3. The Living History of a City
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Even though every ounce of common sense in our bones tells us otherwise, more and more we encounter this idea, held by some contemporary thinkers, that any given place is equivalent to any other. This extreme form of modernist thinking holds that, because of the internet, advanced forms of transport, all manner of telecommunications, the changing nature of work in first world countries, and last, but by no means least, the growing focus on the individual over and above family, church, cultural institutions and even god, location is no longer of any real importance. We are to be freed, the idea goes, from the tyranny of space itself. This extremely disconnected way of looking at location is manifested through the globalization of markets and the trend, in some professions, towards relentless relocation. Who can move every few months at the drop of a hat? Who could spend hours commuting to work each day? Who can eat food without knowing where it comes from? Who can choose the location of a new office complex based only on the cost of the land and the average temperature of the region?
The lower creatures, like bacteria, spread in this manner. They have no special regard for one region of the petri dish over another. They flow in the direction of the most nutrient-rich gelatin, expanding in a feverish ring of consumption leaving nothing behind but their waste. In the same way some cities sprawl driven only by the whims of capital and transportation.
To think that people once selected locations for important buildings for far more complex reasons. To think that a location would be selected, not only due to its access to rivers or resources, but also for its history. The reasons we choose to live or work in certain places go beyond economics and logistics. Few people have the luxury of choosing every place they occupy in this way, but for some of us, the city can provide a connection to something older and deeper than the petty considerations of capital.
Cities would not exist if we were merely rational economic automatons. There is something irrational in the attachments we form to places. There is a value that cannot be quantified, that is not to say that it is not real, it is. It is the force that draws us to cities in the first place: the urban energy through which past speaks to us. We even find instant kinship with the people we meet in a city because we know that, at some level, they have also come to worship.
It is possible to strengthen the spiritual force of a city? To amplify it? Yes. You must first find study the history of a specific place in the city, such as street corner or building. Then, standing in that place, imagine the events of the past, allow them to live as fully as possible through your imagination. Perhaps you will even discover something you had not seen before in this meditation. At last, there is a final step. You must share share your vision with another person. Take the person to the location. You need not tell them why you are bringing them there. Perhaps, one day after dinner, you might walk, seemingly aimlessly, until you come to that place you studied. When you reach the place stop and say "Do you know what happened here in the very spot?" and tell the story. It is critical that you tell the story at the location, for this will fix the image of the events in the mind of your companion, bringing that place to life. They will probably feel compelled to tell the story to others when they happened to cross it in the future.
If you tell a story filled with the sadness and ugliness of history you will heal the wounds of the city as you tell it. If you tell a glorious story you will make the life-force of the city stronger as it lives in the imagination of another person. Cities without stories cease to be special places at all. They grow anonymous and, in time, like the office park three miles from the airport they may become the kind of lifeless places that sap energy from their inhabitants rendering their inner-lives empty meaningless shades of gray.
Locations are not fungible commodities with different "features," but essentially equivalent. Every place has a unique history and the most spiritually rewarding places are those crisscrossed with the stories of many people, the kind of places we find concentrated in our greatest cities.
Last: 2. Reconnecting with nature.
Next: 4. Sacred Places
From: The Urban Naturalist.
Even though every ounce of common sense in our bones tells us otherwise, more and more we encounter this idea, held by some contemporary thinkers, that any given place is equivalent to any other. This extreme form of modernist thinking holds that, because of the internet, advanced forms of transport, all manner of telecommunications, the changing nature of work in first world countries, and last, but by no means least, the growing focus on the individual over and above family, church, cultural institutions and even god, location is no longer of any real importance. We are to be freed, the idea goes, from the tyranny of space itself. This extremely disconnected way of looking at location is manifested through the globalization of markets and the trend, in some professions, towards relentless relocation. Who can move every few months at the drop of a hat? Who could spend hours commuting to work each day? Who can eat food without knowing where it comes from? Who can choose the location of a new office complex based only on the cost of the land and the average temperature of the region?
The lower creatures, like bacteria, spread in this manner. They have no special regard for one region of the petri dish over another. They flow in the direction of the most nutrient-rich gelatin, expanding in a feverish ring of consumption leaving nothing behind but their waste. In the same way some cities sprawl driven only by the whims of capital and transportation.
To think that people once selected locations for important buildings for far more complex reasons. To think that a location would be selected, not only due to its access to rivers or resources, but also for its history. The reasons we choose to live or work in certain places go beyond economics and logistics. Few people have the luxury of choosing every place they occupy in this way, but for some of us, the city can provide a connection to something older and deeper than the petty considerations of capital.
Cities would not exist if we were merely rational economic automatons. There is something irrational in the attachments we form to places. There is a value that cannot be quantified, that is not to say that it is not real, it is. It is the force that draws us to cities in the first place: the urban energy through which past speaks to us. We even find instant kinship with the people we meet in a city because we know that, at some level, they have also come to worship.
It is possible to strengthen the spiritual force of a city? To amplify it? Yes. You must first find study the history of a specific place in the city, such as street corner or building. Then, standing in that place, imagine the events of the past, allow them to live as fully as possible through your imagination. Perhaps you will even discover something you had not seen before in this meditation. At last, there is a final step. You must share share your vision with another person. Take the person to the location. You need not tell them why you are bringing them there. Perhaps, one day after dinner, you might walk, seemingly aimlessly, until you come to that place you studied. When you reach the place stop and say "Do you know what happened here in the very spot?" and tell the story. It is critical that you tell the story at the location, for this will fix the image of the events in the mind of your companion, bringing that place to life. They will probably feel compelled to tell the story to others when they happened to cross it in the future.
If you tell a story filled with the sadness and ugliness of history you will heal the wounds of the city as you tell it. If you tell a glorious story you will make the life-force of the city stronger as it lives in the imagination of another person. Cities without stories cease to be special places at all. They grow anonymous and, in time, like the office park three miles from the airport they may become the kind of lifeless places that sap energy from their inhabitants rendering their inner-lives empty meaningless shades of gray.
Locations are not fungible commodities with different "features," but essentially equivalent. Every place has a unique history and the most spiritually rewarding places are those crisscrossed with the stories of many people, the kind of places we find concentrated in our greatest cities.
Last: 2. Reconnecting with nature.
Next: 4. Sacred Places
From: The Urban Naturalist.