[plain thinking]
A Spiritual Odyssey on the Northern Plains By Clay S. Jenkinson
I’m fascinated by the idea of “spirit of place” and have written a whole book trying to define it and figure out if I have it, if we North Dakotans have it. But for all of that I am not really sure what it is. It might be useful to begin by differentiating two types of “spirit of place.” Spirit of place is either something that emanates from the land and into the people who inhabit or visit it; or it is an attitude held by people towards a place. In other words, either the place permeates people with meaning or identity; or people invest a place with meaning because of their historical or personal association with it. When these two types of spirit of place come together, a very powerful sense of resonance occurs. An example of a place on the Great Plains that has spirit of place is the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument on the plains of Montana. I know a dozen people who have visited the site over the years who swear there is something eerie going on there that cannot be explained rationally. They say they can “feel” something—the battle, the ghosts, an energy in the grass, a kind of karma. My mother (who is not given to the metaphysical) says there is a barely perceptible “sitz sitz sis sis sitz,” she literally hears when she is there, coming from the wind in the grass, and that this unaccountable sibilance means something. I know a disillusioned history professor who says that anyone who happens upon the site and walks around will inevitably “feel” something heightened there. I know a rational preacher who is skeptical of the Apostles Creed, but who was visibly moved by the spirit in the grass when he visited the battlefield for the first time. He had been reading about the battle for many years. “Words, words . . . words,” says Hamlet. Now whether there is really any intrinsic spirit of place at the Little Bighorn battlefield or just meaning we have invested in it because of the amazing terrible thing that happened there on June 25, 1876, is an interesting question. My mother swears that anyone who ventured onto the ridge, someone looking for a K-Mart or a place to have a quiet picnic, but with no understanding of what transpired there 134 years ago, would experience some sort of soul’s heightening. Others, a little less certainly, are inclined to agree. 44
