Placement

Tia Stajkowski

Placement

I want to take a moment to reflect on a quote from the very first assignment we had in this class. The quote is by David Brown, and he speaks about how certain biblical topics and terms, such as the meaning of the word shalom, have been misinterpreted over time. He states that, "the central problem is not emancipation but rootage, not meaning but belonging, not separation from community but location within it, not isolation from others but placement," and since I am given creative freedom for the content of these blog posts, I thought I would partake in one of my favorite thoughtful activities: creating intersections. I want to connect Brown's usage of the word "placement" to Gary Snyder's interpretation of the same word from his essay, "The Place, the Region, and the Commons".

Snyder writes about this idea of "placement" as having a near complete understanding of your environment. One can only achieve this through becoming aware of the patterns and changes in nature in the area you have spent your whole life. While his definition of placement is not synonymous with any other term, the closest idea is that of "home place", somewhere you are familiar with. A place is somewhere where when something changes, you notice, and when the trees grow from saplings to 100 feet tall over the course of 20 years, you notice. Placement is recognizing when the soil type changes from a sandy loam to silt loam or when the calls of the two doves that nest near you every spring are no longer audible the farther you walk from your home, your place. Placement is being able to recognize your natural surroundings in such great detail that only a glimpse at the ground will tell you if you are home or far from it. Placement is experience in the area one grew up in and living with the same people in the same place their whole life. Placement is being able to understand the role you were given as a human in the natural world and the community you were born into.

While I have no idea if David Brown and Gary Snyder influenced each other in any way, or much less knew who the other was, I feel that Snyder's idea of placement fits remarkably well into Brown's message. Like I mentioned in my response to the original assignment, the latter words Brown uses in each phrase takes emphasis off of the individual and places it onto their surrounding environment. Instead of looking inward to seek peace - shalom - perhaps he is encouraging us to look outward into our environment and our communities to find it.