Metaphors

I'm reading a book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By. Most people consider metaphors a language issue: we create a metaphor to describe something in another way. Their contention is that we make meaning through the use of metaphor. It is rare for us to define our experience just based on the sensory input from the external world. We create a connection based on a previous experience, a social construct, or an existing storyline through the use of a metaphor. They wrote something that elicited a question for me, what if our base experience is cultural? We often ascribe to our biology as our foundation, our baseline. What if it is the culture in which we live is the basis? Interesting thought.

Now, what does this have to do with living on the land at Aisling? I spent 7 hours yesterday planting native species: trees, shrubs, and other vegetation. As we have cleared away blackberries and English Ivy, we are planting other species. I often think about what this land was like before the settlement and before logging. This would be a time when the native species were, well, the only things present. I see ourselves as stewards. This is a linking between two concepts: taking care of the land and my image of a steward. My raw experience is that I am planting, but my mental processing is linking it to something else, to a higher concept. To me a steward is one who has, traditionally, taken care of things and provisioned the ship/house/estate with what is needed for the regular functioning of the "house". There is a judgment about what is regular functioning/normal.

I also carry with me an internal image of the many forests in the NW that I have visited and all the plants- trying to recreate the collection of memories into a representation of what this land "should" look like. As I went about planting it was with these internal images of where I'd see salmonberries, salal, oregon grape, thimbleberries, and other plants. Where do they go based on my memory, not based on the experience I have of that plot of land.

So what? These are the types of things that intrigue me- these concepts. I guess it continues to be part of my praxis in life. In another field it would be called action research. Also, these types of intellectual wildernesses are a favorite part of my pathfinding in life.

May your life be filled with things you don't know and the inquisitiveness to find out.