Psyche and nature: psychological perspectives on the natural world

Nature of Man and the Mountain

If you stand before a mountain, it is almost impossible not to be moved by the majesty of it. Standing tall, having been there for eons, it is slightly worn down from its original heights, but it still reaches high into the clouds. A man cannot help but be moved to contemplate his own mortality. We, ourselves, begin life as vulnerable infants, taking nurture from our mothers and fathers, but we are, like the mountain, worn down by time, and by the journeys we make in life. but, like the mountain, we never end, and it is in the face of the mountain that we find that we, too, are immortal. The mountain helps us to get in touch with our Self, and our souls.

James Hillman (1976) talks about the mountains and the soul, and says:

"We are in this room because we are moderns, in search of a soul, as Jung once put it. We are still in search of reconstituting that third place, that intermediate realm of psyche -- which is also the realm of images and the power of imagination -- from which we were exiled by theological spiritual men more than a thousand years ago; long before Descartes and the dichotomies of attributed to him, long before the Enlightenment and modern positivism and scientism. These ancient historical events are responsible for the malnourished root of our Western psychological culture and of the culture of each of our souls (p. 114-115)."

Hillman is talking about the councils of Nicea in 787 and the council at Constantinople in 869. The decisions made at those councils, Hillman believes, alienated mankind one from another, when the message that they should have been focused on was uniting humanity. They confused the soul with spirit, Hillman says. Hillman believes that historical religion has confined the psyche and imagination, when it should be allowed to roam free, far and wide. That the myths of the past that describe the peaks and valleys through which man must climb and walk through, and which give rise to the connection that we make between ourselves and that which is the gift of the world around us, especially the mountains, become obstacles to mortal man, instead of the miracles which prompt images, imagined adventures, and the peaks above which the soul of all mankind must fly in order to be free in spirit, mind, and soul.

As I contemplate my own journey through the mountains not long ago and as I crossed the man-made barbed wire -- I realized that these barbed wire fences were indeed manmade, and stood in contrast to the nature of the mountain. The obstacles that we create for ourselves that limit our imaginations and psyche ability to stand as souls joined in the flesh are manmade constructs that imprison us. But we can go over them, around them, or we can snip them with wire cutters and free our souls to soar with our spirit. We can bring together again those parts of us that have been segmented by the dictates of the lives, religion, and cultures into which we were born that keep us psychologically separated as a species.

Hillman says that the separation of our souls and spirit manifests itself in ways that reflect the entrapment of the human mind and soul. We act out, we become histrionic, and it is a cry for help, to set free the imagination so that it might soar above the peaks of the mountains.

As my brother and I trekked through the mountains together, and as we faced the manmade fence, he said to me, "No, don't cross it. We have already gone through enough barbed wiring in our lives," referring to past discrimination at work and abuse. But even as I turned away from the barbed wire, my imagination wandered beyond it, to the other side of the mountain where stood tall and strange looking white wild flowers growing from stalks of thick green leaves. This, too, I thought to myself, is where my brother and I have come in our lives. He was willing to avoid that which beckoned me, because it was too painful to cross yet another barbed wire fence. I, on the other hand, felt the beckoning of that which lay beyond the fence, and I saw a way through the fence; but I relented, because I walked with my brother on this particular journey, and he was not ready to cross the fence. His soul had not healed, his spirit was still entrapped by other fences, and he lacked the spirit in that moment to confront yet another. Some journeys through the mountains we make alone, and others we take together, but when we walk together, we must be cognizant of the frailties of those with whom we walk.

Betsy Perluss (2008) cites Thomas Vaughn's Allegory of the Mountain (1651). Vaughn wrote:

"The mountain is situated in the midst of the earth or center of the world, which is both small and great. It is soft, also above measure hard and stony. It is far off and near at hand, but by the providence of God invisible. In it are hidden the most ample treasures, which the world is not able to value (Perluss quoting Vaugh 2008, 87)."

Vaughn's comments, and Perluss' article, are about individualism. We are mountains, sometimes in touch with ourselves and others, and other times distant, far away. We are puzzles by nature, that which is hidden from us, within us, we can appreciate when it manifests itself in treasure troves, but at other times, when it manifests itself as the darkness that lurks within us, it is frightening. Perluss says of Vaughn's comments:

"On the other hand, it is no mystery why Vaughn chose the mountain for his allegory. Simply by their verticality, height, and inaccessibility, mountains evoke fear and awe (p. 90)."

We need to experience the fear of majesty as much as we need to experience the awe of it. Between the two exists the expansive range of humanity: emotions, thought, spirit, and our souls. The mountains bring us to the peaks, the valleys, and the cliffs of our own existence. As we stand in the shade of the mountain wall, it is cold; but when we step away from the wall and stand in the sun, it is warmth, and that warmth can become an intense heat, just as do our emotions as we experience them. There is healing in the mountain, but we must measure the healing lest we become burnt by its illumination. This is the alchemy that was practiced by mysterious and yet great men like Nostradamus and Edgar Caycee. They were men who were so in touch with their spirituality and the nature of the world around them that they gained beautiful, yet at times, frightening insights into the nature of themselves, and mankind as a species. The mystery, Perluss says, will come to us as move through life at our own pace, just as we move through the mountain walk, not too cautious, but not with such abandon as to be unaware of its treacherous and sometimes unstable rocks that spill from the top, down the mountainside.

The mountain walk that I took with my brother was my vision quest. I was at a time and place where I needed to illuminate my own inner self, my psyche, so that it might be revealed to me where I had come from, where I was, and where I would go in this mortal life, and, then, into the immortal existence of the beyond life. It is the mystery of that which rests within us, unexplored, that can only be revealed to us through the vision quest (Plotkin, 2003).

Plotkin says:

"Visionary experience springs from dichotomies that at first seem irreconcilable. There is desire and despair -- the desire to commune with the soul, the despair born of soul estrangement. There is attraction and repulsion -- attraction to the rich realm of the dark, repulsion from its monsters and demons (**)."

As we practice prudence in moving through the landscape of the mountain, we prepare ourselves to confront the monsters and the demons. We understand the attraction and the repulsions of life's mysteries. We can stand atop the mountain top at night, and it is surreal. Our heads are in the stars of the universe, and for that time, we have the knowledge of all that has come and gone before us, and the knowledge of that which will come and go after us. Yet we can find no words to express this knowledge, and it torments us, but at the same time we find peace within it. It is difficult to extract ourselves from it, because the knowledge feeds the soul in the same way that the sustenance feeds the body. We are forever longing to leave the body, to soar above and beyond the mountains weightlessly, but at the same time fear the release of our soul from the body that contains it, keeps it grounded, because it is safe. It is what we know, because that which we understand from the experience of the vision quest finds no words to express it, and if we cannot express it, hear it said, we question and fear it. But we continue to long for the escape, to shed the body like the snake that sheds its skin.

We try to share our experience, the knowledge that nature has imparted upon us -- but it is difficult, and often times seems to fall upon deaf ears. But we cannot pace others, only ourselves, and we cannot make them hear what they resist; perhaps they just are not ready. Enlightenment through nature comes to people at their own pace through life. Often times, I think, it is later in life, when the noise of youth subsides. It is then, for some, that the distant mountain beckons us to our individual vision quest, and we can stand in the cold shade against the strength of the mountain wall, or we can move away from it, into the meadow and stand in the illumination of the light of the collective. For there are many who have gone before us, and this knowledge that we gain is knowledge that has been previously discovered by those who came and went before us -- by those who come and go after us. It is the collective, the light of all the souls, all the knowledge that exists in the universe. If we move away from the strength of the mountain wall to stand on our own, to draw upon our own strength, even if that strength is gained by the mountain, we can bask in the illumination of the collective light without the restraints of manmade barriers, and we can soar to the top of the mountain, and land safely on our feet in the warmth of the light. This was my vision quest, and the secrets of the mountain that were, I found, always with me, inside me, were revealed to me.

That I could not share them with my brother is not a sad thing. My brother must face his barriers, his barb wired fences, and he must choose to go under, over, around, or take the wire cutters and destroy them. These not choices that come to any one man or woman easily, and there is no set time through life's journey when one must make the decision to overcome the barriers of the mindset of prescribed ideologies and man's laws. Indeed, some never come to this time and place, this mountain, and it is perhaps in the next carnation that they will experience the illumination of the collective light of souls. Will that be my brother's path? At this time I cannot say, but I can say that I am grateful that he was with me as I experienced my own release and found the tranquility of the mysteries of the mountain.

Betsy Perluss (2007) writes of her vision quest:

"My experience in the desert wash left me a little perplexed. Did I really hear voices coming from the canyon? Or was I tricked by the sounds of the wind? Certainly, the way the wind moves along the rocks and planes could produce auditory sensations of all kinds (p. 219-220)."

It can indeed be a tricky experience. For me, I felt the existence of the collective spirit from which, I began to understand all intelligence emanates, exists in body, and returns to after it sheds the body. What we experience in the body, the learning, we take with us. We take the love too, when we shed the body of the flesh and return to the collective light. The light grows with the knowledge that we bring back to it, and the universe expands with it, and new worlds are born out of the ashes of death and destruction, and new mountains rise in those worlds and in our own world too.

My brother has not talked much of our walk through the mountain, and I do not intrude upon his innermost thoughts about it. I await patient his sharing of his experience, and it comes to me in bits in pieces. It is hard to be patient, because I am excited about all that I feel was revealed to me in coming to know the mountain. Did he gain strength from the mountain, or did he just touch the mountain wall only to find that it was hard, and resisting of his body? Did it weaken him in the way that it strengthened me? He says he liked the crisp cold mountain air, even though we were at a high altitude and it left him a little breathless. Did the breathlessness, a deprivation of oxygen to the brain, bring him closer to the other side? I want to ask him these things, but he gives me no segue to my questions, and I won't intrude upon his experience, because my own is too precious.

Perhaps the mountain was not the right landscape for my brother. "In a canyon you pick your own path (Williams, 1994, p. 55)." Terry Tempest Williams (1994) talks about the wilderness, and encounters with bears, and for Williams, an encounter in the wilderness with a powerful bear equates to connecting to his feminine side, and that connection is, he says, a commitment to the wildness. Tempest says:

"I see the Feminine defined as a connection to the Self, a commitment to the wildness, our instincts, our capacity to create and destroy; our hunger for connection as well as sovereignty, interdependence, and independence at once. We are taught not to trust our own experience (p. 53)."

For Tempest, the bear is wild, encountered only in the landscape of the wilderness, a place where mankind cannot easily survive. The bear brings him in touch with his Feminine side, because his masculinity cannot, by way of his own strength, overcome the bear. The is the vulnerability of the landscape that is foreign, even hostile to him. Clearly Tempest sees the Feminine as the vulnerability that each of us has within us, but that is his perception. Others might not readily agree that vulnerability is Feminine, except that it is not modern for men to admit to these kinds of vulnerability, although it is contemporary to be in touch with one's Feminine side.

As I walked through nature surrounded by mountains, I was careless, not paying attention to the dangers that were present, like snakes, and other potential dangers. My brother cautioned me to be more careful. Now, as I consider his cautions, I wonder if I had not in fact surrendered to nature, and for that moment was trusting of my instincts. Was I in touch with my Feminine, while my brother did not let down his guard, but was watchful for both of us, resisted the connection?

"The Feminine teaches us experience is our way back home, the psyche bridge that spans rational and intuitive waters. To embrace the Feminine is to embrace paradox. Paradox preserves mystery, and mystery inspires belief (p. 53)."

Tempest is saying that there is a part of the human psyche that wants to believe in all things possible, so long as they are good things. We use myth and mystery to demonstrate the moral of stories that helps us to get in touch with the Feminine Self, in order to bridge the gap between that characteristic expression which resides within us, and which resists certain expressions of Self. We bridge the gap between the Masculine and the Feminine, and find ways for the expression of gentleness, kindness, giving to manifest, to cross the bridge of the paradox so that we can be fully expressive of our Self. We need the "power of the Bear," so that we can believe in the mysteries of nature and God, and thereby believe in the goodness of our Self.