ABSTRACT
The idea of place, where we belong, is a constant subject for many of us. We want to know whether it is possible to live on the earth peacefully. Is it possible to sustain life? Can we embrace an ethos of sustainability that is not solely about the appropriate care of the world’s resources, but is also about the creation of meaning — the making of lives that we feel are worth living. Tracy Chapman sings lyrics that give expression to this yearning, repeating, “I wanna wake up and know where I’m going.” Again and again as I travel around I am stunned by how many citizens in our nation feel lost, feel bereft of a sense of direction, feel as though they cannot see where our journeys lead, that they cannot know where they are going. Many folks feel no sense of place. What they know, what they have, is a sense of crisis, of impending doom. Even the old, the elders, who have lived from decade to decade and beyond, say life is different in this time, “way strange,” that our world today is a world of “too much” — that this too muchness creates a wilderness of 2spirit, the everyday anguish that shapes the habits of being for those who are lost, wandering, searching.
