I just found this little piece that I wrote for Peter Grant … writer and photographer extraordinaire who focuses his work on the natural world (http://www.naturescribe.com/).
In preparing a keynote presentation Peter asked a few people if they would share their thoughts on Heritage Interpretation to include in his presentation. The following includes a section of what he crafted.
John Pastorelli believes that interpretation “is the key to facilitating those experiences that become the stories we hold dear, the stories we keep within us long after the physical journey has ended.” It can aspire to become “the music in our hearts”, borrowing from William Wordsworth’s poem “The Solitary Reaper”, in which the poet observes a young woman working in a field.
Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;—
I listen’d, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
Interpretation is that deeper sense of connection, meaning and story within each of us and that happens all around us – it is the chat around a coffee table, the tears in the backrow of the cinema, the smiles and laughs over a beer at the pub, the solitude of a wilderness landscape. Interpretation reveals and makes personal the richness and meaning of life. It inspires learning and is the key to facilitating those experiences that become the stories we weave into our life’s tapestry. In many ways Interpretation is not just about revealing a greater truth as much as it is about evoking a personal and individual truth.