a place of belonging

I have moved between islands and countries, counties and states a dozen times in my adult life. As often as every year or two in the past dozen years. It is always hard and so much is expended. 

Far more taxing than the physical and logistical effort is the social, emotional and mental adjustment in a new environment. Uprooted and displaced before new roots ad connections can be created once more. 

our home island mountains of Negros

As the economy changes - aggravated by this global pandemic - isolation and quarantine have revealed that many tasks can be performed remotely. Sheltering in place has given us the space to redefine ourselves and explore more geographic flexibility. 

Life has been paused from its wild and greedy rampage and destruction. Going against the status quo set up by governments and big industries, for some it's just the impetus needed to consider other options. 

This year could be the chance to move to the place where our heart resides. 

Topophilia Documentary by Peter Bo Rappmund, USA, 2015, 62 mins

Topophilia is a word for love of specific aspects of or a strong sense of belonging to a place.  Popularized by the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in 1974 as all of “the human being’s affective ties with the material environment,”  it is the warm feelings we have for a place. 

When we love the land we live in the land loves us back. 

Terry Tempest Williams is a gifted writer, naturalist and free speech advocate on behalf of an ethical way of life. Her stories are the salve for our environment and social issues - lovingly documenting the living histories of endangered places and species with her signature beauty and power of language. 

A true and spiritual voice in the wilderness who guides us to explore acts of the imagination as we shift into consciousness and expand our sense of family to include all - human and wild. 

New York City - image by Tim Dodd

Her words and writing are a compassionate meditation on how nature and humans both collide and connect - affirming a reverence for all life, constructing a narrative of hopeful acts, taking what is broken and healing it back to wholeness.

If more of us took the time to focus on our love for the place we live in then maybe the need for environmental activism can dissipate and develop into a natural way of life closely bonded and affiliated to nature. 

Making it possible to belong as well anywhere in the world we choose to live. A blessed Summer Solstice 2021 to us all!

London - image by James Neely