Devouring the Landscape
09th March 2017
9th March 17
Devouring the landscape
The way I approach travels, across the landscape, is probably obsessive as I deliberately seek to find new ways and seek out new things of interest that are far off any route represented in a guide book or on a map.
I have written before that I feel the cartographers art can, inadvertently, exert a constraint on the traveller as we too easily just follow the marked paths and permissive ways blazoned on the map.
I suggested:
"......I am keen to find new ways over and around the landscape. I am not keen to follow (or be followed) by a line of people, all heading in a predictable way, along over used and overly defined routes. These 'regular' paths are like railway lines, so predictable, offering the same views so offering a repeated intellectual perspective and is experientially confined".
Quoting my self does sounds vain, but I was again reminded of my thinking on this matter when friends were discussing (in reverential terms) the virtues of printed lines on maps and descriptions made in a guide book. I felt their planning missed the point and the maps and books were becoming a constraint, especially as the proposed routes would have to be slavishly followed.
I fear the over reliance of maps and guide books can too often lead the reader "by the nose" resulting in the traveller gaining only a limited experience of their journey and a smaller understanding of the land they passed through. The books and maps, though it is "not their intention, have become the dominant noise. The received wisdom. The hegemony of where to go and we do not question".
In contrast (perhaps) it is my desire (a peculiar driven inner need perhaps) to find new ways and discover old, long forgotten things on the way. I often stray off the path, make my way by following lines of interest, linking features to traverse across a hill, or search a woodland after bursting through the undergrowth.
Often I will come across curiosities that challenge my investigative and interpretative skills. These might be man made objects, geological features or evidence of long forgotten ways of life. So often, these 'things' are far off the beaten trail as to be probably long forgotten, but represent a different landscape than the one I pass through in the present time. Like pulling down the film set in the 'Truman Show' , a new mental picture of the land can develop in front of you.
This revelation might reveal the hidden, long forgotten dwellings of coppicers, or charcoal makers. The remains of their arboreal abode have now become enveloped and absorbed by the advance of a battalions of trees and now entangled in branches and twigs and covered in the mulch of a hundred years of rotting leaves.
However, the tell tale small mounds of earth, stone pits are still to be seen, even though they are now guarded by sentinels of hazel and birch.
Here, in the tangle of shrubs, prickling thorns, protesting wrens and scurrying squirrels the long forgotten art of the coppicer is now hidden amongst the lines and lines of sprouting trees. They now sit as 'upturned umbrellas,' bent and now seemingly discarded - a Roald Dahl landscape set within the deep folds of a small, faerie like valley.
Off the main track, in a mile square of untouched and unnoticed limestone plateau, a ravens nest sits distinctly, but surprisingly. It comprises of such contrasting material, including grasses and barbed wire and are all sat upon a plinth of limestone. Standing high up on the side of a Dales hill, accompanied by the cronk of circling Ravens overhead, the scene has an atmosphere of a gothic book. The nest, sat on its limestone obelisk, makes a mocking statue to the endeavours of man.
Then hidden, but still noticeable is a subtle but definite line in the rock that winds up the steep, northern slope of Grey Friar. This high Lakeland Fell, that rises out of the valley basin of Wrynose, has few recognised ways over and around its bulk, however there is evidence of man's passing from many centuries ago. In this case it is a cutting that is clearly the art of man, and it is almost invisible as it passes the remains of a delabidated building.
What the purpose of this track and where it eventually took its creators is unclear. The rocky 'path' winds up the hillside, but is now covered in grasses and moss and soon peters out into a bog. The effort, energy and craft is clear as you follow the route. The track steals access from every contour on its ascent and the stone reinforcement, holding the track against the Fell Side, subtly reveals the art of its creators.
Then step off the path again, leave the coded lines of access and human construction behind and you discovers a collapsed stone building. It is rubble now, going back into the earth, but once a hot spot of human endeavour and daily existence.
The location, deep within a mountain valley, soothed by the melody of a tumbling stream, has become a quiet, lonely spot and it seems impossible to imagine how any human could have made an existence here. However, the earth stills contains an energy of that past time. From the rubble, you notice lines of stone work, under thick layers of wet moss there is the hidden lines of walls and mined slates that provide a misty image of the past. As you step forward a stone clinks on stone, an echo from the past, as the sound bounces and reverberates around the surrounding hills. This is a calling bell as there is a sense of being surrounded by the dwellers of the past, all engaging in their daily activity of life.
I pass through this landscape, looking to the right and left rather than ahead. I am constantly drawn away from my destiny as some crease in the hill, an ill defined ridge or gap in the trees will beckon.
I no longer have a desire to pass along the ways many have tread before, just because this route has become an 'iconic' journey of human endeavour, as it is constrained by the concept of its origins. The inherent values and ultimate physical and spiritual destination are all too often already subliminally imprinted and coded within the text of the guide book and the lines on a map. These are modern constructions applied (within the same human framework) to practical, efficient and pragmatic ways, given a renewed understanding, but still a linear, one dimensional way of travelling and understanding the landscape, set within this new construct.
Furthermore, and on a more practical level, I also know I will be overtaking or have hoards of people pounding towards me. The purpose of their journey 'stylised' by the original concept of the route (though I appreciate we all bring our own need and meaning to that journey).
I want space, peace and a stillness that allows me to merge into the surrounding landscape with out being distracted by the human endeavour that too often just passes without looking, appreciating or trying to understand the land beyond the immediate view, or the repeated thinking of the maker of the line on the map we follow.
Pre determined start and end (?) - break free of destiny and devour the landscape! ;-)
Devouring the landscape
The way I approach travels, across the landscape, is probably obsessive as I deliberately seek to find new ways and seek out new things of interest that are far off any route represented in a guide book or on a map.
I have written before that I feel the cartographers art can, inadvertently, exert a constraint on the traveller as we too easily just follow the marked paths and permissive ways blazoned on the map.
I suggested:
"......I am keen to find new ways over and around the landscape. I am not keen to follow (or be followed) by a line of people, all heading in a predictable way, along over used and overly defined routes. These 'regular' paths are like railway lines, so predictable, offering the same views so offering a repeated intellectual perspective and is experientially confined".
Quoting my self does sounds vain, but I was again reminded of my thinking on this matter when friends were discussing (in reverential terms) the virtues of printed lines on maps and descriptions made in a guide book. I felt their planning missed the point and the maps and books were becoming a constraint, especially as the proposed routes would have to be slavishly followed.
I fear the over reliance of maps and guide books can too often lead the reader "by the nose" resulting in the traveller gaining only a limited experience of their journey and a smaller understanding of the land they passed through. The books and maps, though it is "not their intention, have become the dominant noise. The received wisdom. The hegemony of where to go and we do not question".
In contrast (perhaps) it is my desire (a peculiar driven inner need perhaps) to find new ways and discover old, long forgotten things on the way. I often stray off the path, make my way by following lines of interest, linking features to traverse across a hill, or search a woodland after bursting through the undergrowth.
Often I will come across curiosities that challenge my investigative and interpretative skills. These might be man made objects, geological features or evidence of long forgotten ways of life. So often, these 'things' are far off the beaten trail as to be probably long forgotten, but represent a different landscape than the one I pass through in the present time. Like pulling down the film set in the 'Truman Show' , a new mental picture of the land can develop in front of you.
This revelation might reveal the hidden, long forgotten dwellings of coppicers, or charcoal makers. The remains of their arboreal abode have now become enveloped and absorbed by the advance of a battalions of trees and now entangled in branches and twigs and covered in the mulch of a hundred years of rotting leaves.
However, the tell tale small mounds of earth, stone pits are still to be seen, even though they are now guarded by sentinels of hazel and birch.
Here, in the tangle of shrubs, prickling thorns, protesting wrens and scurrying squirrels the long forgotten art of the coppicer is now hidden amongst the lines and lines of sprouting trees. They now sit as 'upturned umbrellas,' bent and now seemingly discarded - a Roald Dahl landscape set within the deep folds of a small, faerie like valley.
Off the main track, in a mile square of untouched and unnoticed limestone plateau, a ravens nest sits distinctly, but surprisingly. It comprises of such contrasting material, including grasses and barbed wire and are all sat upon a plinth of limestone. Standing high up on the side of a Dales hill, accompanied by the cronk of circling Ravens overhead, the scene has an atmosphere of a gothic book. The nest, sat on its limestone obelisk, makes a mocking statue to the endeavours of man.
Then hidden, but still noticeable is a subtle but definite line in the rock that winds up the steep, northern slope of Grey Friar. This high Lakeland Fell, that rises out of the valley basin of Wrynose, has few recognised ways over and around its bulk, however there is evidence of man's passing from many centuries ago. In this case it is a cutting that is clearly the art of man, and it is almost invisible as it passes the remains of a delabidated building.
What the purpose of this track and where it eventually took its creators is unclear. The rocky 'path' winds up the hillside, but is now covered in grasses and moss and soon peters out into a bog. The effort, energy and craft is clear as you follow the route. The track steals access from every contour on its ascent and the stone reinforcement, holding the track against the Fell Side, subtly reveals the art of its creators.
Then step off the path again, leave the coded lines of access and human construction behind and you discovers a collapsed stone building. It is rubble now, going back into the earth, but once a hot spot of human endeavour and daily existence.
The location, deep within a mountain valley, soothed by the melody of a tumbling stream, has become a quiet, lonely spot and it seems impossible to imagine how any human could have made an existence here. However, the earth stills contains an energy of that past time. From the rubble, you notice lines of stone work, under thick layers of wet moss there is the hidden lines of walls and mined slates that provide a misty image of the past. As you step forward a stone clinks on stone, an echo from the past, as the sound bounces and reverberates around the surrounding hills. This is a calling bell as there is a sense of being surrounded by the dwellers of the past, all engaging in their daily activity of life.
I pass through this landscape, looking to the right and left rather than ahead. I am constantly drawn away from my destiny as some crease in the hill, an ill defined ridge or gap in the trees will beckon.
I no longer have a desire to pass along the ways many have tread before, just because this route has become an 'iconic' journey of human endeavour, as it is constrained by the concept of its origins. The inherent values and ultimate physical and spiritual destination are all too often already subliminally imprinted and coded within the text of the guide book and the lines on a map. These are modern constructions applied (within the same human framework) to practical, efficient and pragmatic ways, given a renewed understanding, but still a linear, one dimensional way of travelling and understanding the landscape, set within this new construct.
Furthermore, and on a more practical level, I also know I will be overtaking or have hoards of people pounding towards me. The purpose of their journey 'stylised' by the original concept of the route (though I appreciate we all bring our own need and meaning to that journey).
I want space, peace and a stillness that allows me to merge into the surrounding landscape with out being distracted by the human endeavour that too often just passes without looking, appreciating or trying to understand the land beyond the immediate view, or the repeated thinking of the maker of the line on the map we follow.
Pre determined start and end (?) - break free of destiny and devour the landscape! ;-)