This reminds me of somebody or other’s advice to think carefully before drawing someone else’s attention to something. That desire to ‘share’ the sight of the bird or the view from the cliff or the end of the rainbow can easily becoming something like ‘handing the experience on’ rather than having it for oneself. But I am awfully familiar with wishing there was SOMEone beside me to see that kestrel hanging, that fox sidling, that badger rolling.
I’m really interested in the twin aspects of naming – that it can limit and objectify and classify and distance and that it can also reveal intimacy and expand awareness and empathy and connection and understanding. I agree that there is something urgent about the moment of recognition and being able to name a plant or a bird. I remember seeing a bird flying across the rice fields in Bali and recognising the flight and knowing that it must be a member of the same family as our woodpeckers for its swooping flight. And there is the inheritance of knowing/naming – the birds and flowers I know are largely the birds and flowers my dad knew and taught me.
This reminds me of somebody or other’s advice to think carefully before drawing someone else’s attention to something. That desire to ‘share’ the sight of the bird or the view from the cliff or the end of the rainbow can easily becoming something like ‘handing the experience on’ rather than having it for oneself. But I am awfully familiar with wishing there was SOMEone beside me to see that kestrel hanging, that fox sidling, that badger rolling.
I’m really interested in the twin aspects of naming – that it can limit and objectify and classify and distance and that it can also reveal intimacy and expand awareness and empathy and connection and understanding. I agree that there is something urgent about the moment of recognition and being able to name a plant or a bird. I remember seeing a bird flying across the rice fields in Bali and recognising the flight and knowing that it must be a member of the same family as our woodpeckers for its swooping flight. And there is the inheritance of knowing/naming – the birds and flowers I know are largely the birds and flowers my dad knew and taught me.