a post!

I watched the video produced by Amanda Baggs about a week ago, and I've been thinking about it ever since. Specifically, it reminded me of a couple things. Firstly, I recalled a line from Gaston Bachelard's book Water and Dreams in which he makes the argument that people who live near water all their life, know the water as a poetic reality, rather than as a determined, and I might say, a strict linear quality. Secondly, I was reminded of when I shared some of my research with a friend (perhaps a bit too enthusiastically), only to find he just didn't get what I was trying to say. The frustration arose when I tried to suggest that an animated experience of reality can allow for the presence of what some Anthropologists (Hallowell, Ingold) consider the other-than-human beings that fill old stories and mythology. This potential, or possibility, arises through a communication with the world that defies the strict edicts of what the modern world considers communication. The communication does not have to be expressed in English, on television, or on the internet, but I like to think it comes from the experience of being here and listening and the repetition of this. It may be in thunderclouds that are other-than mere meteorological phenomena or it may be in snowfall that is other-than frozen crystalized precipitation. I like to think of these things as Bachelard, as the poetic realities, that if we're fortunate enough may find words not easily distilled in English, the poetic realities that move us to engage with the world in anti-modern dialogue.