Patrick Gordon-Composition of Place

“Landscapes are culture before they are nature… we live in a natural world framed by the stories we tell, though we prefer to think of it as a tabula rasa”. For example, Belden Lane goes to New Mexico for spiritual healing. He positions himself in a way where he can only view the land as such. He sits on a hill, next to a tree, and gazes at the mountains; all while ignoring water tanks, the highway, and the ski resorts on the mountain. While at the same time he views himself above the place constructing and framing it’s meaning (as opposed to it constructing him), speaking as an echo of it’s voices. In my own life, I anticipated a religious experience (from the stories I heard) when I visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. When I arrived, my experience was more of anger than anything. The entire first floor was packed with sweaty, camera flashing, inconsiderate tourists; and if you wanted to explore any more than the first floor, you had to pay 40 Euros. After the initial shock subsided, I realized that fee or no fee this place is still sacred. So I purposely pushed the profane aside and found a candle offering. I put in a Euro, lit a candle, and prayed; finally experiencing the holy. I became holy aware of the intersubjectivity between the place and I; I spoke as an echo of the place’s voices. Thus proving that the composition of place is a dynamic exchange between a culturally formed imagination and an embodied contact one experiences.