It isn’t difficult to be utterly entranced by this world. Near the town of Roussillon, in the South of France, there is an ochre trail you can follow through a forest. Two things have made this place as amazing as it is…first, and foremost, the Earth herself, which has created the most incredibly beautiful ochre rocks….pink, rose, yellow, orange, and many shades in-between. They are really, really gorgeous. Secondly, human beings who have mined this rock in the past, and have since, allowed, encouraged, and nurtured the forest to grow up around the rocks. So you look at a site like this and you see that interplay of human and non-human forces.
One of the most stunning features of the ochre is how often the surfaces look like faces. As best I know, these are not art works. Nobody deliberately carved the rocks to look like this – although it would be none the less beautiful if they had. No, it seems that we see the faces because of that part of the human brain which has evolved a special skill in seeing and recognising faces. Yes, there really is such a part of the brain! We use it to recognise other humans, but it works all the time, showing us what appear to be faces in rocks, clouds, trees….you name it.
I love that all of this – the geological creativity of the Earth, the living world of trees, and the evolution of the human brain, all combine to make a place like this feel utterly magical. This is the kind of “enchantment” I think we humans long for. This is the kind of “spiritual longing” which only the Earth can satisfy.
For me, these images will always be “The Ochre Gods of the Forest”. Aren’t they fabulous?
Heroes Not Zombies 
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