Discussion Questions
- From our reading of R Bradley's work, how are "natural places" defined? Can there be natural places? Or perhaps to put it in a more polemical way, what does it mean when we call a place "natural"? I am hoping that this discussion also takes us back to our earlier discussions of nature and the natural, and remind us of Arturo Escobar's notion of indigenous conceptualization of what is nature. How natural is nature, how wild is wilderness? And how does one document those natural landscapes and the human engagements with those landscapes?. Some of the contemporary artists' responses that I sample below are intriguing: (Omur)
- "Notes on a New Nature: an introduction"
- Ilana Halperin(Omur)
- Latmos Mountain Rock Art
- "Time-honoured techniques include the use of alcoholic spirits, hypnotic suggestion, rapid over-breating, the inhalation of smoke and vapours, music and dancing; and the ingestion of ... drugs... Even without these aids, much the same effects can be produced, although usually ... more slowly, by such self-inflicted or externally imposed mortifications and privtions as fasting and ascetic contenplation ...The inspirational effect of sensory deprivation..."-(Lewis 1989: 34)
"feelings have their origin in the human nervous system ... (which) result from a wide variety of different stimuli ... because all human being share the same physical properties that they undergo" (Bradly 32)
- Judging from Lewis's description of human sensory deprivation and vulnerability to one's moods that highly depended on drugs, hypnotics, alcohols, etc. human beings are vulnerable beings that can be controlled by outer circumstances. Eliade's "soul of the shaman in ecstasy" (Eliade 1964) portrays that the state of ecstasy will bring one's shamanism in a whole different level. Does the communication or the "(passing) through an 'opening'" of the two cosmic world ever be controlled in real clear state of one's mind to carry on a truthful communication of the cosmic worlds when "the world is perceived during altered states of consciousness?" Is the action of Shamanism under certain ecstasy be effective? (Heeju)
- "The sacred centre is where different cosmic levels come into contact.... axis mundi...joins these elements together and allows communication between them. ...religious experience is balanced between cosmos and chaos, the sacred and the profane, the ordered and the uncontrolled."(29) In terms of the religious experience, are the two controversial opposite sides of cosmos and chaos in Christianity, in particular, is Heaven and Hell. Referring back to Figure 10 in page 31, the area of transition in the "everyday world" is our world. Then how do these communication work in our daily lives excluding the special ceremonies?(Heeju)
- Stones and rocks are durable natural resource that stays through a long history. It is believed that stones have history (and to my personal belief or preference to call it "memory" from the past) resides within it. Were such meanings in the natural resource's natural characteristic considered in creating such stone art or tombs in certain locations? How is the natural resource also related to its original landscape where it belonged to? Will there ever be a meaning to it when a foreign material is moved to a certain site as a material of the monument or sacred piece to the location?(Heeju)"For people cast vessels of gold and silver and all sorts of victims into them; and if the fire swallows them up the people are glad, taking it for a happy omen; but if the flame rejects what a man has thrown into it they think evil will befall that man." (Pausanias 1898, Book 3:23.5. pg. 24) Compare this idea of rejection to human relationships today. Is it relevant? For example, if a daughter has spent hours making a gift for her mother and her mother rejects it, saying it is not to her taste, would the daughter have the same kind of emotional reaction as the man in the quotation above? In other words, could the "failure" that the daughter feels compare to the "bad omen" that the "befall that man." Would you say the "bad omen" is physical or mental, will it effect the man's external or internal world? (Annabel)
- "Women's ancestral spirits were also associated with certain lakes," (Bradley, 9). Why do you think women were associated with lakes? How does this reflect men’s' views or ideas about women or how does this reflect how men saw women? For instance, water has no definite shape, is shaped/defined by its "container," and for the most part is in constant flux or motion. So they could have seen women defined by the men they marry or mate with i.e. a women takes on the last name of a man, her name is literally shaped by the man's name, and they could have seen women as very emotional creatures; the motion and rhythm of the water is in constant flux/change. (Annabel)
- In the first chapter, the concept of "cult places" is introduced. It is said that these sacred places are only found by those who knew where to look for them, and no matter how inaccessible to the human eye they might have been, those people succeeded. By that notion, what exactly empowers a person to find such a significant landscape? (Alexandra)
- The third portion of this book focuses on Interpretation. I find this an extremely difficult area to discuss, seeing as how each individual person is going to experience, feel, and take away different interpretations. I feel like going to a sacred landscape, as dicussed in this book, is an individual journey and with that comes quite the variance of opinions. The beginning section offers us the words from Thomas 1920, "Some eyes condemn the world they gaze upon: Some wait patiently till they know far more Than the Earth can tell them...." What does this mean to you? (Alexandra)