Stitching the valley - Part 5

From above, roads are stark straight lines.  Land undulates but the roads cut clear across, slicing open hills and paving across water. What the land does is irrelevant to the road. The story it tells of faultlines and drainage, soil and rock is nothing set against Man and a plan.

Direct routes that save time and discomfort, that offer us lives of ease and economy, can come at the cost of relationship to the land. On paved roads we don’t need to navigate our way. There is no negotiation of passage or path, no noticing high ground or the boggy. There is little need to respond to our surroundings. The running water, the varying terrain—itself a negotiation between land and weather—fall away on either side of the roads. It makes no difference. What used to run here, what it felt like under our feet, is irrelevant.

We no longer have to pay attention. We do not have to live in response or fashion our life to what is happening in the environment around us. We move through the varying shades of the land with equal ease, in equal comfort. We impose. We unilaterally decide - this is what I want. This is where I am going.

On paved roads we don’t need to navigate our way. There is no negotiation of passage or path, no noticing high ground or the boggy.

I don’t advocate a return to bridle paths, each of us forging our own way across the land with muddy hems and sodden boots. But noticing this is another reminder that we now live on our land rather than with our land. 

Most of us know this, of course. We buy fresh produce out of season, from other locations, and not really fresh at all. For most things we consume we are out of touch with how it was made, by whom, with what energy, and for what exchange. There are people passionate about all these things, and rightly so.

For me, I particularly notice how we experience land. And by that I mean how I experience it—how I used to, and how I do now, and all the ways in which it is changing. I notice what takes me out of relationship with it, and I notice what brings me back. I’m curious about the practices, small and large, the regular or the singular startling experiences that invite us all back to a sense of belonging. 

For me, working on this embroidery, this map of my valley, has been both meditative and revealing. It has opened up time and space to contemplate and reflect. I’ve seen the land in new ways and from new angles. It is almost done. I have the key to finish in the bottom right corner, and then it will be off to the framers.

Putting it behind glass will protect it from dust and grubby fingers, but my heart aches a little at the thought that I won't be able to run my fingers over the lines anymore. I think my continued need to touch it might rise above my desire to protect it. In a way, the glass would be doing what the roads do - taking me out of relationship with something has become a symbol of belonging and understanding. Covering it up would simply distance me from it. I think I’d rather live with the telltale marks of a piece that was clearly loved.