Land JOURNAL #1

In Spanish, “la querencia” refers to a place on the ground where one feels secure, a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn. It comes from the verb querer,” to desire,” but this verb also carries the sense of accepting a challenge, as in a game.

In Spain, “querencia” is most often used to describe the spot in a bullring where a wounded bull goes to gather himself, the place he returns to after his painful encounters with the picadors and the banderilleros. It is unfortunate that the word is compromised in this way, for the idea itself is quite beautiful — a place in which we know exactly who we are. The place from which we speak our deepest beliefs. “Querencia” conveys more than “hearth.” And it carries the sense of being challenged — in the case of a bullfight, by something lethal, which one may want no part of.

I would like to take this word “querencia” beyond its ordinary meaning and suggest that it applies to our challenge in the modern world, that our search for a “querencia” is both a response to threat and a desire to find our who we are. And the discovery of a “querencia,” I believe, hinges on the perfection of a sense of place.

— Barry Lopez, The Rediscovery of North America, p. 39-40

By now, you have chosen the place you will document during the semester. In Hawaiian, you might think of it as either an ahupua’a or an ’ili (a subdivision of an ahupua’a). Think about the implications and significance of the word Lopez uses: querencia.

You know what a map looks like. A good map packs as much information as possible into a small space, and yet appears clear and simple.

Your assignment is to write a description of your querencia that is like a map. Try to create a visual image in your reader’s mind by including as many details as possible. Include both natural and man-made details. Since you don’t have a drawing to reference you will need to be very, very clear. Move from ma uka to ma kai, or in some simple direction through your querencia. Refer back to details you have mentioned previously in order to help the reader make the spatial connections necessary to imagine how they are related.

You have a good mental picture of your querencia because you have probably been there many times. Your job is to give someone who has never been there the same mental image.

Remember that you are creating a map, not a personal journal or reaction or diary entry. Land journals require writing in the objective mode.

A FOCUS FOR LAND JOURNAL #1

Avoid
Overuse of short, common verbs (has, get, run, etc.) when a more accurate, more interesting verb will fit — but without making your writing seem fake.
Include
Accurate verbs (sauntered, trotted, or bounced instead of walked or ran).

View sample entries