Do You Feel a Spiritual Connection with the Woods?
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Perrari
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I dont know if it is spiritual, but there is nothing that makes me feel more content with life than sitting in a dark forest staring into the fire, and listening to the sounds of nature. Never considered myself a spiritual person, but who knows ?
I have felt an affinity with trees since my childhood. I was lucky to have grown up before Dutch Elm disease did it's worst. I always feel some pang of remorse whenever I see an old growth tree that has been cut down, for whatever reason. I wouldn't say I am overly sentimental about them though, unlike some folk who protest at any work in the woods. I see them as a resource to be properly managed for the future.
And allowing much time and refreshment. In fact the discussion itself could easily become a spiritual retreat.
Back in the day it often was, i really miss my old house mate, he passed away last year but we used to discuss such things for ridiculous amounts of time, often until both of us had run out of tobacco and there was no more milk for brew's
Do I feel a spiritual connection with the woods?
No.
Do I feel a spiritual relatationship with the landscape?
Absolutely yes. Dartmoor has 3 small areas of woodland that are original stunted oak, any other woodland is simply plantation (some of which planted by my grandfather). The landscape has been lived in and worked for many thousands of years, the evidence is there - everywhere! Circles, rows, huts, cairns, reaves, industrial archaeology.... it is everywhere. I cannot not have a relationship with it.
My moor
No.
Do I feel a spiritual relatationship with the landscape?
Absolutely yes. Dartmoor has 3 small areas of woodland that are original stunted oak, any other woodland is simply plantation (some of which planted by my grandfather). The landscape has been lived in and worked for many thousands of years, the evidence is there - everywhere! Circles, rows, huts, cairns, reaves, industrial archaeology.... it is everywhere. I cannot not have a relationship with it.
My moor
I agree with the lesser feeling being in a manmade woodland. its really nice when you find a bit of original or more nautural amongst it.
I dont know about spiritual. I think we all have a built in need to be amongst nature and are probably drawn to woods as they are so plentiful in the things we need to survive. This must come from millions of years of evolution and the information passed and experience on through the generations.
How do insects know how to survive? In can guess that mammals learn by immitation of the elders but somethings cannot be explained so easily. They just do whats needed to live. Where does that information come from? I can imagine that we humans are the same but we live in a time where we have created less of a need for natural environments to live our lives comfortably and efficiently.
If a metoer hit the earth tommorow where would be the first place you would go? I would imagine anybody interested in bushcraft or not would end up in the woods simply for shelter and then heat and then food, what more would you need?
If that in built desire is spiritual connection then so be it. However i feel it is much more potetially powerful than that.
I dont know about spiritual. I think we all have a built in need to be amongst nature and are probably drawn to woods as they are so plentiful in the things we need to survive. This must come from millions of years of evolution and the information passed and experience on through the generations.
How do insects know how to survive? In can guess that mammals learn by immitation of the elders but somethings cannot be explained so easily. They just do whats needed to live. Where does that information come from? I can imagine that we humans are the same but we live in a time where we have created less of a need for natural environments to live our lives comfortably and efficiently.
If a metoer hit the earth tommorow where would be the first place you would go? I would imagine anybody interested in bushcraft or not would end up in the woods simply for shelter and then heat and then food, what more would you need?
If that in built desire is spiritual connection then so be it. However i feel it is much more potetially powerful than that.
Hi Guys, have a look at this and see if it generates a feeling of spirituality in the woodland for you. It was made by a guy who runs a bushcraft school in Ireland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1OFDIvnn2M
Hope you enjoy
http://bushcraft.ie/ if your interested.
I liked that, thanks for sharing.
Spiritual? I think we all are to a degree.
Whether it's a full blown belief in a "Supreme Being" or just a humble acknowledgement of our small (but destructive) place in nature itself. Different things awaken folks feelings of spirituality I suppose.
Hmmm, a spiritual connection to the woods?
I'm at home either in the town or the woods - having grown up in/beside both.
I must admit to being much more at "peace" in woodland though, not in a greatly spiritual way, but in a simple appreciative way (and quite often in an astonished way) at the beauty I see. A hawk, a shaft of sunlight, dappled leaves, the smell of leaf mould, the smell of flowers - I could go on.
Liam
no.
fear of the impending badger attacks keeps me alert and awake, there isn't time to get all chummy with the trees when you know they are coming..
fear of the impending badger attacks keeps me alert and awake, there isn't time to get all chummy with the trees when you know they are coming..
The different views being expressed here are so interesting. I think I'm with the latter of people. It's not a spiritual connection I feel but more of a primeval connection with our ancestors or something.
The fire is the key I think. When it is lit I can stare for hours!
Some great comments guys keep them coming.
The fire is the key I think. When it is lit I can stare for hours!
Some great comments guys keep them coming.
Elen Sentier
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Hi all, I'm new . I so much agree that survival is not a fight against nature but learning to live with her. Woods, moors, mountains, coasts, all have their spirits of place for me, and ancestral connetions; I, too, sit entranced by the fire and the ancestral memories sitting with it brings. If this is spiritual, then yes I have a spiritual connetion but it ain't about any supreme beings ... I'm far too muh of an anarhist for that
. I so much agree that survival is not a fight against nature but learning to live with her. Woods, moors, mountains, coasts, all have their spirits of place for me, and ancestral connetions; I, too, sit entranced by the fire and the ancestral memories sitting with it brings. If this is spiritual, then yes I have a spiritual connetion but it ain't about any supreme beings ... I'm far too muh of an anarhist for that 
And allowing much time
Hear hear....well said and should be tried.
I do ponder and at times I wonder how much closer I would be with this feeling had I not had been brought up in a city...for over half my life....hundreds of miles from woods and rural wildlife.
I gave a short answer above, but I wanted to expand on it because I just remembered a Nessmuk quote that I thought was applicable. Indeed, when one is sitting by a fire, relaxing in a nice campsite on a warm summer day, being in nature can be sublime, and to some people spiritual. For me the experience changes drastically as the conditions become more challenging. When I've been pushing through dense bush for days, when I am exhausted, short on water, cold, getting rained on, etc, the spirituality gets lost very quickly. There is a quote from Nessmuk I like:
“...there are some who plunge into an unbroken forest with a feeling of fresh, free, invigorating delight... These know that nature is stern, hard, immovable an terrible in unrelenting cruelty. When wintry winds are out and the mercury far below zero, she will allow her most ardent lover to freeze on her snowy breast without waving a leaf in pity, or offering him a match; and scores of her devotees may starve to death in as many different languages before she will offer a loaf of bread. She does not deal in matches and loafs; rather in thunderbolts and granite mountains. And the ashes of her camp-fires bury proud cities. But, like any tyrant, she yields to force, and gives the more, the more she is beaten. She may starve or freeze the poet, the scholar, the scientist; all the same, she has in store food, fuel and shelter, which the skillful, self-reliant woodsman can wring from her savage hands with axe and rifle.”
“...there are some who plunge into an unbroken forest with a feeling of fresh, free, invigorating delight... These know that nature is stern, hard, immovable an terrible in unrelenting cruelty. When wintry winds are out and the mercury far below zero, she will allow her most ardent lover to freeze on her snowy breast without waving a leaf in pity, or offering him a match; and scores of her devotees may starve to death in as many different languages before she will offer a loaf of bread. She does not deal in matches and loafs; rather in thunderbolts and granite mountains. And the ashes of her camp-fires bury proud cities. But, like any tyrant, she yields to force, and gives the more, the more she is beaten. She may starve or freeze the poet, the scholar, the scientist; all the same, she has in store food, fuel and shelter, which the skillful, self-reliant woodsman can wring from her savage hands with axe and rifle.”
Nope, not really. But with the trolls, vettir, hulder, nisse, draug, tusser, Nøkken, elves, etc that owns the place....definately
