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Interview with David Abram: Animism in Language — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:06[Music]
0:19very warm welcome to you Dr David
0:21Abraham here on the Nordic animism
0:23Channel I'm super excited to uh to be
0:25able to have this uh this chat with you
0:28uh Dr Abraham is a cultural e ecologist
0:33philosopher and uh author of uh books
0:36like The Spill of the centuries and
0:38becoming
0:39animal uh and uh he has had a played an
0:44important role in the process of
0:47animalism becoming an an uh a position
0:51that is now available for many people to
0:54think from and work with so welcome on
0:57the channel
0:58here
1:01ah it's great to be here man great yeah
1:04so can can you tell me a little bit
1:06about your like your history with with
1:09animalism and uh uh in particular and
1:13and how you got into that or how how you
1:16have worked with that well okay
1:20let's just uh say first that I'm a
1:24cultural ecologist uh
1:27so uh sort of combining elements of
1:29anthrop iology and ecology uh looking at
1:33what we can learn
1:35from other cultures about what uh might
1:40be better to do Vis AES the whole more
1:43than human uh landscape that unfolds our
1:47communities uh what maybe we ought not
1:50to do can we learn from the Mi mistakes
1:53of other cultures um and can they learn
1:56from our egregious mistakes um a
2:00cultural ecologist and a philosopher or
2:03uh what some folks started calling me a
2:05Geo philosopher and I
2:09um kind of taken a shine to that Geo
2:12philosophy that is someone who is
2:14working out the ways of thinking under
2:18the influence of the more than human
2:21Earth um my particular Fascinations are
2:27with the Ecology of perception or what
2:32we could call the Ecology of sensory
2:34experience the way the um activity of
2:38our animal senses of our eyes of our
2:41ears of our skin functions to bind our
2:46separate nervous systems into the
2:48encompassing ecosystem wherever we find
2:51ourselves as if perception itself was
2:55like a glue that
2:57yes entangles and binds our our
3:01individual organism into the wider life
3:05of the living land itself
3:09um but I'm also
3:12um just as interested uh in what we
3:16could call the Ecology of language how
3:19what we say so profoundly influences
3:22what we see or what we hear or even
3:26taste of the Earth around us caus
3:31I'm convinced that
3:34um that there are ways of speaking that
3:37many of us have inherited from the goofy
3:41civilization into which we've been
3:43educated ways of speaking that actually
3:46work to frustrate and stifle that
3:51instinctive sensorial repor between our
3:55animal senses and the sensuous Earth
3:58around us but I'm just is convinced that
4:02there exist other ways of speaking other
4:05ways of wielding our
4:07words that actually can encourage and
4:12enhance that spontaneous
4:15reciprocity between our breathing body
4:18and and the living
4:21flesh Earth yeah I I I I share your
4:26conviction uh in both those matters I I
4:30think our language is
4:33um uh deeply affects our perception uh a
4:37good friend of mine uh has he has Inu
4:41background and uh studied Inu language
4:44he didn't have it from his back from his
4:47childhood but he studied it and it's
4:49very difficult so he he has explained to
4:53me how during
4:56colonization specific form grammatic
5:00forms that in Inu itself expresses
5:03degree of
5:05potentiality become reinterpreted and
5:07they become uh a future tense for
5:10instance so something that can so so you
5:14see there's there's an epistemological
5:16shift in the in inside the grammar uh in
5:21the cultural
5:22encounter and I think that
5:25probably um generalizes in in in many
5:29ways in language um and and you can
5:32probably find
5:34similar uh similar processes in many
5:37ways
5:40um uh and this by the way was also uh
5:43this was part of uh my
5:46initial uh interest in in in in talking
5:49to you because I had I had been asking
5:52myself this question why is it that many
5:55people have this intuition that old
6:00language somehow carries more animacy in
6:04it than newer language because that
6:07seems to me to be a deeper thing than
6:10just you know a general perhaps
6:12judeo-christian fetish for very old
6:14stuff which is certainly there but there
6:16seems to be more in it and than that and
6:20then I had kind of concocted some idea
6:22about
6:25how his the historic uh the history of
6:28linguistics that
6:30um the law of conjugation made language
6:34less relational I showed it to some um
6:38um linguist friend of mine and they were
6:40like yeah you perhaps you got something
6:43there but perhaps you just talked to
6:45Abram about
6:47this um so so so yeah this and so let me
6:53try to pitch that question to you what
6:56old language do have you any thoughts
6:58about that particular
7:00particular idea that old language seems
7:04to speak with a greater animacy to some
7:10people well sure
7:14um old language it's curious what you're
7:17calling old language I would say
7:23um all of our
7:26languages derive from old
7:30roots and upwellings from the
7:35depths
7:36but
7:39um all languages that is
7:43derived from old
7:46oral
7:48Origins uh um they human language uh
7:53starts
7:54percolating um long before there are any
7:59formal systems of writing um um and
8:04certainly long before there's a
8:06formalized uh scripts that are coupled
8:10to the spoken language such as you and I
8:13now take for granted um uh writing is a
8:18pretty recent modality uh unless you
8:23take it in the broadest sense and
8:26recognize that when you're out tracking
8:29bear uh tracking elk through the forest
8:34um tracking Snowshoe hairs through the
8:36snow as I was doing up here in the
8:38mountains I should say I'm speaking from
8:41um the foothills of the Sangre de chisto
8:45mountains the southernmost spur of the
8:48rocky uh Mountain Spine of the North
8:52American continent so I'm here just on
8:56the western slope of that at
8:59southernmost end of the
9:01Rockies uh gazing out across the High
9:04Desert Valley toward the hes mountains
9:08uh across the way this is the upper Rio
9:11Grand Valley which is dotted here and
9:15there by
9:17pblos uh this is the land of the tewa
9:20and tiwa and TOA speaking peblo cultures
9:25uh of which there are many uh speaking
9:28actually
9:29five different language uh uh groups
9:34languages derived from five radically
9:37different um sources and yet all sharing
9:40a rich and fairly common cosmology
9:45um it's a pretty scrumptious place to
9:48gaze out at today the the sky is clear
9:51as a belt no there is a few clouds uh
9:55just blowing in from the southwest um
10:00um it seems to me that
10:04um that old languages are uh just more
10:09and more more deeply oral um have not
10:13yet been so affected by the context uh
10:18written Pages written
10:21Papyrus uh
10:23Scrolls um written books and certainly
10:27not infected heart hardly at all by um
10:31the screen The Dazzle of the digital
10:34screen
10:37um writing brings a wild torsion in our
10:43experience of language and linguistic
10:45meaning and there are so many ways to
10:49get at that but let's just acknowledge
10:53that first that oral language and hence
10:58human language
11:00verbal language originates in a kind of
11:04call and response all the time but
11:08um
11:10since
11:12um every deeply oral culture that is to
11:15say every deeply indigenous place-based
11:19culture we know of today is was
11:26traditionally richly animistic that is
11:29to say assumed from the get-go that
11:33everything was alive or potentially
11:36alive animate filled with dynamism each
11:40thing its own Rhythm each each thing its
11:43own pulse its own way of radiating out
11:45of itself into the world to affect the
11:49things around it
11:51um
11:53well these were all animistic cultures
11:57each in their own curious way
12:00um but such cultures don't just hold
12:03that everything is alive but that
12:07everything
12:09speaks that not just uh humans but of
12:14course um owls hooting off uh at dusk um
12:20the rhythm of the Crickets itself is
12:23heard as a kind of expression the
12:25splashing speech of waves on the beach
12:28the wi in the Willows that too is a kind
12:31of voice the howling of wolves of course
12:34bird song squawking of ravens
12:39um
12:41everything potentially
12:44speaks everything is expressive
12:48so our language originating in these
12:53old cultures uh is born in a kind of
12:58call and response
12:59to a speaking world it's not just born
13:03in between humans talking to one another
13:06it's born between us between our
13:09sounding body and the bodies of these
13:11trees and the body of those storm clouds
13:14which every now and then utter forth
13:17that rum tumble Rumble thickening strum
13:22we call Thunder um which one could call
13:25like the first uh big word um
13:30um so the
13:33yeor yeah yeah so so I would say that
13:39human language is massively infected in
13:42its depths by the voices of other beings
13:48yeah uh other sounding presences and
13:52this is so deeply true at the Deep
13:56origin of our languages when living in
14:00such um ancestral contexts we had to um
14:06you know there's no guns uh so with
14:10simple Spears or knives we nonetheless
14:14have to bag uh another animal to get uh
14:18dinner um well to get close enough to
14:22another creature to be successful in the
14:25hunt you needed to Apprentice yourself
14:28richly deeply to the ways of these other
14:32organisms and um and one element of that
14:36included learning their calls and
14:39learning their um uh so that they
14:44wouldn't uh think you a total alien or
14:49stranger if you could make cries that
14:52are common to those that they make among
14:55themselves and so among hunting and
14:58foraging people
14:59one finds the uh Rich calls and cries of
15:04birds and of other animals that prey
15:06animals um is right there entering into
15:11and affecting the human discourse uh
15:15playing part in that whole
15:18interconnected web of human language
15:21right totally totally and it seems to me
15:24that a couple of the animals that you
15:26mention here Birds you mentioned the owl
15:29for
15:30instance uh and you mentioned the wolf
15:34uh their names even in in in in
15:38contemporary English or other North
15:40European language are actually
15:44Ona uh they
15:46actually they sound like the word owl
15:50sound like an imitation of the sound of
15:53that that animal right and is isn't
15:57there something about that then that
16:00word is is less of an abstraction there
16:04is an
16:06imminence in that in in that way that
16:10word is connected to that organism you
16:13know it's it's it it there is a it's
16:17it's not in
16:19suur distinction between the signifier
16:23and the signified
16:25it's do you do you understand what I'm
16:27I'm saying much so very much so there's
16:31a an
16:32emminent uh Echo
16:36yeah in the language itself in our words
16:40themselves of many Powers a foot in the
16:45living landscape we could speak of
16:49um you know just even the words today
16:52that we use in English to describe the
16:56movement of uh
16:59the stream the water in a stream between
17:02the banks of the stream we'll use words
17:04like
17:06Rush gush wash
17:10Splash um but the sound that unites all
17:14those words
17:16Rush gush wash
17:21Splash is the sound that the stream
17:25itself speaks as it's moving through the
17:28banks
17:29between the two sides of the
17:32river it's rushing along there that is
17:35to say our language is fed and has
17:40always been fed by the speech of many
17:43beings that are not human um and it's so
17:49important that we recognize this that
17:54human language itself is born in a call
17:57and response with with a speaking
18:00animate
18:01expressive world yeah
18:04lands and you know and that being said
18:07I'll just mention that um this
18:11anomic quality that you refer to
18:15ruin um it's so often operative but
18:20subtly so it's not um as overt and
18:25obvious as people uh sometimes wanted to
18:29be um that is it it it works sometimes
18:33in a very subtle register for instance
18:37when I um blink my eyes like I'm doing
18:41just
18:41now it doesn't make any
18:45sound at all
18:47really but if it did make a sound the
18:51sound it would make would probably be
18:54something like
18:56blink blink it has that watery quality
19:01and yet uh and yet then the liquid
19:06consonant blink moves back as the eye
19:10opens again um so
19:14um uh that echoing echoic quality can
19:19sometimes be very very
19:22subtle I I think it's it's a very
19:25beautiful Point you're making that human
19:27language is born in in in in this call
19:30and response it's almost like a song
19:33metaphor that you're using with
19:35basically the speaking world uh and that
19:38it's still there as if there is a node
19:40in it um to so
19:46so if we think about the the um that um
19:52idea of distinguishing language from the
19:55world and abstracting it and saying
19:58there are signifiers and then there's
20:00the some unnamed material
20:04other uh then how do we move back into
20:10that imminent way of of uh using
20:14language yeah how do we begin to bring
20:18something of this back into our speaking
20:21I think
20:23um there are so many uh ways to approach
20:30this um some of them that are the most
20:34potent and Powerful I think I want to
20:37leave till later in the conversation
20:40because I think it's key
20:44to to pay attention to how we could have
20:49got so estranged from um from this uh
20:55way of speaking so much that we now
20:59think language or at least human
21:02language verbal language is a way of
21:04representing the world from
21:06outside as if um as if language were a
21:10virus from outer space um that's
21:14actually a line from William Burrows
21:16language is a virus from outer space
21:19that gets at the world from outside and
21:22Maps it you know and makes a a
21:24representation of each thing um um
21:29but it's not language bubbles up in the
21:33midst of the world just like um the
21:38brook bubbles up from a spring deep in
21:42in the woods um things sound all the
21:47time um and far
21:52from being a tool first to represent the
21:55world as if we were outside it looking
21:58at it from from a kind of God's eye
22:02attached position
22:05um um old
22:08languages oral cultures generally use
22:12language not to represent the world or
22:15to represent to talk about that mountain
22:18over there or to talk about the weather
22:20or to talk about that stand of trees no
22:25they're just as much using language to
22:29talk to the mountain to call the Sun up
22:32out of the ground in the morning as many
22:35folks in the pblos here do every Dawn um
22:39to speak to the Moon to conjure clouds
22:44out of the fathomless blue so that they
22:47can gather and gather and get heavy with
22:51rain and drop it upon the high desert
22:54here that is language is a way of
22:57calling oneself into the
22:59presence of the forest of calling
23:02oneself into the presence of that
23:06mountain or of calling that mountain
23:09into relation with me and then listening
23:12for its reply um language is a way of
23:15Bridging the distance the gap between
23:19oneself and another uh much like when we
23:23use it to say um to a friend or to a
23:29sweetheart I love you you know that's
23:35language in that most Aboriginal sense
23:39touching the world and making it vibrate
23:42and listening for what the world itself
23:45has to say manifesting relation with
23:48with with a some the world as a someone
23:52perhaps not just manifesting but
23:55enacting relation enacting relation it's
23:59it's to speak is to do something um um
24:05but the whole notion that words are you
24:08know represent the things that they name
24:11this only becomes possible with writing
24:15with writing it down like I write down
24:17the word um um tree or time and I now
24:24have a
24:25visible uh set of marks on a page that I
24:29can put next to that pine tree and um so
24:34it's like a label that fits on the pine
24:38tree and I write Oak and here's a label
24:41for the oak that is there's the actual
24:44visible palpable Oak and now there's
24:48this other visible
24:50reality uh that stays in existence O A
24:55on the page that can Now function as a
24:57label for that first um rooted upright
25:04presence so um the very possibility of
25:09thinking of of verbal language as a set
25:12of
25:14representations that double the world
25:16you know they make a map of the world or
25:19or they uh they they provide a full
25:23representation of the world only comes
25:26with writing before
25:55[Music]
26:28Trace in your musculature and you find
26:31yourself trying to make that same that
26:34same cry um Raven does this too around
26:38here we've got lots of big Ravens and
26:41you often come upon someone out in the
26:44woods who thinks they're alone with no
26:47other humans around and they're just
26:49there squawking away uh trying to coax
26:53The Raven to come closer and some of
26:55them are damn good at it um as is my son
27:00I used to have a uh a kick in Raven call
27:04but then I lost um in the last 10 years
27:07I lost my whole upper register of my
27:10voice so my Raven calls the Ravens just
27:13sort of like ignore it very um our
27:18common friend there Professor hlan from
27:20Norway he mentioned that he had uh met
27:23an old man an old Sami man in Northern
27:27Norway who were actually able to
27:29communicate with wild Ravens so they
27:32would help him find uh moose when he
27:35went moose hunting quite uh quite
27:38astonishing case of inter species
27:40communication there oh yes here in
27:43Alaska um uh I've been out hunting with
27:47a a wonderful Hunter named Richard
27:50Nelson uh wonderful Wilderness writer as
27:54well uh and Nells took me out to this
27:58island um to hunt and we tracked for a
28:02while and then uh there were just a a
28:06few Ravens soaring overhead and he
28:11looked up at them he said now watch them
28:14close because they know we're here and
28:16if one of them starts to
28:18Tumble uh and just then one of them did
28:21like a sumersault he said okay they're
28:23letting us know uh where the wolves are
28:27uh no they're letting us know where the
28:29deer is we're tracking deer um and so
28:32just follow them and so we went
28:34following the Ravens and when they would
28:37get too far ahead they'd Circle back and
28:39just uh and till we could see them again
28:43and then led us to this place in the
28:46woods where indeed the bear the deer
28:50were um because there's a pact as
28:55Richard Nelson explained to me between
28:57Hunters
28:59and the
29:00Ravens that um is also found between
29:04wolves and Ravens so Ravens also lead
29:07wolf packs to the deer to the kill
29:12and the Wolves very carefully after they
29:15make the
29:17kill leave various innards of the deer
29:22for the Ravens to then uh eat wow wow
29:27you
29:28exper so the human Hunters have picked
29:32this up from the Wolves uh there in
29:35Alaska um and do the same thing uh I'll
29:39just say Richard Nelson was deeply um
29:43tutored by the hunters of the Northern
29:47Forest and particularly the kakan people
29:49of central Alaska who were his primary
29:52teachers in these ways okay wow so
29:57Johnny back to Lang language uh or no
30:00writing it seems that like you you're
30:03saying that writing is sort of the
30:05original posted system where labeling
30:10and thereby abstraction and
30:13representation uh
30:15detaches language from its its its
30:19imminent Unity with with uh with World
30:23basically um yes although can we qualify
30:27this tiny bit by just saying that when
30:31we're out tracking
30:34deer or
30:38bear or wolf or mountain lion and you're
30:42following their tracks through the snow
30:46or through uh the the leaf litter in the
30:51forest um that too is a kind of
30:54writing um in fact I'm convinced
30:59that our ability to read including to
31:02read you know
31:04uh texts in books like you know this one
31:08um uh comes
31:11from uh an organ a synesthetic organ
31:15that was developed and honed by our
31:18hunting
31:19ancestors um you know tracking the deer
31:23across the field um and whenever the
31:27track leaves off uh you have
31:29to find where it picks up again it's
31:32like you get to the end of the uh these
31:35tracks like on a page is not that
31:39different from from deer tracks in the
31:41snow and you get to the end of the line
31:44and you have to pick up the line where
31:46it starts AR fresh oh here it is um that
31:49is reading is a form of tracking yeah
31:54it's following traces tracks and it's a
31:57deep old ancestral deeply
32:00animistic uh practice but it was kind of
32:04a new and audacious thing for us to
32:08start tracking ourselves and making our
32:12own tracks and then tracking them as a
32:16way to leave messages for one another um
32:20so there's no hard and fast point where
32:24reading and writing begins um because
32:27tracking itself is the oldest uh of the
32:32oldest human skills uh and prehuman
32:35skills there is it also seems to me that
32:38if you look at early writing culture
32:41then there is immediately these as you
32:45say very strongly animist ways of
32:48understanding it like the the Latin
32:50alphabet that we have I think a myth say
32:53says that Hermes created it actually
32:56from the flights of cranes so these V
32:59shapes that cranes fly in they actually
33:02inspired Hermes to produce the letters
33:05that we still using today and like if if
33:08you look at
33:10the the Nordic tradition the runes are
33:13they actually trees so they're
33:15conceptualized as trees to some extent
33:17so they they grow up from the
33:20underground and and Odin goes into the
33:23roots of the the interconnected Cosmos
33:25to find them somehow and and obviously
33:29the the the Jewish tradition has perhaps
33:31the most developed idea
33:34of Mystic understanding of letters of
33:37all um and so there's there's something
33:41about writing that seems that people
33:44also want to make it into a vehicle of
33:46animacy
33:48somehow I wonder if that isn't
33:52partly a result of
33:55um how old indeep deep in us uh was this
34:02uh propensity for tracking the necessity
34:07to be learning the tracks and traces of
34:11other animals um in order to uh acquire
34:16the food for your village for your Camp
34:21um that is to say there's something so
34:26viscerally fasc
34:28ating about the hunt uh where you're
34:32tracking this other being
34:35um who sometimes if you're
34:39successful you meet and you encounter uh
34:43the other um and there's
34:47um and sometimes there's a kill um or if
34:52you're really unlucky the kill goes the
34:54other way and it's you who are killed um
34:58but the power in
35:01that I think is still a power that
35:06animates us whenever we're reading a
35:09good book you're tracking the
35:13meaning and tracking it tracking getting
35:16closer to it farther from it but always
35:19tracking this meeting this this meaning
35:22which will be the meeting with the other
35:26um that in some sense if this is right
35:30the fascination that holds us to a good
35:33book is really a fascination with the
35:37the the mystery the
35:39otherness nature itself uh still calling
35:43to us through the trace through the
35:45tracks
35:46yeah and I wonder if there's even a a
35:49link with a kill because what is a kill
35:52it's an
35:53objectification you but it's a or the
35:56hunter's kill is lifegiving
35:59objectification
36:01so and does language objectify somehow
36:05in the writing form
36:07perhaps um I don't know is there a in a
36:11similar way a fruitful I don't know
36:13maybe it's too well I think I think
36:17there there may well be interesting
36:20analogies to draw out there ponder that
36:23I want to hear back from you on
36:26that but I think there is this sense
36:29that there's an author behind here but
36:32one rarely gets to to know
36:35just what the author really intends
36:38really but you have these moments of
36:40like ah I got it I got it or sometimes
36:43I'm reading philosophy and it's like so
36:47opaque and then ah I get it you feel
36:49like you meet you come face to face with
36:51this other um um and sometimes you
36:56become friends with an author who you've
36:58read over and again and it's just been
37:01so fascinating and then bless it be you
37:04actually get to meet her I like
37:08wow that's are but hopefully not an
37:13objectification I
37:14remember well maybe it's a mutual
37:17objectification and then it's even
37:19better um I don't know I remember
37:22reading uh I think I for I forgot the
37:26the source of it but it was a mid evil
37:28monk describing the uh experience of
37:32reading uh and and that was a very
37:36sensuous actually experience
37:39of light
37:41[Music]
37:42and Revelation and all kinds of uh in
37:46the interaction with with letters so uh
37:49so it it's funny how how language when
37:53it becomes writing
37:55has a problematic potential or or it it
37:59it starts manifesting this uh rupture or
38:02what Graham Harvey perhaps what Graham
38:04Harvey calls the separatist
38:06agenda uh but uh but that it it also has
38:11this
38:13incredible
38:15um it it also has animacy somehow but um
38:19yeah wow yeah let me speak to that a
38:22moment run uh ah it's very apropo that
38:26your name is r
38:31um
38:32because there's been a um a common
38:37Mis misreading of my work uh
38:41particularly my first book The spell of
38:42the
38:43sensuous perception and language in a
38:46more than human world
38:49um uh in that book one of the arguments
38:52threaded through that book um that was
38:56quite new and strange at the time was to
39:00suggest that formal writing
39:03systems uh themselves are key factor in
39:09the estrangement of our bodily senses
39:12from the Earthly sensuous um
39:16and um and I show this in all sorts of
39:20various ways but um people reading the
39:23book not
39:25carefully uh and with their own ready
39:29propensity for just some sort of black
39:32and white thinking said ah ah yes
39:35Abram's book that's the one where he he
39:39he has this
39:41derogatory um stance toward the written
39:44word um or he demonizes the
39:48alphabet um um and perhaps I should back
39:52up for a moment and just
39:54say formal writing systems do this in
39:58very different ways and uh the alphabet
40:01is very particular but other more
40:04iconographic writing systems like the
40:07idiographic writing script of China um
40:12or of course the hieroglyphic scripts of
40:15Egypt or of the Mayan
40:19mesoamerica uh culture um these are
40:23scripts wherein various written shapes
40:26and characters are um derived from
40:32stylized images or drawings of uh
40:38Mountain
40:39moonrise
40:41rain tree interspersed with human
40:45implements faces
40:48houses um uh and and so the reader
40:53reading such more iconographic script
40:58pictorially derived script is
41:00continually reminded of languages link
41:05to that wider than human landscape
41:08because you're still coming upon
41:10stylized images of felines of frogs and
41:14toads of serpents and snakes so as
41:17you're
41:18reading your organism is reminded that
41:23language remains linked to a whole
41:26expressive landscape
41:28that is surrounding you um it's as if um
41:34yes with a formal writing
41:36system human language begins to turn in
41:39on itself in close one into a kind of
41:42the House of human language but there
41:44are still these
41:46windows wherein you can look out through
41:49the letters and see serpents slithering
41:52off through the grass and see a deer
41:55leaping um a fox
41:58a hawk swooping low because it's right
42:01there in the uh letters themselves in
42:05the
42:05calligraphy um this is very different
42:09from an
42:10alphabet um originating in the ancient
42:13near East
42:15um uh the alphabet or the alipate as we
42:20might speak of its original form um
42:24where each letter in the alphabet
42:27no longer images anything in the
42:30surrounding sensuous world but rather
42:34you see the letter a and it points you
42:37toward your own mouth making a sound ah
42:40you see the letter B you go B you see
42:42the letter c you go C that is the
42:45letters no longer function as Windows
42:50but rather as mirrors reflecting the
42:52human face back upon itself I see the
42:55letter d and I go go duh so the letters
42:59just point me back toward my own face
43:02and with this
43:04Innovation human language really closes
43:07in on itself and the human mind starts
43:11to feel itself as a
43:14self-enclosed
43:15interior but wait but wait and still I
43:19need to complicate that and
43:22say even when we're looking at the
43:25alphabet at the the earliest alphabets
43:29which would be the Semitic Olive
43:33baites uh ancient Hebrew
43:37writing um the kassav
43:40I um earliest Hebrew writing would be
43:44the earliest form of or something close
43:47to the earliest form of the alphabet
43:50that has now come down to us as the
43:52Roman alphabet but even there you do
43:56find that many of the letters are images
44:00from the surrounding world for instance
44:01the letter
44:03a um the letter A was not one thing it's
44:07not a vowel it's a consonant it's a
44:11glottal
44:13stop it's the opening of the throat
44:15before all
44:16speech um um and it was
44:22written as well not quite as our letter
44:26A like this it was upside down like that
44:31Olive means ox and the olive The Written
44:36Letter was an ox's head with two horns
44:39was the head of an oxen yeah um the
44:43second letter
44:45bait uh is bait means house and our
44:50letter
44:51B um was not written standing up as we
44:55have it but was lying on on its side it
44:58was um if I have a a pen here I can just
45:02draw a picture it was on its side like a
45:07like an adobe house with a door in the
45:12middle something like that but um it got
45:16turned on its side and became the letter
45:19B um these letters got turned upside
45:23down or turned on their side because the
45:25direction of writing shifted instead of
45:29writing from right to left as the
45:32semites as the Hebrews did we started
45:35the Greeks started writing from left to
45:37right and many of the letters got turned
45:39on their side or got turned upside down
45:42um the letter M uh or originally
45:47me it's uh water it's water MIM
45:52water and it was a picture of waves uh
45:57our letter M with its two peaks um so
46:01even there there was this opening onto
46:05the wider landscape but um once the
46:09letters came to refer just to sounds
46:14made by the human
46:16mouth um and of course they were carried
46:19across the Mediterranean by the
46:21Phoenicians and brought to
46:23Greece and the Greeks didn't understand
46:26the name Olive they didn't know that
46:28meant box they didn't understand bait as
46:31meaning house or me as meaning water um
46:35they just the they took these on they
46:37said Olive let's call it Alpha bate
46:40we'll call it
46:41beta Gamma Delta will just make these
46:46the names of these letters which refer
46:49to these sounds that we will then make
46:52so now the whole more than human world
46:55begins to fall out of the semiotic
46:57entirely and it just becomes a closed
47:00loop between the human face looking at a
47:04letter which refers it back to a sound
47:08to be made by the human mouth and so
47:11with the alphabet in this long evolution
47:16of its
47:17characteristics the Greek and then the
47:20Roman alphabet as it comes down to us
47:22today is basically a Hall of Mirrors um
47:26which CL closes the human sensorium in
47:29on itself this sense that the human mind
47:32is a closed interior closed off a wider
47:36world this is all very much
47:39born of of the alphabet yeah so the
47:44entropic um cartisian
47:47[Music]
47:49enclosure uh is is basically born from
47:55or it it has Roots perhaps in in that uh
48:00original abstraction in writing Oh
48:03indeed there's there's no there's no
48:06question I would say the
48:08uh the um the ideal forms in
48:15Plato's uh Rich philosophy the the pure
48:18form of horse the pure form of tree the
48:22pure form of a desk um those ideas that
48:26don't exist in the body's world but
48:29exist in some Heaven outside
48:33the body's World outside all sensuous
48:37and um those pure shapes pure forms uh
48:43are indeed nothing other than the
48:46letters Greek alphabet um but um that's
48:52a much more complex argument to make and
48:54I wouldn't try and make it here but all
48:57of that being said um I think it's a way
49:01of of pointing out that um letters have
49:06powerful effects upon the human
49:09sensorium and Upon Our felt experience
49:13upon what we hear what we see
49:18um and which is to say that
49:23there's I I I was saying before there's
49:26this misunderstanding of my work as uh
49:29that Abram in his first book castigates
49:33The Alphabet he gets down on the
49:35alphabet as having broken us away from
49:38Magic and uh banished the gods and and
49:44the spirits of place and this could not
49:46be more wrong it's a ludicrous
49:50misreading because for one thing I'm
49:53obviously a writer and um I'm writing
49:57books that actually aspired to be
50:00literature there's a love of of the
50:03written language in my in my work um
50:07that I hope is evident uh to
50:10readers
50:11um I am not saying that writing is
50:16bad on the contrary I'm
50:19saying that the alphabet is
50:23Magic that the alphabet is an ex
50:26exceedingly powerful
50:29magic or animism it is an
50:33animistic engagement to read is to
50:37engage in a highly concentrated form of
50:40animism that is so concentrated it
50:43effectively eclipses all of the other
50:46modes of participation or particip
50:50Mystique in which we once engaged um I
50:54give you an example um
50:57I I just with a magic
51:02marker okay I wrote down some some
51:06letters on on a page here uh rather
51:10clumsily
51:11um just very simply uh with a black
51:15Magic Marker and the page is pretty much
51:19white what I want to do I'm just going
51:21to flip this to show it to the camera
51:25but only for a mo a split second um so I
51:31want to do it very short so that you can
51:34don't look at what it says look at the
51:36black shapes on the White Page okay okay
51:39don't look at what it says just see it
51:41as black shapes on White Page ready yeah
51:45here we
51:47go
51:49okay able to do that
51:53no no it's impossible to not read it
51:57yeah as soon as soon as you see the
51:59letters you see what they say yeah yeah
52:01yeah yeah see what they say that is to
52:03say they say they
52:06speak they speak very very vivaciously
52:11yeah to us as soon as we look at them
52:13this is not that different from a Lakota
52:18Elder who steps out from the village and
52:22is walking through the dense
52:25forest and comes upon
52:28um uh a spider web that snags first on
52:31her face and she pulls away from the web
52:35and then tries to catch s catch sight of
52:38this spider of this little arachnid who
52:41is now spaling around trying to repair
52:44the web but it's very hard to catch
52:46sight of because it's very small soon as
52:48she catches sight of it and her eyes
52:50focus on this little
52:53arachnid she abruptly hears herself
52:56spoken to by the spider addressed by the
53:00spider or around here the hopy man who
53:04steps out of the preau and is uh walking
53:08through the desert comes Upon A a
53:10boulder covered in crinkly black and red
53:14lyans and um focuses his eyes on one
53:18particular patch of gray
53:21lyan and abruptly hears the rock
53:24speaking to him
53:29address this is
53:32animism we just do it with our own
53:35scratches and scripts as soon as we look
53:38at the letters we see what they say yeah
53:40our oral ancestors we're doing it with
53:45spiders with patches of lyen with tracks
53:48of moose with Cloud shapes bent Twigs
53:54trees with pretty much everything
53:58we now
54:01literates
54:03are do it all the time and are caught up
54:06in this Rich animistic participation
54:09with the words the letters written on
54:13the page or now the screen um uh but I I
54:18remember once you know hiking in the bad
54:20lands here in North America really weird
54:24uncanny landscape filled with Canyons
54:27inside
54:28Canyons a vast landscape um that just
54:33sort of envelops you and I got lost and
54:36I couldn't remember which way to get
54:38back to where my car was that ID parked
54:41on the highway and I'm climbing and
54:45climbing through these crevices and
54:47canyons and I'm coming up a slope onto a
54:50ridge and I suddenly see a sort of uh
54:54rectilinear um um uh uh sign uh the top
54:59of a sign and I climb up a couple more
55:02steps and I see that it is indeed a
55:04metal
55:05sign and I come up onto that Ridgetop
55:10and the sign says in letters please
55:13deposit waste here and it has an arrow
55:17pointing to a waist basket and as soon
55:19as I see what it
55:21says I can hear almost with an audible
55:27top the whole of the landscape shrinking
55:31down to like a quarter of its
55:35size and I look around and it's like
55:38whoa much more domesticated landscape um
55:43um oh there's where my car must be just
55:45beyond that next rise over there but was
55:48that the canyon I'd spent all afternoon
55:51wondering God it looks so little now
55:54because the letter
55:57of a writing system yeah the alphabetic
56:00letters have so much magic they have so
56:03much Mana they soak up the Mana from the
56:07whole of the landscape and concentrate
56:10it in themselves um that makes follow
56:14what I'm saying yeah yeah and totally
56:17and and and that
56:19also like
56:21that that intensity of animacy in this
56:25tool also
56:27uh obviously explains why people would
56:32you know have a Mystic Treatise in which
56:34God is creating the World by moving the
56:37letters in between each other or where
56:39uh or that yes or or where uh the
56:44letters
56:45become single powerful symbols that are
56:49that that that bring something to me it
56:51seems almost that these kinds of ways of
56:54handling letters that they they perhaps
56:57they I can't help thinking that there is
57:00a cultural resilience that there's a
57:03cultural reaction or perhaps guarding
57:06against that potential rupture in moving
57:10into the the the complete representation
57:13labeling way of language that is somehow
57:17you know because traditional knowledge
57:20practitioners and knowledge keepers have
57:22extremely I think sharp uh
57:27uh understanding of for instance stuff
57:29like potential rupture uh and yeah I I
57:33kind of thinking that these ways of
57:35handling letters hold some of that that
57:38wisdom of basically guarding us from the
57:42the representational model or the the
57:45contingencies in in the not sure if
57:48that's the right word or the potential
57:51problem in the in representational way
57:53of understanding I think that's true I
57:55think any use of any engagement with the
57:58letters as
58:00magic um rather than as a purely neutral
58:04tool for recording oral speech for
58:07heaven's sakes it's not neutral it has
58:10brought such World
58:13transforming uh
58:15changes uh to This World by the way it
58:20has deflected our senses from the vast
58:25body of the Earthly sensuous in its
58:28polymorphic perverse richness and
58:33polyphonic
58:35vocal expressiveness um it's basically
58:40the written word um it doesn't Force us
58:45to
58:46disengage from the rest of nature but it
58:49makes possible yeah because it makes it
58:53possible um the vast major majority of
58:57people uh will use it as a way to hide
59:01out from the difficult ambiguity of the
59:04real from the danger and the felt um
59:08ominous uh uncanny weirdness of being
59:12out alone in the woods when yeah you
59:14know there are things out and about that
59:16can eat you and ultimately will eat you
59:19whether very things or very small things
59:22like covid-19 viruses or um um
59:27I better to stay encapsulated in my
59:30Cocoon of words uh talking and
59:34shattering about the World Behind its
59:37back yeah as um but I think that any
59:42approach that recognizes that writing
59:46and any particular form of writing that
59:48the letters even of the alphabet are
59:51themselves an exceedingly potent magic
59:55as I was just
59:56trying to
59:58um that that is to say that they have a
1:00:01much more than purely rational effect
1:00:05upon us when we engage when we engage
1:00:09them I think that that is uh a very
1:00:13powerful way of resisting the purely
1:00:17representational use of language which
1:00:21doubles the world into a set of objects
1:00:24on the one hand and
1:00:27uh representations of those objects on
1:00:30the other hand um awesome fold them
1:00:33entirely together to bring them back
1:00:37together um uh yields a world of things
1:00:42that are not objects but that are
1:00:46resonant vocative powers that speak that
1:00:50have their own pulse their own Rhythm
1:00:52each its own Rhythm and and style and
1:00:55way of day dancing into the present
1:00:57moment and yes each speaks in its own
1:01:00way um because the letters of an
1:01:04alphabet are still just a part of the
1:01:07world and they do dance and great
1:01:12authors I mean great authors are
1:01:16wielding the letters in such a way as to
1:01:21make magic that is in such a way as to
1:01:24open our a awareness open our
1:01:26imagination back onto that whole more
1:01:30than human poony of voices and so the
1:01:35question is can we
1:01:37use the uh this new
1:01:41technology in service to the
1:01:45full-blooded magic of the real and its
1:01:48wonder and anyone like Tolstoy is doing
1:01:53that Wendell Barry is is doing that my
1:01:59sister Terry Tempest Williams is doing
1:02:02that um Annie Dillard does that with her
1:02:06writing um um Rob McFarland beautiful
1:02:12writer bringing wielding the tools of
1:02:16writing not to close the human mind
1:02:19further in on itself but to open it back
1:02:22onto a speaking intelligent the acious
1:02:27world of
1:02:28powers thank you yeah I think you are
1:02:32beautifully uh expressing uh
1:02:36expressing what actually what I started
1:02:38by talking about then how can we
1:02:42actually how can we work with this to to
1:02:45to bring to to move back in that
1:02:48direction well if I If I Could Touch in
1:02:54um on on on one more thread in relation
1:02:58to that
1:03:00question because there's so much I mean
1:03:02there's so darn much to be said to be
1:03:04said here but um we can leave it for
1:03:07another conversation but I did want to
1:03:09be sure to say that and maybe you can
1:03:14just edit out this this little
1:03:16interchange by asking if we needed to
1:03:18stop
1:03:21um
1:03:22[Music]
1:03:24um it seems to me run that one of the
1:03:29most powerful strategies we can Avail
1:03:32ourselves of now
1:03:36is the practice of replenishing oral
1:03:41culture
1:03:43rejuvenating oral culture rejuvenating
1:03:46the culture of face to face and face to
1:03:50place
1:03:52storytelling finding the stories that
1:03:54live in our
1:03:57local and
1:03:59that yeah we can write them down but
1:04:03maybe that encounter with the bear last
1:04:06week I'm not going to write it down
1:04:08because I don't want it to travel
1:04:11outside this bio region I want it to
1:04:13live here and I want to tell this story
1:04:17there where it happened of that bear and
1:04:20I'm going to gather people for the
1:04:21telling out in the land in that place
1:04:24and we're going to give that Place uh a
1:04:28name or rather ask it what is the most
1:04:31appropriate name for this magic that
1:04:34happened here and We Gather in the right
1:04:37time of
1:04:39year there where the salmon comes
1:04:42streaming back up the river every year
1:04:46we're going to gather once a year in the
1:04:49right season and tell some of the salmon
1:04:52stories and maybe we've got a dance we
1:04:54do as well uh and some salmon that we
1:04:57put on to honor the replenishment of
1:05:01salmon of this power that comes back and
1:05:04visits Us in this exactly yeah um no
1:05:09I've been thinking I've been thinking
1:05:10very much and and I I've been thinking
1:05:14about how to get specific in exactly
1:05:17that that what you're talking about
1:05:20there and uh some of these Australian
1:05:23indigenous peoples they're talking about
1:05:25how to
1:05:26uh basically move that act of knowing
1:05:30towards an imminent mode where like
1:05:33Tyson Yuna Porter I'm quite inspired by
1:05:37he's he's carving objects for each
1:05:39chapters in his books so he's is uh and
1:05:43and these people they they're basic
1:05:45they're basically talking about concrete
1:05:48techniques for how to move knowledge
1:05:51into dance into singing into place so so
1:05:56that that that landscape that we inhabit
1:06:00becomes a A Memory Palace inhabited by
1:06:04that knowledge then the word owl I think
1:06:08will uh stop being a posted letter and
1:06:12start becoming an imminent nature of the
1:06:14owl that that we are in a core response
1:06:18linguistic song with that's it brother
1:06:22that's it
1:06:24it's we need to among other things start
1:06:28telling stories again but not just
1:06:30stories that are written down and not
1:06:32just reading to our kids from another
1:06:34story book but actually closing the book
1:06:38and improvising a story about the wild
1:06:41wind that is howling outside or just
1:06:44what happens inside that Forest Edge
1:06:46every full moon or here in the city you
1:06:49know when the traffic lights turn red
1:06:53whenever you're just pulling up to them
1:06:54and they turn red
1:06:56well you know that's about the spirits
1:06:59because the spirits hang out at the
1:07:01crossroads we all know that and they're
1:07:04really dazzled by the zip and snap of
1:07:08electricity and they hang out here and
1:07:11they turn the light red whenever they
1:07:13see you coming but improvising stories
1:07:16in relation to places even spots places
1:07:20Crossroads in the
1:07:21city that is storying up the land again
1:07:27yeah we're not going to be able to
1:07:28restore this land without restoring it
1:07:32no storing it up with tales that we
1:07:35don't write down so they don't travel to
1:07:37other lands we tell the stories and we
1:07:41let them live in the land we don't steal
1:07:44it from the land by putting it on the
1:07:45page or the screen we let it live in the
1:07:49land in that place and in that way begin
1:07:52to return voice to this land that's
1:07:56always been speaking anyway it really is
1:07:58about returning our ears yeah our ears
1:08:01to hear the speech of everything which
1:08:04has been speaking all along exactly yeah
1:08:08so so key and and yeah you mentioned the
1:08:12Memory
1:08:13Palace it's so evident and I think I
1:08:18think um my first book The spell of the
1:08:21sensuous was the
1:08:22first to bring this out
1:08:26that the outrageous animacy of the
1:08:30landscape for a traditionally
1:08:33oral or
1:08:35non writing culture a culture without a
1:08:37highly formalized system of
1:08:40writing than just the necessity for
1:08:46remembrance the necessity for memory in
1:08:49such a culture all of the
1:08:52linguistically gathered knowledge by
1:08:55one's ancestors the knowledge of how to
1:08:58get on in the land without destroying it
1:09:00where to find particular um animals at
1:09:04what season which plants are good for
1:09:06healing which elements uh and which are
1:09:09good to eat and which are poisonous and
1:09:11how to detoxify the poisonous parts to
1:09:13prepare them as medicines or as foods
1:09:16and which which fungi are good for
1:09:19bringing on Visions in which you better
1:09:21be real careful or you may lose your
1:09:24life um all of that knowledge lives and
1:09:28has to be stored in stories I reckon
1:09:31maybe that's why they're called stories
1:09:33because all of that is stored there but
1:09:36the stories how are the stories
1:09:38remembered well that's just not been
1:09:41well understood until very recently and
1:09:45I think the spell of the Cent was my
1:09:48first book was the first to bring out
1:09:50that the stories are remembered by being
1:09:53associated with particular places in the
1:09:56land where those stories happened or
1:09:59where the events in those stories are
1:10:00believed to have happened and when you
1:10:02come upon that cave mouth there in the
1:10:06distance it triggers the memory of one
1:10:09or another story of how that cave came
1:10:11to be there or you come upon this Bend
1:10:13in the river or that cluster of Boulders
1:10:16and again they
1:10:17trigger stories they trigger memory of
1:10:21tales that happened there that tell how
1:10:24that clump of Rock
1:10:25came to be there and so as you're
1:10:27walking through the land you're
1:10:30remembering all the time or rather the
1:10:32land is remembering itself through you
1:10:35and that this is the origin of what came
1:10:41to be called The Memory Palace of the
1:10:42great rhetoricians teaching the practice
1:10:47of of the art of memory by erecting a
1:10:51sort of Palace in your mind and then
1:10:56placing in each room of that Palace a
1:10:59different image a
1:11:01different topic um that's where our word
1:11:05topic comes from is because topos means
1:11:08place and the topic would be a place
1:11:13where I insert my friend's face because
1:11:15I want to talk about him there and then
1:11:18let me in this next room I'll put a
1:11:20broom because I want to tell the
1:11:21encounter with that broom and then over
1:11:24here I'll imagine
1:11:25um I'll imagine something else that I
1:11:28want to bring into the story at this
1:11:29point and these were called memory
1:11:31palaces these spaces of so many rooms
1:11:35where you would place the topic you
1:11:39would place the theme of the next thing
1:11:41you wanted to speak of when you gave
1:11:44your your lecture without looking at any
1:11:47notes this was the art of memory it
1:11:49derives entirely from the fact that our
1:11:54animal
1:11:56memory there's always a visual
1:11:59counterpart to linguistic memory and
1:12:03when it's not the book or the page or
1:12:06the screen it's the landscape that was
1:12:09the visual counterpart for all our
1:12:13linguistic Memories the land all that
1:12:16knowledge was held in stories but the
1:12:18stories were held in the land itself
1:12:22yeah and we lived inside it's another
1:12:25way of saying we lived inside a speaking
1:12:28land in which every presence every
1:12:31object Stone gust of
1:12:33wind Branch or track was animate and
1:12:38Alive because you can't remember a story
1:12:42unless every presence in that story has
1:12:45its dynamism has its its Vitality its
1:12:49personality its way of interacting with
1:12:51the other presences and interacting with
1:12:54you so all of this is so caught up in
1:12:58what makes animism yeah yeah I think
1:13:02it's it's uh really some awesome
1:13:06connections that we we're making here uh
1:13:10I also want to just uh connect to what
1:13:13you said a little bit before about
1:13:16allowing a story then to to to to not
1:13:20rob it from that
1:13:22place uh like part of my background
1:13:25around them his sort of religion was
1:13:26that I I I uh had the privilege of
1:13:30learning from afrodiasporic
1:13:33uh practitioners of orisha religion now
1:13:36they have very particular ways of
1:13:39handling language where often that
1:13:42there's
1:13:43like they have a little bit of an eus
1:13:45about not speaking too much about things
1:13:48um they talk a lot and they enjoy
1:13:51themselves and they flirt and have a
1:13:53good time and all these things humans do
1:13:56but the but there's there some things
1:13:58that they don't talk about uh and um and
1:14:02I think like reflecting on it I think
1:14:05that some of the things that they don't
1:14:07talk about is is is that they don't want
1:14:11that they they uh for instance if there
1:14:14is a relation say there is a relation
1:14:17between a human and an orisha and that
1:14:19relation can be conceptualized in many
1:14:22different ways uh the orisha can be a
1:14:26protective father but it can also be an
1:14:29abusive rapist that takes you in
1:14:32possession or it can be um a child that
1:14:36the human is teaching how to behave in a
1:14:39to be a culturally appropriate orisha in
1:14:42that place or it can be uh it can be a
1:14:46marriage spouse in initiation these are
1:14:49actually wildly contradictory roles that
1:14:52encapsulate different parts of that
1:14:55relation but being silent about
1:14:57something like that allows the variety
1:15:01of that relation to be able to to to
1:15:05live and um yeah and I I I have I have
1:15:09specifically thought about this thing
1:15:11about that you mentioned with stories
1:15:14that belong in one place and perhaps not
1:15:18in other places and how exactly do we
1:15:22regain that do we start pilgrimage
1:15:25Roots uh where where we uh where we
1:15:30encourage people to listen to their
1:15:32dreams uh and and listen to their their
1:15:35experiences in these places and see what
1:15:38emerg and then teach them very
1:15:42powerfully I would think to focus on the
1:15:45human knower and the relation rather
1:15:49than the Detachment of Instagram like
1:15:51today we have a uh it seems to me that
1:15:54that the the screen World amazingly
1:15:58connective as it is in some ways uh has
1:16:02almost sidelined the human Noah
1:16:06completely so the knowledge keeper is
1:16:08almost gone because all the knowledge is
1:16:11always it's always just a couple of
1:16:13search uh terms away and so there's a
1:16:18quite serious shift that needs to be
1:16:22somehow encouraged
1:16:26H if we are to move towards these
1:16:28landscape based ways of of knowing yeah
1:16:32and and in the fact that any bit of
1:16:34knowledge I can just Google it and call
1:16:38it up on my
1:16:39screen this is very
1:16:41painful because it's sueded um even you
1:16:46know what I maybe you were able to get a
1:16:49taste of when you were young I don't
1:16:50know but you know wanting a piece of
1:16:53knowledge heading to the
1:16:56library pouring through the library
1:16:59cards in the in the uh in these file
1:17:02cabinets until you found you know the
1:17:05right one writing down what the letter
1:17:08number code was and then taking it up
1:17:11with you to into the stacks of the
1:17:14library uh first floor second floor
1:17:17second and a half floor third floor
1:17:18third and a half here here's the right
1:17:20floor where's the right row okay this is
1:17:24is the right row go down the row oh
1:17:27these seem like weirdly pertinent to the
1:17:31topic I'm looking for I'm looking for a
1:17:33particular book whoa look at this book I
1:17:35didn't know this existed oh and this one
1:17:38too and I have to admit I found many of
1:17:41my favorite books just in that way but
1:17:45you were using your muscles making your
1:17:48way through the terrain through the land
1:17:51to get downtown the library up into the
1:17:54stacks crawling through these Stacks to
1:17:57find a particular book um it's the hunt
1:18:00again it's the hunt and it's uh and it's
1:18:04the use of the
1:18:05muscles uh in in bringing the
1:18:09information giving it a context of of
1:18:12muscle memory feeling and um ache which
1:18:17is very different from this just
1:18:20everything sort of floats free of
1:18:22everything else kind of and that
1:18:25knowledge is also place-based in in a
1:18:27sense in a
1:18:29sense in in a sense but I mean libraries
1:18:32are powerful places for sure and books
1:18:36are powerful places and I again I don't
1:18:38mean to to be doing any kind of neat
1:18:43bifurcation of this good this bad saying
1:18:46writing is a powerful magic and each
1:18:49form of writing idiographic writing a
1:18:51uniquely powerful magic the writing of
1:18:55of uh the Greek alphabet weirdly
1:18:59different from the Hebrew weirdly
1:19:01different from the Roman alphabet today
1:19:04um each a unique and Powerful form of
1:19:08magic
1:19:11um but they have a lot to answer for
1:19:15because they have made it possible for
1:19:17us two leggeds to become so estranged
1:19:21from other animals from the plants from
1:19:23the winds and the water Powers um and to
1:19:26be become so estranged from our own
1:19:30animality from our own bodies We Now log
1:19:34online and I get to have this
1:19:36conversation with you in which we're
1:19:38basically Talking Heads but my body is
1:19:41sort of put out of play
1:19:44entirely ah feels good to offer it a
1:19:47little drink but people watching are
1:19:50just encountering our heads not our
1:19:52bodies and and that
1:19:55that brings me
1:19:57to kind of something I want to say if I
1:20:01can
1:20:02find uh a way of saying it that's not
1:20:05too awkward but it's
1:20:06just
1:20:09that it's our body it's this whole this
1:20:14whole full-bodied
1:20:17two-legged
1:20:19creaturely two armed form that is my
1:20:24Axis
1:20:26to a tree to the body of another animal
1:20:30to the body of a stone to the body of
1:20:32seaweed a clump of seaweed or a clump of
1:20:35Sage Brush it's the body that is our
1:20:38access to the Stars to the moon to the
1:20:41mountain
1:20:42ridges To The River and the blessing of
1:20:45jumping in that River and just immersing
1:20:48myself so um it's more than anything
1:20:52else I mean if we want to speak of magic
1:20:55are the most potent magical animistic
1:20:59ways of shapeshifting a
1:21:02culture with anything approaching the
1:21:05kind of
1:21:08rapidity that is called for
1:21:11now um go by way of the body yeah start
1:21:16identifying with your animal creaturely
1:21:19presence that you are an animal whatever
1:21:22else you are you are a really Nifty
1:21:26goofy incredibly Sly very social but uh
1:21:32prone to massive confusion creature and
1:21:36hence an animal like all the others like
1:21:38the ants and the humming bees and the
1:21:42spiders and the humpback whales and the
1:21:45elephants and and and and the sloths we
1:21:49are creatures we're animals we're bodies
1:21:52of this Earth and so for God's sakes
1:21:55when we speak whenever we're wielding
1:21:58this incredible magic we
1:22:02call language or verbal
1:22:06language to try to not speak as a
1:22:09disembodied mind talking to other
1:22:12disembodied Minds that is don't use
1:22:16terms
1:22:17that that have no felt sensuous Bluster
1:22:24or
1:22:25Rhythm or music to them but that are so
1:22:30abstract and
1:22:32disembodied um I don't know what you
1:22:36know like like the jargon that
1:22:39circulates through so many of our
1:22:42graduate schools and University campus
1:22:45now um yeah for me there I'm still in an
1:22:49unlearning I think process from that
1:22:52because I I I kind of did my PhD in in
1:22:56this kind of ontological turn thinking
1:22:59and you know at my uh PhD defense I
1:23:03don't think anybody understood a word
1:23:05that was being
1:23:08said so and and it's there's a weird
1:23:13irony to the fact that some of the
1:23:16thinkers and Scholars who are the most
1:23:18invested in thinking about relation uh
1:23:21are the most unrel in their their way of
1:23:24us using language but um yeah I think
1:23:28that's I think that's a really important
1:23:30uh reality that needs to be
1:23:34noticed and named that so many of those
1:23:38who are doing some of the richest you
1:23:41know Leading Edge thinking uh it would
1:23:46seem but they're still wielding their
1:23:49words in such abstruse incredibly
1:23:53abstract way
1:23:56that that
1:23:58nobody no animal can make head or tail
1:24:01of what's being said you know and then
1:24:03there are strange Critters like our
1:24:07friend bio who stages these raids on
1:24:10academ and steals their various forms of
1:24:15jargon and then goes back and weaves
1:24:18these jargony terms into strange poetry
1:24:23bi the only people I know can do that
1:24:25but um but because even there those
1:24:30words
1:24:31can disclose a bit of Rhythm a bit of
1:24:35texture but by and large when we are
1:24:39speaking
1:24:41academically we are speaking as
1:24:43disembodied Minds to other disembodied
1:24:46minds and if there is
1:24:48any any source of the
1:24:52massive ecological poly
1:24:55crisis it is the fact that we are now so
1:24:59caught in
1:25:00our detached abstracted minds and so cut
1:25:06off from our sensate animal flesh that
1:25:09we no longer feel what is happening to
1:25:11the river as it's being damned up yet
1:25:14again what's happening to the forest as
1:25:16yet another clearcut is coming
1:25:19through what these droughts really mean
1:25:22to all the other animals here here and
1:25:25these wild fles that come rolling like a
1:25:28storm across the land down here um it's
1:25:31like we're insulated we've got our
1:25:33internet we can just talk and talk about
1:25:37it I would say I would say that that
1:25:41that Scholars like like you yourself and
1:25:45uh PE inand that I I met here in Norway
1:25:48are definitely showing a different way
1:25:52like when I met haaland I was like man
1:25:55so he's a
1:25:57philosopher and a hunter at the same
1:26:01time like I already
1:26:03felt that I was a little bit weird
1:26:06because I I'm a historian of religion
1:26:08and I actually went out and lived with
1:26:11religious people now other historian
1:26:14religions also do that but but that but
1:26:17but I I I went to them to learn from
1:26:20them and I actually know how to play
1:26:23drums and you know uh but a hunter and a
1:26:27philosopher at the same time I think
1:26:29that that that you know there there are
1:26:32huge amounts of Scholars that are uh
1:26:37uh I think a lot of what what is being
1:26:40done
1:26:41today is not producing a lot is not
1:26:44affecting the world a lot but like I
1:26:48think they're also positive posit you
1:26:51know posit beacons of Hope some
1:26:55there there certainly are and and my
1:26:59craft uh is also that of a slight of
1:27:02hand magician that's what got me into
1:27:03all this and is sort of my original
1:27:06license to be speaking about magic was
1:27:10from traveling as an itinerant slight of
1:27:13hand magician through southeast Asia
1:27:16through Sri Lanka through Indonesia
1:27:20through Nepal looking to meet the
1:27:24traditional magicians or medicine people
1:27:27who were practicing their magic their
1:27:30craft there in various
1:27:33backwaters uh Village backwaters of
1:27:35those cultures and seeing if I could
1:27:39approach them not outwardly as a
1:27:40researcher but as a slight of hand as a
1:27:43magician in my own right and in fact I
1:27:45got in way over my head and and and
1:27:48that's changed my life around entirely
1:27:52but was invited into the home
1:27:55of these exceedingly bizarre folk and as
1:27:58that sounds like an incredible story and
1:28:00asked to trade Magics with them and
1:28:02asked to participate in their ceremonies
1:28:06and that's where all of my work all my
1:28:09work comes from
1:28:11this um but it's just to say so there
1:28:15are those of us like yourself like per
1:28:19ingvar like myself and no doubt many
1:28:22others who are working on many fronts
1:28:25and don't just see ourselves living
1:28:28inside this um uh strange isolated zone
1:28:33of the human scholarly mind looking out
1:28:36at the world um like Spectators looking
1:28:40at a spectacle but we are participant
1:28:43and wildly participant in that world and
1:28:47in affecting change within the world in
1:28:49shape-shifting the world that's the work
1:28:52that really is the work and that's the
1:28:54work of any scholar uh that's half awake
1:28:58I think as well because the tools that
1:29:01she uses are magical tools um and always
1:29:06and always were um to P one last thought
1:29:11on
1:29:14this to try
1:29:16then to speak when one is in a classroom
1:29:22when one is giving a lecture
1:29:24or when one is hanging out with your
1:29:27friends over some beers um or out in the
1:29:32land to try to speak always as a
1:29:37full-bodied human creature and not as a
1:29:41disembodied mind wielding words that
1:29:45don't speak to the bodies of the people
1:29:48you're conversing with but rather just
1:29:51speak to their intellect and so you
1:29:54might be arguing for the fact that the
1:29:57Mind Body split is not really a split
1:30:00and somehow these two really do come
1:30:03together but in your way of arguing it
1:30:05you're using words in such a way that
1:30:08everybody has to detach themselves from
1:30:10their senses to follow you and they end
1:30:12up agreeing with you but just as far cut
1:30:16off from their body and their senses as
1:30:19they were before this is how we're
1:30:21perpetuating the ecological crisis
1:30:24steadily and steadily and steadily and
1:30:28steadily start speaking as animals start
1:30:31speaking as full-bodied creatures who
1:30:34are actually part of the same world that
1:30:37the ants and the Hawks inhabit and and
1:30:41and and the bristle cone Pines and the
1:30:45moon reach brother
1:30:48preach well you know just the importance
1:30:52of speaking with
1:30:55with Keen
1:30:56attention to the rhythm of one's words
1:31:00to the texture and tonality of one's
1:31:03voice to the
1:31:05taste of the words on your tongue or the
1:31:09way they roll off
1:31:10your and I reckon that's what um great
1:31:15poets do is they U call us back to the
1:31:22Earthly rootedness
1:31:25of um and they listen in for those you
1:31:29know soundful musical nuances sometimes
1:31:32they even if they don't find a word that
1:31:36just matches what they're trying to say
1:31:38they coin one out of whole
1:31:40cloth um do you know the work of the
1:31:44great English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
1:31:48no uh he's a Wonder in this regard um
1:31:54uh he he um well he became a Jesuit
1:32:00priest and threw out all his poetry
1:32:02burned it actually and then discovered
1:32:05that he couldn't breathe without
1:32:07continuing to write poetry so he had to
1:32:09get a special dispensation from the
1:32:12brothers to continue to write but uh
1:32:16this cat is so attuned to the sound
1:32:21spell of words
1:32:25that he becomes as it were the most
1:32:28animistic of poets in the English
1:32:30language is also one of the most deeply
1:32:34Christian uh poet um I give you one
1:32:38example he's posted to uh Glasgow to
1:32:42work as a priest and so while he's in
1:32:44Glasgow Scotland he's listening around
1:32:48in the Scots dialect local to that part
1:32:52of the land for words that that really
1:32:57taste good on his tongue and um here's a
1:33:01poem he composes about a stream called
1:33:05inverse
1:33:07snade um while he's up there he says
1:33:12well he's using the U he's using the the
1:33:16Scots dialect word for stream which is
1:33:19burn and he says this darksome burn
1:33:24horseback Brown his roll rock High Road
1:33:27roaring down in Coupe and in comb the
1:33:31fleece of his foam fluts and loow to the
1:33:35lake falls home a windpuff bonnet of f
1:33:39fro turns and twindle over the broth of
1:33:43a pool so pitch black fell frowning it
1:33:46rounds and rounds despair to
1:33:50Drowning dged with Dew dappled with de
1:33:53do are the groins of the brav that the
1:33:56brook Treads through wiry Heath packs
1:34:00flitches of Fern and the bead Bonnie Ash
1:34:04that sits over the
1:34:06burn what would the world be once beere
1:34:11of wet and of wilderness let them be
1:34:14left oh let them be left wildness and
1:34:19wet long live the weeds and the
1:34:22wilderness
1:34:25yet that's Hopkins wow man thank you
1:34:29very
1:34:30much yeah but so that's word magic
1:34:33that's word magic that's that's just
1:34:36leaning into the potent
1:34:39efficacy of speech itself and oral
1:34:43discourse and the
1:34:46pleasure of
1:34:48sounding in a world that is itself
1:34:52speaking all the time
1:34:54and and and and and that's maybe what I
1:34:59wanted to just end our conversation here
1:35:04with is just a sense that a suggestion
1:35:07that
1:35:08folks if you want to begin speaking as a
1:35:12full-bodied
1:35:13human
1:35:14animal one simple clue is just allow
1:35:20that everything else is speaking to so
1:35:23the hum of the refrigerator in the Next
1:35:25Room the gurgling of water in the pipes
1:35:29in this house the wind gusting through
1:35:32the branches that that too is a voice
1:35:35what does it convey to your body bird
1:35:37song of course a rich whole panoply of
1:35:41liquid voices some of them rockus like
1:35:44the Ravens overhead the howls of coyotes
1:35:47yes but also the Cricut rhythms as the
1:35:50warmth comes on um all these other
1:35:53voices is when you feel that everything
1:35:57is speaking you know everything is also
1:36:01listening so how does that affect your
1:36:04speaking and what you have to say notice
1:36:08how it shifts the way you speak when
1:36:12you're aware that there are all these
1:36:13other presences
1:36:15listening totally that's
1:36:18question thanks a lot thanks a lot and
1:36:22thank you so much again for
1:36:24for coming on here it was an absolute uh
1:36:28joy to have the chance to to chat with
1:36:30you live uh like this and uh thanks for
1:36:34sharing all this wisdom I really really
1:36:36think some awesome uh points were made
1:36:40here and uh yes so thanks and hope to
1:36:43see you again sometime sometime yeah all
1:36:47best to you run and all good magic for
1:36:49your project thanks a lot very Bodacious
1:36:53project you're engaged in nor keep going
1:36:56keep going
1:36:58[Music]
1:37:18thanks

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