Page 31 - ECOlogic Book

Flowing Home
(Fall, 1991)

Laguz: Flow, Water, That Which Conducts
Unseen powers are active here, powers that nourish,
shape and connect. The attributes of this Rune are
water, fluidity, the ebb and flow of emotions, of
Vocations and relationships. From the Book of Runes

Shasta, Katuah, Ish, Mish, Cascadia, Cayuga, Ozarkia, Driftless,
Skagit, Root Drinker, Tilth, Slocan, Weetah . . .

Cities in Doris Lessing’s Zone Three? Members of an intergalactic planetary
council from a George Lucas movie? On the contrary, these fanciful names
are the names of real places; places that have recently been discovered
right here in North America. They are the names of bioregions, and have
been discovered (or rediscovered) by the people who live in them, as part of
a vigorous young movement called “bioregionalism”. There are newly
discovered bioregions in Australia, Spain, the U. K, Russia, France, Cornwall,
the Pacific islands and Japan as well. These regions have been here all the
time, covered over by the ravages of industrial civilization. We couldn’t see
them. Instead, we saw state lines and border crossings, the latter often
heavily guarded by military personnel.

Bioregionalism ignores these lines of demarcation, and defines a region
instead, by such natural phenomena as watershed, indigenous plants and
animals, land-forms, elevation, and human culture. Bioregional boundaries
are somewhat arbitrary, like zip codes and area codes, but with more
biological integrity. Sometimes bioregions overlap. These areas of overlap
Gary Snyder calls “Regional Commons”.

Ours is the Great Lakes Bioregion, defined primarily by the inland fresh
water seas that connect several states and two countries, but also defined
by the flora and fauna here. These are the kinds of physical characteristics
that can help define a bioregion. But a bioregion is much more than this. It
is a place that shapes its inhabitants as much as they shape it, more
perhaps. It is the indwelling spirit of a place that invites relationship among
its diverse natural systems.

Bioregionalism is a philosophy of life whose goal it is to integrate human
communities within the natural systems of a region. The concept suffers
from its own greatest virtue: fuzziness. Eschewing centralized control and
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