A small echo back. WAR. The privation (ugh) caused by the all out war on BELONGING, brings us to the nutrient void, false promise, of fitting in (gasp)
In reading your piece so many many bells sounded in me from your artful and storied articulation that my first response (too, NL!) is Boom! Then, then, I eagerly looked up the meaning of "Ersatz" and found that it came to life in a huge way during WARTIME, WWI, in Germany.
See below from a web search.... Words. I just want to share here.
"Evidence of ersatz in English dates to the middle of the 19th century, but the word didn’t come into prominence until World War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently applied as an adjective to modify terms like coffee (made from acorns) and flour (made from potatoes)—ersatz products necessitated by the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of ersatz products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language. Today, ersatz describes any substitute or imitation, especially when it’s inferior to the original.
Isn't this just bone-chilling. I hadn't researched the origin of the word 'erstaz' and just wow. Awful. Imitation (aka fake) coffee and flour (though now we use potato flour as a substitute for gluten, don't we??). Perhaps sometimes even offered as a thing that is 'new and improved', perhaps more shelf stable and certainly cheaper...which must mean it's better, right?
My attempts to fit in turned me into a contortionist, eventually I collapsed, fatigued from the energy required to maintain the inorganic shapes… For today and all days, I choose belonging. I have been claimed by lands, waters, trees, and even some wyrd and wonderful humans, and for that I am eternally grateful.
What a wonderful thing to have been claimed by all those wonderful (and even wyrd!!) others. That's a good inoculation against the ever-present pressure to fit-in.
Wow. Boom! Just, thank you! 🙏💓 this landed so profoundly with me as I’m currently undergoing a long and rough process of an identity death I believe. Still don’t know if I’ll make it, but your words place it in a context that feels humbling and hopeful. So thank you and I’d love to read more of your writing on this! 🌸✨
I'm so glad to hand you a protein packet and water bottle as you pass by on the rough journey of an identity death. We know, at the very least, that some part of you *won't* make it...and isn't that the very point? A shedding of perhaps something taken on, previously agreed to, that no longer serves. Perhaps you've grown roots enough to recognize it was never yours to begin with and you can now afford to let it go.
So very true, reading this really takes my breath away. I marvel at how accurately you’re naming this process. Really appreciate you mentioning rooting, I hadn’t realised that was part of it but as you name it, I see it. Of course. 👁️ 🙏✨ a few years ago I consciously realised I needed to tend to/discover/rediscover my roots. Didn’t understand why, just felt empty, like something was missing. To see the shedding of skin that I’m in now as part of that is just amazing. Makes things come full circle. ⭕️ and it’s still scary. And it’s still painful. And I’m still moving at what feels to be a snail’s pace but the direction has been set and there’s no going back. Thank you 🙏✨🌸
Uff, I actually didn’t know that “rewilding” had such a broadly tortured history in the psycho-pop world (though I was briefly in that “rewilding for women” Facebook group because I was intrigued by the name. Omg, it was terrible, and terrifying! 😳)
Anyway, I remark on this point because I actually have a personal love of the term (as evidenced by the working title of my possible future blog here), but you definitely make a good point about its historical (and still current?) misuse.
My love of the term has nothing to do with wanting humans to simply “get wild” (or even self-focus at all, for that matter), but everything to do with returning to relationship… with that which we come from. But relationship in this context is not so sexy, lol, because it requires reciprocity, deference and, gasp, work!
(Terrible side-note: the question then becomes, “do I continue to use the word because people will be drawn to it because they think it is sexy and human-centric – and so I might entice them in, even as my aims are actually quite to the contrary?” 😂😭 Le sigh…)
I actually loved when I learned that the original use of the term “rewilding” had precisely zero to do with humans, and everything to do with ecological systems and non-human beings. However, I do think we have a place within those systems, because that is our home too. I suppose you could say that’s where we truly belong.
I love knowing you're reclaiming the word rewilding from the grips of the conformist-consumer thrall. Yes. Use the word. Please! There need to be some stellar examples of *actual* rewilding out there for those hungry curious souls who dream themselves awake and need reinforcement. Your articulations and vision will be just that.
(Of course, occasionally flashy – like the white outer tail feathers the juncos reveal when feisty, or the glimmer of sunlight on the water when it strikes your eye…)
Thank you for articulating this so elegantly, Christiane. So much of this—all of this, actually, this experience of seeing life from within each of our own perspectives—is ineffable, and yet, it’s deliciously frustrating and sometimes satisfying to try. Even living in a community that embraces our uniqueness, I find the tendency to fit in still present, in me and in others. It’s so deep in our programming. Here’s to rewilding, in the sense you mean 🌿
Yes, I can imagine that most of us finding our way to community bring a lot of the dominant culture's paradigms with us. We must undergo a shedding and dying over time to take full advantage of all that a true community has to offer.
Does individual belonging imply different strata and stages ? And do some overlap with the collective belonging we can experience in our well-found communities ?
A small echo back. WAR. The privation (ugh) caused by the all out war on BELONGING, brings us to the nutrient void, false promise, of fitting in (gasp)
In reading your piece so many many bells sounded in me from your artful and storied articulation that my first response (too, NL!) is Boom! Then, then, I eagerly looked up the meaning of "Ersatz" and found that it came to life in a huge way during WARTIME, WWI, in Germany.
See below from a web search.... Words. I just want to share here.
"Evidence of ersatz in English dates to the middle of the 19th century, but the word didn’t come into prominence until World War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently applied as an adjective to modify terms like coffee (made from acorns) and flour (made from potatoes)—ersatz products necessitated by the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of ersatz products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language. Today, ersatz describes any substitute or imitation, especially when it’s inferior to the original.
Isn't this just bone-chilling. I hadn't researched the origin of the word 'erstaz' and just wow. Awful. Imitation (aka fake) coffee and flour (though now we use potato flour as a substitute for gluten, don't we??). Perhaps sometimes even offered as a thing that is 'new and improved', perhaps more shelf stable and certainly cheaper...which must mean it's better, right?
This! Yes! Thank you!
My attempts to fit in turned me into a contortionist, eventually I collapsed, fatigued from the energy required to maintain the inorganic shapes… For today and all days, I choose belonging. I have been claimed by lands, waters, trees, and even some wyrd and wonderful humans, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Blessed be the belonging!
What a wonderful thing to have been claimed by all those wonderful (and even wyrd!!) others. That's a good inoculation against the ever-present pressure to fit-in.
Wow. Boom! Just, thank you! 🙏💓 this landed so profoundly with me as I’m currently undergoing a long and rough process of an identity death I believe. Still don’t know if I’ll make it, but your words place it in a context that feels humbling and hopeful. So thank you and I’d love to read more of your writing on this! 🌸✨
I'm so glad to hand you a protein packet and water bottle as you pass by on the rough journey of an identity death. We know, at the very least, that some part of you *won't* make it...and isn't that the very point? A shedding of perhaps something taken on, previously agreed to, that no longer serves. Perhaps you've grown roots enough to recognize it was never yours to begin with and you can now afford to let it go.
So very true, reading this really takes my breath away. I marvel at how accurately you’re naming this process. Really appreciate you mentioning rooting, I hadn’t realised that was part of it but as you name it, I see it. Of course. 👁️ 🙏✨ a few years ago I consciously realised I needed to tend to/discover/rediscover my roots. Didn’t understand why, just felt empty, like something was missing. To see the shedding of skin that I’m in now as part of that is just amazing. Makes things come full circle. ⭕️ and it’s still scary. And it’s still painful. And I’m still moving at what feels to be a snail’s pace but the direction has been set and there’s no going back. Thank you 🙏✨🌸
I’ve forwarded this on to everyone I know.
thank you!
Uff, I actually didn’t know that “rewilding” had such a broadly tortured history in the psycho-pop world (though I was briefly in that “rewilding for women” Facebook group because I was intrigued by the name. Omg, it was terrible, and terrifying! 😳)
Anyway, I remark on this point because I actually have a personal love of the term (as evidenced by the working title of my possible future blog here), but you definitely make a good point about its historical (and still current?) misuse.
My love of the term has nothing to do with wanting humans to simply “get wild” (or even self-focus at all, for that matter), but everything to do with returning to relationship… with that which we come from. But relationship in this context is not so sexy, lol, because it requires reciprocity, deference and, gasp, work!
(Terrible side-note: the question then becomes, “do I continue to use the word because people will be drawn to it because they think it is sexy and human-centric – and so I might entice them in, even as my aims are actually quite to the contrary?” 😂😭 Le sigh…)
I actually loved when I learned that the original use of the term “rewilding” had precisely zero to do with humans, and everything to do with ecological systems and non-human beings. However, I do think we have a place within those systems, because that is our home too. I suppose you could say that’s where we truly belong.
I love knowing you're reclaiming the word rewilding from the grips of the conformist-consumer thrall. Yes. Use the word. Please! There need to be some stellar examples of *actual* rewilding out there for those hungry curious souls who dream themselves awake and need reinforcement. Your articulations and vision will be just that.
THANK YOU! You are actually the second person this week who has encouraged me in its use and I think I’m just about ready to publish my first post…
And yes, the real. Not flashy, but wondrous…
(Of course, occasionally flashy – like the white outer tail feathers the juncos reveal when feisty, or the glimmer of sunlight on the water when it strikes your eye…)
Thank you for articulating this so elegantly, Christiane. So much of this—all of this, actually, this experience of seeing life from within each of our own perspectives—is ineffable, and yet, it’s deliciously frustrating and sometimes satisfying to try. Even living in a community that embraces our uniqueness, I find the tendency to fit in still present, in me and in others. It’s so deep in our programming. Here’s to rewilding, in the sense you mean 🌿
Yes, I can imagine that most of us finding our way to community bring a lot of the dominant culture's paradigms with us. We must undergo a shedding and dying over time to take full advantage of all that a true community has to offer.
Thank you for these words. I belong.
I friend sent this wonderful song, that perhaps we should all sing first thing in the morning, to the rising sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaOF59v_uCE
Oh, this is gorgeous...we'll sing it here <3
Does individual belonging imply different strata and stages ? And do some overlap with the collective belonging we can experience in our well-found communities ?