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Daily: to whom do I belong
Jul. 14th, 2021 09:18 amDoing a daily writing practice for a bit on whatever.
I don't do my relationships with landscape any differently than I do my relationships with people. They don't feel different to me, and they have a similar enormous range that my relationships to people do. Within them I commit similarly, compromise similarly, and love similarly.
What makes land easier for me than people is that it cycles. It gives the underlying security of structure, which I need: it will be there for me when I come back, and any given season will leave and then will certainly, inviolably come back around. It will come back to be a little different; like people land evolves and grows. Like many people, it changes and remains recognizable and linked to its past by both form and chains of causality and so remains captivating.
As I said, it comes back around. Mostly unlike people.
Like people land has certain requirements, and if the requirements aren't met the relationship can shift. Working together with the land to achieve goals brings a sense of partnership. I wrestle with either abandoning any particular land or watching it be harmed by another, though like people I don't generally feel like it's my place to intervene: landscapes are no shrinking defenseless archetypes. They're less quick to act than we are, and more enduring: in the end they will always prevail.
Every piece of land has its own character. Our society leans towards seeing the land as one single piece rather than individual pieces; contrariwise we see people as discrete individuals rather than the network of flowing feelings and actions and responses that knit us into a society (I think it's Christakis and Fowler whose work counters the rugged individualism belief). Of course the truth of all of us is in the middle, and our relationship to land is as much of an influence as our relationship to people. All relationship is shaped around true seeing, constructing, or ignoring; scarcity and abundance; a synergistic match of what each party has to give and has to take; and of course love.
I love the character of a new landscape land like I love strangers in the normal times when I love people: pre-emptively, hopefully, expectantly, undemandingly.
Like most strangers the land loves me back, but unlike most strangers it keeps loving me back once it gets to know me and it accepts when I must move on.
I don't do my relationships with landscape any differently than I do my relationships with people. They don't feel different to me, and they have a similar enormous range that my relationships to people do. Within them I commit similarly, compromise similarly, and love similarly.
What makes land easier for me than people is that it cycles. It gives the underlying security of structure, which I need: it will be there for me when I come back, and any given season will leave and then will certainly, inviolably come back around. It will come back to be a little different; like people land evolves and grows. Like many people, it changes and remains recognizable and linked to its past by both form and chains of causality and so remains captivating.
As I said, it comes back around. Mostly unlike people.
Like people land has certain requirements, and if the requirements aren't met the relationship can shift. Working together with the land to achieve goals brings a sense of partnership. I wrestle with either abandoning any particular land or watching it be harmed by another, though like people I don't generally feel like it's my place to intervene: landscapes are no shrinking defenseless archetypes. They're less quick to act than we are, and more enduring: in the end they will always prevail.
Every piece of land has its own character. Our society leans towards seeing the land as one single piece rather than individual pieces; contrariwise we see people as discrete individuals rather than the network of flowing feelings and actions and responses that knit us into a society (I think it's Christakis and Fowler whose work counters the rugged individualism belief). Of course the truth of all of us is in the middle, and our relationship to land is as much of an influence as our relationship to people. All relationship is shaped around true seeing, constructing, or ignoring; scarcity and abundance; a synergistic match of what each party has to give and has to take; and of course love.
I love the character of a new landscape land like I love strangers in the normal times when I love people: pre-emptively, hopefully, expectantly, undemandingly.
Like most strangers the land loves me back, but unlike most strangers it keeps loving me back once it gets to know me and it accepts when I must move on.
