Hope Beneath Our Feet_ Restoring Our Place in the Natural World - Martin Keogh [68]
Finally, where in the psyche would we locate this ecological self and how would we know when we had found it? In his masterful essay “The Rediscovery of North America,” the ecological writer Barry Lopez writes about “la quarencia,” the Spanish bullring chant that describes the place the bull returns to after his painful encounters with the picadors and the banderilleros—that immeasurable yet tangible “spot” in the ring where the wounded animal goes to gather himself before his final charge. I see it as a powerful metaphor for that “place” of the ecological self. It is that place where the land and the psyche meet, where one feels real, authentic, elemental. It is that place, that spiritual and geographical space where one feels one has come home, where one can gather one’s self. It is that inner place, a moveable feast from which one’s strength of character is drawn. It is neither a passive nor a prescriptive place and neither do you stumble upon it. You have to find it outwardly and inwardly for yourself … consciously. And you must protect it.
And so, as the genetic codes responsible for the variety of the earth’s species are slowly unraveled and interpreted, I would hope that our veil of ecological amnesia will also begin to lift. Let us remember where we have come from and that we are the human animal. This is our place. This is our time. We are privileged.
Ian McCallum is a medical doctor and psychiatrist living in Cape Town, South Africa. He is the author of Ecological Intelligence and Thorns to Kilimanjaro. McCallum has a special interest in evolutionary psychology and the animal-human interface (what we learn about ourselves from animals). He is the Director of Education and Leadership Projects for the Wilderness Foundation Africa and a trustee for The Cape Leopard Trust.
Body as Place: A Somatic Guide to Re-indigenization
NALA WALLA
Today, many millions of people are part of a growing worldwide diaspora, a population who may never know precisely where their ancestors lived, or what practices they used to maintain respectful connections to the land. A parallel concept of diaspora—a dispersion from place—applies to those of us who do not feel at home even in our own skins, who feel somehow estranged from our own bodies. Countless modern people are currently wondering: how do we inhabit a true sense of home, an ecologically relevant sense of place, instead of a mere space where we extract what we need and dump toxic waste when we’re done?
Since our bodies are indeed our primary home, any endeavors to create a sense of place must include strategies for getting to know one’s body more deeply. Developing and increasing awareness of our own felt-experience can be a beneficial practice that connects us inevitably back to earth via our own flesh. Thus a re-inhabiting of the individual body is an essential step toward re-indigenization—behaving in an ecologically respectful and culturally sustainable manner that honors all meanings of “home.” The embodied arts are designed to help us to do exactly this.
Zone Zero: Localism Begins with the Body
For those of us in green movements seeking a deeper and more respectful sense of home, it can be helpful to recognize that as infants, our sensation of gravity provided our very first experience of a sense of “place.” Our relationship with earth is primary, forming the basis for development of every other movement we make.
When we add permaculture terminology to our discussion of “home” and “place,” we can refer to the body as the foundation of the concept of zone zero—the natural center in a landscape from which all activity radiates. Accordingly, any sound ecological