History and Spiritual Connection

Today, I read an article named “Human use helped shape the James” by Andy Thompson in the Richmond Times Dispatch. I agree with many points that the author made in his article. At the very beginning of his article, he mentioned that he was looking for a book that he would very much like to read: “Falls of the James Atlas” by W.E. Trout III. After many tries to retain the book, he finally found the book at the Fluvanna County Historical Society. The book explains many places of interest from the beginning to the end of the James, the book also put the places of interest into context. At one part of the book, the author mentioned “a mill dam across half the James in that area (the rapids there now are known as Mitchell’s Gut), which shunted water to the mill ‘by damming spaces between the bedrocks with piled blasted stones.’”[1] This simple fact changed Andy’s view of the river completely. He made a conclusion that “James through Richmond, likewise, has a dynamic history of human use that has shaped it, at least in the past 200 years, as much as mother nature.”[2] I agree with Andy completely, learning the history of certain sites has made me appreciate the nature of the sites more. For example, after I learned that Belle Isle was a civil war prisoner camp, I took on a completely different view of it. Many times I hear people disapproving history majors; I think it’s a common misconception that History is just a collection of random facts. I believe that many times spiritual connections with nature, animals, or people are made from the understanding of the history.