As you can read in my previous blog, last week I was in Towerland for the training week: I Am of This Place: Deepening Our Sacred Relationship with Life and with Land with Tanja Meyburgh and Sue Davidoff.
This week, we focused on exploring our sense of ‘belonging’. We did this by connecting to the Land through our senses, rituals, movement and Land constellations.
In the previous blog, you could also read that I often experience difficulty fitting in. So, this week was very educational for me personally. And, of course, I have gained a lot of inspiration for my work as a facilitator in Systemic Ritual and Systemic Constellations.
However, the personal steps I took and the insights I gained were really important to me.
In response to my previous post, someone wrote: “… Not fitting in is also a theme of mine, as well as being excluded and different. I always felt like a world citizen and didn’t want a connection with any nationality. ….. “.
This is also very recognizable to me, being a world citizen and not wanting to tie myself to one nationality or another. Perhaps that is why I have developed such a unique accent – not traceable to any country. The disadvantage of this is that everyone asks you, no matter where you are, “Where are you from?” Actually, with this question alone – no matter how “normal” that question is – people tell you “You are NOT from here.” Add to that the fact that I am indeed somewhat ‘alien’ in some respects, and the feeling of ‘not belonging’ is complete.
What would be a better question?
However, whatever the case is, I can feel at home – with my entire being – wherever I am. The true sense of ‘being in my place’ is within myself, and in that respect, I am indeed a citizen of the world.
In the future, I will make more conscious contact with Land. As soon as I arrive, I will greet the Land and thank it for allowing me to be there. I take in everything that grows on the Land and inhabits the Land and greet, ‘Hello, here I am, Susanne Hazen. Thank you for allowing me here.’
This also means that I will approach the Land and everything there at that moment with respect and love and adapt; as flexible as Water. I will consciously inhale the Air and share something of myself with my exhalation. And with my passion – the Fire within me – I will give the country my love. I need to learn to trust that I can do that and that it will be enough. Unfortunately, I grew up in an atmosphere where I was made to feel like I never gave enough. With my sensitivity to sense the atmosphere and inability to keep up appearances, I have often been accused of being ‘someone who breaks the game’.
The land constellations that we did showed how humans still do not know how to relate to the Land. There is still a long way to go in that regard. I think we need to go back to how the original man, the man from the hunter and gatherer era, looked at Land. Namely that Land is for everyone and that it is essentially incorrect to appropriate Land (or Water or Air). Something that man has started doing since he started cultivating the Land. This has usually been at the expense of others (people, vegetation and animals) and is, in my opinion, incorrectly called civilizing.
In addition, we often ignore areas of Land where ancestors are buried or areas of Land that are considered ‘sacred’ for whatever reason. This is overlooked too often. Men, literally, rolled over it. This asks for conflicts. There are too many examples of this in this world right now.
How do we find our way back to a healthy relationship with Land?
I am of this place. To be continued.
P.s. I always enjoy it when you write a comment. Feel free to do that. You won’t see your comment immediately because I have to approve it first. But then it’s there.
Systemic Ritual and Systemic Constellations 