Rooting for Words
Seeking more-than-human language
Words are human creations. And yet, they have nonhuman roots. From mythic associations to sonic rhymes, our human words can also, perhaps, bring us into a space of deeper interconnectedness.
In 2017, writer Robert MacFarlane and artist Jackie Morris collaborated on The Lost Words: A Spell Book. This beautiful book was conceived as a kind of linguistic rewilding. Responding to the news that common words, like “wren” and “acorn,” had been removed from a children’s dictionary because they were leaving the everyday language of children, the author and artist set out to spell these words, and the beings they represent, back into childhood consciousness. “We find it hard to love what we cannot give a name to,” MacFarlane argues, “And what we do not love we will not save.”
I think of this as I watch my three and a half year old learning the names of birds with their grandmother, as we pore over the illustrations of The Lost Words and chant the lines of spells, as we say good morning to the trees —“Good morning maple. Good morning oak.”— on our walks. I want my child to grow up with the language to describe the fullness of the world in which we live. Language directs our attention. Words shape what we notice.
And yet, words are a human construction and classification is a decidedly human preoccupation. The oak we pass on our morning walk does not likely consider themself “oak” or even “tree,” likely does not distinguish themself further as “cork oak” or “white oak” or “red oak.” Though we study and classify and measure and monitor, we cannot fully know the language of the trees. We cannot fully know the ways the trees speak of themselves.
Though scientists continue to explore the many many ways that trees talk to each other. In “Interview with a Watershed,” Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about her time in Oregon’s H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest and describes how scientists listen to the forest and the water through data collection, “I like to think that, in the right hands, scientific research is a conversation, an interview of sorts between two parties that don’t speak the same language.” Kimmerer describes both science and poetry as ways of listening to, and attempting to be in conversation with, the nonhuman. But she also describes another language, “the language we have yet to learn,” which is “the forgotten language of the land…The words of this language are living beings, and its syntax is connection.” These, Kimmerer tells us are “the stories we must hear, stories that are simultaneously material and spiritual.”
It is in seeking out this language of connection, however ambiguous or knotty that might seem, that I think we can find these stories we need to hear and to tell.
There is, I think, a mystery here, a generative gap, between the languages we have as humans and the languages of the more-than-human. When we lean into this gap, wonderfully strange things grow.
Like tree alphabets.
The Ogham is an ancient Celtic alphabet that is deeply intertwined with trees. There’s a whole fascinating history to this alphabet and quite a bit of mythology and modern magical practice. It’s also an inspiration for Katie Holten’s tree alphabet (which is also a font you can download). I’ve been reading Katie Holten’s The Language of Trees and was fortunate enough to be able to see the author and artist’s wonderful conversation with David Naimon at Powell’s last month. At this talk, Holten described the Ogham as “written the way plants grow,” the form of the alphabet branching line by line.
Ever since, I’ve been thinking about this notion of writing the way plants grow. With the shapes of letters, but also with the way the words reach, branching out, rooting down, tentatively at first, then sometimes all at once, tumbling over each other to find the shape of the sentence.
If we listen closely, even slantwise maybe, I think we can hear the more-than-human in our words, feel the way our sentence move us toward our own interconnectedness. In words, we can hear the burble of streams, the whoosh of the wind, the thump of the heartbeat. Words may be quite human, but, like humans, they are not disconnected from the more-than-human world we inhabit. They are inseparable from it, grown from and rooted within it, representative of it and reaching toward it.
In Norse mythology, Odin found the runic alphabet through the mystical act of hanging from a tree and gazing into a well. In this myth, language arises from a liminal space of intermingling— where tree meets water, where human meets more-than-human.
I wonder what we can make when we write from such spaces.
A Spell for Words in Wordlessness
I’ve found, when I’m trying to consider language as a mode of connection with the more-than-human, I must enter a space of experimentation and play. One of the most useful ways I’ve found to do this is to expand my writing and reading practice into other arts, to get out of words in order to come back to them with a new perspective. Sometimes, in order to truly find the words—the mystery and musicality they hold—I have to move away from them.
So, this spell, this practice, this exercise, is all about finding words through wordlessness.
Choose an art that isn’t word-based and that you enjoy. You don’t need to be good at it. In fact, it’s probably best if it’s something you like to do without being very invested in the final product. Perhaps, like me, you like to get the paints out and try on a language of colors. Or, when I feel really stuck, I’ll turn on some music and dance, trying to startle myself out of my mind and shift into my body, to tell a story through movement. Maybe you play an instrument or sew or garden. Any kind of art will do. Practice this art for awhile. You don’t have to do this art alone. You can dance with your cat. You can paint with your kid. Don’t rush. Don’t set a timer. Just enjoy yourself.
Sit quietly. Think about what you just made and the experience of making it. What did you notice within and around the making? These might be physical sensations in your body. Perhaps you noticed your own breath or the reverberations you felt from your piano or the stretch in your arms as you moved them or the way a breeze moved over you. Or maybe you noticed a lot of things outside yourself—the angle a seedling was growing, the color of thread, the scent of paint, the sound of your guitar, the slant of sunlight, the way your cat startled at your attempted pirouette. Sit with those sensations and observations for a bit.
Move back into words. If you were working on a piece of writing, return to it. See if you can bring a new state of being to it. See if that helps you find the words you were searching for. Perhaps, spend some time trying to the come to the words sonically or visually rather than directly through meaning. If you weren’t working on something, you could try writing about the experience of practicing your other art. Describe the experience and sensations of it. See if you find those words, see what other words follow.
Roots
The Lost Words: A Spell Book by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris - A truly gorgeous creation where poems meet paintings.
Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old Growth Forest and The Andrews Forest Log - These writings from The Spring Creek Project are parts of an ongoing attempt to bring writers, scientists, and the The Andrews Forest together to record 200 years of art and observations. It’s a really incredible endeavor.
The Language of Trees by Katie Holten - A collection of many-authored ecological writing translated into trees creating it’s own kind of forest.
David Naimon’s Between the Covers podcast - Don’t miss this incredible podcast from one of the best literary interviewers around.
Happenings
In other news, my dear friend Justine published her debut poetry collection, Should You Lose All Reason(s), last month and it is a true work of word magic and you should check it out!
If you’re planning to be in Portland for the ASLE conference in July, I’ll be on a panel called Tales of the Commons, speaking about some of the things I write about in this newsletter. Whether or not you make it out at 8:30 in the morning on a Tuesday to talk craft, if you’re in Portland, please say hi!
I’m also looking for ways to experiment with Substack Notes in between newsletters. Right now, I’m mostly just posting about cool things I read, but if you have any ideas or supplemental materials you’d like to see, I’d love to hear about them!
Until the next full moon,
~Miranda