write one page summery

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N O R T H W E S T E A R T H I N S T I T U T E S e s s i o n 5 / M a p p i n g Yo u r P l a c e

Mapping the Biosphere

By Gene Marshall from Boundaries of Home

edited by Doug Aberley

Defining your bioregion is often a task that, like peeling an

onion, reveals more and more layers before you get to the heart

of the matter. Gene Marshall, who has been active in the bioregional

movement on local and continental levels for many years,

gives an idea of the attractive complexity of bioregional mapping.

Let us just meditate for a moment on the chaos of geographical

“districts” we are asked to work with in contemporary society.

First of all, in the United States we have the nation as a whole,

states, counties and city limits. On top of these, we have

state legislative districts, national congressional districts, judicial

districts, and perhaps city districts. We have postal zip-code

districts and telephone area-code districts and water control

districts, and on and on. Few, if any of us, are clear about

the boundaries of all these districts. They nevertheless chart

and shape our lives. Some of them are gerrymandered and

re-gerrymandered into ridiculous patterns. Most of them are

personally meaningless to us.

We are usually told by our parents, schools, politicians

and television sets to have patriotic feelings for our nation, but

what does that actually mean? Certainly, I relate to some of the

geography of the United States more passionately than to any part

of Canada or Mexico. Part of the U.S. geography is familiar to

me and has the emotional power of being my home. Yet, Hawaii

and Alaska are farther from my “home” experience than Canada

or Mexico. Some of my dear friends are Canadian and Mexican

citizens. Some of my worst enemies are U.S. citizens. Why must

I be willing to go to war for the U.S., fight for the U.S. industrial

success, and shout loudly for athletic teams that hail from a U.S.

place!? Why is my home defined by the boundaries of the United

States?

I also live within another arbitrarily drawn set of boundaries

called “Texas.” State patriotism is emphasized here, but I don’t

actually relate to people living in Houston and El Paso more

closely than I do to the people in Oklahoma, only ten miles

from where I live. I certainly feel no less at home when I cross

the Oklahoma border. It is clear to me that our customary

geographical sensibilities and loyalties are in a fuzzy chaos of

fragmentary and shallow meanings.

Furthermore, the basic philosophy behind the determination

of this maze of geographical districts is antithetical to the society

I am envisioning for the future. These “districts” have been set

with narrow human purposes in mind: human property rights,

human exploitation rights, human political control, human

supervision of nature and other humans — these are the motifs

that underlie our continued use of these districts.

If we shift our overall imagination from controlling

nature to cooperating with nature, other modes of drawing

our geographical districts emerge. Recognizing this has been

a central gift of the bioregional movement. Efforts have been

made in this movement to notice how the planet and all its

species of life have already arranged themselves before humans

superimposed their districts. Some of the astronauts, speaking

in favor of peace, commented that national boarders cannot

be seen from outer space. Truly that is a basic insight: the

biosphere is one interconnected whole. Suppose we begin to

look for contiguous parts of this whole: parts whose boundaries

are determined by common features of climate, vegetation,

fauna, soils, altitude and other geological features. Nature-

bonding tribes of humans arranged themselves in harmony

with these natural features. Clearly, modern civilizations have

ignored them to the point of destroying not only the outward

riches of nature itself, but also the meaningfulness of nature-

relationships for human beings.

Mapping the biosphere can be a first step, then, in strategic

practice because it concretely embodies a crucial shift in our

sensibilities from human-centered to nature-centered evaluations

in our overall attitude toward nature — a shift from competition

to cooperation, from conflict to harmony, from separation to

partnership. It is also a meditative exercise that can be done

now by each aware person. Agreeing with other aware persons

about your proposed geographical boundaries may take years of

working together. That does not matter. My need now is for my

own “sense of place” which depends not simply on discovering my

own neighborhood, community or local region, but upon seeing

the relationship of my own local places to every other place on

the planet. I need a sense of my whole planet, of my continent,

and the major sub-parts of my continent in order to see how my

local places are parts of these wider regions of natural life and

human living.

Some day our political institutions and our economic

institutions need to be brought into line with our new geographical

sensibilities. But that is not the first step; it comes much later. We

have to look forward to at least several decades of transition time

during which we will have to live in two worlds: (1) the present

political world of nations and states and counties (and other

such districts) constructed to define who can exploit what part

of the planet, and (2) the coming political world of federated life-

regions. Mapping the biosphere is a preparation for that coming

day; nevertheless, for right now, as an exercise it enables each

individual person to act upon that grand long-range vision. It is

also a deeply spiritual act that goes to the heart of our attitudes

and values. The way we conceive our geography expresses who

we are and defines how we are assuming responsibility for all

that surrounds us. This deeply personal level of mapping has

primary importance. We cannot turn our mapping task to some

professional geographer. Maps which are superimposed upon us

from “higher authorities” or “scientific theorists” mean nothing

to us personally unless data from such sources resonate with our

personally-felt sense of place.

So step one is a challenge to the individual person to

discover a fresh sense of place. This seemingly innocent shift in

individual imagination is a radical, revolutionary step. It leads to

a demystification of our deeply-embedded national mythologies.

When life-regions become “my home,” the nation immediately

ceases to be “my home” and becomes instead a set of institutions.

Speaking as a U.S. citizen, the U.S. ceases to be “my home” and

becomes a network of institutions centered in Washington, D.C. and

fanning out to 50 state capitals and thousands of county seats.

The U.S. is also various “federal” institutions accountable directly

to Washington D.C. and scattered across all 50 states and the

whole world. This maze of institutions is the United States. I

have to live with them and deal with them; they are part of where

S e s s i o n 5 / M a p p i n g Yo u r P l a c e

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N O R T H W E S T E A R T H I N S T I T U T E

I live. But once I have made my interior shift in imagination,

these U.S. institutions are no longer mythologized for me as “my

home.” Please listen to the feel of this very carefully: the United

States is no longer my home. The United States no longer means

to me “a people” or “a home” of any sort for anyone. The

United States, on this side of “Mapping the Biosphere,” is simply

a maze of institutions.

So, looking with fresh eyes from this new sense of home, I

can observe the U.S. maze of institutions objectively. Are any

of them any good for anything? Can any of them be used to do

good? Are some of them capable of being phased out right away?

Are some of them capable of being transformed into something

useful that lasts a thousand years? Are some of them useful for

the next hundred years of transition and then disposable? Once

we have mapped the biosphere, our responses to such questions

can be rendered in a simple, practical manner, unpolluted by the

national mythologies we have been trained in since infancy.

The essential simplicity of visualizing a new sense of place

can be illustrated by a ritual that I have conducted as part of a

number of speeches. I ask the audience to stand up, imagine

that they are standing, right below their feet, on their county, on

the state of Texas, on the nation of the United States. “Now

we are going to leap in the air, leaping out of this county, out of

Texas, out of United States. When we come back down to the

ground we are going to land on this bioregion, on this continent,

on this planet. With this leap you have begun the complex

task of reinhabiting the planet; you have joined the bioregional

movement.”

This leap needs some fleshing out. What exactly is my

bioregion? How is it related to my continent? What do we mean

by communities and neighborhoods, and which ones comprise

my bioregion? So, still focusing on a shift in the imagination of

the individual person, I want to expand upon this shift. I want

to challenge each individual leaper to do some mapping. This

challenge is summarized in the accompanying chart which you

can adopt for your own use:

The number and names of categories along the left side of

the chart can be changed. The definitions of these geographical

scales can be altered. However, for me, this is a good chart and a

place to begin. I will explain more carefully what each of these

categories mean to me:

My neighborhood means the most local place in which

I live. It could be a few square miles; it could be a few square

blocks. It could contain 200 people in a rural valley or a small

creek watershed; it could contain 500-1,000 people in a very small

urban space.

My community is larger: 5,000 to 20,000 people may live

there. Again rural places will be less populous, urban places may

be more populous. Community, as well as neighborhood, does

not mean humans only, but rocks and water and vegetation and

all local forms of animal life. Some communities are now vastly

overpopulated with human beings. A community in an urban

setting would likely be small enough to walk easily to every part of

it. A more rural community might be larger, like most of a county.

My local Bioregion is a collection of communities within

some meaningful boundaries determined by the factors of basic

land topography, watersheds, flora and fauna habitats, altitudes,

rainfalls, temperatures, and other such factors.

One of the important human factors defining a local

bioregion is the principle that it should be large enough to be

relatively self-sustaining. A community or a neighborhood may

be quite dependent on other communities and neighborhoods

for many of the necessities and cultural enrichments of life. A

local bioregion may also have imports and exports of all sorts

to and from all parts of the planet; nevertheless, a local region,

when fully transformed in the next millennium, should be able

to be relatively capable of feeding itself, caring for its own natural

systems, clothing and housing its humans, living a full, well-

rounded life with minimal dependence on other regions.

My Sub-Biome means the next larger life-region. It is

a nesting together of perhaps 20 local bioregions. My local

bioregion is about 100 miles north to south and 120 miles east

to west, whereas my sub-biome, it seems to me, extends from the

northern border of Red River watershed to the Gulf of Mexico

on the south, and the western and eastern borders are determined

by the borders of that banana-shaped strip of grasslands which

extends from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

My Biome is that entire grasslands which I am calling the

Great Prairie. The term “biome” I have taken from the excellent

mapping work done by a United Nations office (the Man

And the Biosphere Secretariat, Division of Ecological Sciences,

UNESCO) which produced a map of all the large natural regions

of the planet that they called biomes. This map has a degree of

acceptance across the world and is, at least, a good way for each

of us to begin our life-long task of defining what large sub-part of

our continent we live within.

My continent is quite clear to me. I see myself living

on what some call North America, but I am using the name

“Turtle Island” in honor of this continent’s ancient residents. In

my definition of it, this continent includes Costa Rica but not

Panama; Alaska but not Asia; Greenland but no Iceland; and

the northernmost Caribbean Islands. Clearly these decisions are

somewhat arbitrary and other persons on Turtle Island may decide

differently about what Turtle Island includes. Nevertheless, this is

my map, remember — my meditation on where I live.

My planet is the clearest category of all. I simply mean the

entire biosphere, its undergirding rock and metal ball, and its

surrounding atmosphere.

These geographical delineations are important to me

because they chart my circles of responsibility. It is as if I am

standing in the center of several concentric circles. Immediately

general geographic

categories

My Neighborhood

My Community

My Local Bioregion

My sub-Biome

My Biome

My Continent

My Planet

My own exaMples

Timber Creek Watershed

Bois d’Arc Creek Watershed

Red River Flats

Southern Great Prairie

The Great Prairie

Turtle Island

Earth

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N O R T H W E S T E A R T H I N S T I T U T E S e s s i o n 5 / M a p p i n g Yo u r P l a c e

around me is my own domestic home, the next larger circle is

my neighborhood, and so on, out to the largest circle, my planet.

The full meaning of the word “home” is all these circles. I stand

at one point in space which is inside all these circles. Choosing

clearly what each of these circles includes enables me to explain

to myself where I am and how to focus the various aspects of my

work. Take my sub-biome, for example. I am actively related to

activities throughout this geographical scope. Though I know

people throughout the continent and the planet, I work most

frequently with people in my sub-biome. I identify with this

larger home in some important ways. I assume responsibility

for this area in ways I do not assume responsibility for any other

“sub-biome” on the planet. While I am

convinced that I must now focus my

energies on empowering my own

neighborhood and community, I

also feel responsible for inspiring

and aiding every neighborhood

and community in my sub-biome.

I meet quarterly with people

from two or three adjacent

bioregions in my sub-biome.

When we come together, we

see ourselves as a group of

servant-leaders who return home

to various neighborhoods and

communities where we devote

ourselves to planning and

creating local empowerment.

Mapping the biosphere

charts your identity with, and

responsibility for, the whole Earth of which you are

one glorious part. It is the first step toward shifting the center of

political gravity from the nation and its moneyed élites to more

local circles of responsibility.

— Gene Marshall recently co-authored The Reign of Reality with his wife, Joyce

Marshall.

excerpts froM

Mapping the sacred places

By Jan DeBlieu

I once drew a map to my home on the North Carolina

Outer Banks for a friend who wanted to visit. I was new then

on Hatteras Island, new to the salt-scorched landscape and

interlocking planes of earth, sea, and sky. I felt newly awakened

as well, as if I had spent the previous years with my eyes and

my thoughts half-lidded. Every day I set aside time to explore

unfamiliar terrain and wonder at the great schools of fish, the

falcons, and sea birds that migrated past the island with the tug

of seasonal currents.

Since there was not much to show on my map — just a

single road beelining down a skinny arm of sand — I decorated it

with my favorite landmarks. On the north end I put three arches

covered with a mane of vertical lines; these were the grassy, camel-

hump dunes that fronted the ocean. Halfway to my house I drew

a tuxedoed heron with hot-pink legs; this marked the marshy flats

where I had stumbled on a group of black-necked stilts and the

messy stacks of twigs they use as nests. Last I drew a stick-figure

crustacean waving a flag on a nearby beach. I went to that beach

often to watch ghost crabs skirmishing, shoving each other with

round, pearly claws as if locked in mortal combat. Next to the

figure I penciled in “Ghost Crab Acres.”

I meant the map to be comical, but also to honor places

on Hatteras where I had witnessed something important or

particularly beautiful. I am not much of an illustrator, and the

map looked like something a first-grader might have drawn.

My friend called a few days after she received it. “Are these

amusement parks or something?” she

asked. I realized sheepishly that the

connection I felt to each landmark

was too personal, too powerful

to be explained by a simple

drawing.

Now I wish I had kept

that map for myself, or

made another. I wish I had

drawn a new map with

equally foolish figures for

each of my 15 years on these

islands. Put together, they

would compose a running

chronicle of the places I have

held dear here, a mental history

of my courtship with the land.

I am more insular these

days, too caught up in the eddies of

family life to do much. While I’m still

curious about the natural forces that play across the islands, I no

longer have the same white-hot drive to observe and learn. I live

on a pine-sheltered ridge on Roanoke Island, out of sight of the

ever-shifting horizons. The latest atlas of my world would mark

hideaways in the dunes and marshes, but also the houses of close

friends, the bookstore in nearby Manteo, and the grassy field

where I take my young son to romp.

We map, each of us, mentally and physically, every day

of our lives. We map to keep ourselves oriented, and to keep

ourselves sane. “The very word lost in our language means much

more than simple geographical uncertainty,” the urban planner

Kevin Lynch once wrote. “It carries overtones of utter disaster . . . .

Let the mishap of disorientation occur, and the sense of anxiety

and even terror that accompanies it reveals to us how closely it

is linked to our sense of balance and well-being.” And we map

the places we love in much more detail than the places we dislike.

“The sweet sense of home is strongest,” Lynch wrote, “when

home is not only familiar but distinctive as well.

  

It is in the imagination, I think, that the art of mapping

reaches its apex.

In 1960 Kevin Lynch published a book entitled The Image

of the City that describes a study by Lynch and several colleagues

on the perceptions of people living in Boston, Los Angeles, and