Ecstatic Places

Abstract

Fifteen autobiographies from a larger random sample were selected for examination in this article because they exhibit the type of intense environmental encounter described by Edith Cobb in her essay (1959) and book, The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood (1977). These autobiographies are analyzed for insight into four questions: Are autobiographers who record memories of this kind distinguished by any special characteristics? What types of places inspire these memories? Under what conditions are these places encountered? What effect are these memories reported to have? The analysis did not support Cobb's contention that an intense experience of simultaneous relatedness and discontinuity with nature is a universal childhood experience. This experience was reported only by authors who were artists by vocation or avocation, under conditions of freedom in expansive natural or urban settings. The benefit most frequently attributed to these memories ia center of calm that could be tapped for stability amid adult stresses.