Of the Land
A short critical essay for an Environmental Justice/Indigenous Studies class: I’ve thought a lot about what it means to be “of the land.” Here in the big city, I find myself thinking a lot about the land I grew up on. I dream of it, long for it, and only truly feel at peace when I return to it. It’s like all of the noise slips away when I am deep in the woods I grew up in, sitting on that sacred hill overlooking the joining of three streams. I think you can, over time, develop connections with other places that you spend a significant amount of time in, but it will never be quite as significant as the land you were raised on. I only moved away from this land four years ago. Since the age of five I lived in an intentional conservation community in the rural outskirts of Clarke County in Athens, Georgia. Named for the white family who maintained the 132 acres as a cotton farm in the century following the Creek nation's removal, Kenney Ridge Community was started in 1993 by a small gr...