05/31/2026
Excerpt from the book “Belonging” by Tokopa Turner
"Reflecting on our present day relationship with nature you could say that we are collectively and chronically disoriented….we are anesthetized to the enormity of that loss. Most people don't even realize what's missing because they've never known themselves as belonging to the earth.
In the grandness of what we as a species have created and called civilization, we've come to think of ourselves as conquerors of the wild. Forgetting in some pandemic amnesia, the true origins that make any of it possible. Some of us are remembering how to be an ecosystem.
A writer Vicky Robin suggests " Treat everyone within 50 miles like you love them “, and I would add that we include in our image of " everyone” as those with feathers, fur, and made of rock or water or plant. We must reconstitute a world through our many small contributions, collaborations, and togetherness. Because as times get tougher we will need to call upon a strong reciprocal web of skills and attributes.
To belong to a place is to be embedded in it. It struggles are your contentions, it's harvests are your wealth, it's needs are your purpose. There is no separation from the place where we live except for the one made by our own forgetting.
If you are lucky enough to live in a place surrounded by nature you are blessed with a lifetime of learning ahead of you. There are some things which if they are not passed down from your elders, can only be taught over the course of years (such as how long can you procrastinate picking nettles before they go to seed?). If the edges of knowledge are always beyond your reach, you can rest in the sweet humility of not knowing while being continuingly enriched by the gifts of discovery.”
