Sunday, April 28, 2013

Earth Pilgrim

There aren't many television programmes that inspire me but the documentary on Choice TV last night certainly did. Purely by chance I flicked through the channels and the BBC documentary 'Natural World Earth Pilgrim - A spiritual journey into the landscape of Dartmoor with Satish Kumar' was just starting.

I was bewitched and so glad that Google is around so that I could find out more about this special person who had immense respect for the natural world. The following synopsis is taken from the DVD ...
'Produced as part of the award-winning Natural World Series for the BBC. The BBC’s Natural History Unit has brought the marvels of the planet to millions of viewers using breathtaking photography and pioneering film techniques.
Conservationist Satish Kumar spends one year exploring the beauty of England’s Dartmoor National Park. Satish, the world-renowned ecologist, former Jain Monk and pilgrim for peace offers a very Indian perspective on the ancient moorlands through the changing seasons. Backed by exquisite photography, he guides viewers on a lyrical and richly spiritual journey across a beautiful landscape.
Walking the moor and exploring woods and rivers, home to a wealth of wildlife including red deer, starling roosts, kestrels and foxes, Satish introduces the Dartmoor scenes and sights that most inspire him - gnarled oak woods, rushing rivers, stags in rut, wild tracts of heather, cuckoos hungry for food, the metamorphosis of moths - and contemplates what they reveal, and the lessons they hold for humanity.'
...and this review in BBC Wildlife Magazine which says it so much better than me!
Prepare yourself for a soul-searching journey. According to Satish Kumar, who will accompany you, most people don’t feel enlightenment because they never get the chance to sit and think “under a tree, which is the true sustaining force on Earth”. It would be easy to feel patronised by this film, but I came away feeling a better person just for watching it.
Satish Kumar on Dartmoor
 So why don’t most of us know about Satish Kumar, whose face glows with inner goodness and whose ethos is an uncomplicated live and let live? He’s editor of Resurgence, the ecological magazine, but he ought to be dominating mainstream media, instead of the celebrities that represent the antithesis of everything he stands for. Kumar’s opinions about nature should be part of the national curriculum and our leaders should make his insightfulness an integral part of their manifestos. It would be a better world if Bush applied some of Kumar’s principles – and meant them: “To learn the art of frugality and simplicity is to learn the art of living” and “Lead me from falsehood to truth, from fear to trust, from hate to love, from war to peace”. 
Inspired in the early 60s by Mahatma Gandhi, 18-year-old Kumar set off from his native India to make a peaceful protest against nuclear weapons. Some 8,000 miles later, he arrived in Washington DC after travelling through Russia, the Himalayas and Dartmoor in Devon – which captured his soul and is where he returned to live afterwards.
Dartmoor’s wildlife and seasons make a suitably mouthwatering backdrop for Kumar to share his philosophies. Chanting a prayer while sitting in an ancient circle of stones is something most tv presenters would never get away with. But Kumar can. By the closing credits, you feel as though you’ve had a mental massage.'
Review courtesy of Rachel Ashton/BBC Wildlife. For more coverage of upcoming wildlife programmes visit BBC Wildlife Magazine

Despite searching, the DVD doesn't appear to be available now but someone has posted it on YouTube - search for Earth Pilgrim - A Year on Dartmoor. Satish Kumar 2008.

Satish Kumar's philosophy fits well with me and I am looking forward to furthering my education as a Rakiura earth pilgrim and learning from the trees.