"What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the earth crying" -Tich Naht Hahn

I've been getting the message that I don't know my place, I don't know where I am, I don't know the land beneath me or the beings around me. The message is in my reactions: an easily provoked fear of my surroundings, fear of flooding, feeling isolated and lost in my home landscape, noticing my ignorance of local wildlife, jealousy of those more in touch with the land than me. In all sorts of ways, I've been feeling an urge to go deeper into relationship with the rivers Hull and Humber, the trees and birds that travel them and populate the Holderness plain and the hills to the west and north.
Where am I?
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"The wilderness as a temple is only a beginning. One should not dwell in the specialness of the extraordinary experience nor hope to leave the political quagg behind to enter a perpetual state of heightened insight. The best purpose of such studies and hikes is to be able to come back to the lowlands and see all the land about us, agricultural, suburban, urban, as part of the same territory - never totally ruined, never completely unnatural."
-Gary Snyder - good, wild, sacred
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Now I vow:
to learn my land
not at special times, holy days, cordoned off as 'sacred'
not as a wishful wandering pseudo-ascetic, on days between duties
but during, as, with, now
not despite my life
but because of it, in it, thanks to it
not despite my friends and family, when I get alone time
but with them, because of them, asking them questions, looking together at buds, maps, stools and pellets and corpses
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I've been proud of being outdoorsy, knowing tree names and bird names,
knowing facts about animals and clouds...
Then someone pointed out that i only know names and facts - I wasn't really seeing
(see: J. Krishnamurti- Beyond Violence)
I identify as a nature lover, but all i do is take and take
like a colonist, adding species to my lists
and not doing even that with great purpose or dedication. Just scoffing free samples...
What's my real relationship to these plants? Do I need them? Do I love them? Do i see them? Who sees them? Who even am i!? When i really question things, looking deeply at my own motives and at the way things work in our world... well to be honest things don't seem great...

The more i see, the more i love, the more i hurt.
Surges of grief, for animals and plants and landscapes, for our earth mother, our parent planet.
There's a desire to shy away, to put up a shield, like when people are scared of romance because of the pain that might come, will come. The hard work of love. Love is never just a feeling, love is action, love is doing good things for your beloved. *(bell hooks-all about love)
Its okay to feel the pain
When I love this earth and its inhabitants, I feel a need to help it, care for it, to nurture its health and happiness
and the heart breaks more with every kindness
But, as Joanna Macy reminds us, "the heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe."
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What to do with this pain?
Can't just hold it inside me, I need to digest it, convert sadness and anger into action.
Is it time to take a risk, to take a stand?
What is my part to play? Who am i? Where am i? What shall i do?
What is this life i'm living? What shall i do with it today?
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What about everyone else?

My daughter is 9 weeks old. We are at my parents for the weekend. I take her for a short walk in the morning. I've been trying to work out what i mean by The Spirit of the Place, and decide research, reading and thinking is not useful anymore - i will walk and sit and see and feel.
We walk to the field I have been to so often all through my childhood. My next door neighbour Jonathan used to take me here to sit at a corner of the hedgerows and learn to look and listen and contemplate. We wrote our thoughts in red exercise books.
This morning i see that two huge oaks are...gone

When we zoom out, get perspective, comprehend the bigger picture, we have to see that we depend on others, and others depend on us.
This is a key teaching of most wisdom traditions in the world. "when this is, that is... When this isn't, that isn't" (Buddha: Assutava Sutta) We are all joined, we are in this together! "If one organ suffers, they all suffer together. If one flourishes, they all rejoice together" (The Bible: 1 Corinthians 12) And along with this wide and clear view of our place in the world, must come a respect for all species, a call for sensible, sympathetic industries and agricultures. Because when we destroy the world around us we destroy our self.

You are me, and I am you.
Isn't it obvious that we "inter-are"?
You cultivate the flower in yourself,
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself,
so that you will not have to suffer.
I support you;
you support me.
I am in this world to offer you peace;
you are in this world to bring me joy.
(Interrelationship - Thich Nhat Hanh)

It's a complicated world, but this is simple.
"Not only is everything ours, it is also everybody else's" (A. Huxley: the perennial philosophy)

Again, Tich Naht Hahn: "If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are." (from 14 precepts of the order of interbeing)
The spiritual view sees everything, but holds nothing tightly, it is not possible through mere skill and concentration, it is an attitude of openness, so anything can come and go.
The spiritual view is not rational, we loosen our grip on knowledge, let things change mysteriously, let ourselves sense cosmic purpose, let ourselves heal traumas however small or large. Our peace and our turbulence guide us well. It can sound silly, but it does not mean you have to become stupid or aneathetised or overly focussed on happy, transcendent, airy fairy experiences. Using your 'spirituality' to avoid negative experiences is mere 'spiritual materialism' (see: chogyam trungpa, cutting through spiritual materialism...), another escapist addiction dressed up to look like personal growth.
As far as I am concerned true spirituality is about facing all the available facts, taking a broad view, and stepping out to do what conscience demands.

Each city has a spirit, a personality. Each nation, each corporation, each affinity group, each bunch of friends, each neighbourhood.
(see: Walter Wink- The Powers trilogy)
Our communal present is affected by our communal past. Our histories, events, happenings. Comings and goings, births and deaths, battles, social revolutions, new technologies. And it's not just humans who contribute to the sum spirit of a place. Throughout human history we have interacted with animals, plants, geology. These are also important aspects of the spirit of a place.
Thus, the spirit of Hull currently consists of over 260,000 humans, two rivers, flat land. Chalk made of the skeletons of millions of tiny sea creatures from the cretaceous period. It is geologically young: while some parts of the UK are 2,700,000,000 years old, the coast of Yorkshire was deposited from Scandanavia after the last ice age, only 10,000 years ago. Neolithic Celtic tribes, Vikings, Romans, Saxons. Millions of trees, billions of worms. 700 years of city life changing the landscape from boggy marshland to arable land to concrete jungle. The Meaux abbey monks who dug drainage ditches, raised sheep, and got syphilis, the rejection of King Charles I by John Hotham during the english civil war, the festivities of the Hull 2017 UK City of Culture year. The fishing industry, and then its decline, followed by social deprivation and all round bad statistics. The triple trawler tragedy. The blitz. The death of Christopher Alder in police custody. Rock music. Rugby and football.
All this is who and where we are.
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'The commons' means all the stuff that we have to share - the land, trees, air, water, metals.
'The commons' also means the institutions we've built to help us share it wisely - the schools, unions, religions, governments, courts.
'The commons' also means the information and ideas these institutions contain, and the rules and constitutions they operate by.
The commons is both normal and radical. We are part of common systems that are supposed to guarantee us survival - food, shelter, work, leisure. It's good to rely on each other. It is unavoidable and natural and is expressed in many communal activities. But at what point does a common system become exploitative, oppressive, corrupt, harmful?
Many of us turn our backs on society, bored of politics, bored of pretending it works. We isolate ourselves in our individual philosophies. Many of us distrust the state because we have been harmed by it. We distrust the hospitals, the schools, the family. We become lone wolves. Sometimes when we've been hurt we need to hide away and heal.
But at some point, it's time to take back the power and the responsibility that each person has, as part of a community.
'To Common' is to claim our power and right to re-invent ourselves, our culture, our relationship to others, to the land and food, to our ideas and thoughts.

We are part of interpersonal systems. Let us become active in them, and create new ones where they're needed. Let's co-create the systems we're part of. And with creation comes destruction - we must also take responsibility for tearing down inhumane institutions, outdated markets and governmental systems that are incompatible with our aims. So let us explore our aims - what motivates you? For whom do you want happiness? Does self-care only mean looking out for number one?
We can't escape our interdependence. Our only conscientious option seems to be to try in whatever way to urge this world to be a bit better.
We are faced with huge challenges. As a species, as individuals, as members of the planet.
Is there hope? Will we make utopia? Can we stop killing and raping each other?
It's necessary to face the horrors of our world. If we are to stay sane while making a difference it's also very important to see the positives. People the world over, in the east and the west, the north and the south, are striving to create a more loving world. If we continue to make efforts and join together, we have a chance at success, at urging our societies towards more openness, more love, wiser politics, wiser industry, wiser agriculture.
Let's take this moment to come back to our single body - to feel our breath and our limbs...
This body is the place of normal, mundane, everyday life.
This is also the place of revolution - of revolution's beginning and end.
This place - one human body - intimately connected to all beings and all events - all of time and space.
Simultaneously insignificant and all-important.
I need to be both strict and easy going. Both devoted and iconoclastic. Passionate and equanimous. We need both hard work and relaxation. In a word - balance.

Here are 4 places:
BODY - the skin, limbs, organs, nervous system, digestive system, breath, senses...
MIND - the thoughts, emotions, moods, memories, desires, dreams...
LAND - the cities and streets, rivers, seas, forests, valleys, peaks...
COMMUNE - the families, nations, tribes, institutions, the herds of animals, flocks of birds...

In any moment i inhabit these four places at once.

May this place be the site of real change,
supporting real change in the whole commons,
in the whole system.