The Ecopsychology of Place

In this paper I would like to look at the importance of place. Specifically I would like to look at our connection with the land whether we live in a city or in the countryside. I will investigate how the loss of place is essentially a spiritual loss, and the spiritual effect that having no or a weak sense of place has on individuals and communities. Finally I would like to suggest how it is necessary to use ecopsychology to produce an argument for restoring connection, and so respect for land.

Initial Reflections

"To see the greatness of a mountain, one must keep one's distance; to understand its form, one must move around it; to experience its moods, one must see it at sunrise and sunset, at noon and at midnight, in sun and in rain, in snow and in storm, in summer and in winter and in all other seasons. He who can see the mountain like this comes near to the life of the mountain...." (Govinda, 1995, p.198)

The thought of the importance of place has burned in me for almost a decade and a half now, but is it important? There are people happy, apparently, for whom material values seem to work well. People for whom place, one might say, is a commodity serving as a getaway, serving needs. Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki has written, "consumerism has taken the place of citizenship as the chief way we contribute to the health of society." (Forbes, 2001, p. 16)

Are such people happy though? The happiness feels to me like the cartoon of a person walking across an unfinished bridge. Just as the person is about to put their foot down into empty space, the next section of the bridge is put into place and catches them. It is a surface happiness running under an illusion supported by outside props. If the props disappear, for how long can the happiness be maintained? Also, for all of this, nature may not intentionally be looked on as a commodity, but it is that which it is turned into.

A Personal Search for Place

I spent a number of years travelling. It was travel for reasons that I knew not what at the time. In hindsight I put my wanderings down to searching. I was a “Wanderer” as Bill Plotkin talks about (Plotkin, 2003), searching for meaning.

The journeys were fun, many adventures. A train track disappearing out of the station, the road curving out of town, along with the pack on my back they became my home. I loved it and didn't want to be anywhere else. The "road" became my home, my place.

Hindsight is valuable. I've always valued travel, it is something I would encourage people to do, especially the young if they are unsure what to do in life. It takes you out into the world, the world outside of that where you live, and puts your home into a greater perspective. Gary Snyder suggests that, "We learn a place and how to visualize spatial relationships, as children, on foot and with imagination. Place and the scale of space must be measured against our bodies and their capabilities." (Snyder, 1990, p. 98) While modern travel is for the most part not on foot, we can start to meet our neighbours, to gain a sense of who we are and where we fit in, in a world that is becoming increasingly smaller.

Where I Live

I go outside in the evening, it’s dark. There is stillness. It is unusually mild for the time of year. I stand and listen. There is silence and this palpable stillness.

A distant owl breaks the stillness, then stillness again, silence. Thin cloud drifts across a half moon, a moon that lights the world in which I am standing. A rustle in the leaves, silence. The owl, a duck, silence. An airplane flies over, but still there is this stillness, palpable stillness. I just stand and listen while the earth speaks.

Scots folksinger Dougie MacLean says, “You can’t own the land; the land owns you.” (McIntosh, 1997)

This is one mood of my place, the place where I live in South East Wales. This is a place that I have come to identify with. This has been my home, the village of Penrhos, for almost thirteen years now. Village is a little misleading as Penrhos covers a large area through which are scattered private houses and farms. The name Penrhos is made up of two Welsh syllables, 'Pen' and 'rhos'. Pen means head, top of a valley and rhos means moorland. Penrhos, moorland at the top of a valley? This gives a flavour of the area. It is a name that describes a place. The land is rolling fields, interspersed with small areas of woodland, stretching west to the Black Mountains.

Across the fields from where I live there is a farm house that is over five hundred years old. Edgar who lives there, now in his eighties, was born in that house. He farmed the land his father had farmed. Another neighbouring farmer lives and farms from the house from where his father farmed. Another resident of the village speaks of the old school, now long closed and converted to private housing.

The village use to have a post office, and a pub long preceded that; both have now gone. A neighbour once showed me a painting of how the village used to be. The focal point now for the community is the church. However, even that with its dwindling congregation only holds services once every other week. There has been talk of "closing" the church. There strikes me a sort of irony in that. Closing a focus of spiritual life. Within these old communities the spirit expands much further than the walls of the church. Spirit is represented by community. By shared stories when meeting up with people in the road, by helping out. Community is defined by history as well, its place in time. Travel the land of Britain and see, sometimes in the middle of barren moorland a lone Standing Stone. Time is halted. There is a statement of a peoples' place in time and from that we orientate ourselves in time and place. History in Penrhos is deepened by a nearby 15th century castle and an older, 11th or 12th century, Motte and Bailey, or Hill Fort.

"History defines the difference between land and place - place being the union of land with people and their stories. By conserving places out of our past, we learn metaphors and stories that help us find our way in the future." (Forbes, 2001, p.79)

Many I feel are searching for their stories.

I'd like to think not, but maybe the closing of the church in Penrhos if it happens is another sign of shutting down of spirit by those outside, outside of community. In a world fixated with evaluating by numbers, the spirit has a hard time. The success or measure of well being of our land, air, water, education and health care systems are all measured by figures. "Likewise, the purpose and value of land conservation is significantly diminished when it is measured only in terms of acres saved and dollars raised." (Forbes, 2001, p. 83)

The Retelling of Stories

In our multi-ethnic society, debates rage at times about what it means to be British. The role of the monarchy is brought into question. Interfaith dialogue is acknowledging that Christianity, while still the dominant faith of our shores, is no longer the so recall to faith of the people on this island. The story is changing and constantly needs to be retold. We are many stories living side by side making a larger story. From the story comes the deeper meaning about who we are and where we are. If there is no meaning, our lives and actions become hollow.

Thomas Berry has written, "It's all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we don't have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story is no longer effective." (Forbes, 2001, p. 83) Robert Archibald suggests that, "By giving places a name and a story, I can contemplate and describe them and, in the most ancient sense, call them into existence." (Forbes, Forbes & Whybrow, 1999, p. 162) For Thomas Berry he talks of a Great Story, placing this planet and ourselves in time and place. A story that will give us a sense of reverence and respect for the planet that we live on. Within that we can have the smaller stories of communities, made up from people sharing and living their lives.

I reflect on featureless housing estates that are appearing around the cities of Britain. Sometimes built upon a field or parkland, they serve the purpose of a house, not a home. People drive out of the area to work, drive out of the area for other interests, shops are few if any. It is difficult to create stories in such areas. There are no meeting places. There are no places to walk to and meet people on the way. The houses have been built to house people, not to build a community. I believe that John Warfield Simpson speaks for many, some who know these thoughts and some who are still searching for the cause of the pain, when he says,

"I yearn to be native to a place, to know the landscape in which I live, to sense its changing moods and rhythms, and to pattern my life in response. I long to feel past currents flow into the present, carrying me into the future." (Simpson, 2002, p. 12)

So where does this leave those living in inner city areas? I tread on thin ground here as I have had little experience of such, but would like to offer a couple of examples. In the city where I grew up, Bristol,  two places come to mind. One is Windmill Hill City Farm. Here, a once derelict area, has been transformed by local people into a productive facility used by the local community. Just to arrive there, there is a tangible difference in the feeling in the air. You calm down, relax. Amongst their many facilities is a working farm, community centre, café and shop (selling produce from the city farm and a rural farm not far out of town).

Across town there is a large Asian community. I visit there sometimes to go shopping. Over the years their main shopping street has been regenerated, from what I can work out initiated by the work of one particular shop that has become quite well known. Again the feeling in the air is tangibly different when you arrive there. There are not the farming sights of the City Farm, but there is a feeling of a community, of people together sharing in the life of a place.

I hesitate to idealize both places, but I would suggest that both have created something quite valuable. Through materially reclaiming parts of the areas that they live in, the people have started a process of remembering that which has been lost, whether intentionally or not. Spiritually they have reclaimed that connection with a community, and so a healing of that disconnection with others that our success and numbers orientated society can be so good at breaking down.

These arguments can sometimes be very difficult to get across when trying to effect change, mainly because they are dealing with the transcendent. They are dealing with something which lacks tangibility, and as society deals so much with what it can touch and see, it is very difficult to grasp. These are matters of the heart. They are very important to us, but a when system reduces so much to numerically measurable indices, the heart does not get much of a look in.

As well as developing community within a city, there is the need for that connection with the wilder land outside the city boundaries. The wilder, untamed areas. In the same way that we need our history to place ourselves in time, so we need the wild nature to connect with our origins, to connect with the wild part of ourselves. As much as we loose our wild land to "development", as much as we loose the species that live on this land and around us, so by as much do we loose a part of ourselves. It is not necessary for people to live directly from the land, but what is important is that they have direct access to it. (McIntosh, 1997) To know that it is there when they want and need it.

In a small country such as Britain, rights of access across privately owned country land has become a big issue. The rights are opening up, the National Parks are protected, but the values from which these laws are passed need to come from a place closer to the heart.

Myth – Deepening Our Stories

As the stories start to deepen, as we work more from the heart, our spirituality can return more comfortably to stories incorporating myth. Myths allow us to create stories of layer and depth about our places, stories that can be passed on from generation to generation. Bill Plotkin says of myth that it is, "in a sense, the very truest of stories, a story that reveals universal qualities of the human condition, of the world, and the deeper meanings and possibilities of our lives." (Plotkin, 2003, p. 204) Our stories are now of news, sport, the social scene. Myth and magic is reduced to the latest film. Speaking of the peoples of Scotland, Alastair McIntosh says, "Previously the Gaelic language and bardic traditions had been central to maintaining the mythopoetic reality of the peoples. The bards were in touch with the equivalent of our songlines and dreamtime." (McIntosh, 1997) Going deeper into their tradition he says that, "their nature poetry suggests that they also codified ecologically sustainable relationship by defining totem and taboo and enshrining reverence for the nature." and concluding, "some bards and their training methods were undoubtedly shamanic." (McIntosh, 1997)

Wales within the last few years has gained its own parliament and a degree of autonomy from the centralization of a London based government. Welsh culture has seen a revival. I have been involved in an interfaith celebration of a new concert hall in the capital, Cardiff. The hall has been designed with the culture of Wales, which goes back to Celtic times, in mind. Using enormous windows at the front of the hall, through which light pours out at night, the following words have been engraved:

“CREU GWIR FEL GWYDR“IN THESE STONES

O FFWRNAIS AWEN”HORIZONS SING”

I have Welsh blood in me, my father is Welsh. These words touch something very deep in me, something that seems to go back to the midst of time, something very ancient at a time when myths were spoken. Attending meetings and hearing the Welsh language spoken, one can hear the pride of a people re-establishing themselves and their place.

So in a smaller world, where people move around and settle in a place far from that where they were born, maybe in a different culture, what then of a sense of place? How are cultures protected, while respecting that stories change? Within the global village in which we live Alastair McIntosh suggests, "that all are indigenous to a place who are willing to cherish and be cherished by that place and peoples." (McIntosh, 1997)

Relationship With Land

We humans are a social animal. We enjoy the company of others, close friends are valued. We build relationships with the people we live with, with those whom we work with, with all those with whom we interact. Many people have pets.

When our relationships are strong, when they are functioning well, we feel healthy. During difficult times there are people whom we trust and to whom we can turn to for help. If these relationships break down, we feel pain and hurt.

Little thought seems to be given to whether we have a relationship with the land. When we have a system that chooses to measure by economic growth, that becomes our prime purpose. (Forbes, 2001, p.83) Our world wide economic system deals in stocks and shares. These equities are owned by companies. These companies employ people with families and lives of their own to lead. These companies buy and sell goods around the world. No matter whether the company is dealing in food or legal matters, they are all connected to the land on which they stand. So faceless stocks and shares switch hands all in the name of profit for a few, but in the name of livelihoods of many. Relationships with land and peoples becomes quantified into a monetary value.

In talking about the extent of privately owned land in Scotland and England, Alastair McIntosh says, “To this day the people of Britain – England as much as Scotland – remain largely alienated from their decreasingly “green and pleasant land”. The psychology of this is worrying.” (McIntosh,  1997). One can multiply this effect around the world as western values spread and generations grow up knowing no different. The pathology spreads and generations loose that little piece of their humanity.

Relationship and Basic Goodness

Transpersonal psychology speaks of intrinsic health, sometimes called basic goodness. It is quality that lies at the very heart of our being. It is a concept that as far as I know all the major spiritual traditions of this world recognize in their own way. This basic goodness arises due to the interconnectedness of all of existence. When our actions do not arise from a recognition of this interconnectedness, pain and suffering results. If we are interconnected with all creation and if we value our relationships with other humans, why do we give so little attention to our relationship with the more than human world? In speaking about this Bill Plotkin says,

"A relationship, or even a single conversation, with a tree, butterfly, cloud, heron, moose, or trout is going to fire up dimensions of your wildness, of your soul, that might not have been unleashed through association with even the most exotic human." (Plotkin, 2003, p.169)

Going on to talk about widening relationship within our communities Plotkin says,

“Our neighborhoods, our communities, are so insular, circumscribed and unimaginative. As you widen the realm with which you are in communication, you become more you simply by virtue of whom you are communing with; you become relational with more of the world.” (Plotkin, 2003, p.169)

The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess introduces the idea of an Ecological Self. Naess talks in terms of identification, saying that the “ecological self of a person is that with which this person identifies.” (Seed, Macy, Flemming, Naess, 1988, p. 22) The degree to which I identify with the world in which I interact, so the degree to which my sense of self increases. We are moving our sense of self outside of that which is bounded by our skin. Such a sense of identification will lead one to a greater sense of responsibility. If one is identifying with the land and the creatures with which one lives, their life, well being and suffering become our own. Our relationship with our world deepens. How can one harm that with which one has a close relationship?

Conclusion

Coming to the end I return to the beginning. On my travels I spent time getting to know places that maybe even locals did not see. Standing by the road hitchhiking meant long waits at times. I'd crouch down and watch the ants hurrying about their business. I'd notice the make up of the land. Vehicles coming and going. People going about their daily business.

Place is about knowing where you are and who you are. In one sense we are all constantly moving. Moving through time that is our lives. Moving through space on our planet Earth within this universe that we live. To have a sense of place is to know ourselves. To know ourselves starts with knowing our place in this world. To know ourselves is to care for our place. To care for our place is to care for the world.

The field of ecopsychology recognizes the pain that is being caused to our world by the actions of humans. It further recognizes the pain that these destructive habits are causing ourselves, but still we keep the wheel turning. I believe that ecopsychology, as well as offering healing to those wounded by where we have taken the world, needs to take a lead in changing the way we treat our planet and ourselves. Ecopsychology needs to, "be a psychology in service of life." (Fisher, 2002, p. xiv), standing up and questioning the very forces that cause the ills to happen in the first place. Addressing the symptoms of our ills as well as the ills themselves. Helping people to find a sense of place.

In our diverse world, people need a sense of place. From their they share with others and help in the healing needed on this Earth.

References

Archibald, R. (1995). The Places of Stories. In P. Forbes, A.A. Forbes, H. Whybrow (Eds), Our

          Land, Ourselves, (pp. 161-167). The Trust For Public Land, San Francisco, California.

Fisher, A. (2002). Radical Ecopsychology. State University of New York Press.

Forbes, P. (2001). The Great Remembering. The Trust For Public Land, San Francisco, California.

Govinda, L.A. (1995). The Way Of The White Clouds. Rider, London.

McIntosh, A. (1997). Eigg: Decolonising Land & Mind. Retrieved September 13, 2004,

          www.AlastairMcIntosh.com

Naess, A. (1988). Self Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World. In J. Seed, J.

          Macy, P. Flemming, A. Naess (Eds), Thinking Like A Mountain, (pp. 19-30). New Society

          Publishers, Gabriola Island.

Plotkin, B. (2003). Soulcraft. New World Library, Novato, California.

Simpson, J.W. (2002). Yearning For The Land. Pantheon Books, New York.

Snyder, G. (1990). The Practice of the Wild. North Point Press, New York.

This is a paper that I wrote in 2004 on the subject of Place. This was a subject that I had been interested in for some time. While travelling I had met peoples who seemed so connected to where they lived. I would experience a connectedness, a solidity to their being, or a deep sense of pride of where they lived; some or all of these qualities and more. Later when I moved to South Wales I took joy in getting to know and sense the rhythms of the land, the passing of the seasons, the migrating birds returning for summer, the abundance of summer and the hibernation of winter. (The picture above was taken from my home at sunset on mid-winter’s day, 21st December, 2004.)

So this paper is an exploration of what it means to have a sense of Place. It is a start. There is much more to explore.