Field Entry GRTN-001: Gungywamp
Gungywamp is a fascinating place for many: a lost time preserved in enduring arrangements of astrologically aligned stones. However, what I find more fascinating is our response to it.
During a scheduled tour, I listened to the remarks of other guests and the eagerness to touch and uncover what is eroded in time. While the occasional daydreaming and references to Indiana Jones is not problematic in itself, I wonder if this tendency is linked to a larger issue.
It feels like fetishization. It feels like cheapened appreciation. It feels like we want to take something without leaving our reverence, respect, and self-referential existence behind.
Do we see ancient people as inferior? Their cultural practices as 'outdated as their technology'?
"We are clearly better — after all, we have computers and the internet!"
I think this kind of thinking is pervasive. Worst of all, it lies beneath our consciously directed thought, tainting our actions and speech with a dehumanizing or colonizing impact.
Do we recognize their humanity and their ingenuity?
Do we realize that indeed, we DO have something to learn from every culture that has ever existed or will ever exist across this diverse and beautiful globe?
The standing stones had a function and despite the fact that the myth which led to their creation is not scientifically established, it held a real place in the socio-psychological web that connected those people to that time and space. The value, the meaning which they extracted and distilled in their peculiar vocabulary of symbols and rituals is no different from the Hollywood icons and memes of the present. What these things do show, in fact, is that modern people have lost a particular connection to nature. While I do think we will always have a connection because we are in fact members of the natural world, industrialization has both built and deconstructed a way of life at a rate that far outpaces our understanding of its consequences and the adaptation of living things - animal, plant, and human alike.
So when we explore ancient structures or historically significant locations, let us take time to ask ourselves: "How did they live? How did they feel? How did their reality differ from my own?" Try your very best to construct a reality within your own mind and project it outwards as you walk around the structure and apply every detail you learn. You are not just visiting someone else's home - it is your home. You are the husband who lost a son to stillbirth. You are the child who, in days leading to the destruction of your village, looks upon the large standing stone in wonder. A moment later, you are a tribesperson appreciating the natural beauty and harmony that surrounds and makes you. You are now not just a disconnected observer; you are a human connected to the landscape in front of you, just as they were.