Land Acknowledgement
I acknowledge and honor the land on which I stand, conduct business, and guide my clients as once having been the traditional land of the Abenaki & Pennacook Peoples (New Hampshire) and the Nipmuc, Agawam, Wampanoag Peoples (Massachusetts). I honor this ancestral heritage and their descendants, past and present. I honor with gratitude the land itself and the many who have stewarded the land over many generations. Further, I acknowledge that the greater region benefited and profited from the enslavement and physical and systematic oppression of native Africans and their descendants. Terra Soma Health services include helping clients to experience a healing relationship with the natural world, both as its own end and in the hope this relationship might inspire all of us to be better stewards going forward. While this acknowledgment is only a small part of supporting Indigenous and African American communities, I hope that through this I can bring awareness, inspire learning and amplify the voices of BIPOC people.
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To donate and otherwise share your support for Indigenous Peoples, visit the Seventh Generation Fund (https://7genfund.org), an Indigenous-founded not-for-profit dedicated to Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination and the sovereignty of Native nations.
Land Attachment & Stewardship
For millennia, Indigenous and ancestral cultures have understood that humans are part of the land, not separate from it. This reciprocal relationship where the land nourishes our bodies, minds, and spirits, and we, in turn, care for it - is now supported by growing Western scientific evidence. Research shows that people who feel a sense of belonging to nature report greater vitality, positive emotions, and life satisfaction (Mayer & Frantz, 2014), and are significantly more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviors (Tam et al., 2019). Time spent in natural environments also reduces stress, improves mood, and enhances cognitive functioning (Bratman et al., 2012). These findings echo ancestral teachings that balance and well-being arise from living in harmony with the natural world.
The process of developing emotional connection and familiarity with a landscape—sometimes called “landscape socialization”—is linked to deeper conservation values and a stronger sense of purpose (Soga & Gaston, 2020). When people feel rooted in place, they are more inclined to act as caretakers of the ecosystems that sustain them. Further evidence suggests that place attachment—the feeling of being “at home” in a specific landscape—mediates the link between nature connectedness and personal well-being (Kodama et al., 2021). In social-ecological communities, this emotional bond to land also strengthens social cohesion and collective responsibility for conservation (Clark et al., 2022). Such findings affirm what traditional knowledge has long taught: our health and the planet’s health are intertwined.
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Reconnecting with the land can take many forms—spending mindful time outdoors, engaging in community gardening, or learning from local ecosystems. Each act reinforces a mutual relationship of care. As modern science and ancestral wisdom now agree, belonging to the land nurtures whole-body health, emotional resilience, and the stewardship needed to sustain life on Earth.
