Land Wisdom
Land welcomes the stranger
the seed of shelter, story, and Land is still threading through my life of pondering, though it is with sweet relief that i have found a new abode. i am in the sorting|packing|donating phase. the grateful i have so much|why do i have so much (!) phase. i really can’t look at all these packets of photos now|"ohhhhh, my kids (now adults) were so cute growing up” getting distracted phase. my attention strays. frequently. let’s see if i can hold it together for this week’s post.
as i take walks around my neighborhood these final weeks, i am saying goodbye to Trees and other Beings that have become friends. Squirrel is busy storing food in my pots on the deck and i try to convey their stash will be gone soon and to find another hiding spot. this day is full of bluster and rain patter is near-constant. the birdbaths are brimming and pine needles swirl across the surfaces like dancers. it was time to move on…and there is much i will miss. i have added my own story to Land beneath my feet. i sense it has been mercifully received.
i also know i am fortunate to have “time,” in that most formal sense of the word, to pack and plan. as i shared in my last post, there are many others who are uprooted without warning. this weekend’s attacks/massacre on residents of Israel and the ongoing terror for all in Gaza is one example of the upheaval we humans inflict on each other. a complex situation that i do not have the background to discuss in my ponderings of Land, story, and shelter except to say my heart aches.
no one has expanded my understanding of how to be with Land as deeply as
. she says “where our feet are planted, the land wants to know us. wants people to be in relationship with it.” (from a recent recorded Q&A on her Substack.) as she suggests, and i’m intepreting her words from here on, indigenous people that have been on a Land for centuries or millennia will have a deep knowing because they have been in relationship for so long. their stories, dreaming, and entwining with the energies of Land is to be respected and honored. appropriating their practices is wrong. however, she feels strongly that it is a moral issue to be engaged relationally with the Land where we receive our food, breathe our air, drink our water. if we listen deeply…spend time relationally with Land, it desires to share its mythical beings and archetypal energies with us, too. Land welcomes.i would add this isn’t an excuse to sidestep the issue of restoring Land to indigenous peoples. this isn’t an excuse for Land grabs and manifest destiny and colonization. it was the lack of being in relationship with Land, and respecting those who were already in relationship, that has led to the many issues we are immersed in today.
in a recent For The Wild podcast, Ayana Young interviewed Jason Baldes, an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe with degrees in Land Resources & Environmental Sciences. he focuses on the expansion and restoration of buffalo/bison to Tribal Lands. i learned so much about how the buffalo is intricately designed for the landscape of north america and how entwined it is with tribal culture. truly well worth an hour of listening.
we can all benefit from restoring buffalo to the Land. from listening to the wisdom of elders who have knowledge passed down from generations…not seeking to use the buffalo and any restored|healed Land as a “resource,” but to listen and see what stories, energies, and archetypes may arise for anyone whose feet are planted on a place. and do not confuse this with a simple, “why can’t we all live together happily and just get along” ideal, because relationships are not that easy. but what i keep hearing as i delve deeper into “Land listening” is that Land is older than humans…the stories, the achetypeal energies, and we don’t control them. own them. we are, however, allowed to co-create.
so, what is stirring for you as i muse on Land as having energies and stories? of considering how Land may want to know you? what is your relationship to the Land where you place your feet? though i am aware of the need to listen to Land wherever i am placing my feet, i still have many days i’m in a daze. tuned out. disconnected.
and there is dance of acknowledgement through my birth, i’m a first generation “settler” to this Land and having my feet placed here, this is where i feel connected. it is home. i also feel a strong sense of connection to the Land my parents immigrated from. it is also home. so times of deep connection and times of disconnection. sound familiar to anyone?
tintagel, england, where i felt strong energy of Land welcoming me home. may 2019. photo by anne richardson
there are those who leave a “homeland” of their own accord looking for something named|unnamed. a “better life.” a “promise.” a host of reasons. my father was the one who felt confined by the post-WWII dreary environs of England. my mother would have been content to stay close to family. for him there was no refuge among the ruins. he wanted possibility. as i look back on his life and all the places where he settled his feet, i see him on a lifelong pilgrimage. and i wonder…what is the pilgrim’s relationship to Land? (that’s a whole other post!)
poet|philosopher
’s ponderings and poems often touch on home, place, and Land. his book of poems, Pilgrim, includes a poem, Refuge, which he recites as part of a recent video he posted on his Substack.
what i appreciate about David (okay, there is a lot) is so many of his poems are written in relationship to Land. and also written in relationship to our bodies. the two are intertwined. as we deepen our conversation with Land, discover the energies inhabiting where we place our feet, allow Land to lead us into places of refuge, so too we discover hidden places within our internal landscapes. and how, if we learn to be in relationship with Land, that most ancient of all beings, that welcomes us as stranger wherever we place our feet, then we can learn to welcome the stranger at our own door.
i had no idea where i would end up when i started this post, but i listened and wrote. i am not always comfortable with the stranger, even the stranger within, though every moral fiber of my being says to WELCOME. but as i learn to live life in the glitches (a Báyò Akómoláfé reference), i am more open to allowing uncertainty.
Here is David Whyte’s poem Refuge, though i hope you will head over to the above referenced Substack (hopefully not paywalled) so you can listen to him recite it.
REFUGE
Sometimes a nook, a wall half down,
a swerve in the path where the breeze
can’t catch you; other times a made shelter,
a shepherd’s build up of flat stones curved
to keep the wind off. Once, at the top of the pass,
it was a cave in the mountain rock taking you
in from the swirl and eddy of snow
and the killing cold so you could live
to a grey blank dawn.
Then in Galicia, it was a breath of warmth
from a kitchen door, palatial with light
and a daughter’s smile; the family behind,
asking you in, as if to say, of all shelter,
traveller, you’ll ever find on the road,
even with those you know,
the stranger’s love is best of all.
-from Pilgrim
i am still slow reading Barry Lopez’s, Artic Dreams (1986). i am being introduced to Musk Ox and Polar Bears and more. how they, like Buffalo, are an intrinsic part of the Land. facinating. also immersed in a variety of podcasts and rabbit holes but it’s back to sorting|donating|packing|distracting.
in gratitude,
anne
oh, here’s some bonus wisdom from a favorite Substack
(Andrea Gibson.)Let everyone you know, especially the people you are closest to, be a mystery to you. Wonder is a portal to the present moment. Curiosity is energizing. Assuming we know who someone is roots us in the past, which is rarely a vibrant place.
Andrea Gibson