vaterland

i had a customer come in this past week who, as it turned out, grew up 30 min away from where i grew up. we switched from english to german and suddenly, i wasn't the employee anymore and she wasn't the customer. instead we were two women sharing something. our vaterland. it's a funny word. father land. mother earth is every where. encompasses all. and yet, there are pieces of land that mean more to us than others. germany is my father land. there was something distinguish in the air as she and i talked about the area we grew up in. and how it is not the same living somewhere else. we couldn't pinpoint what it was but we both agreed. the land carries memories, the bodies and blood of our ancestors. we are the land. and even though we are all the same, i am understanding slowly what people have told me at various times during my travels. where you grew up will always have a special place in your heart. whether they are good or bad memories. it's part of your body structure. you feet walked on that piece of land when you first learned to walk. energy has been transmitted from the ground through the sole of your feet. you rolled in grass, fell in the mud, jumped into a lake. it's part of us.
a friend once told me that she wouldn't leave her country again if she could go back to making that decision. here, she doesn't know the history of the rocks, the houses, the lakes, the sky. she doesn't have any history here. maybe that is why some people are bewildered why first nation canadians "couldn't just pick it up" when their reserve was moved to a different location. most of us don't have that close connection to the place we call home. and yet, it might have been a similar situation for first nations if they were put on the moon. the land is different depending on where you are. it informs your body just as much as you inform the land. there is a connection. i think, that's why the local movement is picking up momentum. we are awakening to the reality that we are what we eat. and when we eat what was grown on the land we live on, the cycle is complete. our body is getting the information through the food. it learns about the climate, the diseases going around and the nutrients that our body is craving or that are short this season. if trees can communicate over a whole city when exactly to drop their fruit, is it not in line to assume that our bodies get the information how to function from what we feed it?
i think we are so used to traveling, to settling wherever it is 'nice'. me included. but if you talk with someone who left their place of birth, if they can remember, they will be able to tell you a story about how it smelt, how it felt and what their favorite location was. and if you listen deeply, there is a tone that swings with the words they are using to describe that place and it has a very delicate taste. it's almost like they are talking about their first teddy bear.
one of my favorite places was the old widow tree that stood in our neighbor's front yard, just down the street from our apartment. she was beautiful. and under her long branches, there stood a bench. i always wondered who has been sitting on that bench and what they had thought about. behind our house, there was a small street where no cars were allowed to drive. we children would play out there all afternoon. we would use our neighbors high fence to play school. my older sister usually being the teacher. sometimes our soccer ball would end up in her garden. so we would have to ring her bell and apologize. we didn't mind though because we knew she would give us some candy. plus she had a garbage chute that went from her kitchen right down into the basement garbage bin. which to me was the coolest thing ever at that time.
for me the idle no more movement means thinking about the land i came from and the land i am living on right now. understanding it. and allowing it to become my body. to inform it. through observing the land we live on we can learn so much about ourselves. i am soft just like the rolling hills near stuttgart,  but i can be fierce and powerful just like the alps. i hope my heart is as deep as lake constance and my spirit blossoms as colorfully and vibrant as the trees and flowers at the beginning of spring.
i understand now that even though there is a mother earth, wide and open; having a father land can also be a very precious thing.