights to the text and art above reserved by the authors and photographer.