MEANINGFUL INTERPRETATION How To Connect Hearts And Minds To Places, Objects, And Other Resources

Journal Questions:

Why do people value resources like nature centers, battlefields, reservoirs, or scenic wonders?

"These things all have realness. They provide authentic experience and the sense of being there. People value them because they create context and perspective. They reframe aspects of an individual's life."

"They provide escape from regular life duties."

"These places are stages for personal scenes."

"They are pieces of the American quilt that is a reflection of our society. They are a mirror of who we are, who we were, and who we could be."

"They are special places that give us the chance to connect with things bigger than ourselves."

"I believe that many people value these places because they're seen as remnants of how the world used to be."

"They provide signs and instructions for the future."

Journal Questions:

Journal Questions:

If the meanings of a place are accessible separate from the place, why spend time caring for resources?

"So people will be able to experience their meanings. The relevance of these places transcend generations, cultures, and time."

"The power of place. One can't ignore what's in your face."

"Scientists still discover new meanings and values. Losing places means losing species and ecosystems."

"Visitors learn about and understand some of a site's meanings, but a personal connection is more easily formed by experiencing the site itself."

"Places provide a focus for meanings. Meanings are a kite and the place is the string."

"Sensation: to touch physically. Perception: to see from a distance. Conception: to have an idea. The last two can be obtained off-site. Maybe sensations ground us to the earth."

"Places ensure meanings are accessible. I may never visit the Liberty Bell — but because it exists I can still connect to its meaning. I'm glad someone's caring for it so that its meaning can touch others."

The word icon often refers to religious symbols, carvings, dioramas, painted events or figures. All sorts of faith systems incorporate icons into life and worship. Icons are frequently associated with the Eastern Christian Church and many believers feel they are windows to heaven.

Today, a different type of icon glows on the computer monitor, a thumbnail image that, with a click, opens to layers of commands, functions, and entertainment.

As a path to deity or the entrance to cyberspace an icon is a portal to a larger world; it provides access to meanings.

Natural, cultural, and historic sites act as icons. They are symbols, metaphors, platforms, or transporter beams that focus meaning and connect audiences.

OLD FAITHFUL: WESTERN HISTORY/GENEALOGY DEPARTMENT, DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY; STATUE OF LIBERTY: NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION

Journal Questions:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION

The Gettysburg Address is arguably the most important political speech in United States history. Few people realize the speech was also interpretive. President Abraham Lincoln visited the battlefield five months after the town and surrounding countryside witnessed horrific violence, combat, and death to dedicate a national cemetery. Like an interpreter, Lincoln spoke about the meaning of the place.

Lincoln points out the event's meaning, the battle, the men who struggled, and how their sacrifice ultimately transcends the place. Yet Lincoln also valued the place as a powerful icon that connects those who visit with a powerful cause. For Lincoln, Gettysburg represented the struggle for freedom and hope for the future.

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, HAY COPY

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Lincoln also saw natural features as icons for larger meanings. In 1848, Lincoln was a congressman from Illinois embroiled in national politics and the issue of slavery. On a trip to Niagara Falls, obviously moved by the spectacle, he wrote in his journal about the physical explanations, observations, and even wonders of the Falls. But Lincoln also recognized Niagara's "power to excite reflection, and emotion."

NIAGARA FALLS: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION

FRAGMENT ON NIAGARA FALLS, CA. SEPTEMBER 1848

"Niagara-Falls! By what mysterious power is it that millions and millions, are drawn from all parts of the world, to gaze upon Niagara Falls? There is no mystery about the thing itself. Every effect is just such as intelligent man knowing the causes, would anticipate, without it. If the water moving onward in a great river, reaches a point where there is a perpendicular jog, of a hundred feet in descent, in the bottom of the river, — it is plain the water will have a violent and continuous plunge at that point. It is also plain the water, thus plunging, will foam, and roar, and send up a mist, continuously, in which last, during sunshine, there will be perpetual rain-bows. The mere physical of Niagara Falls is only this. Yet this is really a very small part of that world's wonder. It's power to excite reflection, and emotion, is it's great charm. The geologist will demonstrate that the plunge, or fall, was once at Lake Ontario, and has worn it's way back to it's present position; he will ascertain how fast it is wearing now, and so get a basis for determining how long it has been wearing back from Lake Ontario, and finally demonstrate by it that this world is at least fourteen thousand years old. A philosopher of a slightly different turn will say Niagara Falls is only the lip of the basin out of which pours all the surplus water which rains down on two or three hundred thousand square miles of the earth's surface. He will estimate with approximate accuracy, that five hundred thousand tons of water, falls with it's full weight, a distance of a hundred feet each minute — thus exerting a force equal to the lifting of the same weight, through the same space, in the same time. And then the further reflection comes that this vast amount of water constantly pouring down, is supplied by an equal amount constantly lifted up, by the sun; and still he says 'If this much is lifted up, for this one space of two or three hundred thousand square miles, an equal amount must be lifted up for every other equal space'; and he is overwhelmed in the contemplation of the vast power the sun is constantly exerting in quiet, noiseless operation of lifting water up to be rained down again.

"But there is still more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent — when Christ suffered on the cross — when Moses led Israel through the Red Sea — nay, even when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker — then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Contemporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and the Mastodon — now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long — long time, never still for a single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested."