SOLASTALGIA

Have you ever felt an ache in your heart when a certain landscape has changed or been affected by  ever-encroaching civilization?

Years ago, when I lived in Calgary, I would often escape to Mount St. Francis Retreat Centre just outside of Cochrane. It would usually be the odd Sunday when I would hop in my truck and make the 25-minute drive from NW Calgary. Driving along Highway 1A I could sometimes feel the muscles in my neck listen to gravity and fall down into my back. It was as if my body knew that the beautiful mountain views would lead me to a place where I could decompress from the "rat-race" of the city. Often, after arriving, I would walk a loop that took you around the large, near 500-acre property. Part of that walk included a path through some beautiful spruce trees that waved majestically in the Chinook winds, whatever the season. There were certain points along that path through the trees where you could sit down and admire a view that included the Rockies to the west and the rolling hills of the Bow River valley to the north. While the views were amazing, it was the way that those spots affected the other senses that I really remember. Peace whispered through the wind in the trees while vitality spoke within its fresh aromas. It would at once give me the feeling that, if only for a moment, I was Adam, the only person on earth.

Fast-forward a few years later when I returned to visit that same pathway. Cochrane is a bustling little city with more and more people eager to fill new subdivisions. As I am walking down the path, I hear the distant sounds of hammers, saws and advertisement laden radio stations coming from the hill on the nearest northern valley. Looking across, my heart sinks, feeling that in some way this place will not be the same for me anymore. Why does this bother me so much? Is it jealousy that other people are enjoying what I thought to be just for me (aka. I am not Adam anymore)? Is it disgust at the lack of variety in the new housing constructed? This past week I heard a new term that may have described my condition.

Solastalgia, a term coined Aussie Glen Albrecht, is a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home, but the environment has changed. It's true—homesickness would be exactly the word to describe what I felt as I looked across that valley. What I find interesting is that its not only changes in natural landscapes that produce this feeling. Only a few years ago a large red grain elevator was removed from Wilcox, Saskatchewan where I lived seven years. This sounds really weird, but it really left a gap in the town—and I'm referring to the feeling of the place, not the look of it.

Anyways, I'm not sure what exactly this has to do with our eco-journey, but I know its something. Maybe its this: like changes in our closest people, changes in familiar places can really effect us, more than we think.

Those are my thoughts anyways... I would love it if you would be willing to share an example of solastalgia from your life and your views on how this is connected to what's happening in our local environments.

P.S. I am including a link to a paper I wrote for a Soil and Salvation theology class called Home. It talks about how my understanding of geographical places in our lives shaped my ecological relationships. Feel free to read if you wish:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B19nMR4zmP1Gc0RENXRpMXhwXzVzVEtFYkN6Y3hEd0FNelJn/view?usp=sharing