Discovering Your Sense of Place

By Contributing Writer, 3-05-08

Finding a sense of place in the landscape and in your community is an essential part of the New West. Susan Duncan continues her discussion of redefining urban and rural, and the importance of understanding each other.

A “Sense of Place” is much more than appreciating scenic beauty.  Each place has its own unique natural and human ecosystem. To live successfully, each of us has to develop an understanding of how the local system works and our place in it. How can we do that?

Imagine “Sense of Place” as a large jigsaw puzzle. You have been given four pieces of the puzzle. Part of the overall picture is on the front of each piece. On the back, the pieces are labeled: Awareness of Environment, Awareness of Community, Awareness of Process, and Awareness of Choice. These are tools to help you discover your relationship with the place where you live.

Tool #1: Awareness of Environment. Awareness of environment clarifies the external factors that affect your life and how you influence these factors.

Simply defined, environment is everything that is “all around you”. It is not you, but everything outside of you. However, that distinction quickly falls apart. Try these experiments: Breathe in and breathe out, several times. Sip some water. Eat a cookie. What just happened? What was outside is now incorporated inside your body. Your life is intimately connected to your environment. Since all of us share the same local environment, our lives are all intimately connected to each other.

Whatever is in the environment will eventually become a part of you. E-waste sent to China returns as lead paint on toys. Pharmaceuticals flushed down the toilet affect hormones in stream life and the quality of sources of drinking water. In a “throw away” society, no place is far enough “away”. Toxins and trash, even irritability and a negative attitude can come back to haunt you. This fact gives new meaning to the old adages about “what goes around, comes around” and “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

Tool # 2: Awareness of Community. Awareness of community is based on the fact that we don’t do anything alone. We act as a community. Who are the other community members? Like my friend Roy, you may be surprised how many helpers you actually have and how vital they are to the success of your project.

Roy told me that he grew a vegetable garden last year. “All by yourself?” I asked. “Well, no,” he said. “My wife and kids helped too.” I pressed him further, “You and your family made your garden grow? You had no other helpers?” “Well, of course it wouldn’t grow without water,” he said, “ – and soil, - and sun, - and seeds, and the seed grower and the seed retailer, and- and earthworms. We had wonderful corn, squash, and sunflowers.” “Who pollinated your corn and squash?” I asked.  “Oh,” he replied, “Wind for the corn and bees for the squash and sunflowers.” Then I asked, “Would your garden have prospered if any of your helpers were missing?” After some thought, he replied, “I guess not.” “Have you thanked your helpers?” I asked. “No,” he replied with a grin, “but I should, shouldn’t I? I guess ‘I’ really didn’t grow a garden last year,” he added.

Tool #3: Awareness of Process. Awareness of process shows how the members of a community interact with each other. Each community member has a specific role to contribute to the process. No role is more important than any other, but the whole doesn’t function well without all the roles. A process occurs according to set rules.

Driving is a process. Every time you get in your car to go somewhere, you are entering a grid or matrix defined by rules, held together by the roles of the participating community members. The rules are: (1) drive on the right, (2) stop at stop signs, and (3) yield the right of way. If all community members play by the rules, everyone gets to their destination safely. If one member ignores the rules, it creates a tear in the web. If other community members cannot re-act in time to mend the tear, an accident occurs. Accident investigations backtrack to find what element did not perform according to its role (equipment failure, human error) and therefore, caused the unfortunate outcome.

Awareness of process is vital to quality, long-term problem solving. One winter, mice ate all the bark off the trunk and lower branches of three small apple trees in our yard. The expedient solution would be to “Kill the Mice” without backtracking to know why it happened. By backtracking, we found that tall grass around the trees and deep snow created a home for mice next to the bark food source. Our solution was to “Remove the Habitat” by cutting the grass around the trees in fall.

Processes are circular: They repeat, with mind numbing regularity. Work is a process that involves interacting with the same people, on the same schedule, performing much the same role, five days a week, week after week. Supper is a process. Every evening (by some means of your choosing) supper must appear on the table. Why stress out? You know the rules and the role expected of you. Prepare yourself for the inevitable repeat.

Tool #4: Awareness of Choice. Through awareness of choice, you put your will to work in the world.

You and your neighbors are all connected through sharing the same environment. The community is made up of neighbors that each play vital roles in the success of special projects as well as your everyday life. Community members interact with each other in specific ways (process) to achieve common goals.

And now, it’s up to you to consciously choose among options. What choices will make the environment better for you, and all of us?  What “neighbors” need to be included in your next project to insure its success? What processes do you want to support with your choices – “Kill the Mice” or “Remove the Habitat”, “Fast Food” or “Slow Food”? 

How do you make your choices known? This is a capitalist society. Consumer choice is a very effective change agent. What you refuse to buy will not be sold. Goods that don’t sell disappear from the marketplace. (You will be heard. Ask the Big 3 U.S. automakers.) Put your money where your values are. The amount doesn’t matter.

Develop your own sense of belonging to the place you live in by using Awareness of Environment, Community, and Process.  Then, make your Choices about how to “re-localize” in your own community.

Next time: Fitting your four puzzle pieces into the Big Picture of Sense of Place.

Read more of Susan Duncan’s articles:
• Redefining Urban and Rural: Cooperation in a Time of Local Need
• Redefining Urban and Rural: Agriculture Loses Without Planning
• Redefining Urban and Rural: Why Growth Tools Haven’t Succeeded
• Redefining Rural and Urban: A Community Discussion
• Urban and Rural: Lifestyles Clash Over Differing Views of Open Space

Susan Duncan lives on a 76-acre irrigated farm in the Gallatin Valley of Montana that she and her husband Richard built from a fallow grain field since 1976. They raised registered and commercial cattle, sheep, and hay. Now they are niche market entrepreneurs of Dexter cattle and some produce. From 1999-2004 Susan was a country lifestyle columnist for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle “Fencelines” Section. She holds a B.S. Degree in Forestry from the University of Montana. For the last 20 years she has been an active participant in local efforts to envision a viable future and guide exploding development.