Longing for the Wild

The news is filled with terrible stories and I fear that no matter when or where you’re reading this, it will still be the same. The stories are of the rape and sexual exploitation of women and girls. For a while I thought those stories got so much news coverage because the government wanted to distract us from all the dodgy things it does behind the backs of the citizens to whom it is supposed to be accountable. I also thought that – no matter how matter-of-fact the reporting – no matter how carefully sleaze and gossip are avoided – still, it might be better not to report at all. Somehow it seems like the victims are exploited all over again, by having their names and faces in the news. Mostly, I’ve avoided the issue. There are big political stories. There are big existential threats to our well-being like war and climate change and the ongoing destruction of Nature. The abuse of women and girls is mostly by bad men – cruel men with no conscience or compassion. We have laws against what they do. So, find those responsible, put them on trial and sentence them. I suppose that’s mostly what I hear called for by politicians and the press. Protect women and girls and stop the criminals. And yet…and yet, I’ve started to feel the problem runs much, much deeper. Those ‘big issues’ of war, climate and the destruction of Nature are intimately linked to the crimes against women and girls. In fact, I think that, at root, it’s the same problem. That takes a bit of explaining, and I’ll give it a go. Let’s start with society’s response to this problem. I’m talking her about Western society. It’s been interesting to note how the images we see of women have changed over the last few years. There are no topless women in the tabloid newspapers now, no sexy calendars for sale at Christmas and fewer and fewer scantily-clad women used in advertising. There are no ‘top-shelf’ magazines or ‘lads mags’. I suppose this is the most direct response to the problem we’ve been discussing. Society tries not to trivialise or sexualise young women, because to do so makes them seem to matter less – not to be fully acknowledged as having dignity and intrinsic worth – as all people surely should. So it’s a signal to men that these things are not just ‘for a laugh’ – that it matters. These changes are not in vain. But we have to recognise that the top shelf magazines and the lads mags have not really gone – they’ve just moved online. There’s therefore an increasing gulf between the way women are portrayed in real life and the largely unseen secret world of objectification that goes on in the virtual world. I’ll return to these thoughts o the portrayal of women later. But now let’s see the link to the world’s wider problems. Okay, let me set my cards on the table now. Our bodies are sacred. What do I mean by sacred? Something that’s sacred is set apart for special honour and celebration – something that’s considered holy – to be respected, nourished, protected, valued. As the source of life – the source of our birth – women’s bodies are especially sacred. Bodies, we say, are part of Nature. We are not set apart in any way from Nature, we ARE Nature, through and through. We are wilderness, the wild, WILD BODY, wild mind, wild soul. Nature is the WILD SACRED – to be honoured, celebrated, respected and valued, just as our own bodies. And nature – the nature of the Earth – is part of Cosmos. The Cosmos is not a blind accident. We should not consider the Cosmos as literal, predictable and reductionist. Rather, the Cosmos is intelligent, lyrical and spontaneous. It is autopoietic – it self-generates new forms. It is WILD COSMOS. Most of all, the Cosmos is grace. I do not mean grace quite in the way that it is sometimes understood in religious terms – as self-giving love – although that’s not too far off the mark. But I prefer to use the term WILD GRACE. And with that I hope the links are clearer – wild grace generates wild Nature, generates wild bodies. Wild bodies are grace made manifest – the only means of giving grace to the world – the only means we have of honouring the sacred. So now, I hope the consequences of this might start to emerge. How can we ever build a weapon – let alone a nuclear weapon – when human bodies are sacred? How can we premise our economics on the destruction, extraction and exploitation of Wild Nature, when, in fact, she gives herself freely through sunlight, plants, animals and our own bodies? How can we ever disrespect the bodies of women and girls, when these are sacred life itself? It is all the same abuse – destruction, exploitation, rape – all the same mindset. It takes the sacred and makes it profane – a desecration. I don’t mean to make the problem of violence against women and girls into an abstract thing – of course it is very much the opposite. But my intention is to show how deep-rooted the mindset of such violence really goes. The problems run very deep. So, what to do? We are, unfortunately, all implicated. New laws to protect women and girls, or the better enforcement of existing laws are just not going to cut it. Let’s go back now to the way women and girls are portrayed in our society. I often attend a yearly art fair in Edinburgh, where mostly Scottish artists exhibit original work for people to purchase. Until a few years ago there were four major themes to the artwork on offer – landscape, townscape, wildlife and nudes – mostly female nudes. More recently, as you’ve probably guessed by now, all the nudes have gone. I guess that artists – and I’m starting to feel the same away myself – just think it’s too risky to portray the female form. There are a few artists though – not at the art fair – but a few artists who buck this trend. They portray women without any sexualisation or embellishment – just with honesty and integrity. Increasingly I think of these artists as brave souls and wish that I could be as brave – brave enough to have the courage of my convictions. Because, well, here’s one of the most difficult things – some people will not see this distinction between a sexualised, objectified nude and one that is life-enhancing, honouring, respectful, compassionate and gracious. Some people will find the work of these artists of which I speak disgusting – on a level with pornography. And – just as we’ve traced the sacred through body, nature and Cosmos – we can trace a similar path for this disgust. Some people are disgusted by Nature. Some people even seem to have contempt for the Cosmos. They will certainly have a contempt for the kind of Cosmos I’ve been describing – a sacred, holy, intelligent, graceful Cosmos, completely intimate with the bodies, minds and souls of human beings. Tell this story to the military men, to the captains of industry, the tech-billionaires and even to the many politicians who want to achieve economic growth at all and any cost. What would they say to the ideas I’ve explained in this essay? Well, I think you know the answer to this question! And what of the rapists? The female body is already desecrated for them and their response is violence. This is why these crimes are hate crimes really – not sex crimes – this is why we call it misogyny. How did we ever get to this place – where the sacred is considered profane? And there’s something even more perplexing with bodies – the people who are disgusted with them cannot seem to help feeding their disgust – they cannot seem to help being fascinated. This in turn, ties in with the way reporting of crimes against women and girls is always somewhat ambiguous. Because, whist there is disgust, there’s also a kind of morbid fascination – as if the two poles of the sacred and of desecration can so easily be flipped. So it is a strange liminal line that we draw between the sacred and desecration – the wrack line between the ocean of Spirit and the sterile, ordered world of humanity’s dismembering of Nature, of the wild and of grace. We are embodied consciousness first and foremost – the place where mind and matter dance with one another. And body is also the meeting of soul and spirit – if you’ll permit me these terms – and inside and outside and sacred and profane and objective and subjective and rational and emotional and deterministic and syncretic. The heart’s insights and the stories weaved by the mind. Just by being embodied we have all the great puzzles of life set within us. And where so many opposing forces meet – that truly is the place of creativity. Marie Montessori, the founder of Montessori schools, apparently believed that a child’s education begins with the understanding of our place in the Cosmos. Yes, there’s a way of seeing the world – a new paradigm perhaps, although it’s also a very old one – where embodied awareness is our starting point for knowing the world, Nature and the Cosmos. So we must dig deep. And I think I need to have the courage of my convictions, even although I often fail. We must turn body, Nature and Cosmos into holiness, celebration, beauty and grace. We have, I think, also to consider an alternative, and that’s the notion that a person might fully agree with all I’ve said about the sacredness of the body and its connection to Nature and the Cosmos, yet come to a markedly different conclusion: That we should honour the body by covering it up – keeping it sacred by keeping it private, secret, and hidden. And I cannot really argue against such a view.