All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.  

     Ithuriel's Spears, Fiesta Flowers, Chinese Purple Houses

SPIRIT OF PLACE

Words and Music by Jim Robbins
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At dawn, we follow paths
into a forest that dreams,
where we find abandoned
villages, last night's rains

veining the slopes, the quail
reminding us that we
are awake. I sense a spirit
watching us

as I slide my fingers over
wet moss. When the spirit senses
our love for moss and rocks
and mushrooms and grass

and for each other, she
gently touches our souls
and drenches us
with her joy.

Pounding Stone at "Fairy Creek"

SPIRIT OF PLACE

   Whenever I venture into the unknown, I search for signs of undisturbed grace, and I must confess that I continue even in middle age to risk my life to find places unmolested by humanity. Once, as I was just beginning my quest for the pristine, I encountered a skink on a trail next to a stream. It gazed at me for twenty seconds, as though it were a guardian of the stream, then scurried off into the grass under some leaves. Then a rattlesnake, about fifteen feet away, slithered across the trail. These brief encounters with reptiles revealed that I had discovered a place that very few humans had troubled in recent times, and I was overjoyed. As I continued along the trail, I found newts and turtles and frogs just about wherever I turned. Chinese houses, Ithuriel’s spears, fiesta flowers, larkspur and fairy lanterns wove a living tapestry on the hillsides. Finally I reached a quiet pool and stood gazing at a waterfall. A snake swam over to me, raised up its head and gazed for awhile at me, seemingly devoid of fear.
   At that moment, I had an eerie feeling that the whole place was watching me. The snake suddenly was not just an individual being, but a facet of the consciousness of its whole species. Not only that, the snake seemed also to be a facet of consciousness of some overarching consciousness, a spirit of the place. I had the distinct impression that through the consciousness of this snake an Over Soul knew how I was responding to the creatures in its domain. Suddenly every flower, bush, and tree, every frog, lizard and snake seemed a facet of this overarching consciousness that was aware of me.
   I shook my head, thinking I was in some kind of trance. Later, though, I discovered that many cultures believe in vital, overarching spirits known as the “spirit of place,” or Over Souls. The Romans, for instance, depicted the “genius loci” as a figure holding a cornucopia, a patera (a shallow dish used for libations), a snake, or some combination of the three. These overarching spirits, personified symbolically as humans, are considered extremely powerful and intelligent by some. Others consider them nearly omnipotent and omniscient inside the realm they inhabit, while some consider them vast, semi-sentient well-springs of magical energy. They are part of a spiritual territory that people tend to ignore.
   As I have witnessed more and more environmental degradation over the years, I have come to one conclusion: We must begin to see each ecosystem as an array of creatures linked by an overarching consciousness, not just in a physical web. We must accept that we are inextricably linked to that consciousness. If we continue to treat nature, without reverence, as only a lifeless store of resources, we are doomed to continue on our merry way to our own destruction.
   After I mentally purified my aura, I became much more sensitive to the spiritual vibrations within nature. In some regions of the wild, I quickly sense an overarching intelligence. In some areas, the genius loci is absolutely terrifying, in others, resentful, but in one place that my wife and I call “Fairy Creek,” the spirit of place is loving and nurturing, almost maternal. Every time I go there, I experience vibrations of joy and love and caring. I eventually developed a theory about the phenomenon. Several pounding stones exist in the area. I believe the Native Americans over time developed a deep sense of reverence and love for the creek and its genius loci, which she reciprocated, so not only does she care for the plants and animals, but she also still cares for people. At Native American sites that are closer to modern civilization, I sense only resentment. Our ancestors knew that you need to establish a parley with the spirits of nature. Almost every culture has at some point personified the spirits of nature as deities. Modern American society, possibly due to its never-ending exploitation of resources, remains willfully ignorant of the spiritual side of nature, which my wife and I had occasionally experienced together.