Renaming and Reclaiming Sacred Nature

The Center for Earth Jurisprudence and the Barry University Law Review recently sponsored a symposium, "Framing an Earth Jurisprudence for a Planet in Peril." For those of us who were unable to attend, the videos of the presentations are now posted on the CEJ site. One of the videos that I watched with great interest was the presentation by Winona LaDuke, an Ojibwe activist and author, entitled, Indigenous Tenets for an Era of Climate Change.

Ms. LaDuke reviewed such tenets of indigenous legal thinking as:

• the "Creator's Law" as higher than the laws of nation states or municipalities;
• the people belong to the land, not the land to the people, as in U.S. and other western laws;
• the basis of the Creator's Law in a spiritual tradition that is not one of commemoration, as some have characterized Judeo-Christian religion, but rather of reaffirmation of indigenous people's relationship with all of creation and with place (sacredness of place being a very important teaching);
• "we are all related," as embracing fundamental reverence for all life, all beings;
• "all things that are natural are cyclical;" even the water in our bodies is connected with the cycle of water falling from the sky, melting from snow, flowing in rivers, evaporating, etc.;
• most elements of nature are considered to be animate; and
• "give when you take," as reflecting what anthropologists have referred to as "reciprocity."

These tenets and others she mentioned were not new to me, and they are not inconsistent with how I try to live. What challenged me, however, was how Ms. Duke -- who is Harvard-educated -- pointed out the insidiousness of western language and naming as undermining, devaluing and disrespecting the culture and spiritual traditions of indigenous peoples. With wry humor, she confessed one of her peeves was the American cultural penchant for "naming big mountains after small men." One particular example she mentioned within the Ojibwe territory was Mt. McKay, near Thunder Bay, Ontario -- known to her people as "Thunder Mountain," which plays a central role in their spiritual beliefs, traditions and ceremonies.

Her example immediately brought to mind my last visit to a nearby state reserve that has preserved a grove of ancient coast redwood trees. The state reserve web site simply states, "The Grove offers solace from the hustle and bustle of daily life, offering the onlooker great inspiration and a place for quiet reflection."

But the first time I walked into this grove of ancient redwoods, I could feel the sacred power of the trees immediately. The oldest tree in the grove is estimated to be more than 1400 years old!  And it shifted my entire being into a very deep and timeless place, stopping my thoughts entirely, yards before I stood at the base of its massive trunk. Looking up that 300-foot trunk, I knew that I was a very small man indeed standing at the foot of a very grand and old being. With my relatively few decades of experience in this world, I had no concept of what this amazing being must have witnessed, weathered, and overcome -- and what other countless beings it had protected and nourished -- through the centuries. And the chances are pretty good, unless we really ruin things quickly, that this grand old being will still be teaching other small men long after I am dust.

This ancient and magnificent being is named "Colonel Armstrong" after "a lumberman who preserved this portion of the park in the 1870's," according to the state reserve's web site. Did this poor old giant redwood really have no name, no identity, until only the last 130 or so of its 1400 years on this Earth?!  If you ask me, "Armstrong" sounds like a made-up Bunyanesque name for a "lumberman" anyway.

And what kind of logic is there in naming something sacred and venerable for some nobody who could have destroyed it but didn't? Today in various parts of the world we have real examples of oppressive regimes where temples and ancient sacred relics and icons are systematically destroyed. So, if some "Colonel" happens to say, "Okay, I feel like sparing this one today," does it then merit a renaming in his honor? What kind of commemoration or reaffirmation tradition is that part of, exactly?

And so the venerable being now known as Colonel Armstrong was named, and in naming claimed, by a commerce-oriented legal system that also often describes forests in terms of "board feet of lumber," as Ms. LaDuke points out -- a commercial by-product -- rather than with words that attempt to articulate the kind of profound wordless experiences they create.  I can attest that no mere board feet of lumber pushed me into a deep inner silence in that grove any more than units of harvestable human organs and stem cells founded the world's major religions.

This is only my small local example of what I think Ms. LaDuke was describing in her remarks a few weeks ago. Still, for me, it reveals a very simple, yet effective, principle of reductionism in our contemporary dominant culture when it comes to naming some of the most powerful and ineffable mysteries of nature.

Names given to great mountains, canyons, lakes, rivers, trees and other wondrous manifestations of the natural world reveal, or betray, the true values of the namer. In today's world, this kind of naming or description ultimately can be an insidious form of propaganda that diverts us -- all of us -- from accessing a deeper ancient knowledge and wisdom about ourselves and the mysterious natural world we are honored to be a part of for our short time here. 

The good news is that indigenous peoples and others are beginning to "rename and reclaim" some of the sacred places in the world. Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in the U.S., was named in 1896 for the former governor of Ohio, William McKinley, who later became President. But in 1980, when the Denali National Park and Preserve was established, the Alaska Board of Geographic Names officially changed the mountain's name back to Denali, which in the Athabaskan language means "the great one."

Similarly, the landmark mountain in Central Australia that has been sacred to aboriginal people was known as Uluru until 1873, when a surveyor renamed it Ayers Rock after the then-Chief Secretary of South Australia.  However, since 1993, a dual-naming policy has been in effect which allows official names that represent both the traditional Aboriginal name and the English name, and the sacred mountain is now officially known as Uluru/Ayers Rock.  Such a government policy might have a healing effect in other countries with a tragic history regarding its indigenous peoples while revealing ancient values, and perhaps greater knowledge and insights, to all of its people.