Kiara Girkins Snyder Response 2

In Gary Snyder’s passage on page 87 he says that the, “connection of religion to land, however, has been resisted by the dominant culture and the courts. This ancient aspect of religious worship remains virtually incomprehensible to Euro-Americans.” I believe this statement to be completely inaccurate and not to mention ignorant. If Euro-Americans have no conception of connecting religion to land, then how can he explain the extremely popular desire Euro-Americans often have to go hiking or any other outdoor activity simply to be closer to nature, and to be spiritually enlightened? To say Euro-Americans find this connection to be incomprehensible is absurd. Euro-Americans may not have traditionally had their religious views centered around land and wilderness, but that does not mean they cannot understand the significance of it. Examples can be found in nearly every common Euro-American religion that convey the significance of the connection between religion and landscape. The idea of creation itself is an example as God created everything, including wilderness, and saw that it was “good.” Moses was in direct connection with God in the desert with the burning bush, another significant example. You see, it is often in the wilderness that people feel most directly connected to God because they are no longer in control, this include Euro-Americans. So while the worship of land itself may not be at the forefront of typical Euro-American religion, the idea of understanding its connection to religion is by no means incomprehensible.

Every person, culture and religion utilizes the land in different ways. To say one is more correct, or is better than another is impossible and unsupportable. And to say that it is incomprehensible is to say that European Americans have never experienced wilderness in a way that is spiritual, which is an impossibly bold thing to say.