Glad to have you back aboard to travel down some more pathways into HOPE-FULLness. Part 1 involved some very practical ways to inspire your visitor and this go around I have found myself dabbling in a more conceptual labyrinth – a motivational synaptic playground. I hope you feel a motivating charge.
My fourth nudging into HOPE-FULLness, was initiated by a strange occurrence. Have you ever had the experience of a book spine calling out to you? Well, not actually calling -more like beckoning. Writing a post about HOPE-FULLness might naturally have predisposed me to notice this title, Hope Beneath our Feet, among the books lined up along my bookshelf. In any case, the book’s premise is based on the editor, Martin Keogh, asking fifty authors to respond to the question, “In a time of environmental crisis, how can we live right now?” (Note: this book was compiled before COVID). The universal response: “Life as we know it is precious and worth protecting.” Let’s unravel this abit.
The book Hope Beneath our Feet is so full of inspiration along these lines that I have dedicated the full post to it. I have incorporated perspectives from a few chapters and placed them into the interpreter’s realm. The post is chock full of quotes from the book. They create the stimulus for thought exploration. I have always found the sharing of quotes with visitors when I delivered programs as productive fodder for reflection and reimagining. As I share a few here with you, I hope they stimulate your little grey cells.
Credit: Bill Reynolds
In the “Eyes Wide Open” chapter, Chameli Gad Ardagh of the Awakening Women Institute, discusses expanding our sensory receptivity as she harkens back to the time when “… little sticks and stones were portals into exciting adventures.” My grandkids remind me of this every time we walk outdoors. Too many people get caught up in what Albert Einstein called “…the optical illusion of the human mind;” the busy activity of our own thoughts leading to the feeling of separation from the earth and all her beings. We must grease the wheels of receptivity for our visitors so they sense a world of vibrant life. Can we figure out how to help our visitors watch the natural world bustle about its business, feeding itself and its’ families, running one urgent errand or another?
Naturalist and essayist Diane Ackerman waxes poetically in her “Healing Power of Nature” contribution, about the need for people to “…inoculate themselves against the aridity of a routine workaday life,” by spending time in nature. We have certainly seen this in the past year where doses of sunlight and wildlife have been restorative.
She emphasizes how “…wonder heals through an alchemy of mind.” We feel whole, healthy and deeply nourished only when we stop the self-imposed exile and reacquaint ourselves with the outdoors by knitting our being into nature. However much water you draw from nature’s magic well, you always find more waiting for you. “Time to go outside and take a drink.”
Credit: Bill Reynolds
Diane also mentions how important the concept of the earth being perceived as our mother truly is. Might this be the most crucial aspect of nature interpretation to improve our relationship with the earth and the understanding of the healthy interrelatedness of all living things? The role of the nature interpreter is to heal that feeling of divorce and help repair and deepen that relationship.
What skills are we re-giving people to practice a childlike openness? How are we helping our visitor to tone down their internal mind conversations to make space for connections and conversations with the natural and cultural worlds around us? What a gift to be able to focus on the wonder of the moment! The practices shared in our April 30, 2020 blog Earthwalks: Using Our Senses To Deepen Our Feelings For The Earth deal directly with ways to achieve this.
As mentioned in Part 1, the first living cell came into being 3.8 billion years ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. We share a common 100 million-year- bloodline with every mammal, sharing with them more than 90 % of our DNA., We are in each other’s blood. Author of Ecological Intelligence, Dr. Ian McCallum, exclaims that, “We too have our alarm calls, our cries of territory, of sexual display and discovery. We experience fear and rage and we are not the only ones who die of a broken spirit.” Interpreters must highlight these aspects of mutuality to boost the relatedness factor.
Credit: Bill Reynolds
In the wise words of Dr. Ian McCallum’s chapter:
““To lose the sense of connection with the landscape is to suffer one of the most overlooked psychiatric disorders of our time. It is a condition that I call ecological amnesia. We have forgotten our wild heritage, of where we have come from and who we are - the human animal.””
In his practice, Dr. McCallum has found that patients’ sense of self is intimately associated with a sense of landscape – a memory of origins and the sense of shared survival strategies. Productive therapy involves rediscovery of biological roots and a knowledge of our indebtedness to the natural environment. It is a healing process of becoming ecologically literate - to be sensitive to and informed once more by the wind, the ocean waves, bird song, the bark of trees, the industriousness of ants - the skin and spirit of place.
“We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells”
As Paul Hawken points out the planet came with a set of instructions but we seem to have misplaced them because we are not paying attention to them. “Important rules exist- like don’t poison the water, soil or air; don’t let the earth get overcrowded; and don’t touch the thermostat.” He also refers to visionary Buckminster Fuller who was famous for his description of “spaceship earth” that is ingeniously designed to fly through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and with really good food… until humans came along and started taking over, ignoring the manual … yet the realization is there, with hope that this present generation will study and follow the manual.
Scott Rodwin, a leader in sustainable architectural design, bolsters his ongoing commitment to the planet, when he feels his contributions are insignificant, by retelling the starfish story in his chapter of the book.
Image courtesy of Pexels
“A man is walking along a beach after a big storm. There are tens of thousands of starfish washed up and dying. In the distance, a small boy is picking them up and throwing them one by one back into the ocean. The man walks up to him and says, “What are you doing?” “Saving them,“ replies the boy. “You’re crazy. There are thousands and thousands of them. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The boy was quiet for a moment and looked down, picked one up, and threw it in. “Made a difference to that one.”
The quote from the famous humanitarian and African doctor of the early 20th Century, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, provides a kickstart for visitors to think about how to stand up for our world. Schweitzer was on a quest to find an ethical basis for living when he wrote this:
“As I sit here under this tree, I think about how much I value my own life and wish to go on living and to have more of it. Then I look up at this lofty tree with its gently swaying leaves and think, this tree must hold its own life as valuable and also want to go on living and have more of life, too. And even though it is mute, it nevertheless is no different than me in its desire to live, grow, and flourish.:”
credit: Marion Reynolds
As interpreters we have an unprecedented opportunity to find the drive, the will, and the passion to stand up for our natural and cultural world. Helping others to observe life around them, to recognize their common bond to all of life and to grasp that importance may be our profession’s most important calling. Be an emissary for nature and culture to assist visitors to broaden their circle of awareness. Find your contribution and offer it. What interpreters do matters and makes a difference for us all.
In the previous blog post Part 1, the Biomimicry Institute had sent me a Happy Birthday Earth email, and within it they had included a request for me. I thank them for the idea that I have modified slightly and will now request of you, our reader. It is also an idea that you could use at your heritage site with your visitors.
Please share with the EID community any uplifting wisdom (e.g. favorite quote) that life has shared with you and provided a sense of HOPE-FULLness.
Leave your quote in the comments below, or contact us. We will be sure to share them in future posts.