Anything is Possible

Observing the outcomes of an "ownership" mentality

"Anything is possible" when it comes to land use. But does that mean all possibilities are good?

When my niece was in elementary school there was a banner hanging above the school entrance that said ‘Anything is possible!’ No doubt intended as an uplifting and inspiring statement, it had quite the opposite effect on my niece. They confided, wide-eyed, that it was terrifying. “Anything means all the bad stuff too!” Anything truly meant anything.

That memory has been on my mind lately, for many reasons. At Fellowfield, the sentiment has been a recurring theme as we navigate the joys and misadventures of land planning at Fellowfield Discovery Park. I do not think it is exaggerating to say the sentiment ‘anything is possible’ seems to be a foundational principle of land development. I’ve seen this firsthand as we work with engineers and professional designers for the park. Their first questions are never about the land itself - its character, what it needs, or what it can support. Instead, they ask us what we want and urge us to “dream big!” This approach treats the land as a blank canvas, ready to be molded into whatever masterpiece (or monstrosity) we envision. And like my niece, I can imagine the bad consequences.

Seasonal wetlands, which were previously drained for farming, are features we want to preserve in Fellowfield Discovery Park.

The land at Fellowfield is not suited for big development. We went into the process knowing this and telling the professionals. Our goals were restoration, preservation, balance, and respect for other living beings in a landscape of waterlogged clay soils, seasonal wetlands, and native forest. What we wanted was a plan for the park’s infrastructure that would not only be suited to the conditions of the land, but enhance our effort to restore and preserve it, while creating the infrastructure needed to welcome visitors. 

We told the planning professionals about our experiences with the land. How no one had ever been able to get a permit for a septic field because of the slow draining clay soil. About the well that was dug in the 1950’s, and the discovery that the clay went “all the way down!” But it was not until late into the process that our engineers actually did a test on the soil’s drainage. 

The drainage test is important for calculating how changes to the surface of the land, like putting in walking paths, might impact the flow of stormwater. When the test was done and they discovered the clay extended all the way down (several meters), our engineers acted surprised. They told us our infiltration rate (the speed with which the ground absorbs water) was so much lower than they expected that our current plans, two-years in the making, would not meet the County’s stormwater regulations. 

It was a puzzle to us why the engineers had not done the test earlier. They told us it was standard procedure to wait until the plan was made, so they could test areas that are most likely to be impacted from the infrastructure. “Testing soil before having a plan in place would just mean needing to do the test again, and that can get costly,” they explained. “It’s better to wait.”

This sounded reasonable and we deferred to their expertise. Still, from our perspective, it looked like the results of the test required us to start the planning process all over. Now we needed to completely rethink our approach to infrastructure to lessen the burden we were placing on the land’s water system. How was that less costly? 

Why didn’t the engineers seem to feel, as we did, that the past two years had been a waste of time? Were they taking advantage of us by needlessly prolonging a process that we had to pay for? Or was it our fault? Maybe if we had asked better questions? Should we have worked harder to understand the planning process and what was required?

When we saw the engineers’ plan to address our “drainage problem,” it was an “ah-ha” moment that answered our questions. We suddenly understood why we were worried about the turn of events and the engineers were acting like it was business as usual. 

Our "Ah-Ha" Moment

Adding detention ponds would solve the drainage problem, but would require trees and soil to be removed.

In their new plan, rather than rethinking the proposed development, the engineers took a different approach to meeting the stormwater requirements. We would keep the planned design and either (1) dig up the land to put in an underground water collection system of plastic pipes (the most common approach that developers take) or (2) grade the surface of the land to convert almost three of the park’s ten acres into detention pools, which would collect and slow the flow of stormwater. In both cases, a large number of old trees on the front acres would be cut and native soil removed and replaced. 

Our “ah-ha” moment was our realization that the engineers were working from an ‘anything is possible’ assumption. Waiting to do a soil infiltration test until late in the process suddenly made sense -  if you expect people to be willing to do anything to the land to realize their building plans, then you don’t need to worry about the soil condition early in the process. You keep the welcome center where it is and just bulldoze the clay, replace it with something that drains better, and put in plastic pipes to capture the water. The past two years had not been a waste from the engineer’s perspective because there was no real intention to reassess the planned infrastructure. The solution would come from changing the land to make it more amenable. 

Some think landowners should feel entitled to "dream big."

It didn’t matter how many times we expressed our values, the engineers would come back time and again with plans defaulting to the position that soil could be moved, water redirected, trees cut rather than telling us we needed to do less, dream differently, start with how things are instead of how we wish they were. When faced with a real conflict between our development plans and nature’s conditions, the engineers fell back upon the expectation that people will do whatever it takes to realize their dream. In fact, the sentiment seems to be that it is right and proper we should do so - we should feel entitled to dream big.

It was a stark reminder of how we assume the land is there for us to shape as we see fit, rather than to be understood, respected, and carefully worked with. When it comes to the land and nature, why do we expect we can rearrange the world to our liking? 

The Origins of an Ownership Mentality

Locke believed people had a natural right to life, liberty, and property.

The belief that land exists to be owned, controlled, and reshaped is deeply rooted in Western thought, stretching back centuries. Legal historian Jedediah Purdy notes that the idea of private property emerged in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, heavily influenced by thinkers like John Locke. Locke argued that land becomes meaningful only when humans labor to improve it. “As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use,” Locke wrote, “is his property.”

This perspective fueled colonial expansion and was carried to the Americas, where land was treated as an empty resource to be claimed, tamed, and made productive. The Homestead Act of 1862 is a good example of how this attitude was enshrined into laws. Under the Act, migrating settlers could gain ownership of quarter acre sections of public lands with the condition that the land had to be cultivated, which meant building a home, farming the land, and making “improvements.” In reality, of course, the land wasn’t empty; it was home to a myriad of productive life, including the Indigenous peoples who had long stewarded it. The colonizing attitudes have had lasting impacts, influencing laws and norms that continue to prioritize property rights over ecological health. 

Ideas about how people should improve "wild" land drove the Westward Expansion.

In modern development, this mindset translates into reshaping landscapes to maximize utility or profit. Wetlands are drained, forests cleared, and waterways rerouted—all to fit human designs. But this approach isn’t just unsustainable; it often backfires, creating long-term problems like erosion, flooding, and habitat loss. In this context, ‘anything is possible’ seems to be a license to dream so big we lose sight of the ground beneath us.

Stormwater

Stormwater management provides a good illustration. The stormwater and tree preservation ordinances in our community are considered progressive, offering more protections for natural systems than in many other places. However, even well-intended laws can fall short when implemented with an ‘ownership mentality,’ where nature is ultimately treated as a set of assets that can be rearranged as needed. 

In practice, stormwater ordinances often encourage the cutting of trees to create large detention ponds or to regrade an area, replacing and reshaping the land to channel water away from new construction. Tree preservation rules may assess a fee to discourage the cutting of trees, but they also give the developer the option of planting other trees, in more convenient locations, to offset the loss. This essentially treats the trees, both their lives and their location, as interchangeable pieces to be arranged at our convenience.

Cutting down trees doesn't just affect the trees--- it affects the impact of severe weather.

We witnessed an example of this approach near the park in 2022. A private landowner removed a row of large old sycamore trees along a dirt road and burned their stumps over a three day period. The landowner paid a fee to the township for cutting them and promised to replace them with new trees planted elsewhere on their property. But those actions did nothing to prevent the flood that followed the removal of the sycamores. During the first heavy rain, the road turned into a floodplain and rushed muddy soil into a nearby river, which burst its banks, covering the base of trees on the far side of the road in a foot of water, ultimately killing many of them. The road remained impassable for weeks and the county had to construct a whole new drainage system before it could reopen, using public funding to do so. 

Nature’s approach to stormwater is elegant and effective. Trees slow rainfall with their leaves and branches, giving water more time to seep into the ground rather than rushing off as runoff. Sycamores are one Midwest tree species that is particularly helpful, holding soil in place, soaking up vast amounts of water, and drawing the water deep into the ground with far reaching roots. Healthy soil acts as a sponge, filtering and storing water while replenishing groundwater. Wetlands, often dismissed as “wasteland,” are actually vital for flood control, holding water, slowing its movement across the surface of the land. The wetlands reduce erosion and give pollution and nutrients time to settle and filter out of the water by the soil and plants, rather than accumulating downstream.

At Fellowfield, we are doing everything we can to preserve the natural stormwater systems that are here. We have said "no" to clear-cutting land or installing expensive stormwater infrastructure. Instead, we have scaled back our plans and are working with the natural grade of the landscape. Some of the approaches we are taking include:

At Fellowfield, we're building park infrastructure in ways that are considerate of the site's natural landscape.

• Rain Gardens: Instead of installing storm drains, we help low elevation areas to absorb and filter water naturally by planting rain gardens.

• Tree Preservation: Rather than clearing land, we plant native trees, including sycamores, to strengthen the site’s natural stormwater management.

• Permeable Paths: For trails and gathering spaces, we focus on materials that allow water to seep through rather than run off.

• Minimal Interference: By raising structures on platforms like boardwalks and decks, we avoid altering the natural water flow or compacting the soil.

  
  

With these actions, we are trying to make Fellowfield a place that honors and helps to heal the existing landscape rather than imposing a new one. 

Revisiting Anything is Possible

Now when I think about how to practically step back from an ownership mentality, I am thinking more and more that it has to do with respecting boundaries and being able to take “no” for an answer. My niece’s fear of ‘anything is possible’ wasn’t irrational—it was deeply insightful. When anything comes with an ownership mentality, it encourages us to impose our will without limits, to shape the world to a vision of what we think we want, usually in the short term, regardless of the consequences. And in doing so, it creates exactly what my niece feared: a world where the worst outcomes are not only possible but in many cases realized: extinct species, undrinkable water, growing deserts, rampaging wildfires, displaced people, and devastating wars.

Remember the relationship between people and nature.

We open ourselves to very different possibilities when we think of the land as someone we have a relationship with, rather than something we own. A healthy relationship between people is not about limitless control or about one rearranging themselves to meet the other’s vision. It’s a dynamic balance that comes from paying attention and respecting what another is asking of us for their well-being and to coexist. In relationships, we overstep sometimes and don’t always respond well, but when that relationship is healthy, over time boundaries emerge—not as constraints, but as reflections of appreciation and trust. That’s not something you can engineer - it’s something you grow over time. Why would we expect a healthy relationship with the land to look any different?

When we engage with the land as a partner, the relationship itself becomes the foundation for possibility - a possibility rooted in healthy limits on our behavior. Those limits are important for preserving the well-being of both the land and people, whose lives and fates are intertwined. This is not a new or utopian idea, it is a practical one that humans have recognized and adopted time and again within cultures all over the world. We lose perspective on this, I think, when we are so steeped in the tradition of land ownership.

Our treatment of nature has immediate and future consequences.

There is evidence that when humans first encountered the lands of North America, their activities led to the loss of many species, hunting animals like the great giant sloths and mammoths to extinction. But somewhere along the way, the people who survived, perhaps in facing, as we do now, the dangerous outcomes of their actions, adopted an approach that cautioned against taking too much from the land or treating it with disrespect. We can see these ideas in the indigenous cultures that were able to thrive for centuries in North America; cultures which encourage humility and a respectful and reciprocal relationship with the land.

As Vine Deloria Jr. of the Standing Rock Sioux explains, "To the Native American, the land is not a commodity that can be owned, but a living entity that gives life and draws life in return. For the Native, life is a sacred circle in which all are connected." 

The Inuit people counsel us to see: “The land is our teacher. Watch it, listen to it, and it will teach you what to do.”

The Abinaki remind us: “The frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives.” 

Treating nature with respect is rewarding. By taking care of this apple tree at Fellowfield Park, we were able to see these beautiful blossoms!

These kinds of philosophies helped people to thrive with the land for centuries. ‘Anything is possible’ is an enormous idea which overwhelmed my young niece’s imagination with dark thoughts, but it was meant to be inspirational. I believe it can be. As native cultures and the land show us, we can find the freedom to explore and dream without fear when we ground our imagination in respect for essential boundaries. When we listen to the land, we transform the overwhelming enormity of ‘anything’ into aspirations that remain responsible to the systems sustaining and enriching our lives. As Chief Dan George of the Tsleil-Waututh more eloquently puts it: “The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass, speaks to me. The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me. The strength of fire, the life-giving warmth of the sun, and the calm of the night, speaks to me. And my heart soars.”

That’s the kind of possibility I’d like to be a part of, and what I hope Fellowfield can help to foster. An invitation to joyfully discover and dream big from a position of humility that asks and listens and thoughtfully responds to what others need. That’s the kind of possibility I hope my niece and the next seven generations can imagine and experience. After all, if ‘anything is possible,’ then so is changing our culture to rethink the way we take care of our shared world.

REFERENCES

Billington, R. A., & Ridge, M. (2001). Westward expansion: A history of the American frontier. University of New Mexico Press.

Deloria, V., Jr. (1994). God is Red: A Native View of Religion. Fulcrum Publishing.

George, D. (1974). My Heart Soars. Hancock House.

Locke, J. (1689). Two Treatises of Government (C. B. Macpherson, Ed., 1980). Hackett Publishing Company.

National Association of Home Builders. (2018). Stormwater Management Practices: A Guide for Residential Development. Washington, DC: NAHB.

Purdy, J. (2015). After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. Harvard University Press.

Saline Township. (n.d.). Tree Preservation and Replacement Ordinance. Retrieved from https://www.salinetownship.org

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. (n.d.). “To the Native American, the land is not a commodity that can be owned, but a living entity that gives life and draws life in return.” Retrieved from Standing Rock Sioux cultural resources.

Wabanaki Confederacy. (n.d.). “The frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives.” Retrieved from Oral Traditions of the Abenaki people.

Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner. (n.d.). Stormwater Management Standards. Washtenaw County Water Resources Office. Retrieved from www.washtenaw.org/207/Permits-Development