Connecting to Place

May 28, 2019
I have been thinking a lot recently about the importance of place.......of being truly connected to the land you are on and all the beings who share that space with you.  In earlier times all of our ancestors were intimately connected to place. Not in the nationalistic, almost belligerent way that some folks mean when they claim patriotism or love for country, but in a way that truly reflected respect and reciprocity and kinship with the land itself.  Their relationship to Earth was not unlike that of a child to its mother.  We have forgotten how connected we are and ho much we need the Earth and as a result, our lives have become diminished.

I have been here in my "place" for almost twenty years.  I live in a house that will soon be a century old.  It has stood this long so I know it is sturdy and can shelter me and keep me safe.  I love its age, the way it gently creaks in the wind.  Like me, it has character and a personality all its own.  It is filled with the spirits of those who have gone before and also of the land itself.  I live on a busy main route but have a patch of woods in the back and tall old trees that ring the house with sheltering branches that seem to cradle me.  Over the years I have planted shrubs and flowers, herb and vegetable gardens.  I share this place with many other beings. There is the hawk pair who have raised three sets of babies in my time here.  There are my beloved crows who fly over and call to me each morning.  There are foxes who den in my woods and who this year have five kits.  There are raccoons, a little herd of deer, coyotes, a skunk, a huge old possum I call Grandfather, turkeys, chipmunks and squirrels.  There is a pair of double winged dragonflies I refer to as The Guardians who accompany me as I walk to the back door from the driveway.  Many beings I recognize from year to year and watch anxiously  for them each Spring, not feeling at ease until I see them emerge and know they made it through another Winter.

I feed the birds and toss out peanut butter crackers when I see nipples on mother squirrels in March so they can grab a quick bite and get back to their babies pronto.  I put out the hummingbird feeders early just in case and in the Fall the last one to leave always flutters up to the kitchen window to say thank you and goodbye until next year. I know everyone who grows in my yard and spend hours in my gardens.  I sit out in the evening and watch for fireflies that come out of the deep woods at precisely 8:20 and put on the most amazing light show for an hour before disappearing back into the woods at curtain call.  I have been here long enough for everyone to feel safe in my presence and so I enjoy an intimate relationship with all who share this place with me.  My connection to this land, my love for it is what sustains me and often in these times, retreating under the yew or meditating in the middle of the garden under the moon is the only thing that preserves what little sanity I can claim.

Maintaining this land is a lot of work but it is never a burden.  What is given back to me in every way is so much more than I have earned.  Working the land keeps me strong and healthy, all summer I know that the food I grow is  nourishing me in ways that store-bought food cannot.  I make medicines of flowers and herbs , I dry leaves for tea.  From observing the birds and insects and animals I learn the wonderful lessons of nature.  I mark the passage of seasons and see how things change one into the next but nothing ever really dies.  My connection to this place, this land, to Gaia Herself nourishes and sustains me in body, mind and spirit.  I am grateful for Her lessons, Her beauty and Her love every day.  I am truly blessed.