INTRODUCTION 31
We choose to use poetic language as well as visual images to convey
some of the stories we explore, especially when the ideas we share
are difficult to convey within the traditional linear structures of our
English language. We hope this book will also serve as a source of
inspiration for anyone interested in working with arts and nature
in the service of life. We hope to inspire reflection on the attitudes
and practices that shape our work and our lives and to explore how
it may be possible to live and work with awareness of our intimate
relationship with the living Earth.
Academic disciplines speak in different voices within different
language domains. Each discipline has its own methods for
exploring the questions deemed most important to consider. The
discursive landscape of expressive arts involves transdisciplinary
and cross-cultural integration, weaving the threads of differing
views into its own language domain. In this book we also include
ideas from other disciplines and cultures. However, we attempt to
speak in a clear and straightforward way in order to be accessible
to an international readership of professionals, students and general
readers. For clarification we define our use of the following terms.
Nature
Poet and essayist Gary Snyder (1990) elaborates various meanings
of the word nature. It comes from the Latin natura meaning character,
course of things and to be born. One meaning is the essence or
character of something, as in the nature of a person or thing. A second
commonly used meaning is the outdoors, wild nature or wilderness,
the world apart from the interventions of humans. The other broader
meaning of nature is the creative power operating in the world and
all of the phenomena of the world including products of human
action. From this perspective nature is everything, thus reframing the
bifurcation of nature as opposed to culture. In this book we use
the word nature primarily in its broad meaning. However, we also
use it at times to mean wild nature, as in instances in which we talk
about the natural objects and materials not made by humans. By
nature-based expressive arts we mean the practice of expressive arts