Nature talks to you when you sit and listen in stillness and solitude. Being quiet and open you hear things that you might swear were never there, thoughts you never could have had, ideas for new directions, inspirations, intuitions. We live in a noisy life but in wild nature, even patches of reclaimed bush in the midst of the city, the voices of earth are speaking.
In his article The Healing River Jesse Wolf Hardin (2005) says something I have been exploring throught this blog, the reverence we have for the sacred flowing water and our connection with it. Hardin says:'The lesson may be that all things natural have an intrinsic sacred value, but through ritual, attention and intent we make them even more so. It’s often a part of the belief systems of those peoples living closest to the land — that the river knows when we’re singing to it, and knows when we’ve stopped. And that it holds in its bowels the memories of all life’s songs.'
What this says to me is that the songs, dances, rituals, venerations, invocations are there regardless of the human connection being apparent. They live in the memory of the water, enveloped, wrapped within the rhythmic hues and unfurling flows. It's sometimes thought that humans make a place sacred through their connections, through their honouring of its qualities. My view concurs with Hardin's. Places are sacred regardless of humans. The river knows. It's written in the wind.
Reference
Hardin JW, 2005, The Healing River, High Country News, June 27, http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=15622
