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The following is the first paragraph from Gavin Maxwell's book, 'Ring of Bright Water' in which he testifies an attachment to his personal cynefin; a stone cottage on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, 100 miles from the nearest town, with no amenities, furnished with driftwood. There he lives with only an otter for company. He describes his cynefin as follows:

'I sit in a pitch-pine panelled kitchen-living-room, with an otter asleep upon its back among the cushions on the sofa, forepaws in the air, and with the expression of tightly shut concentration that very small babies wear in sleep. On the stone slab beneath the chimney-piece are inscribed the words 'Nonfatuum huepersecutus ignem' — 'It is no will-o'-the-wisp that I have followed here'. Beyond the door is the sea, whose waves break on the beach no more than a stone's throw distant, and encircling, mist-hung mountains. A little group of greylag geese sweep past the window and alight upon the small carpet of green turf; but for the soft, contented murmur of their voices and the sounds of the sea and the waterfall there is utter silence. This place has been my home now for ten years and more, and wherever the changes of my life may lead me in the future it will remain my spiritual home until I die, a house to which one returns not with the certainty of welcoming fellow human beings, nor with the expectation of comfort and ease, but to a long familiarity in which every lichen-covered rock and rowan tree show known and reassuring faces.'

Exploring ways of bringing together 'culture' and 'home'

'a production of the Hyperbox Club'

Traditionally, Welsh upland farmers use a system where sheep on the open mountain graze a home range, called a cynefin. Knowledge of the boundaries of this cynefin is passed from a ewe to its lambs, generation-after-generation. In the Welsh Government’s ‘Natural Environment Framework’ cynefin is included as one of many words in the Welsh language - including 'bro', 'milltir sgwar' and 'hiraeth', that define the cultural units of family, friends and community as well as the local landscape and wildlife. Wales is a small country with deep historical and cultural links to the natural environment. In a wider modern context, cynefin encapsulates the idea that there are many environmental and cultural factors that influence a person’s attachment to ‘place’, even if he or she doesn't realise it. A cultural cynefin is a special 'patch'; a spot that has been singled out, or shaped, by people in the past, and which in turn conditions our present life.

Everyone knows their cynefin. It is a place in the mind. It usually incorporates some features of the local historical and natural heritage, from which we draw the physical, biological, social and spiritual resources necessary for life. Our cynefin may be the road where we live, or it could be the open space where we take our exercise. It is part of our home and we have protective feelings about it, and oppose any developments that would change or destroy its valued features. If we are lucky it is also a place suitable for reassuring contemplation and the creative exercise of the imagination . These unofficial, processes of heritage are part of building self-awareness and refer to the ways in which people use objects, places and practices which link them to the past within their communities to build a sense of identity and to connect with the places in which they live.