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Reflection on the Rheomode in Nature?

hirakismail's picture

While approaching my site to make my observations, I realized it was difficult to at first recognize the exact tree I had in my memory. I wanted to sit under a particular cherry blossom tree, but in finding it, I had to locate it by looking at the surroundings, and remembering which tree others were sitting under, what view I had of the fence, etc. This time, of course, it was not in full bloom with floating cherry blossoms, so I had to use other methods to recognize it. On my way down to the tree, I had taken off my shoes because it was easier to descend the hill that way, and when I finally sat down, it felt more comfortable to keep them off. I wanted to make sure I was using as many senses as possible, and so I wanted to touch my surroundings with both my feet and my hands.What was very apparent to me was the amount of animal sounds I could finally pay attention to and hear. There was some thudding from the tennis courts to my right and some light conversation from the window behind me as well, but for once, the major sounds I heard were of insects. There was a squirrel jumping from from post to post on the fence in front of me, and since I was sitting still, it came closer. I noticed the pond was looking very full today, probably because of the rain, and it had so much greenery within it's waters, small growths were covering the top of the water, clover-like. The marshes were partially in the shade, partially in the sun, as was most of the pond. I decided to lie down in the grass, so I could focus on the tree I was sitting under, and I noticed the bark had many ridges. Not having paid much attention to the bark last time I was here because the cherry blossoms were my focus, I was surprised to see the bark looked practically like it was striped up and down the trunk.

There was so much to see, to the point where it got me thinking about the rheomode again. about how if language could flow the way the different parts of our life flow together, then it would be a breakthrough. There was so much going on at once, and I can't sit down and name it sequentially, or in a linear way, though in looking back at my previous paragraph, it looks like that's exactly what I've tried to do. The truth is, I can't relate what I did in a specific order, because so many different things were going on at once, if anything, it might be my observation that was linear. But even that wasn't quite the case, as I was seeing things through my peripheral vision and feeling the grass with my feet, hearing the animal sounds, and smelling the slightly damp earth underneath the grass: at basically the same time. But how to portray that through language? Perhaps by using commas, as I did just now?

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