Walking patterned ground

In an earlier post, I referred to the book Patterned Ground, edited by Harrison, Thrift and Pile. Subtitled "Entanglements of Nature and Culture," the book is divided into three sections (Flow, Site, Matter), comprised of brief (3-4 pp) essays by a variety of writers/scholars/artists, on topics ranging from Continents and Virtual Space to Pipes and Wildlife. The term "patterned ground" comes from geology, but the editors extend it into a metaphor for activated relationship to the world--a patterning perceived or imagined that gathers humans into the landscape.

Anyone flying over the continental US will notice the rectilinear inscriptions that make up the Jeffersonian grid-system (lots, townships, etc), and the network of interstates that traverse the countryside and bind the cities together. The local inscriptions--smaller-scaled, more intimate lines of desire--are harder to see from the air, but make up tactical adaptations of/to the prescribed and hardscaped pathways. Still more lightly sketched are idiosyncratic patterns, escape routes, "lines of flight"--these may be invisible from the air, ambiguous from the ground, occasional and improvisatory, momentary openings in the fabric of conventional movement.

Walkscape is an open invitation to stray, to loosen the constraints of habitual motion (goal-oriented, purposive, efficient) and perhaps discover other motives for movement, different ways of aligning body and mind. Patterned Ground suggests that patterning is active and constructive: other orderings emerging into attention, on multiple scales and timescapes. Recovering the full range of motion--physical and mental--could be a project worth pursuing.