The Becoming
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Date
2022-01-26
Authors
Patel, Dhroov
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
A child wanders into a thicket of northern red oak and black raspberry to soothe the wounds of the past. The child is plagued with the malaise of the soul, otherwise know as major depressive disorder, and seeks to heal. As the forest is a reservoir for encountering extrovertive mystical experiences in the form of epiphanies, the child sensitively roams the moist woodland terrain to gain insight into the sacred Truths of Being – notably of wholeness, love, awareness, and death of the ego and time – in order to heal his psyche and soul, and to access the Greater self. The child seeks for mystical experiences in nature through epiphanic phenomena by virtue of developing a ritual practice as a form of pilgrimage in the woodland, known as the mystic’s pilgrimage. The pilgrimage involves: entrance to site, path, arrival, mindfulness meditation, observation, documentation, creation, prayer, and departure from site; a complementary meditation hut, known as the mystic’s hermitage, is crafted for contemplation and meditation during the solitude. The ultimate goal of The Becoming is for the child to emerge from this pilgrimage a more peaceful, self-aware, and knowledgeable individual. This thesis is partially a feat of escapism – not in the sense of cowardice – rather, an opportunity to seek solitude from artefacts of anthropological phenomena and the ego in an in-situ, wiigwaam-esque dwelling constructed from the immediate resources of the forest. An act of deep observation, anecdotes and thick multimedia documentation of relevant abiotic and biotic material, ecological relationships, natural phenomena and mystical experiences will be developed to relay the intimate mystical experiences while acting out the pilgrimage in the woodland.
Description
Keywords
Carl Jung, mystical experience, spiritualism, sacred architecture, Henry David Thoreau, pilgrimage, hermitage, solitude, nature, hero's journey, archetype, perennialism, origins of religion, emplacement