Place and identity

"Having a place is integral to the formation of a healthy ecological identity. Being "placed" in a landscape shapes the mind - the contours of the hills, the rivers and lakes and the forests become mirrored in a person's way of being. To have one's place in the mountains is, in a sense, to become mountainous in ones' identity. Is it not then, as so often is the case in our industrial cultrue ,that to have on place to call home is to become NOWHERE in one's identity? One becomes... disconnected, disenchanted: displaced."

Jason Kirkey. The Salmon in the Spring.

The next idea from this book that took my heart for a walk was this one... do we, in order to be fully human have to know our place...

is this sense of dis-place-ment that he speaks of, at the centre of the restlessness of spirit and the loneliness that we feel

is our seeking for peace of mind and our sense of self as simple as losing our heart to the land

i wonder does this scare us because we know just what we have done to the planet - all the taming and the choking and the dismissing - is that part of the anguish in our own souls

if we can find the place on the planet that we feel "placed" - that we connect with - i believe experienced as a sense of belonging or knowing even a sense of deep love - then we have a chance to become re-placed...

to rediscover our sense of place is to replace our old ways - to replace our sense of self as lonely and searching with a sense of self as here and belonging

it will require us to listen hard

it will require us to heal

and i certainly will require us to change our ways of being on the earth...

but when one belongs, when one is truely connected it seems the need to dominate just falls away...

Maori have a word whenua (pronounced Fen -oo-a a is like the u is pronounced in up) which means land. It also means placenta. When a baby is born the whenua is taken to the ancestoral land and buried soon after birth. This returns the child's first companion to the earth, connects that child forever, to that place and the cycle of life is acknowledged honoured and complete.

My whenua got thrown away.

Home on this beautiful planet has many views for me.

This view in the photo is the place that is my place right now, the place i see when i look out of my window... a small rise, pasture where there is supposed to be swamp and bush... a small remnant of regrowing forest, not healthy because it is grazed under and the cattle eat the regenerating seedlings, trample roots, chew bark... but it is there, with a dark secretness about the shadows underneath it...

This place is not wild but the green feeds me in a way i can't explain, and the regrowing bush, the wildness which still could be on the side of the steep hillock, whispers to me about the need for my wildness to be protected, about the climb and that there is something to see over the other side...

or maybe it is not a symbol at all

maybe that hill is just there

(but i think it is glad to be seen by me)

what does your place look like?