Image:  Quinnipiac, photo by Maria Tupper, used with permission

…a New Hour of Decision

Forsaking all others, I will love this Earth in my own place with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength. I will enter into a new relationship, body and soul, with the Land Itself. I decide now…

I am choosing a different way. I have decided to live as a place-based person. I am going to get interested in the unique land forms, water courses, flora and fauna, of my own region. I am going to join with other place-based persons here at home in forming multi-dimensional meshworks of inter-connection with the webs of life in this place. I will seek to secure a reciprocity between the life of my own local human community and the living place where we are.

And . . . I will walk the watersheds.

To know my place and to live from my place, will become my glory. I will not seek status and fame based on conspicuous consumption, or based on my extensive knowledge of the ideas and methods of a dying industrial age. I will satisfy my human need for recognition, belonging and status by participating to the best of my ability in the transition to an ecologically grounded way of life for humans. I will accept that these particular hills and valleys of Quinnipiac Land are the place where I will find whatever fulfillment is destined to be mine during my lifetime. Here I will work out my own salvation — with others — with fear and trembling and . . . at times . . . with joy.

To be alive . . . here, now, in this my lifeplace . . . that’s enough for me. The earth . . . as I know and live and love it here . . . is enough.

Excerpted from The Earth Is Enough, "Dwellers in Quinnipiac Land," Frederick R. Cervin, November 6, 2011

Author

Founding member of TLA's Board of Directors, founder of New Haven Bioregional Group, and friend, guide, compatriot, Fred was committed to the Earth and all life.  His first collection of essays, The Earth Is Enough, is available through Maria Tupper.  Earth Loyalty and Bioregional Practice may be found HERE.  An Audio Archive of selections from The Earth is Enough may be found HERE at the New Haven Bioregional Group site.