We don't own, we steward
Happy Sunday, Soothers. A week and a half ago, I moved into an approximately 250 year old home, a home that had been lived in for 30 years by the previous owners, in a town that had been created by colonizers nearly 300 years ago, on land that was also home to Hill Tom, one of the few free black men of his time and location, who was a hunter, herbalist and local medicine man, according to lore, in a wider swath of land that was home to the Manahoac people long before any white Europeans settled there. And let's not forget the Short Hill range, which is a ridge in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a province of the Appalachians, which are 480 million years old.
Yeah. It's a lot.
To say there is a dizzying amount of history in this location, especially one as small as this — 100 residents, .1 square miles of land comprising the town — would be an understatement.
Purchasing a home is kind of relatively insane and dizzying in and of itself. The money, legal complications, insurance, paperwork, overwhelm is all a whirlwhind of frenzied activity, realtors, insurance folks, mortgage lenders, settlement lawyers, all of whom seem to speak a strange language with fluency, a language I could barely grasp. There was a LOT of blank smiling, nodding and praying from my side.
But I gathered the money, signed the paperwork, showed the documents, and now, this little cottage, with a log cabin room at its core, on the banks of the tiny but charming North Fork Catoctin Creek — I guess it's... "mine"?
Even as I willingly participated in the process that is purchasing a home and land in America, I find the very concept of ownership of anything deeply weird, alien and troubling. How can I "own" land that has been there for millions of years, home to wildlife and indigenous people who were born of it? How can I "own" a house that has had dozens of generations of families living in it well before me, that was built even before any of my ancestors had stepped foot on this continent, that is six times over as old as I am, that will stand long after I'm gone, that has more wisdom and knowledge and history in its beams and logs than I could ever hope to possess?
Ownership as a concept, owning anything, has never sat well with me. It reeks of possessiveness, of domination, of fear, of a need to control.
So as I embark on getting to know this home, this land, this town, I have turned instead to the idea of stewardship.
Stewardship is often a term used about tending to a piece of land and has various connotations across the world, but the common underlying theme is caring for a piece of land regardless of its ownership, taking into consideration ecological, economic, social, and cultural dimensions.
I am not this house's owner. I am not this land's owner. I am not this creek's owner.
By whatever twist of fate and luck and privilege and timing, I am merely their current steward, one in a long line of dozens if not hundreds before me, for as long as they allow me to be here.
And it is my duty not to dominate them, to make any changes without proper context and consideration, without the land or house's permission, without doing my due diligence to understand the history and unfolding of this small bit of earth, these stacked logs of wood.
It is my duty to treat them with respect, sacredness, ritual and care. With gentle attention and solid intention.
Ownership vs. stewardship. I do not own, I steward.
Stewardship is a concept I adapted because it's one I weave throughout my coaching and in particular my Soothe mastermind. I do this because when I see folks trying to change or improve their lives, they are often doing it operating from ownership/domination energy, instead of stewardship of self.
We are born as we are, with all of our delights and all of our imperfections. I see it as our sacred duty to steward what we were given, in these bodies, these minds, these hearts, as they are. That doesn't mean we don't try to improve ourselves or achieve goals or step into our full potential; we just do it from a loving, tender, entirely different energy than most of us use.
To relate this metaphor to land to help you understand it a bit better, think of it like this:
Perhaps in this lifetime, like me, you were given a plot of land/Self that has a bit of rocky, unwelcoming (though, that's all relative, isn't it?) coast. Inland there's a deep grotto of water, a bit scary to stand on the precipice of, deep in the woods. There are also delightful fields of flowers, and sunny patches. Definitely some productive farmland that nourishes its community. And also quiet, isolated spots that don't seem to grow much of anything.
Or maybe you were given a plot of land by the ocean, or in the mountains. One with fertile soil, or maybe with soil that doesn't grow as easily. A piece of land with its own unique terrain, tendencies, and history; land with its specific biodiversity, ecological integrity, cultural heritage and landscape values.
But too often I see folks given a particular piece of land (Self) to steward, and they try to change into a societally-approved, "productive" field.
What if what you have is a wild rose garden, with a boggy swamp at the edge, or a tiny but peaceful pond that's surrounded by woodlands not meant to grow food...and you've been trying to make it into a land that mass produces corn and soybeans year-round?
This is ownership, domination over self, trying to make something granted to you into something that's not what it is at its core, instead of stewardship.
What I teach in Soothe to help move people into self-stewardship are these tenets and approaches:
You nurture what is to its highest potential
You don't try to transform what is into something else it can't or is not meant to be
You hold responsibility around decisions that are in the best interest of self, of emotions, of thoughts, of nervous system
You tend to thoughts & fears like a garden, removing weeds and invasive species & cultivating the resilient and beautiful ones that support self
You offer the land regular care, specific to the season of life
There's an understanding and commitment to learning the particular needs of ecosystem
You give the land (and the self) tenderness and devotion
There's a vision and you believe in its full and eventual potential and are willing to take steps in the long-term to achieve it
You don't abandon the land in storms, droughts or non-growing seasons; you plan for them
You become the steady gardener, the steady caretaker, of the land as it is
When my boyfriend and I went to the open house for this home, my mind hadn't yet switched into the possibility that I would ever make an offer on the house; I thought we were just looking for fun. I had never even heard of this town before we stumbled across the listing; while I had long pined to move somewhere more remote and closer to nature, it still hadn't clicked for me as something that could actually happen.
But something about the house drew us in. We spent over an hour poking around the house, exploring its features. As our visit drew down, I still wasn't thinking of making an offer, just that we had had a fun afternoon visiting a tiny and charming village and house.
But as we stood on the outside porch chatting with the realtor, AJ gasped and grabbed my shoulder. "Catherine, look!" he practically yelled. Where I followed his finger I saw an enormous Great Blue Heron skimming the creek right in front of us, and flying off into the distance.
The Great Blue Heron is a bird with deep meaning, reverence and symbolism for me and my boyfriend, as we stay each summer in a house on the banks of a river in Indiana guarded by three of these gorgeous creatures.
"Oh, sh*t." I thought as I watched the heron flap off. "I'm going to put an offer in on this house."
I put great stock into signs from the universe, particularly wildlife, and particularly birds, who have always shown up as messengers and wisdom and support during critical junctures of my life. Herons, eagles, owls and more have often visited me when I needed them most, and I knew intuitively that this heron was absolutely an invitation from the house and the land.
They were willing to consider me as their next steward.
Later in the house-buying process, a few things had gone a bit rocky, and it seemed that possibly the whole thing was in danger of falling through.
I did my best to release the outcome, but also I knew it was time to go make an offering to the creek and the land, something I had neglected to do at the start of the process.
AJ and I drove down to a public access point for the creek that crossed the yard of the house (we were not so strange as to go to the actual yard of the house while the previous owners were still living in it, though TBH I would have been willing!). I brought with me a piece of fruit, a tiny crystal, and as we stood at the banks of the creek, pulled out a strand of my hair.
We each said a few words about what we might be able to offer the land and the house. We made promises to deeply research its history, to tend to the yard and keep the creek waters clean, to pay land taxes to the tribes who have a rightful claim to this area. And we talked about our vision for the house; the meals we would cook there, the family we would host, the workshops I could run, the gardens we could build. The ways we would try to help the community and be a true part of the town.
After we'd said our piece, I dropped the fruit, the tiny crystal and my strand of hair into the creek from above and they bobbed off into the distance.
We asked permission to become the stewards of the house and the land.
The next week, the mortgage went through.
And now we step into our new roles.
If you're interested in the concept of learning how to steward your Self , book a call with me about joining Soothe before we close on December 22nd. And here are a few journal prompts to help you further explore this idea; you could also use this as a Tarot pull:
-What kind of piece of land do you think you've been given to steward?
-What have you been trying to make it into?
-How is it actually calling out to be tended instead?
-What are 3 ways you can begin to steward it more as the steady gardener?