Immerse Yourself
by: Deva DeAngelis
A significant difference exists between immersing one’s self into an experience, another culture, or a new environment, compared to remaining outside looking in, whether through a television set, a newspaper, or even a school lecture. Direct and personal experiences infuse us with multifaceted and multidimensional understandings, where we are no longer left to question. Looking at data-sheets, reports, and statistics, tagging animals to take note of certain patterns or habits, or studying cultural phenomenon by observation, or through another analytical approach, can only go so far; it is by allowing ourselves to be more vulnerable and accessible that we provide ourselves the opportunity to truly experience and understand other perspectives. We have many examples, among them, John Muir, Henry Thoreau, Jane Goodall, and Charles Darwin, as individuals that have had more intimate exposure to the environment; a comparison which is similar to a traveler living in a village with a small family, relying on each other for fundamental necessities, compared to the tourist who only seeks all-inclusive beach resort vacation trips. The bottom line is this: remaining separate and isolated from others, unaffected and seemingly unrelated, doesn’t afford an accurate perception of said others.
Jane Goodall has always loved animals. Earthworms, chickens, and other creatures in nature, provided her comfort as a child, and she was known for her undying curiosity for the lives of other species. After her first visit to Africa when she was twenty-two, she found a job working for a paleontologist/anthropologist Louis Leaky, and it was with his support that she was able to live in the wilderness to observe chimpanzees in their natural environment. It took a year of her unobtrusive presence before the community of these primates warmed up to her and allowed her closer than 100 yards. It was this growing and developing immersion into the lives of these chimpanzees, and the nature that held them, that changed Goodall. She didn’t just learn, she experienced for herself the depth of these beings’ wisdom and understanding, and as they began to reciprocate her gestures and communication, there was further deepening of her “sense of belonging to the natural world.” She constantly described a strong sense of the life that was flowing in nature, from being to being, and found that she too, was part of this system, and happy to be. Because of this particular relationship, in 1986, when she learned that African chimpanzees were disappearing rapidly due to logging and hunting, she knew that she needed to extend her work to educate others (Crain).
“It seemed to me as I struggled afterward to recall the experience, that self was utterly absent: I and the chimpanzees, the earth and trees and air, seemed to merge, to become one with the spirit power of life itself.”
-Goodall (Crain)
John Muir is an amazing example for jumping into a new environment; not only did he take nature by the hand, he wrote extensively about her. Muir was known for going places on foot, and when he ventured into the Sierra Mountains, he decided to make it his home for a time. Unlike Goodall, whose attention was mainly on one species, Muir was looking to understand the whole of a larger system called wilderness, and in order to do that, liked to gain new perspectives by interacting with nature more like it interacted with itself; for instance getting on a precarious edge beside a waterfall, looking down and listening, feeling the droplets, imagining he was that waterfall. He stationed himself high in a tree during a storm so that he would know what the tree felt when it was whipped with wind and rain (Muir. John of. 45-55). There are many things that the modern mind would do to a story like this, the least of which is to judge, but John Muir knew nature because he experienced some of it’s life; he felt a connection that one might feel towards family members or friends, and it was by walking with them, through the fire of life’s turmoil, that their bond strengthened, and with this bond, he cared deeply; he was attached to nature (Nash). Maybe that is exactly what we need; can we even make real change without it?
“[Nature will] make you a new creature indeed. Or, choked in the sediments of society, so tired of the world, here will your hard doubts disappear, your carnal incrustations melt off, and your soul breathe deep and free in God s shore-less atmosphere of beauty and love. Never shall I forget my baptism in this font. To lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of friends. They rise as a portion of the hilled walls of the Hollow. You cannot feel yourself out of doors; plain, sky, and mountains ray beauty, which you feel. You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round and round, as if warming at a campfire. Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature.”
-Muir (Muir. A Thousand. 210-211)
It was said of Charles Darwin that he was blessed with characteristics of both intuition and seeing the “silver lining” in trivial situations; we know for certain that he was an influential figure that obtained strong opinions and information by changing his environment, and understanding by getting closer to his subjects. It is speculated that Darwin’s theory of evolution was driven by particular relationships with African slaves since the time that he was a kid, making him more curious to their genetic connections. Eventually, those sentiments were found to be even deeper when he was aboard the Beagle voyage and he witnessed slavery firsthand; in the presence of the brutal reality of slavery extremes, with real shackled legs, sweat-soaked backs, broken in cane fields, after he saw that, felt that in person, he was said to have never been able to escape slavery now that he truly understood that it was, “a global empire of evil requiring a global remedy.” His theory that is widely accepted today was the antithesis to common thought at the time; that dark and light-skinned people belonged to separate races. By feeling another being’s plight, he found that social inequity didn’t fit into what is right (Day).
“But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than… ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand.”
-Darwin (Day)
Henry David Thoreau, though I have heard him called arrogant and egotistical, is another example of how immersion encourages new, and great, perspectives. Thoreau had a particular attitude toward other people, but he has also showed us a perspective that changed American thought and civilized understanding. Thoreau was a man that was exploring reality outside of normal society, whose view is more highly revered as the societal implications that he observed in the mid 19th century become more obvious as time and growth continue to concentrate these certain characteristics. By simply thinking differently, and finding home, solace, and a truer reality in the woods, while at the same time realizing that he needed others, he had a precarious position as one of the first outspoken enthusiasts for wilderness. It is was his isolated position, in his hand-built cabin near a pond in the middle of a forest, that allowed the development of such unique views; it was his close vicinity to town and dependency on a number of relationships with the villagers, rather than quality connections of loved ones, that possibly made his attitude harder. When he walked into the village he lived near, he met the rustle and bustle of people who were caught up in the stresses of a more modern life, and as Thoreau expressed in his writings, functioned in a way that seemed false to him, but regardless of circumstances, or even simple quirky personality traits, he was a man who delved deeper into the human psyche, in relation to wild nature and society, than any that we know of before him; by immersion, he expanded humanity’s understanding, and caused them to question preconceived conceptions of reality, and our place within it (Thoreau).
“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life...When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.”
-Thoreau (LaTona)
Time and time again we can see these figures embrace something that can hardly be understood outside of having similar experiences, but through their journeys of exploration through immersion, we can detect something that is unique within such experienced individuals. There is an authenticity in their knowledge and understanding that can not be mistaken, yet to merely read about, or study, the similarities between these people further limits our own, personal understanding and perception, leaving this information more of a conceptual idea rather than a true understanding. Deep understanding and compassion stem from connection and attachment; hence, it is encouraged to find opportunities to walk in the shoes of that which you truly wish to understand; don’t be afraid to try them on for size, but be sure to go for a good hike in them rather than sit on the bench and assume you already know how they fit and feel by how they look from the outside. Open yourself to letting go of preconceived notions, so that when you are offered a hand to enter a new reality, you can walk in, ready to become vulnerable and changed. Immerse yourself.
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