Your Heart Size
I believe that more people staying put,
learning their place, and taking an active role
would improve our social and ecological life.
I have said that people should try to become
“paysan, paisanos, peons” in the meaning
–people of the land—people of the place.
But note: there’s no limit to how big the place can be.
the size of the place that one becomes a member of
is limited only by the size of one’s heart.
…one has to start where one is
and become nature-literate
to the scale of the immediate home place.
Back On The Fire by Gary Snyder, Sustainability Means Winning Hearts and Minds
How big is my heart? Big enough to find joy in the mundane “maintenance” of the yard, enough to include cleaning the creek of plastic debris, of deadfall branches which can impede flow into the marsh… The creek drains the surrounding neighborhoods into the wetland.
To start where one is.
To care more, to know one’s heart size.
