Apologies for going off on a bit of a tangent -- brain is all over the place at the moment -- but a thing I keep on and on and on coming back to is the Maori word turangawaewae, lit. "a place to stand". I wish I wish I wish I could find a word for it that didn't feel so appropriative -- I first came across it in the context of Te Papa/Our Place, New Zealand's national museum (I would like to take a moment to note how much I love that Aotearoa works so hard at making public institutions - and life in general - bilingual), and as a concept it is actually such a big deal in terms of my quality of life on an individual and on a communal basis. By which I mean, the sense of being rooted, of having place, of being sure in oneself, of self-trust -- that's why I'm so invested in topography and bedrock, because insofar as I have gods these days (I'm ex-Catholic), they are in the high places and in the wild places, and that sense of connection is really important to me. I've mixed this in with my precise flavour of geology, and with the homeland - Cornwall is home to me, and it's lots of granite, of exposed mantle, and it's volcanics rather than sediments that make me feel like I've got a firm enough place to stand that I might move the world. It's the same in community settings - the awareness of what I know, of how I fit in, of being a small person in a large space, is spiritual and grounding at once; it is humbling; and it makes me more useful, and more comfortable, because I know what I can help with, who I can ask for help, and so on, and so forth. Erm. This might be more coherent if I weren't one hefty dose of opiates down, sorry!
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Re: Growing the communities we yearn for
Date: 2013-07-26 01:14 pm (UTC)Apologies for going off on a bit of a tangent -- brain is all over the place at the moment -- but a thing I keep on and on and on coming back to is the Maori word turangawaewae, lit. "a place to stand". I wish I wish I wish I could find a word for it that didn't feel so appropriative -- I first came across it in the context of Te Papa/Our Place, New Zealand's national museum (I would like to take a moment to note how much I love that Aotearoa works so hard at making public institutions - and life in general - bilingual), and as a concept it is actually such a big deal in terms of my quality of life on an individual and on a communal basis. By which I mean, the sense of being rooted, of having place, of being sure in oneself, of self-trust -- that's why I'm so invested in topography and bedrock, because insofar as I have gods these days (I'm ex-Catholic), they are in the high places and in the wild places, and that sense of connection is really important to me. I've mixed this in with my precise flavour of geology, and with the homeland - Cornwall is home to me, and it's lots of granite, of exposed mantle, and it's volcanics rather than sediments that make me feel like I've got a firm enough place to stand that I might move the world. It's the same in community settings - the awareness of what I know, of how I fit in, of being a small person in a large space, is spiritual and grounding at once; it is humbling; and it makes me more useful, and more comfortable, because I know what I can help with, who I can ask for help, and so on, and so forth. Erm. This might be more coherent if I weren't one hefty dose of opiates down, sorry!