Listening to Places, and the Way Places Make Us Their Own

 

A few weeks ago, I talked with a friend about an event we attended in 2021, where Matthieu Ricard presented a session on “Altruism and Wonderment: Towards a Sustainable Harmony”. My friend shared her memory of it with beautiful handwritten notes where key concepts arise: wonder for people, and wonder for Nature; belonging and awe; places of oneness; simplify your thoughts and simplify your actions. All resonated with me: my relationship with Nature is filled with awe, and the feeling of belonging has permeated my time with her. I am often unsure where Nature ends and where I start: in landscapes and water, I wonder about the boundaries between both territories, of sea and I. In my practice, I’ve found that I have become these places through life and awareness, and that has been the practice of my life and work: of a sacred that is practical, symbolic, and extends beyond the “I”.

 

Scientist Richard Davidson (1) highlights the definition of wellbeing in two different ways: hedonic wellbeing as related to pleasure, while eudaemonia - firstly mentioned in the Western tradition by Aristotle, as related to flourishing and meaning. However, these two correlate: by example, many brain mechanisms responsible for experiencing (hedonic) sensory pleasure are also engaged in altruistic experiences. The best of societies has been built in these behaviours, where individual actions are aligned with a common good framework.

 

On the other hand, altruism as care is related to admiration and respect, which compounds the basic of a trustful, good relationship. These are some of the fundamentals of relating to others: the layers in which feel-good emotions intersect with altruistic behaviours, which are then embedded in values. It’s incredibly simple, yet it seems like in the West we aren’t taught the basics of good relationships, and that we don’t give to it much thought in our lives. Yet this has a deep impact in the quality of our lives, as relationships are the framework that define what is a good life (2): how fulfilling our relationships are, the meaning we find in them, and how do we cultivate these, with our fellow humans and beyond.  This extension of a relational framework beyond our own species is embedded in Indigenous perspectives. For example, Celidwen and Keltner (3) expand on notions of kin relationality and ecological belonging, contrasting Western and Indigenous perspectives. In our society individualistic ways of being, it can be easy to fall into the trap of the self, with an overfocus on achievements, what we like to call a “life plan”. But I think it’s important to ask, as someone once asked me, how about having a plan of existence?, defining how we want to carry ourselves through our lives.

 

So the core of my practice has been sitting outside. Or walk, lay down: observe, and listen. I witness the long river enveloping in front of me, swirling towards the estuary and the sea. My neighbour once exclaimed, “granddad, look how the river shines!”, and every morning I think of her while witnessing these sparkling waters under this white, sharp southern sun. It’s spring: swallows and swifts cross the sky in their adventurous dance, sparrows and magpies jump on the ground for worms and crumbs. Trees and their leafs shine in bright colours, and the wood of my seat is warmed by the sun. It feels pleasant and expansive. On my left side, the wild fig tree, rebelliously grown in-between the rocks, weaves its branches and fruits that are, at the same time, flowers. Few people pass by: there the woman with her dog, a fisherman upper stream. The soft sound of waves in the distance, in the sandbars by the sea; the gentleness of a day’s movement. I enjoy being so quiet as if I can hear a flower bloom. 

 

This is a cultivated appreciation of place, people, beings. The movements and the shadows, the colours and the breeze, feelings and the tones, the shapes and sounds, always changing, always moving. The particularity of these circumstances, the beauty of the in-between: the constant fleeting of time. It might seem like I’m doing nothing, yet I am very much engaged with life, with presence, with everything that is here. This presence, this ability of listening defines my professional practice, of being present and attentive; analysing, studying, and understanding. In ways, art is a way of seeing. And through witnessing and presence, through this relational practice, I exist through these multiple threads: I take in their textures, comprehend the links between their parts, the structural reasons behind their limbs, their inner rhythm and the elements that make the whole. I look towards understanding reality in its multiple dimensions and patterns, to what is felt and to what is seen, the many undertones composing its melody. It’s a way of seeing that looks deeply: engaging into what is true, searching for meanings that the intersection of perspectives allow. And by giving myself in, completely, into this engagement with reality I too have become better. I have become part of this place and this land not by living in it out of habit, but from a practice of awareness: of witnessing its essence of beauty, and committing to the values and behaviours that contribute to make our relationship whole, and true, towards the local and global life supporting systems from which my own life emerges.

 

 

The Sacred Within the Mundane

 

We are all hard-wired for connection, and I try to bring that to the forefront of my practice: to rearrange my body and mind in ways that direct this core need and ability into meaningful relationships, so I can take my part in the whole. The conscious construction of being in relationship with others is something I remember as effortless from when I was a child. In my experience, this returning to the whole, in a plane of common humanity and being of the planet’s skin, has also been about shedding many ideas on myself, of things irrelevant and imposed.

 

I see science and artistic disciplines as complementary in understanding reality: art can hold things that are too painful for others to face. This is not escaping from the issues but rather confronting the root cause of the problems, residing in emotions and values, trauma and injustice. It holds the geometric precision of the heart. The metaphorical ways of storytelling, individually and collectively, through expression but also from listening, creating space and time for rituals of sharing and being - like these here, and now. I believe that can have an impact on how policies are envisioned and designed, and in their outcomes.

 

My work is vehicle and practice of this tenderness, of values through beauty and the endless repetition of “I don’t know”, so I can return to listening, the connective tissue to be found and shared. I aim at good questions and the pursuit of its answers not as intellect nor form but as anatomical hypothesis of how is to be from this planet, here. I aim for a process in which the work’s touch is gentle and pleasant, and if not life giving, at least, that gives love. I work through questions, to the trees and the birds, the water and the sky, to my human and more than human neighbours. I ask them how do they want to be portrayed, with these or those colours, or if they want at all, and I swim from question to question. This is my life: the Earth as she breathes, how does she wish to be walked upon? If Earth is a living poem, then I try to read with my feet, and in astonishment, with my whole body. And then portray that relational rhyme in a language that can be understood by those who have forgotten. So they too can remember.

 

 

 

References

1. Davidson, R. J., & Schuyler, B. S. (2015). Neuroscience of happiness. In J.F. Helliwell, R. Layard, & J. Sachs (Eds.), World Happiness (88-105). New York, NY: The Earth Institute, Columbia University.

2. According to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has been tracking down people’s lives for over 80 years. Harvard Study of Adult Development, https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/

3. Celidwen, Y., & Keltner, D. (2023) 'Kin relationality and ecological belonging: a cultural psychology of Indigenous transcendence.' Frontiers in Psychology, 14:994508. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.994508.