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Nature, water symbols, and the human quest for wholeness

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Dwelling, Place and Environment

Abstract

Few words so commonplace in everday vocabulary are so elusive to grasp as “the whole.”1 Like mirrors, notions of what constitutes a “whole picture” may reflect quite as much of what is in the eye of the beholder as they do about reality. Herein lies a profound dilemma. Once a person, group, or culture articulates its own conception of the whole, immediately antennae on other possible wholes become fixed; receptors to foreign insights become restricted to those categories which are familiar and, therefore, limited.

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Notes

  1. This essay is an abbreviated version of a presentation to theologians and hydrologists at a symposium on water problems, Lund University, October 1982; see Anne Buttimer, “Water Symbolism and the Understanding of Wholeness,” in Reinhold Castensson, ed., Vattnet bar livet (Linkoping, Sweden: University of Linkoping, 1984 ), pp. 57–92.

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Authors
  1. Anne Buttimer
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David Seamon Robert Mugerauer

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© 1985 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht

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Buttimer, A. (1985). Nature, water symbols, and the human quest for wholeness. In: Seamon, D., Mugerauer, R. (eds) Dwelling, Place and Environment. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9251-7_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9251-7_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-247-3282-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-010-9251-7

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