In Chapter Three of Wilderness and the American Mind (“Romantic Wilderness”), Roderick Nash tells us that during the late eighteenth century European essayists studied human feelings in the presence of nature. He tells us that writers such as Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant concluded that the experience of fear and of delight were closely linked in encounters with wild nature. They were not completely different sensations, but instead were closely related.
— Consider the word “awful.” It means “bad,” right? But break it apart and you have “awe full” or “full of awe.”
— This is an intriguing concept from a philosophical, psychological, and etymological point of view. But it is more than simply a bookish idea. It is as close to us as to our own feelings. Our own experiences.
— I discovered that connection in myself a couple of years ago in an encounter with a mother and her child on a bike trail in Idaho. After the encounter I read the book, so to speak, of my own emotions and found that I had experienced that combination of fear and delight which the Romantics called an experience of the sublime.
What about you? Can you recall similar feelings at any point during your time outdoors? If so, that would be material for an awe-some post in this week’s discussions!
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