One of my favorite investigative methods into metaphor involves etymology and one of my favorite etymologies is that for the word 'precipice' from the Latin 'praeciptium', meaning 'abrupt descent'. Apparently, the original referent, the proto-event, in this case, was not geographical but biological, the 'abrupt descent' being that of a baby from the birth canal. Basically, the word is 'prae' (pre-) plus 'caput' (head), with one meaning being a headlong fall, for example down a steep hill. In any case, the idea of the vulnerability of the head, being a large and relatively heavy and delicate part of the body is used to express a landscape feature in which such a vulnerability would most likely be an issue. The fact that this vulnerability is at its most pronounced during birth, when it must be noted the head is disproportionately large and soft, created such a strong impression that it stood as the ur-impression from which other meanings were made, even in registers other than the biological. I think it is no accident that 'caput' has been the root of so many words whose meanings extend far beyond that of the most important part of a body; eg: capitol, captain, but perhaps also principal (from princips), in which we see the same shift from 'cap' to 'cip' that we see in 'precipice'.
'Stamen' and 'pistil', parts of a flower, come from weaving and culinary, or perhaps apothecary, practices, respectively. It is fun to imagine an ur-place in which one might see all of the basic elements and activities of daily life from which the basis of language came, if I am not making some kind of grave error in thinking of language this way. My mind goes there, however, because I spent another morning of heavy labor tilling soil, getting the undeniable feeling that there is something essentially human about working the earth. And again, it is that crouched stance, on two feet and with implement in hand, that seems so fundamentally human, so fundamentally homo habilis. No doubt I would feel similarly at the root of things if I were (as I often have been) on all fours, digging with my hands to get at some rock or root, or simply to scoop mud out of a trench where a tool simply will not fit, or which is a poor instrument for the task. But then I might feel that I am more in touch with my essential animality (nonhuman) rather than with my essential humanity.
What a gift the recent trend in books has been, in which authors put themselves in the place of animals to experience life as they do (the one by Thomas Thwaites, as does the more recent one by Charles Foster, comes to mind).
Could such a book be written, and researched, from a plant perspective? Or is that one ontological divide which is just too distant ever to be crossed? We have gotten it so wrong about plants all of these years (centuries). It is time we at least try to see things their way. Surely some new metaphors would come out of the experience, or at least more accurate ones.
'Stamen' and 'pistil', parts of a flower, come from weaving and culinary, or perhaps apothecary, practices, respectively. It is fun to imagine an ur-place in which one might see all of the basic elements and activities of daily life from which the basis of language came, if I am not making some kind of grave error in thinking of language this way. My mind goes there, however, because I spent another morning of heavy labor tilling soil, getting the undeniable feeling that there is something essentially human about working the earth. And again, it is that crouched stance, on two feet and with implement in hand, that seems so fundamentally human, so fundamentally homo habilis. No doubt I would feel similarly at the root of things if I were (as I often have been) on all fours, digging with my hands to get at some rock or root, or simply to scoop mud out of a trench where a tool simply will not fit, or which is a poor instrument for the task. But then I might feel that I am more in touch with my essential animality (nonhuman) rather than with my essential humanity.
What a gift the recent trend in books has been, in which authors put themselves in the place of animals to experience life as they do (the one by Thomas Thwaites, as does the more recent one by Charles Foster, comes to mind).
Could such a book be written, and researched, from a plant perspective? Or is that one ontological divide which is just too distant ever to be crossed? We have gotten it so wrong about plants all of these years (centuries). It is time we at least try to see things their way. Surely some new metaphors would come out of the experience, or at least more accurate ones.
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