yanan's fieldnotes on faith and beauty
an introduction to Sacred Sonder
“Fieldnotes” is such a fascinating word. I immediately think of the notebook brand Field Notes, those hip-looking notebooks designed for farmers, ecologists, hikers, and wanderers. Though they’re made specifically for the outdoors, I’ve mostly seen them used by hipsters, young professionals, and millennials in indoor spaces like coffee shops and cafés. Honestly, I think it’s because I’ve spent more time in coffee shops than the outdoors for most of my life... and it's time to change that.
I remember what my Lola (grandmother) taught me when I was a child, “The plants breathe like us too. Like us, they can feel pain.” She formed me to become a listener of peoples and places, to listen closely and read between the lines. She wanted me to see beauty in the places where it isn’t normally apprehended, to call beautiful the faces and creatures that have been marginalized... oppressed… forgotten.
She wanted me to hear the breathing of creation—how we all share the same breath through the precise movement of the Spirit through all creatures.
Cherokee theologian Randy Woodley writes about the biblical concept of shalom, a “Harmony Way” that returns modern imaginations to the community of creation. Like my Lola, Woodley wants to imagine a way of be(com)ing that is no longer divorced from creation but in harmony with the land, animals, and other creatures.
Sadly, the world we are living in today is not organized to live in harmony with the land. Instead, the land is ravaged through operations such as the mining of fossil fuels, slavery, deforestation, the segregationist logics of private property, and the like, which are all perpetuations of the modern, colonial imagination that has dominated the planet for centuries.
Like in my home country of the Philippines, people are seeing through these colonial projects and struggling against them all over the world. One way in which people in the Philippines are doing so is through movements like the Association for Women in Organic Farming, where women seek to promote organic and sustainable agricultural practices to cultivate the earth and shape alternative ecologies or socialities. And that is precisely what we need: alternate and improvisational ways of life.
So this is Sacred Sonder, a Substack newsletter where I share my reflections on faith and beauty as they intersect with my research on race, religion, settler colonialism, and ecology. In my writing, I strive to understand the world in terms of a vision of creation that invites belonging and inspires diverse modes of making.
“Sacred”—adjective. Considered to be holy and deserving respect, especially because of a connection with a deity.
“Sonder”—noun. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
Hence, I thought it would be apt to call Sacred Sonder my “fieldnotes”: concise journal entries exploring the varied terrains of my field(s) of study. Here, I seek to inspire others to see beauty in the places that have been torn asunder — to touch the dirt and discover the journey of living in harmony with the land itself; to be enraptured by the wonder of creation(ing), and work toward justice in places where beauty is being distorted. I know that this is a grand premise. Still, I believe that it is a vocation worth undertaking.
And truly, I hope you join me on this journey. 🌄
Sincerely,
Yanan