
‘Sacred Grove’ in When the Wild Comes Leaping Up
Personal Encounters with Nature
David Suzuki (ed.)
(Vancouver, Greystone Books, 2002), pp. 65—83
Award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster David Suzuki has included Jennifer Potter’s essay, ’Sacred Grove’, in this eloquent collection of personal encounters with nature alongside work by Margaret Atwood, Diane Ackerman, Richard Flanagan and others.
Writers from the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia describe how their encounter with the natural world moved them, enhanced their understanding or awareness, or changed them in some way. Their essays describe childhood memories; startling or magical encounters with wild creatures; moments of grief, loss, or hubris; and even one fantasy.
Potter’s essay recounts what happened when she stepped into Iain Hamilton Finlay’s ‘Sacred Grove’ at the Kröller–Müller sculpture park at Otterlo in the eastern Netherlands. Written before the age of digital photography, the essay’s central question continues to resonates today: ‘Must I wait for the photographs to be developed before I know what I have seen and felt?’