Being a steward of the land
What does it mean?
This is my third spring living in a place I dreamed of all my life.
To celebrate the anniversary, our woods gave me some gifts the other day. This happens every April. When I least expect it, sweet little surprises pop out of the leaf litter on the forest floor.
Three years—and I’m still finding “new” delights.
Here are the newcomers of Spring 2025.
Of course, I didn’t know what wonders this place held, during all those years I was pestering myself with one feverish question:
When will I get to live in the country?
For decades I dreamed and schemed. Along the way, there were a lot of moves. A lot of living in large cities. Dallas. Tampa. Atlanta. Philadelphia. A 34th-floor apartment in New York City. Those urban homes were appealing in their own ways, but none of them were “me.”
Now … at long last … I’m here. And “here” is the place I was conjuring all along, years before I saw it, years before my karma deposited me in this velvet mountain valley.
A lot of work went into landing here, a lot of scrimping and saving and driving the same vehicle for 25 years. I don’t do big vacations. I don’t buy a lot of clothes or shoes or make-up.
What I do buy is real estate.
Ownership vs. stewardship
Which brings us to the subject of our relationship with the places we occupy.
I believe that when we buy land, that act is more than signing a bunch of documents. So much more.
As new owners of a piece of property, we become its steward. We are now its protector, its caretaker. We’re the latest in a long line of humans who have been entrusted with the well-being of that acreage, or that suburban lot, or that old homeplace.
Land ownership is nothing but a legal contract.
Land stewardship, on the other hand, is a responsibility, a commitment. An honor, actually. It’s the start of a beautiful kinship.
It’s you, getting to know and love this piece of Earth you walk upon and gaze at and smell the air of. It’s a relationship with a living thing. And that relationship grows deeper each day, each season, each year.
An old word for something new
Maybe “steward” is an odd word for me to use in this context. It comes from Old English. Its original meaning was a servant who’s employed to look after something owned by their master: the lands of the estate, the wine cellar, the domestic accounts.
But in more modern usage, a steward is someone who takes care of things: people … events … places. Yes, places.
And when you look at definitions of the verb “to steward,” that really hones in on the true meaning. To steward something—a transitive verb—is to:
look after it
care for it
protect it.
A steward is a caregiver.
I’m still learning things about the 14 acres my husband and I bought at the start of the pandemic, in 2020. We didn’t know, back then, about the deer and black bear and wild turkeys that roam this place. We didn’t know how the creek’s song would soothe us to sleep at night. We couldn’t imagine how abundant the stars would be in a bowl of dark sky, how cheerful the sun when it pops up each morning over the crest of SharpTop Mountain.
We didn’t know how we’d fall in love with this microscopic slice of the Earth, this place we’ve been entrusted with.
The other day we found out our property almost became an Audubon sanctuary back in the 1990s, three owners ago. The Audubon people came out, tramped through the woods, and liked what they saw. They envisioned field trips for schoolkids and families, birding and nature walks. The deal fell through, though, when the Audubon folks decided it would be too complicated to bring school buses way out here on our winding mountain roads.
That stunned me for a minute, thinking how this place I love—this place I’m growing so attached to—might not have become “mine.” It might have been something else entirely.
Last year I wrote about the nature therapy trail we created here. I take some of my counseling clients out on this trail, people healing from trauma. We’ve also hosted college students researching how nature offsets the biological effects of stress. My longterm vision is for the trail to help first responders, veterans, and survivors of domestic violence.
So in a way we’re honoring the Audubon people’s intent.
And the birds? They’re still here.
This morning’s gift was the eerie, high-pitched eeeeerrrrkkk of a pair of broad-winged hawks. They were wheeling overhead—passing through our sky on their migration northward toward Canada.
(You can listen to that call here.)
You’re the steward of whatever you love
Of course, not all of us own some dirt.
Your piece of the planet may be your apartment balcony where you grow herbs in pots. It may be a public park where you stroll and breathe deep, whenever you can. It may be a beach you love to wander or a sweetwater river you paddle on weekends.
Notice that I expanded the definition of “ownership” there. Truth is, we don’t have to sign a real estate contract to love and care about a particular place on Earth. It can be anywhere we feel connected to the land, anywhere our heart inclines toward delight. Any place that takes our breath away, and floods us with joy.
This is where the reciprocal nature of such a relationship comes in. If we’re stewards of a swath of land, the urge comes up to do everything we can for it, to make sure it isn’t desecrated or destroyed. We love it, so we look after it.
Nature gives us so much:
enjoyment
recreation
beauty
delight
rest & relaxation
peace
solace
wonder
In return, we assume the role of guardian. We step up to be stewards. Seems like that’s the least we can do, right?
Tell us what you steward
What piece of the Earth do you care for? What is that place like? And how do you take care of it?
Please share in the comments. Let’s compare notes. It’ll be heartening to hear how many of us are out here, quietly going about this business of Earth tending.
And one last thing, my friends:
THANK YOU for stewarding whatever small piece of the planet you care about. Thank you for your love. Please know that your love means something. It makes a difference.
Beautifully thought out and said, Jeanne. What a gift that you landed where you are, and that you understand that ownership is not what that real estate transaction is about. Stewardship conveys the reciprocal relationships we have with the places that hold our hearts, whether or not we "own" them. Stewardship is what I learned form the First Peoples I was fortunate enough to get to know when I was younger, and that's what's impelled me to ecological restoration projects in various places, some I've owned, some not. We are called to reciprocal relationship with this earth; it's in our cells as the heart-connection I call terraphilia. And that connection is what is nourishing you and nourishing your land too. Bless you!
This is so true! It's such a privilege to live where we live. The best way I can say thank you is to make sure our beautiful plants and animals have refuge and come to no harm while on the property we own. Seeing what emerges from the ground or passes through (TURTLES!!!!) is an incredible joy.