Friends With the Land

I do not believe in the ownership of land, and yet I desperately wish to own some. On the one hand, I do not believe land CAN be owned, or really even ever SHOULD be owned. I much prefer what I understand to be a more indigenous idea of living in relationship with the land. 

That said, I also live in this world, this reality, and this socio-economic system, which decrees that I have ownership of these things and you have ownership of those things, and we are all allowed to do with those things exactly what we please (within the letter of the law, or at least as long as we don't get caught). For that reason, the only way I can come to be in true relationship with land is to legally own some. Otherwise, I can never know when it might be sold, developed, logged, drained, flooded, appropriated, hunted, mined, etc. Without legal ownership, I cannot protect the land that I love or have much, if any,  influence over how it is treated in the hands of humans. 

I know, I could choose to be in relationship with the entire earth, with all the land and sea on the planet, but honestly, my heart is not that big. My head, yes. I can think my love and send the energy of my love for the planet easily. But in my heart, when I think of the planet, I think of the green of grass in my own yard, the light coming through the leaves at the park I grew up near, the dirt I planted beans in once, and then a picture of earth from space or in an atlas with all the different countries picked out in yellows and oranges with blue oceans. In other words, I take what I have known with my own senses, and then use my mind to stretch it out to cover the world. 

And since my heart is so specific to what I can see and touch and sense on an energetic level, I yearn for a parcel of land that I can see and touch and sense energetically and fall in love with, a bit of the earth to invest with my love and plant bulbs for spring on and converse with trees and honey bees on, to run around naked and make love on, and somehow I am fully dissatisfied with the corner lot grassy yard of my current home. I am so dissatisfied that I have been unwilling to bond with this partial acre because I have dreamed so intensely of leaving. 
 
I do not believe in owning the land, and yet paradoxically I yearn to call a property my own so that I can set it free from ownership and we can be friends.