11 Comments

The way is widening. This is a gorgeous line, among many.

Bertus, I love that you can tune in and listen to the layers of the places you pass through and stay in for awhile, as well as to the ancestral voices and their mycelial call (such a perfect descriptor). As someone who’s visited many places in my own semi-nomadic life, I think I know what you mean about the frequencies of a place.

Thank you for hearing and feeling and sharing .

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One's ancestors travel with one, and their ancestors patiently await our visit, for to introduce us... to the ancients....

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Aaaah Bertus, this is so beautifully written, for which I thank you. It's almost my own story, and with the exception of Berlin, I have spent time in the places you mention...... been on the move since 1950, extensively so in Britain, then two years in an Arabian desert (+ a visit to Kenya).

Criss-crossed Europe for 13 years, whilst based in Germany and Benelux. Currently near my Grandkids in Walcheren, considering searching the Pyrenees for my next long-stay base......

Have just finished drafting three posts about my time in Marseilles, so long ago......

Tja Jong, wat man leert over mens en plaats. Tot het volgende, groetjes, Maurice

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Thanks for sharing your journey, Bertus!

Having adapted to a nomadic lifestyle early (my parents emigrated from Germany when I was 3), my experience was more or less opposite to yours, and yet similar in many ways... always in search of 'home'. I've spent about two decades in Devon and Cornwall. Although I love England, never really settled there. Having now lived in Portugal for 16 years, in our experience, this 'settling on a piece of land' is neither quick nor easy. It takes far longer than one might expect.... maybe several generations...?

Fortunately the Portuguese locals are hospitable, welcoming people (in our area)

Finding home in a foreign country, because our alleged 'home country' feels so foreign, is certainly not a straight forward process. We're working on it too...

Best wishes from the foothills of the Serra da Estrela ✨💫⭐️

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Foreigners, hmmm..... The English had an attitude that implied that wherever they settled - they were never the foreigners.... That was the status implied for the indigenous. Thankfully that colonialist attitude is now wavering, ....(to the dismay of the right wing). I have felt like a foreigner since day one, and soon learned to embrace & enjoy, in whatever land. Really we are all Nomadic brothers and sisters under the skin

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Good point (about the English natives) 😎. It might be all a massive compensation, based on the historic fact that pretty much everyone who settled on the British Isles came from elsewhere...

I'll always have that 'foreigner/nomadic' identity within me, even though I now have a British passport (naturalized British citizen, they call it).

hugs to you, my nomadic brother 💕 🧳

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Interestingly Veronica, when us “Elsewherians” were invaded by the Anglo Saxons, they referred to us as the foreigners - “Waelen” in their tongue. Eventually we were pushed to the far west coastal mountains, nowadays known as Wales. The folk that were there already then left to invade Eire, whose inhabitants were the “Scotia” and in turn shifted their camp back to that bit of the mainland we now call Scotland. Most of the folk there seem to consider themselves European, thus completing the circle…..

Big hugs to you both, Maurice

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Bertus, thank you so much for this beautiful post, which I only just caught up on. I very much identify with this searching and seeking and forever pursuing home. And thank you for sharing my pieces -- so kind of you.

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“I don't know. I do know it is time to learn the listening. Most ideas of what and where and how must be suspended to allow the deep to speak.” Your listening Bertus is profound, layered and so very honoring of the many languages of earth. Thank you for this finely tuned voyage and all the insight burn from it. Your way in this world is a gift to us all.

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So much of what you write, Bertus, resonates. I upped sticks at 52 to move to Portugal but had no particular place in U.K I could call home. Definitely not cities. Am the estrangeiro here too. Maybe it's to do with feeling at home in one's own skin -- then, maybe, anywhere can feel like 'home'.

Where we live, generations have lived off the land and I'm sure they can 'hear layers' much more than I can. When a piece of land has fed your grandparents, and now your grandchildren, it must make one feel much more a part of the land itself. The frustrating thing I find, is knowing that all this other energy-layer-voice-communication is going on -- but not being able to be part of the conversation.

The disconnect I sure goes way, way back -- centuries back -- at least to the desacralisation of the earth/land by the onslaught of Catholicism promising (and threatening) that the the real stuff happens after you are dead and you meet the off-planet god on judgement day.

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Incredible, Bertus! That we are surface creatures in relation to place really resonates with me, though I had not realized it until I read your words. I have lived in New Mexico since I was two. So if I am to have roots anywhere, it seems it would be here. And yet, I can't claim nativity. I was born elsewhere. In fact, I realized in recent years that this has been the same situation for generations of my family. My people have lived in New Mexico going back at least three generations on all sides, for their entire lives, but none were born here. There was always some unexpected temporary displacement that caused children to be born during travel to another place. It felt to me like maybe the land wasn't quite ready to claim us as her own. Then I did my first archeological dig, which I think we've talked about, where I really realized (as a descendant of colonizers here in America) there's no land on earth to be considered "mine" to dig. Just as suggest throughout this beautiful post, my response, finally, was to listen. I've been listening and learning and falling in love in the most unexpected ways. And then, I gave birth to my son here, and it felt like a shift in relationship with place, but one that I cannot label, at least not from centering my own point of view. And now I'm going to go outside and sit in her sand and listen ever more deeply for the ancient tones you speak of. Thank you so much for your wisdom and deep insights here! And thank you, friend, for including me in your recommendations. My heart is full of love. Big hugs to you! ❤️

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