I had another really exciting thought here, which may apply in a cool way.
Each of us has our own powers, our own capacities, our unique gifts for relationships (in an animist sense).
I think even the old Stories of place, they required a listener to WORK to fully receive everything the Story had to offer. See Martin Prechtel’s Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun for an intense and revelatory breakdown of just how deep an indigenous Story can go. It also exposes the depth of the relationship to place.
For some of us, we connect with certain stories more than others, because of our capacities.
For me, a geology text does nothing. Lifeless. Words on a page.
For you, that same text, transports you on a journey, Right Now, to a place of heat, of unbearable grinding pressures, of glittering stone and flowing rock.
No matter how much I work, I know certain books and texts just do not open for me as Story in that sense, as able to transport me somewhere Now. I usually describe these kinds of things as academic or some such. But perhaps I more honestly mean, ‘academic for me - cold and stale for me - no journey anywhere, For ME’.
The danger of that geology text may lie in that, on its surface, you will learn the relationship of a conquering people to their un-honored place. The potential of that geology text may lie in that, you can ignore that surface layer, and go on your own journey, right now, deep into the earth.
Truly powerful Story of place means you don’t have to defend yourself against its surface, I think. It takes care of you on all levels. For some of us, perhaps we can access modern story in spite of its alienation from its place.
I’ll make room for this possibility, sure. In the end, as wildeyes mentioned, I feel most importantly, that when we make and tell Story together, it expresses US, and the journeys we have gone on, whether we like it or not, and with all the beautiful implications thereof. We don’t need MORE. We don’t need to somehow squeeze in knowledge that never made us have firsthand relationships with anything, in-dream, or waking. It doesn’t count, it doesn’t express us. And we in any case can’t stop the Stories we make together expressing exactly our relationship with the world. Folks will know when we fake it.
[EDIT: I really want to press on this one - do people know what I mean when I say ‘they’ll know when we fake it’? Have you ever read those particular self-consciously made-up and fake-feeling ‘white people’ versions of coyote tales, or nature folklore? One of my pet peeves. People with no experience, making up stories that sound like an indian myth. ick. rather than us, telling a story together, about what cuts off our nuts and hands them to us on a plate. so to speak. A story that frickin’ GRABS us. you know?]
Fortunately, we only need to make the Stories that matter to people just like us, right now. What other Stories matter? Not Stories for people like them, over there, and how they lived, once upon a time (although Stories about them will help us too, when grounded in our lives now).
I hope I’ve made my point here. In any case, the LAST thing I want to do concerns holding court on the validity of someone else’s joy and passion. If I ever do that, please shoot me. with your mind bullets.