Natural World (1983) s27e03 Episode Script
Earth Pilgrim: A Year on Dartmoor
My name is Satish Kumar I called myself an earth pilgrim Because the living earth in all its grace and beauty is my inspiration and the source of my spirituality I've lived in Devon over half my life as a writer, ecologist, a pacifist When I discovered Dartmoor I was enchanted, spellbound by her rugged beauty Walking the moors is my prayer, my meditation and my solitude God is nature and nature is my God To be an earth pilgrim is to revere the earth I call her Gaia You might call her Mother Nature My pilgrimage started a long time ago Many footsteps have brought me here Dartmoor, my wild paradise So different from the place of my birth, Rajastan in India where I grew up and became an earth pilgrim at age 9 60 years on, my pilgrimage continues, wandering the moor I look at this land through different eyes because I am a child of the desert When I was a boy, my father died I left my mother, I left my home Forsaking all worldly possessions, I became a Jain monk I had many questions to ask of life and death In becoming a monk I hope to find the answers Jain religion believes in the practice of complete and total non-violence Being non-violent to yourself being non-violent to other people and being non-violent to nature All living creatures have equal rights as humans Even though now I'm 70, I'm no longer a Jain monk still, I adhere and embrace that principle of non-violence and I practice the principle of non-violence even now I spent 9 years of my childhood in a monastery practicing meditation learning the teachings of Jainism, an ancient Indian religion This was enlightening but I felt something lacking in my life My direction in life changed at 18 when I discovered the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi Practice spirituality in everyday life, said Gandhi So I left the monastery behind and walked the world in the name of peace Gandhi had inspired me to put my body on the line and make a non-violent protest against the violence of nuclear weapons across the deserts of Persia the high Himalayas of Pakistan and the snowy expanse of Russia An 8,000-mile pilgrimage for peace which took me from the grave of Gandhi in New Delhi to the grave of J.
F.
Kennedy in Washington DC My journey confirmed my belief that there can be no peace in the world if we make no peace with the earth Having walked the world, I discovered Dartmoor and made Devon my home 40 years I walked the seasons of Dartmoor 40 years of memories 40 years of connection with the moor's magnificence and mystery In winter, Dartmoor is bleak but not barren A murmuration of starlings at dusk in January is one of the great delights of Dartmoor Enough birds to darken the sky More than a million starlings homing in on their ancestral roost for nightly communion gathering for warmth and safety in the protection of numbers They stream from every direction joining, breaking ranks, floating free like some black aurora The collective power of the flock of small birds Small is not only beautiful but also powerful They are one immense organism pulsating like a single cell This sight reminds me how small I am under a January sky Starlings lift my spirits on cold nights and give warmth to my heart Life returning once more to Dartmoor I come to the moor to breathe the air for the aroma of wet grass and coolness of water for peace The ancient cultures of Pagans and Druids understood the meaning of peace For them, peace was a way of life They revered the earth and respected the seasons They made pilgrimages to nature too In winter, I come to Wistman's Wood a sacred grove of oak high up on the moor Wistman's Woods means woods of the wise so wise people come here for inspiration, celebration and wisdom I come here and find peace and tranquility Local myths and legends speak of nature spirits inhabiting these woods The Celtic word for oak is 'dart' Dartmoor was moor of the oak Sadly, this is the remnant of the woods which used to be everywhere on Dartmoor These trees are like poetry to me, paintings; like songs of the earth I don't have to go and think and look for paradise above the sky When I come here, I'm in paradise Life is vibrant and resilient here lichen and moss thrive These species are exquisite and form a vital link in the interconnectedness of all living things Life dancing into existence in this fragment of ancient woodland It is April and cuckoos have returned from Africa Their song signals spring Long ago, people of Dartmoor would catch and cage a cuckoo in the hope of keeping spring eternal When the cuckoo arrives, the moor starts to come alive Metamorphosis is a miracle A journey of transformation that confirms my belief in reincarnation A caterpillar changing into an emperor moth This emperor's new clothe can be seen by all, full of vibrant color The female waits on heather for mates to find her on the wing Once again, life renewing A little magic in the vastness of this wilderness Dartmoor is my temple a glorious cathedral of nature millions of years old formed by the powers of geological time In spring, I make my pilgrimage to the Dart a river flowing through the heart of the moor The waters of the Dart evoke memories of my father His death was a journey into water When he died, my mother and I immersed his ashes in the holy waters of the Ganges believing this sacred river would carry him to nirvana the heavenly realm of eternal peace Ganges water is holy so too is the water of all the world's rivers I believe drinking water from the Ganges with one's last breath connects the soul to eternal life Bathing in her waters brings purity to body and mind I say a prayer to the river may all my fear, anger and attachment be washed away Water is the matrix of life Wondrous clouds deliver it free of charge to every household, every field and every garden Water for birds, for animals, for planets and for us Water is precious, water is sacred The way we use water is a measure of us A reverential relationship with water is an ecological imperative We abuse water at our peril There's one creature that won't be here if the water was anything less than pure the beautiful damsel Damselflies are one of the oldest creatures on earth They were here long before dinosaurs They are flying jewels extravagant iridescent accommodative I'm in awe of this mating ritual that's been going on for 300 million years A fleeting moment in the great continuum of life on earth A beautiful damsel lays her eggs carefully only in the purest of water Their presence is a sure sign of a healthy ecosystem Sometimes a walk in May is rewarded by a fleeting glimpse of a mother fox and her cubs The fox is a creature I love for it's wit and intelligence When I came to live in Devon I was shocked to see men in red and packs of dogs engaged in the ritualized killing of these innocent animals I value all life equally irrespective of its use or annoyance to humans In human arrogance, we play god and issue judgment on what should live and what should die We talk of human rights we also need to recognize the rights of nature Live and let live, I say [When I hear them say there's better living Let them go their way to that new living I won't ever stray, 'Cause this is heaven to me Long as freedom grows, I want to seek it If it's yes or no, it's me who'll speak it 'Cause the lord, he knows that this is heaven to me.]
The bluebell is the sapphire queen of May and most seductive flower One of my favorite poets Gerard Manley Hopkins called the bluebell 'the very glory of god' He praised them for their intoxicant perfume washing wet like lakes and said 'Long live the wet and wilderness yet' The pristine white of hawthorn flowers bridge the gap between spring and summer This is the time of year I look up and hear a song a gift from above Skylarks keep me enchanted forever and ever The moor is one of its last strongholds William Blake called it 'the mighty angel' and Wordsworth 'The ethereal minstrel' Seeing a lark ascending, Von Williams was inspired to emulate in song and music Their glorious song is so firmly embedded in my sense of the Dartmoor landscape so much part of the air and soil that I cannot imagine this world without it On Dartmoor I see the extraordinary in what could easily be dismissed as ordinary [Can you blame the sky when a mama leaves her babies behind Can you blame the sky when a mama leaves her babies behind.]
This little meadow pipit is a foster parent to this huge cuckoo chick The chick's parents have flown back to Africa entrusting the noble pipit to feed their young How amazing that the cuckoo can fool other birds into nurturing its offspring This young cuckoo without parents' guidance will soon find its way to the warmer climate of Africa a miraculous journey only possible because of the cuckoo's innate ability to navigate by the sun and stars While I was growing up among the sand dunes of Rajastan I heard stories of England To a desert child like me this green and pleasant land seemed like a mythical place beyond my imagination When I finally found my way here I was overwhelmed by lush vitality What contrast! These trees give pleasure to a pilgrim like me in total harmony with the wind and the land They give shade to a deer berries to a bird beauty to the land and health to humans I'm sitting under this tree and I am thinking that this tree is a temple to the earth And I'm thinking of my mother because she used to say to me the tree is the true teacher of humanity and the greatest teacher that we had even greater than the Buddha And I would ask her 'What do you mean greater than the Buddha?' Because Buddha was the greatest teacher in India and then mother would say but even the Buddha got his enlightenment while sitting under a tree Nowadays people don't get enlightenment because they don't sit under a tree And I now realize how right she was Because when I come to the tree, I feel a sense of calm, a sense of healing It is the true sustaining force of the earth Earth is our gracious host but are we gracious guests in return? In these final 2 weeks of August I come to Haytor to celebrate the wild beauty of heather and gorse I see the bees buzzy collecting a little nectar here and a little nectar there Never too much Nature in balance but this balance is tipping In the past 20 years human impact has caused the majority of the world's bee population to vanish If they fade away that so too does all of this So profound is the bee's role in pollination the impact of their demise is unthinkable I believe, Einstein said If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then humans would only have 4 years of life left No more bees no more pollination no more plants, no more animals no more people Their fate is in our hands and ours in theirs Human beings go to nature and take, take, take, until all natural sources are depleted Honeybees never do that If I can learn better lesson of frugality and simplicity I will be learning the art of living [Born a poor young country boy Mother Nature's son All day long I'm sitting singing songs for everyone Sit beside a mountain stream See her waters rise Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies Wah, Mother Nature's son.]
The hovering kestrel is a truly inspirational sight of avian perfection These are young birds searching the moor for tiny grasshoppers holding acute vision motionless Ted Hughes wrote of the kestrel's mastery of the air 'Effortlessly at height hangs his still eye His wings hold all creation in a weightless quiet Back in the early 60s when I arrived in Britain the kestrel survival was threatened by our fatal use of pesticides They recovered thanks to the spirit of conservation It is autumn the fruits have fallen the leaves are decaying and becoming one with the soil Feeding and regenerating the earth It is the twilight of the year Its golden aura and still new light upon us The red deer rut marks the beginning of the fresh cycle of life When we say nature nature means what is born and what would die Nature is not only the trees, the mountains the rivers, the animals I am born, and I will die, so I'm nature too We all humans are nature We are nature Therefore, I welcome death and I welcome birth I welcome autumn, I welcome spring So I come to Dartmoor to celebrate the autumn as I come to Dartmoor to celebrate the spring Long, long time ago when I was only 4 years old I remembered my father dying and my mother was full of sorrow and my sisters and brothers were crying And I thought what a terrible thing death is can I find a way of living without dying And so I left home in search of a deathfree existence And then I realized that death is not the end of life death is a door into birth Death is the continuum of life Death and birth are two sides of the same coin So I need not fear death I need not fear autumn I celebrate autumn, I celebrate spring This is how I understand the meaning of eternal life Even at this time of year when it appears as if all around is dying Universe is one poem one song one verse It is manifesting in millions and millions of forms but the unity of life and the universe is always there Totally interdependent, interconnecting self managing, self organizing self healing system It is a miraculous system Sadly human species seem to consider themselves as a superior species We try to control nature, manipulate nature The way we treat our animals, the way we treat our forests the way we treat our oceans and rivers that appears as if we are at war against nature And in waging war against nature we create problems for ourselves Because we are nature.
And global warming, pollution of rivers and depletion of resources, is like cutting the branch upon which we are sitting And in this war, we are driven by fear of the end of civilization and the fear of catastrophe I'm inspired by the love of nature, love of earth hope for humanity and not by fear Fear-driven existence for humanity cannot lead us to a sustainable future It seems to me that one of the fundamental failures of our time is our disconnection from the natural world No longer are we humble enough to identify ourselves as just a part of the whole The consequence of this separation is grave environmental crisis We are challenged as humankind has never been challenged before To prove our mastery not of nature but of ourselves To make peace with the earth and appreciate it for what it gives not for what we can take Lead me from death to life from falsehood to truth lead me from despair to hope from fear to trust lead me from hate to love from war to peace Let peace fill our hearts our world, our universe Peace, peace, peace I am an earth pilgrim If I've learned anything from wandering the path of nature is that the earth does not belong to us It is borrowed from the future of our children Transcription and synchronization by Andrew and Hattie
F.
Kennedy in Washington DC My journey confirmed my belief that there can be no peace in the world if we make no peace with the earth Having walked the world, I discovered Dartmoor and made Devon my home 40 years I walked the seasons of Dartmoor 40 years of memories 40 years of connection with the moor's magnificence and mystery In winter, Dartmoor is bleak but not barren A murmuration of starlings at dusk in January is one of the great delights of Dartmoor Enough birds to darken the sky More than a million starlings homing in on their ancestral roost for nightly communion gathering for warmth and safety in the protection of numbers They stream from every direction joining, breaking ranks, floating free like some black aurora The collective power of the flock of small birds Small is not only beautiful but also powerful They are one immense organism pulsating like a single cell This sight reminds me how small I am under a January sky Starlings lift my spirits on cold nights and give warmth to my heart Life returning once more to Dartmoor I come to the moor to breathe the air for the aroma of wet grass and coolness of water for peace The ancient cultures of Pagans and Druids understood the meaning of peace For them, peace was a way of life They revered the earth and respected the seasons They made pilgrimages to nature too In winter, I come to Wistman's Wood a sacred grove of oak high up on the moor Wistman's Woods means woods of the wise so wise people come here for inspiration, celebration and wisdom I come here and find peace and tranquility Local myths and legends speak of nature spirits inhabiting these woods The Celtic word for oak is 'dart' Dartmoor was moor of the oak Sadly, this is the remnant of the woods which used to be everywhere on Dartmoor These trees are like poetry to me, paintings; like songs of the earth I don't have to go and think and look for paradise above the sky When I come here, I'm in paradise Life is vibrant and resilient here lichen and moss thrive These species are exquisite and form a vital link in the interconnectedness of all living things Life dancing into existence in this fragment of ancient woodland It is April and cuckoos have returned from Africa Their song signals spring Long ago, people of Dartmoor would catch and cage a cuckoo in the hope of keeping spring eternal When the cuckoo arrives, the moor starts to come alive Metamorphosis is a miracle A journey of transformation that confirms my belief in reincarnation A caterpillar changing into an emperor moth This emperor's new clothe can be seen by all, full of vibrant color The female waits on heather for mates to find her on the wing Once again, life renewing A little magic in the vastness of this wilderness Dartmoor is my temple a glorious cathedral of nature millions of years old formed by the powers of geological time In spring, I make my pilgrimage to the Dart a river flowing through the heart of the moor The waters of the Dart evoke memories of my father His death was a journey into water When he died, my mother and I immersed his ashes in the holy waters of the Ganges believing this sacred river would carry him to nirvana the heavenly realm of eternal peace Ganges water is holy so too is the water of all the world's rivers I believe drinking water from the Ganges with one's last breath connects the soul to eternal life Bathing in her waters brings purity to body and mind I say a prayer to the river may all my fear, anger and attachment be washed away Water is the matrix of life Wondrous clouds deliver it free of charge to every household, every field and every garden Water for birds, for animals, for planets and for us Water is precious, water is sacred The way we use water is a measure of us A reverential relationship with water is an ecological imperative We abuse water at our peril There's one creature that won't be here if the water was anything less than pure the beautiful damsel Damselflies are one of the oldest creatures on earth They were here long before dinosaurs They are flying jewels extravagant iridescent accommodative I'm in awe of this mating ritual that's been going on for 300 million years A fleeting moment in the great continuum of life on earth A beautiful damsel lays her eggs carefully only in the purest of water Their presence is a sure sign of a healthy ecosystem Sometimes a walk in May is rewarded by a fleeting glimpse of a mother fox and her cubs The fox is a creature I love for it's wit and intelligence When I came to live in Devon I was shocked to see men in red and packs of dogs engaged in the ritualized killing of these innocent animals I value all life equally irrespective of its use or annoyance to humans In human arrogance, we play god and issue judgment on what should live and what should die We talk of human rights we also need to recognize the rights of nature Live and let live, I say [When I hear them say there's better living Let them go their way to that new living I won't ever stray, 'Cause this is heaven to me Long as freedom grows, I want to seek it If it's yes or no, it's me who'll speak it 'Cause the lord, he knows that this is heaven to me.]
The bluebell is the sapphire queen of May and most seductive flower One of my favorite poets Gerard Manley Hopkins called the bluebell 'the very glory of god' He praised them for their intoxicant perfume washing wet like lakes and said 'Long live the wet and wilderness yet' The pristine white of hawthorn flowers bridge the gap between spring and summer This is the time of year I look up and hear a song a gift from above Skylarks keep me enchanted forever and ever The moor is one of its last strongholds William Blake called it 'the mighty angel' and Wordsworth 'The ethereal minstrel' Seeing a lark ascending, Von Williams was inspired to emulate in song and music Their glorious song is so firmly embedded in my sense of the Dartmoor landscape so much part of the air and soil that I cannot imagine this world without it On Dartmoor I see the extraordinary in what could easily be dismissed as ordinary [Can you blame the sky when a mama leaves her babies behind Can you blame the sky when a mama leaves her babies behind.]
This little meadow pipit is a foster parent to this huge cuckoo chick The chick's parents have flown back to Africa entrusting the noble pipit to feed their young How amazing that the cuckoo can fool other birds into nurturing its offspring This young cuckoo without parents' guidance will soon find its way to the warmer climate of Africa a miraculous journey only possible because of the cuckoo's innate ability to navigate by the sun and stars While I was growing up among the sand dunes of Rajastan I heard stories of England To a desert child like me this green and pleasant land seemed like a mythical place beyond my imagination When I finally found my way here I was overwhelmed by lush vitality What contrast! These trees give pleasure to a pilgrim like me in total harmony with the wind and the land They give shade to a deer berries to a bird beauty to the land and health to humans I'm sitting under this tree and I am thinking that this tree is a temple to the earth And I'm thinking of my mother because she used to say to me the tree is the true teacher of humanity and the greatest teacher that we had even greater than the Buddha And I would ask her 'What do you mean greater than the Buddha?' Because Buddha was the greatest teacher in India and then mother would say but even the Buddha got his enlightenment while sitting under a tree Nowadays people don't get enlightenment because they don't sit under a tree And I now realize how right she was Because when I come to the tree, I feel a sense of calm, a sense of healing It is the true sustaining force of the earth Earth is our gracious host but are we gracious guests in return? In these final 2 weeks of August I come to Haytor to celebrate the wild beauty of heather and gorse I see the bees buzzy collecting a little nectar here and a little nectar there Never too much Nature in balance but this balance is tipping In the past 20 years human impact has caused the majority of the world's bee population to vanish If they fade away that so too does all of this So profound is the bee's role in pollination the impact of their demise is unthinkable I believe, Einstein said If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then humans would only have 4 years of life left No more bees no more pollination no more plants, no more animals no more people Their fate is in our hands and ours in theirs Human beings go to nature and take, take, take, until all natural sources are depleted Honeybees never do that If I can learn better lesson of frugality and simplicity I will be learning the art of living [Born a poor young country boy Mother Nature's son All day long I'm sitting singing songs for everyone Sit beside a mountain stream See her waters rise Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies Wah, Mother Nature's son.]
The hovering kestrel is a truly inspirational sight of avian perfection These are young birds searching the moor for tiny grasshoppers holding acute vision motionless Ted Hughes wrote of the kestrel's mastery of the air 'Effortlessly at height hangs his still eye His wings hold all creation in a weightless quiet Back in the early 60s when I arrived in Britain the kestrel survival was threatened by our fatal use of pesticides They recovered thanks to the spirit of conservation It is autumn the fruits have fallen the leaves are decaying and becoming one with the soil Feeding and regenerating the earth It is the twilight of the year Its golden aura and still new light upon us The red deer rut marks the beginning of the fresh cycle of life When we say nature nature means what is born and what would die Nature is not only the trees, the mountains the rivers, the animals I am born, and I will die, so I'm nature too We all humans are nature We are nature Therefore, I welcome death and I welcome birth I welcome autumn, I welcome spring So I come to Dartmoor to celebrate the autumn as I come to Dartmoor to celebrate the spring Long, long time ago when I was only 4 years old I remembered my father dying and my mother was full of sorrow and my sisters and brothers were crying And I thought what a terrible thing death is can I find a way of living without dying And so I left home in search of a deathfree existence And then I realized that death is not the end of life death is a door into birth Death is the continuum of life Death and birth are two sides of the same coin So I need not fear death I need not fear autumn I celebrate autumn, I celebrate spring This is how I understand the meaning of eternal life Even at this time of year when it appears as if all around is dying Universe is one poem one song one verse It is manifesting in millions and millions of forms but the unity of life and the universe is always there Totally interdependent, interconnecting self managing, self organizing self healing system It is a miraculous system Sadly human species seem to consider themselves as a superior species We try to control nature, manipulate nature The way we treat our animals, the way we treat our forests the way we treat our oceans and rivers that appears as if we are at war against nature And in waging war against nature we create problems for ourselves Because we are nature.
And global warming, pollution of rivers and depletion of resources, is like cutting the branch upon which we are sitting And in this war, we are driven by fear of the end of civilization and the fear of catastrophe I'm inspired by the love of nature, love of earth hope for humanity and not by fear Fear-driven existence for humanity cannot lead us to a sustainable future It seems to me that one of the fundamental failures of our time is our disconnection from the natural world No longer are we humble enough to identify ourselves as just a part of the whole The consequence of this separation is grave environmental crisis We are challenged as humankind has never been challenged before To prove our mastery not of nature but of ourselves To make peace with the earth and appreciate it for what it gives not for what we can take Lead me from death to life from falsehood to truth lead me from despair to hope from fear to trust lead me from hate to love from war to peace Let peace fill our hearts our world, our universe Peace, peace, peace I am an earth pilgrim If I've learned anything from wandering the path of nature is that the earth does not belong to us It is borrowed from the future of our children Transcription and synchronization by Andrew and Hattie