Thisness, or often called Haecceity in academia, is the true essence of a thing. However, we
cannot truly know the thisness because
of how we channel the precision of language into the arbitrary naming of
things.
......Yeah I know, I know. That’s existentially vague to the extreme.
Just bear with me please; I just finished reading Tim Lilburn’s essay “How To
Be Here?” from his book “Living in the World as if it Were Home”. I am still
having trouble trying to wrap my head around all of this. *sigh* Alright, alright. Here we go.
So, in regards to the wilderness, the poet Tim Lilburn states
how language can easily dilute the thisness
of the natural world due to the appropriation of the human mind! … And.. and..
uh.. Lilburn takes the filtered lens of human sight which perceives and defines
the natural world under these appropriations and attempts to unfilter it!... But wait.. he does it
through... LANGUAGE?!?! WHAT
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| My brain hurts |
Ok, ok calm down. Just relax…
Tim Lilburn is well known for his "eco-poetry", sharing similar
ideas to that of Don McKay. Much like McKay, Lilburn tackles
the applicability of human language and attempts to discredit its way of apprehending
the unknown wilderness into our known understanding. However, unlike McKay, who takes an approach
of poetic attention, Lilburn goes deeper and takes a contemplative approach; he enters a state of wordless contemplative
thought, and then translates the instantaneous moments of inward glimpses into
poetry (words!) For example, one time Lilburn dug a hole in the ground, covered it with
hay, and buried his head under it... So yeah, all you folks that like
to take walks in nature for inspiration, try burying yourself in it instead.
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| Doing poetry right. |
Take for instance his poem “Contemplation is Mourning”; the entire core of
it is thisness. He talks about the
human world and the non-human world, and how we become alienated from the
latter through human appropriations like society, history, etc. It’s a very
prolific poem.
Looking takes you so far on a leash of delight,
then removes it and says
the price of admission to further is your name. Either the desert
and winter
of what the deer is in herself or a palace life disturbed by itches and
sounds
felt through the gigantic walls. Choose.
Light comes through pale trees as mind sometimes kisses the body.
The hills are the bones of hills.
the price of admission to further is your name. Either the desert
and winter
of what the deer is in herself or a palace life disturbed by itches and
sounds
felt through the gigantic walls. Choose.
Light comes through pale trees as mind sometimes kisses the body.
The hills are the bones of hills.
Instead of an appropriative knowledge – an almost solipsist
vision of human eyes – of our surroundings,
Lilburn takes part in a different kind of knowing that is steeped in ontological
principles, realities and the simple existents of things… You know, I guess it’s
more like an unknowing of things...
Back on topic! The thisness
of a thing can be sensed, to an extent, through the vision of the contemplative
eye, not the appropriative one. The latter vision is in fact an inattention to the world, while the
former can truly come closer to discerning thisness.
The world truly becomes an odd and unreachable place once this frame of mind is practiced. I really cannot put it any more simply than
this; and after I read Lilburn's essay "How To Be Here", I realized that neither can he:
“Consciousness walks across the land bridge of the deer’s
stare into the world of things. This is knowing… There is only wild seeing, the
feel of it unimaginable: I am seen straight through… but cannot say how I am
seen” (Lilburn 3-4)
