Co-presence: Being Consciously Aware of Spiritual Energy

Co-presence is a concept that allows us to turn our gaze to our relationships that are embedded within our environment. In this reflexive space, we can analyze human and non-human forms of relating. In the Oxford definition co-presence is defined as, “In any form of mediated communication, the phenomenological sense of ‘being there’ with another person in place and/or time: see also presence.” - https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095638654
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This Fall season has taken me to different places that have given me the opportunity to reflect about how human beings relate with other life forms, rooted within their bioregions.
 
At the November 2022 conference in Sierre, Switzerland, “Mountains on the move: imaginaries practices and lives,” Professor Holly Thorpe from New Zealand presented “Towards More Than Human Mountainous Mobilities.” She described how people move to mountainous regions and how their relationship with the natural environment is a main source of nourishment that influences their choices to settle in mountainous regions. Many people connect and interact with the “mountainscape” through sports like skiing or snowboarding. However, our relationship with the mountain can transition from engaging in winter sports to something much more fundamental. For instance, the interconnectedness that I experience living in the Alps is an important aspect of my life.
 
An example of an Indigenous conceptualization, that recognizes our relationship with the natural environment, comes from the Maori people. Personhood was attributed to the Whanganui River in New Zealand in 2017. The Maori people were able to bring forth this new legal status to not only protect their river but to reaffirm their spiritual connection to this life force - ​https://apnews.com/article/religion-sacred-rivers-new-zealand-86d34a78f5fc662ccd554dd7f578d217

​This new status personhood status opens up reflexive space. Our perceptions and relationships, in relation to nature and the rights of rivers and even mountains and glaciers, are transformed when we integrate Indigenous understandings and practices.
 
I participated on a panel organized by Mike Poltorak, a member of the Interface Commission. The panel showcased engaged anthropology at the Swiss Anthropological Association’s annual meeting and conference in November 2022. I presented a vision of mediatorship, a conflict resolution concept that I have developed. I described a research model that was used to develop a culture of mediation by engaging in a film-making process that identified stakeholders and reinforced partnerships. I explained how the Valais Mediation Association’s 10th anniversary film event culminated with a round-table political discussion about mediation in May 2022.
 
Following the panel presentation, we were invited to visit the Ethnographic Museum in Neuchâtel for a guided exhibit visit that examines the notion of “wild” (https://www.men.ch/en/welcome).

​The exhibit framed human and non-human relationships, underscoring the political implications that are linked to the social construction of different ecological approaches.
 
During the conference, I enjoyed listening to other panel presentations that looked at human connections, illustrating shepherding practices in Alpine pastures. Another presentation on that panel enlightened us about what Gowlland Geoffrey referred to as co-presence.  He presented experiences of being gazed at by a monkey, as he gazed at the monkey in the forest in Taiwan where he does research. He also described Indigenous people in Taiwan and their relationship with dangerous mountain terrains and how the people of the region connected to a sensitivity that served to warn them when walking through perilous mountainscapes (https://www.sagw.ch/fileadmin/redaktion_seg-sse/Jahrestagungen/2022/LONG-PROG-A5-1nov.pdf).

This reminded me of Mike Poltorak’s work with the Tongan people who refer to the Va in his film “The Healer and the Psychiatrist” (https://valueofvideo.com/healerpsychiatrist/).

The Va is an Indigenous concept that describes a form of relatedness. The Va englobes a form of kinship where the land and kin both nourish us. Illustrating these live-giving relationships provides a beautiful representation of our linkedness. I refer to this as living in/on Earthship.
 
After the conferences, on my way home, my husband and I went with my daughter Katrina and her family to Romainmôtier, a sacred site with a Romanesque church built on the model of Cluny next to a natural source of water (https://www.myvalleedejoux.ch/en/P650/romainmotier-abbey-church).

​Not only did we visit the church, but we walked to the source where water emerges from the earth, bringing forth a stream that has given life to the region through the ages. I explained this to my grandson, Nevin, connecting the story of the source to the development of the Cluniac network. I showed him the silver cross I was wearing, a beautiful replica from the sculpted stone in the church. It symbolizes the cultural exchanges that took place throughout Europe. The interlacing design seems to weave together different forms of sacredness that emanate from the source.
 
The following weekend we all went to Zermatt to celebrate my husband Angelo’s 60th birthday. Nils, our mountaineer son, has climbed the Matterhorn as well as many of the surrounding summits. He organized a helicopter flight to fly over the mountain peaks. We experienced an overview of the mountains he had skillfully climbed in a moment that brought together kinship, the mountainscape, and our homeplace.  We were face to face with the wonderous beauty of our Alpine region. When we flew around the Matterhorn, it was if we were connecting to its personhood as well as its physical and spiritual energy that nourishes us, marking the Earth with its grandeur. We could also see how the glaciers had melted from this year’s hot temperatures, feeling a sense of mourning. This was an extraordinary experience of co-presence. I understood how the majesty of the mountain summits had called Nils to the top, shaping his abilities to climb.
 
In Homing In, I recount about my experience as a college student visiting the Big Island, part of the Hawaiian Islands, and how I met a man who had given up a child to adoption the same year I was born. Through his story, I became conscious of the existence of my birth parents that weren’t just a shadow from my past, but real people. He took me to sacred land where we ran together on the trails of the Hawaiian kings. On those runs, I felt connected to a wave guide that rolled over me, activating my quest orientation. This multi-sensorial encounter ultimately led me back to my birth family. Had I sensed the Va that is known and experienced by the Indigenous Polynesians of the region?
 
These recollections illustrate a nourishing co-presence that has shaped my becomingness. By sharing these stories, I hope that others will discover a form of live-giving generativity. Academic conferences, exhibits, cultural sites, and mountain peaks all provide encounters with the ‘Source’. I have included pictures at the source in Romainmôtier as well as a picture of a cross carved in stone that was used to make my silver cross that I often wear. There is also a picture of the Matterhorn.
I have also included an excerpt from an article that describes the Pacific Islanders’ experience of the Va. In the Alps, our family experiences co-presence with the mountains, glaciers, and water sources. The sacred markings on the Earth, like the rock formation of the Matterhorn, connect us to unique planetary energies have been represented in artform and woven into the archtecture of sacred cultural sites. Encountering these natural environments and cultural sites can help us renew our relationship with our common home, Earth. Experential learning can take us to places that contain a form of “mana” or nourishment for the soul. In the native Havaiian culture, mana is understood to be a form of spiritual energy of power and strength. Both the Matterhorn and the source in Romainmôtier are locations where mana can be felt. These sacred locations renew our energy and ground us in radical amazement. When we recognize and sense these spiritual energies, we experience co-presence.