Embracing Spiritual Connections to Land and Community in Our Planning Processes
Notes:
Why are we here?
We are here because this is a hard topic to talk about. But my job is to preserve the spirit of place. So it's important to talk about spirit – spirit of place. Spirit in Nature was a program at Shelburne Farms that brought together spiritual leaders and environmental organizations for a 5-day retreat. There is a confluence between spirituality and activism. Wild experiment. Guides were eco-therapist, crackerjack naturalist and environmental educator/spiritualist. Craig: vision quest he did out west – research trip with native friend – camped alone in Montana, Wyoming, - went out on trip and came back with a huge spiritual vision of open land. Day he got back from trip he got a call about buying family farm in Vermont. Last weekend, camping trip with his daughter's class – Manitou name – goodness of God, nature – the book talks about sacred sites in New England – book talks about Calendar One site in S. Royalton. I wonder if tapping that. What about soul?
We talk about heart, what about soul?
Claire: working in Vancouver, landscape architect and greenway planner – works for evergreen – a green space, stewardship and restoration project – works on public access issues – works with decision makers. Worked in environmental ed prior to that – Vermont, Maryland, Washington DC. Connecting youth to land – in me deeply – I miss that. Important to get what you need done.
A good friend is a youth pastor in Waltham, MA – his mission is to connect his church to earth matters– he has an evening service now. Talking a lot about spirituality and environment. Grew up in fundamentalist Christian church – nature became my god, faith and spirit was so personal for everybody. Importance of connection to our home ground, the place we grew up, caught salamanders in, the place we are grounded. Interested in the “soul” question, living a lot of life up in head, Unitarian Universalist, skeptic, doubter, rejected most of religion. UU is based on vision and principles, but now exploring soul, moving down out of head and into body, journeying downward into the soul of the world. Influenced badly by CS Lewis, etc, who responded negatively to pagan movements, thought you couldn’t reach God that way. Now think that you can live a whole life, integrated, linked to the earth and the soul of the world. Question: In the context of our lives, what if people showed up at the table and had a conversation about our deepest held values? But is land use planning the right place for that conversation? But if not, where else, as it doesn't happen in churches, or not in a way that will integrate community. Our actions have become divorced from our own sense of values. We're supposed to be a religious country but we live in constant disconnect from our values, as a society, the way we conduct our lives.
How is values connected to spirituality? Church is a community and is the place where he can get quiet on a regular basis, and share who he is. He equates spiritual yearnings and desires with those fundamentally held values. Where are the places in me that I can't violate without violating my sense of selfhood?
Deep ecology: Humans in the ecosystem as an integrated part, not above. We're so dominant but it's so screwed up. The injustices we've dong to the ecology of our world are huge. Grounded there, sense of values comes from there.
Book: “Notes from the Holocene” (published by Chelsea Green). We're in that period now. The planet is an intelligent organism. There's much less judgment about what we humans do to the planet in this view. Personally, when I'm connected to nature, I get more clarity, more peacefulness, and more access to calm. Going into spirit gives me a break, I go in with a question and it translates into a set of values, how to be a better father, mate, friend, steward of the land. Our real values are a function of what our behavior is. Your behavior is a manifestation of your values. The crux of the opportunity in planning: Cycle: meditation, reminding and rediscovering values; my values have been this so I need to change this behavior to match those values. Can bring this into a community context: Take a meditative or reflective approach, bring spirit into the discussion, be conscious of how it is already manifesting, how that decision to do something that is meditative or spiritual manifests in decisions that are grounded in our values. This sets up an alignment, a harmony. Reflective-based action. Ready, aim, fire: aim first.
But how do you bring in the spirit in community conversations without being accused of being religious? “Sense of place” can be a good way to recognize it, or “spirit of community”. You can't, in our culture, lead off a meeting with a prayer, but you can lead it off by centering people, remind them of highest and best ways to interact with other people, of connection to earth, to land, to community, to each other. Some rituals may be helpful. Everyone has some of this in their past. You can stop and reference it, give people time in the meeting to get centered there, in a comfortable way, ex: “Think of your favorite place”. Mayor or whoever is usually glad to just STOP and have these conversation first, conversations that conjure up the soul piece, breathing together, asking why you like to live here, might be different for other groups.
Spiritual practices generally involve stepping on the clutch, disengaging the gears, getting out of what we are doing in our brains, slowing down. Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf Education) defines meeting as basically when you meet someone for the first time, meeting, actually here to meet each other, step on the clutch, allow people to take that nanosecond to open up a little at the start of the conversation together. Don't just come in and talk about spirit, it's an abstraction and sounds private, threatening to some. (But why is it OK to say, “school spirit”? How is this different?)
Devil's advocate: name spirit, push the envelope and say that without pulling in some universally accessible, non-religious, form of spirit, the community won't be able to get where they're going. EX: What if in our community, we could have some form of school spirit, like community spirit? But this is different from spirituality.
Another expression of spirit is “spirit of fellowship”, which gets closer to it, puts people in a slightly more uncomfortable place but not too far, probably. That place where science and spirit cross over – Thomas Berry: the new paradigm, how sacred will be as much about the specific weight of calcium as it will be about intuition and mystery. Why not begin to talk, in a thoughtfully and intentional way, about these deeper things.
Festivals are all celebrations of humans surviving. Thank you for allowing us to still be alive. In early 21st century, we have largely triumphed over things that used to be celebrated (harvest, etc, at least in Western culture) but the party thing is still key. We are people, coming together in a planning meeting, wanting to evoke the spirit in a planning exercise, is harder if we're seeing each other cold vs. if we have recently partied together, in the spirit of fellowship. Spend time doing things together, knitting, jamming music, harvesting, etc, builds a trust, why league bowling is better than bowling alone. Maybe the path of least resistance for bringing spirit into a planning meeting is to bring people into the planning meeting who have already developed a sense of fellowship by doing things together.
Rather than using a language of soul and spirit, bring people out by offering attractive venues and formats that build trust. Example maybe role-plays within the meeting to step out of your usual role. The challenge: who shows up and who leaves if they sense a spiritual discussion. You almost have to surprise people, sneak it on them, know you audience and be flexible and adaptable to each group. Some groups can light candles and hold hands to start; others might need something else less threatening. There's a necessity within a meeting context to bring people into a place of getting centered, reminding them of why they're there. Big picture. Not “protection of ag soils” vs. “protection of fertility of the earth” – but fertility is not an OK word in public meetings - why? Shouldn't have to remind them why it's even important, but they lose sight of the connection between their actions and their values. This is about harming our little stream, but they are just caught up in citing a new building, and they don't see it.
Bring in different points of view. There are kids who have stewarded this brook here. They matter. Your actions will harm their efforts. Help people realize that they aren't the only folks on the planet. People are doing the best for their families, but miss stuff.
Trust whom you are and what you have to deliver. Be true to yourself. Be a model. There's so much compromise – peel the onion a little to find the core that's in there. Remove the armor and get back to the inner burning star within – everyone has it, it's fun to find it in each person. Listen and acknowledge and honor the wisdom of each person we come into contact with in our community planning interactions (an all our interactions!) Show your human side to people and look for theirs – face them with compassion and understanding.
THE BIG IDEA: Bring consideration of spirit and values into everything we do, day-to-day, minute-to-minute.
Some cities have “green drinks” meet-ups of environmentally minded folks on Fridays, or whatever. What if we had a sub-meeting of town meetings focused on spirituality, see what comes up (making do with what we can, etc) then find a way to explore how these ideas could be incorporated into the town plan. Don't assume that folks don't want to talk about this, rather assume that there might be a group of folks who do and invite them. How to infiltrate values into meeting setting like affordable housing, food for all, affordable health care.
Invoking basic organizing principles: you don't hold meetings – you go to meetings, follow the existing structures and work within them. Don't focus on getting people to come to your meeting, spend time going to their meetings, build trust over time, then you're ready when the big thing comes up. Comprehensive planning efforts lands on fertile soil from all the trust you have built.
People need a “safe space” in which to have these heart and soul conversations. Not a physical space but building trust. All your strategies need to start there. Trust is the pathway to building heart and soul, and trust comes from informal time together, doing things together. We need new reasons to connect (storms).
Have parties, bring people together.