Listen \Lis”ten\, v. To give close attention with the purpose of hearing; to give ear; to hearken; to attend.

In the margin of David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous (1996), I have written “I wonder what would happen if I stopped reading?” Or writing? Abram argues that the written word dislocates us from directly experiencing the natural world. Literate cultures, as opposed to oral cultures, experience a separation between humans and the rest of the universe, between mind and body and between space and time.

We are,he says, through the written word, able to reflexively abstract our existence which then enables us to discount and perpetrate against any other existence, including other humans. We have become a narcissistic and solipsistic species, tolerating only ourselves, our needs, and our creations. And at the same time we long for the “Promised Land”; a utopian return to wholeness and connection with our true selves.

Like a River 2006

Perhaps my desire to spend time in the deserts of the world come from a need to silence the cacophony of modern civilization in order that I might rediscover and be nourished by the voices of the natural world. But then I question this desire to go somewhere else; Central Australia or Death Valley.

Is it possible to rediscover the sacred wisdom of the land through participatory listening coupled with ritual response to a Place; a non literary dialogic practice that relocates the Self in proper relationship to a particular place?

Should I not listen to and find this place, here, where I live?

Vin

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