Kyle Echemendia
RSTD 236 Sacred Communications
Dr. Redick
9/23/2014
In order for me to reflect on the distinction
between interacting with the constituents of a particular place as objects
versus subjects, I need to reflect on my past experiences. One experience that
comes to mind right away is my sacred place, Adam’s Creek, Pennsylvania. Before
my first trip up the long and difficult trail of Adam’s Creek I have had
difficulty trying to break the barrier of I-It and I-Thou and treating a place
like a subject. After my trip however, I can proudly say that barrier has been
broken. I haven’t been back to the trail in some time but whenever I return,
things are never the same, whether it’s because trees have fallen, there have
been rock slides, or even the trail has disappeared due to natural disasters. The
trail always changes making it feel as if the Adam’s Creek is alive and doesn't
have the ability to be inactive.
This place
has become sacred to me simply because I have been able to interact with the
surrounding environment. I have been able to create a special ‘bond’ with the
trail itself. Buber suggested that, “Those who experience do not participate in
the world. For the experience is ‘in them’ and not between them and the
world. The world does not participate in experience. It allows
itself to be experienced, but it is not concerned, for it contributes nothing,
and nothing happens to it.” I don’t agree with Buber on this, I believe that if
you are to truly experience something you must participate. I was participating
in going up the trail and at the same time experiencing it. There were instances where I felt like I was
in a life threatening situation because the trail had rough areas where you
felt ultimately unsafe. For example, one area of the trail you need to cross a
heavy flowing creek, but the only way across is by a fallen tree that goes from
one side to the other. This fallen tree for instance has given me a love hate
relationship. On one occasion, I was crossing the tree but it had rained the
previous night so the tree itself was slippery and the stream was flowing
harder than usual. I had reached just over halfway across the tree when all of
a sudden I slipped and lost my footing. Before I fell face first into the
stream below, I was able to grab a branch that protruded from the tree. The whole
time I held on to that branch, I was basically yelling at the tree branch
saying, “please don’t break, I will love you forever if you can hold my weight.”
Luckily I was able to swing my legs through the top of the stream and wrap my
legs around the tree. After fixing myself back on the tree I sat there, just
hugging the tree in relief that I didn’t end up going downstream to the bottom
of the trail. Whenever I go back to the trail and reach the tree I always take
a moment and interact with the tree that saved my life, almost as if the tree
and I have a moment of silence.
At the top
of Adam’s Creek there is an amazing view, more incredible than any other view I
have witnessed in my lifetime. After scaling a rock wall and you rummage
through a few bushes, you reach this view and it just envelopes in this amazing
scenery giving you this incredible spiritual feeling, as if the entire trail is
alive. Buber noted, “Spirit is not in
the I but between I and You. It is not like the blood that circulates in
you but like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit when he is
able to respond to his You. He is able to do that when he enters into
this relation with his whole being. It is solely by virtue of his power
to relate that man is able to live in the spirit.” When looking out over the
trail you get this feeling that you have now bonded with it, all it took was a
little bit of sweat, blood, and some dirt. You and the trial are now one;
equals in some right.
No comments:
Post a Comment