Hello and welcome to the 57th issue of Place! How do we engage in a relationship with nature that is as rich as our inter-human relationships? It’s a concept we’ve been thinking about for a long time at Place, and today our editors are exploring it – perhaps adding even more questions to the mix than answers. One thing we know for sure is that while discovering the eroticism of Place may seem daunting, it’s a risk that may be necessary for us to experience these spaces in their fullest form – to both give life and feel alive.
ICYMI! We recently honoured our first birthday by launching a brand new pitch guide because we really want to hear your stories! And the great news is, we can now pay our contributors thanks to our generous subscribers who have supported us through our membership program. We already have a couple pieces coming up that we are super excited to share with you all, and can’t wait for what’s to come.
At Place, we believe that the experiences, sensations and conversations we have as we move about the world stay with us, stacking up as the years go by, forming who we are and the way we view the world. Do you have a letter to share? Send it to us at placeletter@protonmail.com. If you are interested in writing for Place you can find our pitch guide here. If you’re the social type, follow us on Twitter (@place_letter) where you can share your favourite pieces and Instagram (@placenewsletter) for a visual feast. Yours, The Place editorial team.
I feel it on the inside of my little finger, the slow roll of the red juice of the raspberry I’ve crushed in my fingertips. Rubbing the pads of my fingers together its flesh falls apart but it’s seeds remain hard. It’s liquid stings the raw places in my cuticles. Beyond where I stand in the garden the sun is setting and the angle hits my eyes in such a way that I can’t quite make out the horizon or the tree-line. I’m blinded, momentarily.
The colour of the berry is so intense, it is what I imagine my own insides to be coloured with. I want to taste it, but I am mesmerized by the way the crushed fruit glistens in the sun on my skin. It is a stain that will not wash away later, my nails will be tinged pink, flushed, blushing, for days on end. I will remember what its fragile skin felt like, long after it's gone. Finally, I bring a single finger to my mouth, the ring finger, and I taste the berry on my tongue. It's blissfully sour. I need more.
*****
Connecting with place is inherently sensual. Each morning we do not step into an architect or urban planner’s drawings, but the elements that make up the spaces in between. We hear the leaves whispering to us in the wind, smell flirtatious pollen, run our hands through the thick manes of grass that line the pavement. Nature touches us in a way that humans can’t, its fluidity bending around whatever we create, little regard for our politics and boundaries, consumed by a constant coitus. The sun warms us just as it warms the chlorophyll in oak leaves so that the catkins can emerge to meet a flower and produce an acorn.
And yet humans tend to view ourselves primarily as observers in the natural world, separating us from the intimacy that is inherent in nature, as Terry Tempest Williams, point out in The Erotic Landscape:
“To be in relation to everything around us, above us, below us, earth, sky, bones, blood, flesh, is to see the world whole, even holy,” she writes. “But the world we frequently surrender to defies our participation and seduces us into believing that our only place in nature is as spectator, onlooker. A society of individuals who only observe a landscape from behind the lens of a camera or the window of an automobile without entering in, is perhaps no different from the person who obtains sexual gratification from looking at the sexual actions or organs of others.”
We know that being in nature is good for our health, mentally, physically and emotionally. We know that it brings us joy – a long walk, a swim in the sea. But how often in these interactions with nature do we see it as a mere place of utility, rather than a living, sensual being? What would happen if we could frame this relationship differently? What would need to change?
*****
There was a plunge and then a shock, the pleasure of release from pent up heat.
Minutes before, air, water, fire and stone turned into a sighing steam, an invisible caress of the elements that made my hair stand on end and coaxed my reluctant pores open with wetness, lubricating even the slightest touch between thighs on the thick wooden bench. Heat was not just all around me, it was a tension that teased me -- how long could I last in this box of manipulated temperature? The waves outside crashed into shore, rhythmic and powerful, mysterious and inviting, calling out for me to let go.
And so I did. The cold beneath my feet on the soggy wooden floorboards warned me of the intensity but could never prepare me for the all-encompassing plunge. The icy water greedily reached into every crevice, each skin cell at alert, the release so powerful it left me breathless and momentarily still. Below the surface I was completely vulnerable and exposed, giving up the control that I had sought internally, allowing the partnership with something more powerful to take over. I broke the surface with a gasp of air, the current embraced and guided me to shore. I shivered as I exited the water, and laid my head back on the pillowy sand.
*****
Much like a romantic relationship, a relationship with nature that denies or neglects sensuality could be seen as one that is edging toward lifelessness. In her work as a psychotherapist, Esther Perel discusses eroticism as an action which brings transformation, renewal, and vitality to our lives.
“It’s so important to understand that eroticism, narrowed down to the pure sexual meaning, is a real reduction of what the word stands for,” explains Perel in an episode of the podcast On Being. “It’s a transgressive force. It is about breaking the rules. That is erotic, because it takes you outside of the borders of reality and the limitations of life.”
In transcending the traditional limitations of our relationship with nature, what new life could we encounter? Not only for ourselves, but for our collective ecological future?
Perel notes that while giving way to feelings of curiosity and playfulness are the gateway to experiencing the erotic, these aspects of a relationship can be difficult to maintain the longer we stay with the same partner. We want to believe we know the people we are in relationship with inside and out, and while the uncertainty of the alternative seems risky, Perel argues that is the only way to stay truly alive with one another. The great colonial practice of botanic classification did something similar to our relationship to the natural world, Macarena Gómez-Barris argues, in that it erased the potential complexity for our perception of species that wildness kept alive. While defining ourselves as inherently separate from nature (largely held in the Western tradition), may seem more safe than engaging sensually with it, is this current form of relationship life truly giving to either parties?
“Eroticism, being in relation, calls the inner life into play,” Tempest writes in The Erotic Landscape. “No longer numb, we feel the magnetic pull of our bodies toward something stronger, more vital than simply ourselves. Arousal becomes a dance with longing. We form a secret partnership with possibility.”
*****
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
- David Wagoner
Place Recommends:
Sleeping rough during the pandemic,
The erotics of compost,
and a celebration of eating at America’s gas stations.
Join us next week for another journey.