Lost Coast Keepers of the Earth was created with the intention of helping to facilitate deep nature connection, connection to community, and a deeper understanding of ourselves. Over the years it has become increasingly more and more clear how important 'knowing our place' is in really solidifying these connections.
As I embark on a year long journey with my family into unfamiliar places, I am more aware of how intimately I have come to know the landscape of the Santa Monica Mountains with all of their inhabitants: people, plants and animals and all of the natural features that make this place so unique.
I often have reminded students and workshop participants about the importance of creating a MAP, a mind map that contains all of the details of a place. As we spend more time visiting a place over and over again, the details of our map become more diverse and more concrete in our minds. As this process naturally unfolds, our connection to that place grows.
One example of this for me occurs in late October. I know that it is the beginning of the acorn harvest. Some oak trees are tall and it is often hard to reach the high branches while others do not produce an abundance of nuts each year. So over the years I have had to visit many oak groves, walk on many trails to come to know which trees produce the most acorns and which are the best for harvesting.
This requires creating a mental map of several places. One such place is the Tuna Canyon Fire Road. I can follow the trail with my mind's eye and see the smaller network of trails leading to a generous Coast Live Oak. I picture the many plants I pass along the way: horehound, a giant stand of fennel, the eucylptus forest, and then I see the magnificent canopy with it's glistening acorns hanging in anticipation. Many more details come to mind: the time of year I witnessed that particular tree dropping its nuts, the size, the color, the way they felt in my hand, and the heaviness of the gathering bag once full.
I am deeply connected to that tree and to that place. I can still see all of those details with great clarity as I sit here under overcast skies surrounded by tall redwood trees in Northern California.
I am filled with excitement and child-like wonder as I walk among the trees here and on the bluffs of the rugged North Coast, exploring this new and varied terrain. I am a stranger in a new strange land and the threads of connection have only begun to form. When I think of Southern California I am grateful for the thick ropes of connection to the land and to the people and a great love wells up in my heart.
For me connection has become central to my life's purpose as I walk in my middle years, having spent the last two decades asking those really big questions and exploring many different paths trying to answer them. When we are connected to our place and to the people within that place, a sense of rightness in the world emerges.
Remember: you can know many places, create many maps, and form strong bonds of connection wherever you are.
FOR THE KIDS (or yourself):
Choose a place you visit often, a particular trail, your backyard, a park and create a map of all of the details contained in that place. The different birds, their colors, calls, and names, the plants and what they look like this time of year, the trees, animals, man-made features like fences, paths, rocks, meadows etc.
Go and visit that place and when you return home try to add details to the map that you have started. Keep adding more and more details each time you visit. As you connect more deeply to that place you will start to notice and learn new things about it.
Blessings from the Redwoods,
Stacey
Fieldbrook, CA
As I embark on a year long journey with my family into unfamiliar places, I am more aware of how intimately I have come to know the landscape of the Santa Monica Mountains with all of their inhabitants: people, plants and animals and all of the natural features that make this place so unique.
I often have reminded students and workshop participants about the importance of creating a MAP, a mind map that contains all of the details of a place. As we spend more time visiting a place over and over again, the details of our map become more diverse and more concrete in our minds. As this process naturally unfolds, our connection to that place grows.
One example of this for me occurs in late October. I know that it is the beginning of the acorn harvest. Some oak trees are tall and it is often hard to reach the high branches while others do not produce an abundance of nuts each year. So over the years I have had to visit many oak groves, walk on many trails to come to know which trees produce the most acorns and which are the best for harvesting.
This requires creating a mental map of several places. One such place is the Tuna Canyon Fire Road. I can follow the trail with my mind's eye and see the smaller network of trails leading to a generous Coast Live Oak. I picture the many plants I pass along the way: horehound, a giant stand of fennel, the eucylptus forest, and then I see the magnificent canopy with it's glistening acorns hanging in anticipation. Many more details come to mind: the time of year I witnessed that particular tree dropping its nuts, the size, the color, the way they felt in my hand, and the heaviness of the gathering bag once full.
I am deeply connected to that tree and to that place. I can still see all of those details with great clarity as I sit here under overcast skies surrounded by tall redwood trees in Northern California.
I am filled with excitement and child-like wonder as I walk among the trees here and on the bluffs of the rugged North Coast, exploring this new and varied terrain. I am a stranger in a new strange land and the threads of connection have only begun to form. When I think of Southern California I am grateful for the thick ropes of connection to the land and to the people and a great love wells up in my heart.
For me connection has become central to my life's purpose as I walk in my middle years, having spent the last two decades asking those really big questions and exploring many different paths trying to answer them. When we are connected to our place and to the people within that place, a sense of rightness in the world emerges.
Remember: you can know many places, create many maps, and form strong bonds of connection wherever you are.
FOR THE KIDS (or yourself):
Choose a place you visit often, a particular trail, your backyard, a park and create a map of all of the details contained in that place. The different birds, their colors, calls, and names, the plants and what they look like this time of year, the trees, animals, man-made features like fences, paths, rocks, meadows etc.
Go and visit that place and when you return home try to add details to the map that you have started. Keep adding more and more details each time you visit. As you connect more deeply to that place you will start to notice and learn new things about it.
Blessings from the Redwoods,
Stacey
Fieldbrook, CA
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