Reflecting on the Future

… the final email

I began this project back in January with the quote above. Here we are, 12 months later. What has simple awareness seeded in you and what does that mean for your future and the future of your place? 

Imagining the Future

This year, I’ve dipped my toes into reading science fiction, a new experience for me. This genre is not so much about aliens as it is about imagining new ways of being. Culture, history, language. Nothing is static. Everything can be re-imagined.

I once attended a presentation about a new online tool, designed to remap the Niagara Escarpment (a World Biosphere Reserve) with Indigenous cultural stories, and I realized that we were doing something similar with this Seeing your Place project - remapping (or reseeding) our places with the watershed, wildlife, weather, cultural, and indigenous stories. We’ve expanded on and reimagined our original stories. 

During the last few months, we’ve been imagining new ways of being in our place. What needs changing? In what ways are your place and its inhabitants not thriving? 

In September, we focused on climate change and what was needed for mitigation and adaptation. We explored possibilities for energy use and looked at the quality of our air and water. 

In October and November, I shared stories about how people were doing things differently already - from reimagining land to the half earth project, doughnut economics and repurposing public spaces, mutual care and the role of art in reimagining. 

Finally, we considered what it means to be a citizen of a place. This week, I read the quote below and it seems to sum up where we’re ending this project, after a year of simple awareness.

“Stop looking all around the world, just think about where you are, or some project that you really care about, and roll up your sleeves and do something about that.” ~ Jane Goodall via the Narwhal

While this quote emphasizes doing something, awareness has to come first. I believe it’s most important to develop a way of being in your place - one who observes and listens carefully, recognizes their interdependence with all creatures, and offers care to all. The doing emerges from being. 

Reflection - Moving Forward

The Kinship book series asks: “How will you become more rooted, more sensitive and responsive to place as one creature among a multitude of diverse, wondrous expressions of life?” For this final week, I’d like you to consider that question and the following with regard to the future of your place. 

• What do you most imagine for your place moving forward? What will you do personally to help make this happen? 

• What more would you like to learn about and/or experience in your place?

• How would you like to “be” in your place next year? What practices will you continue?

I will share my answers in the comments in a few days and I hope you will share yours. I’d love to hear your answers and I’m sure others would too. Comments are turned on for everyone. 

Thank You

This is the final email for the Seeing your Place 2022 project. I am planning to take a break from weekly writing, but I will be hard at work sifting through my posts on seeing clearly over the past two years and blogging for ten years before that. I hope to come up with themes and connections, possibly writing essays on what I discover. I’ll continue to share here when I have something new to post. So, please stay subscribed if you’re interested. Billing is paused so there is no cost to you. And, the archive is always available.

No matter how much you were able to do this year, I hope that the emails at least got you thinking about your place differently. I hope that your connection to the place where you live has evolved and grown and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for trusting me to send them to your inbox and for supporting this work, whether financially or by sharing with others or through your comments. 

And lastly, I hope that however you celebrate the holidays, that you experience love.