I’ve been away from my girlfriend’s home for longer periods of time lately, and spent about 15% more time in the woods too. That equates to 11 hours exploring and sleeping in them a night, 5 nights every week.
For some time now I have been experimenting with trying to exist and function and think in the woods without thinking in a language. It’s part of the Way of the Hood project (exhibition planned for 2022) and it’s perhaps the most intellectually difficult task I have ever undertaken. I also suspect that this is a potentially dangerous exercise somehow, because I dare say that it is language that contains and enforces all those social niceties and inhibitions.
The biggest obstacle to the achievement of this aim is knowing the name of trees, birds, grasses, sounds that I encounter. It seems impossible to blank the spoken or written knowledge of things in order to just experience and react to them as per requirement - as the animals do.
Nicolette shows us how to appreciate without nomenclature
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkPSWUNHMOg&list=PLAk4UN3IWDKl7jVNCHZ_iwUb0VeYQVqQz&index=17