Tell Me the Landscape in Which You Live

Today I was thinking about the relationship between place and identity as I wrote a summary of my project here in preparation for a Fulbright-García Robles reunion that will be held in Mexico D.F. later this month. In outlining my research interests and my motivations for coming to Guanajuato, I wanted to begin with a quotation by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset: “Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.” I was not sure if I was remembering the words exactly, so I plugged them into Google. And I was taken home: The very first link in my search results was for the Monastery of the Ascension, right next door to Mark’s parents’ house on the butte east of Jerome, Idaho.

The landscape in which I live.

In the online oblate manual for the monastery, one of the monks, Father Feiss, quotes José Ortega y Gasset as he describes the significance of the contemplation of place in a spiritual pilgrimage. He begins with another quotation, from On Pilgrimage by Jennifer Lash:

I found myself wondering. . .what was I really exploring? Place. . .or self? And what anyway, in that context, is exploration? Is it standing back and sorting out, or is it moving on? Maybe it is all three at once. And maybe place and self share this curious compelling unity. Perhaps going out towards places where there are others, or where many, many others have been before, perhaps such a journey reconciles our sense of impermanency, to the mysterious continuity we share and make and are, with all mankind.