The sense of place 

Robert MacFarlane is a wonderful writer who is deservedly receiving great praise and acclaim for his latest book, fabulously illustrated by  Jackie Morris called ‘ The Lost Words: A Spell Book’. I really recommend you get a copy for a child you know, or if you know no child, buy it for your own inner child! I follow him on various social media sites and through this came to an article by  Václav Cílek here on WordPress

https://cinestheticfeasts.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/genius-loci-cilek-p-2/

It’s a wonderful post and I have reread it several times, but since I have been thinking about my writing, and thinking about one’s sense of location it really resonated.

It made me think about what is a sense of location – it’s not how you know where you are, or recognise where you are, it’s how you feel yourself in a place. This sense is nothing to do with what you know about it, have memories or associations with it; it is to do with being in it… Have I expressed this clearly? I’m not sure… is there a word for it… I have no idea! Maybe since I can’t find a word for it, it’s locoception ?

This is what Wikipedia says : The term sense of place has been used in many different ways. It is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some do not, while to others it is a feeling or perception held by people – not by the place itself…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_place

Maybe not everyone thinks this is a true senses, or has experienced those feelings which I’m trying to explain and identify. It’s not genius loci, the spirit of the place – although I guess it might partly be that, it’s something felt or sensed from within.

The article I read by Václav Cílek was the second part of something else, and in this second part he outlined certain rules… ‘the ‘pilgrim’s rules’. I finished them two years later amongst the Elbe sandstone, then forgot. Here they are – and they do not want to be taken too seriously, because the essence of a place, just as a human being and their essence, cannot be fitted into a single schemata.’ 

The ‘rule’ with caught my imagination particularly is The Rule of Resonance – ‘A smaller place with which we resonate is more important than a great place of pilgrimage, where one is only a visitor’. Isn’t that magical? Isn’t it perfect?

So here are the other ‘pilgrim’s rules’… I have a feeling I might come back to them and write about them again!

• The Rule of Home
• The Rule of Resonance
• The Rule of Irreplaceability
• The Rule of Breezing
• The Rule of Various Viewpoints
• The Rule of a Lid
• The Rule of Return
• The Rule of Slow Approaching
• The Rule of Friendly Teasing
• The Rule of Sacred Games
• The Rule of Culmination
• The Rule of Reciprocal Awakening

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_C%C3%ADlek