Kayla Delaguila: I and Thou and Landscapes

Both Landscapes of the Sacred by Lane and I and Thou by Buber discuss how people relate to places. Lane writes about culturally formed imagination vs. embodied contact with the place while Buber talks about Experience vs. Encounter. I think that these relate through the extent to which you understand a place. Lane argues that the imagination is what you go into the place ‘already knowing,’ it is the mental picture that is in your head as a result of things you have been told. While the contact is literally your relationship with the place after you have actually visited. With Buber, when you experience you do not participate in the world, it is an internal event, much like the imagination for Lane. Both of them are internalized rather then literally shared with or gained from the place itself. Then Buber explains encounter as actually touches the you, when one encounters they become involved in the place, similar to Lane’s embodied contact. With the contact there is an actual relationship with the place. I think the quote from Buber is interesting, “those who experience do not participate in the world,” I feel that is a very bold statement. How can you experience without participating? That totally messes with my definition of experience. I followed his train of thought besides that, but he loses me here. If you define participate as solely in your own head, then it makes sense, but I feel that statement on it’s own is too much.