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By globalistgirl, on May 9th, 2007

Religion, mythology and the forest

These past few days, I’ve been discussing religion with my mother. We’ve been talking about the cultural differences in how religion is approached in the United States compared to Sweden and Finland. She is Christian and I’m an atheist. However, what we mean – and especially the implications – aren’t what they mean here in the States. Neither of us understand the cultural functions of Christianity here very well. However, both of us find spirituality in the forest. I realized that when I say I don’t believe in God, I mean pretty much the same thing as when I say I don’t believe in keijukaiset/älvor/elves or fairies. (I’ll use the word fairy, since it has associations in English mythology closer to the ‘form’ of a keijukainen/älva. Fairies are translucent, female nature beings who dance in clearings in the forest, especially at dawn and at sunset. Their dance is incredibly beautiful, and they will invite you to come dance with them, but if you do, you will disappear and become a fairy too. So be careful, if you see the fairies dancing.) I don’t actually believe that there are real, physical beings that are translucent dancing around in the forest, trying to lure me to dance with them. But when I walk in the forest, I feel connected to it. I feel like part of a system of life. I am not scared of the animals or plants, even though I know there are animals that could seriously hurt me there. I feel like we have a spiritual deal – I leave them alone, and they leave me alone. I make noise as I walk, so that the animals know I’m coming. I am, in fact, almost mystical about it. I feel like if you enter the forest with ill will, the forest is much more likely to hurt you. (As did the miners of old, who gave offerings to the mountain guardian/goddess before starting work, asking for her permission to mine her mountain.) But when you are at peace with the forest and everything in it, we can both prosper. Just as I know how fairies work, and know not to go near beautiful violin music from a stream or a creek (lest I be enchanted to drown myself by another mythological being, Näcken), I know the snakes can feel the vibrations of my footsteps, and I know the bears and wolves can smell my scent. Fairies, trolls, and other beings of the forest all play their role too, roles that are not cast in terms of good and evil. I do not feel afraid of the fairies, the trolls or Näcken, because although they could harm or kill me, they are only part of the life-system we live in. If I get hurt, it is because I have intruded somewhere where I shouldn’t be in the first place. Perhaps I view them more as abstractions of general principles to life. But I do clearly feel that I am communicating with something. The forest has spirits that I can feel, but I don’t have very strong urges to define them or roationally explain them. I think in China, people know the forest spirits as qi4. They are simply there. They always have been, and always will be.

Unlike religious or spiritual experiences in the United States, these feelings are intensely personal. My mother and I feel the same about the forest and its spirits. I can see that my mother doesn’t care that I don’t believe in the Christian God, and I don’t particularly care that she does. We don’t need to, because we can share spirituality about the forest. It is an experience of exchange between you and the forest. A congregation would only destroy it with its noise and human activity. That doesn’t belong in the forest. It is disrespectful, in fact. When we move in the forest, we do so on its terms. Silence and respect are appropriate behavior. Talking and thinking about it, it seems like people who live physically close to nature often regard the forest as almost sacred space. Here in the US, I conspicuously lack culturally appropriate respect for the church and Christianity. But I cringe at people shouting in the forest, people walking too broadly, in a too imposing kind of way, or people taking things from the forest without thanking the forest, and a host of similar behaviors that just feel irreverent. The guardian-goddess of the forest (Metsänhaltija) will punish you! Can’t you see that her wrath could be devastating? Without nature and the forest, we will be reduced to nothing!

This last line of reasoning is perhaps a spiritual formulation of the need to protect the environment. But to me, it isn’t just an intellectual argument, it is an emotional one, too. If the trees and the animals are dying, we will be, too. Our fates are the same, because we belong together. In the forest, there can be no doubt of our oneness. Conversely, Christianty doesn’t mention those feelings of oneness. In the traditional mythology (that in the Nordic countries has been mixed with Christian beliefs, but never abandoned), both male and female entities exist. That feels natural. Androgyny and/or a mix of genders is the only normal state. Simultaneously, it feels natural that the guardian-rulers are almost all female. (Perhaps this is a leftover of the original Goddess worship?) I have never been able to feel a male-only deity. I tried, but I just can’t feel it. It feels… alien. God just cannot be a man. She can’t. What is considered ‘male’ (aggressivity, domination, etc) isn’t the forest at all. Power flows through all circuits of life, and life is not aggressive. Life is a flow, a complex web of life and death, pain and joy, loss and gain. To pick one strand and say “Look, how viciously the wolf is killing the deer! Life is brute force and aggression!” is misguided. The spirit of the forest is not like that. She/it is wiser and calmer and nearly eternal. (It may not be surprising I find Buddhism a great deal more approachable emotionally.)

Going back to more practical apsects of this, the hippie imagery here is also difficult for me to understand. I don’t understand the connotations of ‘treehugger’ very well. What moral person isn’t? That’s not about politics. That’s about the basic truths of life. I know what it’s supposed to connote, but I don’t think it can for me. Without the forest and nature, arguing about politics and clothing choices are moot, because we will disappear.

May 9th, 2007 | Tags: | Category: Europe | 2269 comments

2,269 comments to Religion, mythology and the forest

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