These past few days, I've been discussing religion with my mother. We've been talking about the cultural differences in how religion is approached in the United States compared to Sweden and Finland. She is Christian and I'm an atheist. However, what we mean - and especially the implications - aren't what they mean here in the States. Neither of us understand the cultural functions of Christianity here very well. However, both of us find spirituality in the forest. I realized that when I say I don't believe in God, I mean pretty much the same thing as when I say I don't believe in keijukaiset/älvor/elves or fairies. (I'll use the word fairy, since it has associations in English mythology closer to the 'form' of a keijukainen/älva. Fairies are translucent, female nature beings who dance in clearings in the forest, especially at dawn and at sunset. Their dance is incredibly beautiful, and they will invite you to come dance with them, but if you do, you will disappear and become a fairy too. So be careful, if you see the fairies dancing.) I don't actually believe that there are real, physical beings that are translucent dancing around in the forest, trying to lure me to dance with them. But when I walk in the forest, I feel connected to it. I feel like part of a system of life. I am not scared of the animals or plants, even though I know there are animals that could seriously hurt me there. I feel like we have a spiritual deal - I leave them alone, and they leave me alone. I make noise as I walk, so that the animals know I'm coming. I am, in fact, almost mystical about it. I feel like if you enter the forest with ill will, the forest is much more likely to hurt you. (As did the miners of old, who gave offerings to the mountain guardian/goddess before starting work, asking for her permission to mine her mountain.) But when you are at peace with the forest and everything in it, we can both prosper. Just as I know how fairies work, and know not to go near beautiful violin music from a stream or a creek (lest I be enchanted to drown myself by another mythological being, Näcken), I know the snakes can feel the vibrations of my footsteps, and I know the bears and wolves can smell my scent. Fairies, trolls, and other beings of the forest all play their role too, roles that are not cast in terms of good and evil. I do not feel afraid of the fairies, the trolls or Näcken, because although they could harm or kill me, they are only part of the life-system we live in. If I get hurt, it is because I have intruded somewhere where I shouldn't be in the first place. Perhaps I view them more as abstractions of general principles to life. But I do clearly feel that I am communicating with something. The forest has spirits that I can feel, but I don't have very strong urges to define them or roationally explain them. I think in China, people know the forest spirits as qi4. They are simply there. They always have been, and always will be.
Unlike religious or spiritual experiences in the United States, these feelings are intensely personal. My mother and I feel the same about the forest and its spirits. I can see that my mother doesn't care that I don't believe in the Christian God, and I don't particularly care that she does. We don't need to, because we can share spirituality about the forest. It is an experience of exchange between you and the forest. A congregation would only destroy it with its noise and human activity. That doesn't belong in the forest. It is disrespectful, in fact. When we move in the forest, we do so on its terms. Silence and respect are appropriate behavior. Talking and thinking about it, it seems like people who live physically close to nature often regard the forest as almost sacred space. Here in the US, I conspicuously lack culturally appropriate respect for the church and Christianity. But I cringe at people shouting in the forest, people walking too broadly, in a too imposing kind of way, or people taking things from the forest without thanking the forest, and a host of similar behaviors that just feel irreverent. The guardian-goddess of the forest (Metsänhaltija) will punish you! Can't you see that her wrath could be devastating? Without nature and the forest, we will be reduced to nothing!
This last line of reasoning is perhaps a spiritual formulation of the need to protect the environment. But to me, it isn't just an intellectual argument, it is an emotional one, too. If the trees and the animals are dying, we will be, too. Our fates are the same, because we belong together. In the forest, there can be no doubt of our oneness. Conversely, Christianty doesn't mention those feelings of oneness. In the traditional mythology (that in the Nordic countries has been mixed with Christian beliefs, but never abandoned), both male and female entities exist. That feels natural. Androgyny and/or a mix of genders is the only normal state. Simultaneously, it feels natural that the guardian-rulers are almost all female. (Perhaps this is a leftover of the original Goddess worship?) I have never been able to feel a male-only deity. I tried, but I just can't feel it. It feels... alien. God just cannot be a man. She can't. What is considered 'male' (aggressivity, domination, etc) isn't the forest at all. Power flows through all circuits of life, and life is not aggressive. Life is a flow, a complex web of life and death, pain and joy, loss and gain. To pick one strand and say "Look, how viciously the wolf is killing the deer! Life is brute force and aggression!" is misguided. The spirit of the forest is not like that. She/it is wiser and calmer and nearly eternal. (It may not be surprising I find Buddhism a great deal more approachable emotionally.)
Going back to more practical apsects of this, the hippie imagery here is also difficult for me to understand. I don't understand the connotations of 'treehugger' very well. What moral person isn't? That's not about politics. That's about the basic truths of life. I know what it's supposed to connote, but I don't think it can for me. Without the forest and nature, arguing about politics and clothing choices are moot, because we will disappear.
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I understand exactly how you feel. I grew up in the United States but I was thought weird by my family friends because I listened to music from other countries and enjoyed art and literature set in different scenes around the globe. I have done my share of research concerning religion, in as many aspects as I could get my hands on...sometimes I wonder if I am too curious. But the one thing that always was so dear to my heart... the one place where I found peace and deep spirituality was the forest. I grew up with a large wood behind my house and everyday as a child I would play there. I picked grasses and leaves and wove mats and created all sorts of trinkets from my finds in the woods. As a young child I understood the strength and awe of the forest - and I respected it. When I got my driver's license as a teenager I was driving my friend home when she threw a straw wrapper out the window. I immediately slammed on the brakes and made her get out of the car, find it and pick it up. Such disrespect is disgusting to me.
I also know of the Goddess you talk about... I don't believe in her, but I have done a lot of research on the religion that follows her. I find it a very natural religion... one that blends into all of our geneologies at some point. At least every European decendent has the blood of the ancient rites in them, and quite possibly a good part of the rest of the world too.
To me, the forest is an everlasting example of freedom, oneness, simplicity and spirituality. As humans, we are animals, created on this earth to live on it and from it. Most of our roots go deep into the forest... it is where we came from. Our early years were spent living there, foraging for food and taking shelter under the mothering trees. I find that the forest is God's most precious gift to the world, though all ecosystems are necessary and beautiful in their own way. The forest, however has always spoke to me.
I am a Christian, I will say plainly. I do not know your reasons for not following this religion, nor do I have the right to ask why. My opinion is this, God created mankind and put him in the Garden of Eden - a forest if you will. The decision between sin and a perfect world lay in the fruit of two trees in the garden. So as you can see, trees and forests were our beginning place, even from a Christian standpoint.
In the book of Romans it says that there will come a time when people will worship the creation, rather than the creator. I believe that is why we worship as we do. I love our earth, I love our trees...but I love God more, and thus going to a church to worship allows me to concentrate on him and not his creation. I hope I don't sound preachy, because that is not at all how I intend to sound, and sometimes typed conversation doesn't resound the underlying tone as does the spoken word... I am simply trying to convey my feelings about the forest and how it connects for me.
Further, God isn't necessarily male - he is God and God is a supernatural being possessing attributes that could seem either male of female, though he chose to be represented as male.
I feel closest to God in the forest - I have always said it was his sanctuary. I believe in the beginning of time when he created Adam and Eve, that is how it was. The book of Genesis says so, that they walked with God in the garden daily... through the trees and among the flowers I imagine. It's a beautiful picture. For me, my connection to the forest is deeper than anyone else's I've ever met. In fact, that's how I found your page, I was looking for someone else who had these deep intense feelings as I do. I would enjoy reading more of your comments in the future.
Sincerely,
Christine
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