Spiritual

That giant of contemporary nature writing, Richard Mabey, has reportedly said - “I really don’t understand what the word ‘spiritual’ means. I am deeply a materialist; I don’t want to have a metaphorical relationship with something beyond its reality.” That surprised me, because, as an avid reader of Mr. Mabey’s words, I have always thought of him as ‘spiritual’. Is my understanding of what ‘spiritual’ means incorrect, or is it that I am just out of synch with the great wordsmith?

Spiritual. According to one of the many available dictionaries, it can be defined as:

‘relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.’

I readily identify with the idea of spirituality, which, coming from an unquestioning atheist, possibly suggests that I would be very much at home with the druids and pagans. I do see, and feel, the wonder in our natural world (and, of course, the unfathomable cosmos beyond it), but can also be moved by places that show the scars of human endeavour, particularly if I have a link to that place. So how would I define ‘spiritual’? What does it mean to me?

Basically, any object - or place - or event - that reaches into me, beyond my senses of sight, sound and smell is spiritual. It is something that moves my inner self in positive and mysterious ways. It induces feelings of wonderment, contentment, peacefulness and a sense of being a part of some great, mystical, world. This is, to me at least, not the work of a God or creator, but the wonder of science. So if the origins of my definition of 'spirituality' is down to the random workings of chemical elements, how can I attach any 'other-worldly' feelings to them? This is where the human mind comes into play. We have independent thought that allows us to think beyond responding to basic animal instincts such as 'food', 'sex' and 'shelter'. We don't just look at an approaching storm and respond to it by immediately seeking somewhere to get out of the wind and rain, we study the cloud formations, take in the colours before us, and somewhere, buried deep down within us, awaken a primordial instinct that elicits fear, excitement and an acceptance that there are forces at work that we cannot control. That, to me, is a basic spirituality.

The two images used in this post speak to me spiritually in differing ways. At the top is Dungeness. I first visited the shingle in April 1976 and have been a regular visitor ever since. Over the years this place has buried itself deep into my soul. It is no longer just a place where I can 'go birding', it means more than that. I chase shadows whenever I am there (one of them being me as a 16-year old, full of wide-eyed wonder) and ghosts (departed birding friends, the teachers and pupils from the abandoned school, fishermen from the early 20th-century). Those railway sleepers that march across the photograph, remnants from the railway line that used to run up to the old lighthouse - who erected them? In what year? What birds have perched on them? What storms have they survived? Such objects, such thoughts, are strewn across the shingle. I cannot take two steps without being exposed to them. They are not just questions born of curiosity, they run deeper than that.

The bottom picture is of Pewsey Downs. It looks out onto the Vale of Pewsey and the villages of Alton Barnes and All Cannings. This is my ancestral home, abandoned by the Gale family at the end of the 19th century to set up home in south London. My Father was sent back there as an evacuee during the Second World War and it made such an impression on him that he went back to live there in retirement. I got to know it then. I would go up onto the hills in search of the fine plant and insect assemblage, but then something took over. It was a subtle transition, but my walks became almost like pilgrimages. I would look down upon the farmland and be assailed by.... what? A sense of belonging? A state of inner calm? An appreciation and awareness of those who had come before? I'd call that spiritual.

Maybe an admission to something being 'spiritual' or feeling that way has been unfairly likened to anything that is 'caring', smacking of new-ageism and hippiedom. But back before such concepts, there did exist attachments and feeling, not just to nature, but also to the idea of belonging. In our fast-paced 21st-century, the need to step back and take stock has never been more desirable. For me, to wallow in 'the spiritual' is a necessity in combating what can, at times, be a challenging age.