"If the full, rich, mythic sense of place is finally taken out of our cultural compass, then we will mentally inhabit a spiritual wasteland.
___ Paul Devereux, Revisioning the Earth
In the Grail legends, the loss of primal harmony between the worlds causes the apparent world to become a wasteland. A similar process is at work within our own world at this time: the demythification of the earth. The long-held stories and understandings about the land are being eroded by forgetfulness and active neglect. Each region has its own stories and traditions, fusions of legends and stories that cluster about the nexus points of sacred sites and prominent land features. They tell of the creative acts of giants, gods or spirits, the deeds and quests of heroes and heroines, the wise advice of animals and trees. These points are thresholds of connection between our daily temporal world and the eternal timelessness of the otherworld.
The erosion of such myths in our landscape arises when we begin to view the land as inert and spiritless, as a commodity of financial value when we separate ourselves from the greater community life of our own country, when human beings are understood as the summit of creation and are encouraged to take its bounty as their own, without thought of return or reciprocation.
If this process is continued, we will indeed begin to inhabit a spiritual wasteland, a place of separation wherein we have no intercourse with the abiding soul of the land.
"Find out about the area in which you live. What history, myths, stories, and legends are wound into the soil? What do these tell you about the nature of your region?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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