the timboucher experience

Amongst the Aboriginals of Australia, there is a practice which is termed - in English anyway - songlines.

“Songlines are an intricate series of song cycles that identify landmarks and subtle tracking mechanisms for navigation. [...] The songs in a songline often evoke how the features of the land were created and named during the Dreaming. [...]

By singing the songs in the appropriate sequence, indigenous peoples could navigate vast distances (often travelling through the deserts of Australia’s interior). The continent of Australia is a system of songlines, some of which are of a few kilometres, whilst others traverse hundreds of kilometres through disparate terrain and lands of many different indigenous peoples — peoples who may speak markedly different languages and champion significantly different cultural traditions.

An interesting feature of the paths is that, as they span the lands of several different language groups, different parts of the song are said to be in those different languages. Thus the whole song can only be fully understood by a person speaking all the relevant languages.”

I’m currently trying to find the modern analogues of this method of interacting with physical spaces from a human experiential level, or psychogeography. Another reference I’ve been pulling into this mix comes from a memorization technique used by Roman orators, the Method of Loci, also known as the Roman Room technique. I’m really into this subject in terms of how it may be applied to navigating vastly complex information spaces in a way which is reasonably intuitive and organic for the human mind.

In ancient advice, loci were physical locations, usually in a familiar large public building, such as a market or a temple. To utilize this method, one walked through the building several times, viewing distinct places within it, in the same order each time. After a few repetitions of this, one should be able to remember and visualize each of the places in order reliably. To memorize a speech, one breaks it up into pieces, each of which is symbolized by vividly imagined objects or symbols. In the mind’s eye, one then places each of these images into different loci. They can then be recalled in order by imagining that one is walking through the building again, visiting each of the loci in order, and viewing each of the images that were placed in the loci, thereby recalling each piece of memory or speech in order.

Now also trying to graft Rudolf Steiner’s notions of Sacred Geography against that backdrop (see also: biodynamic agriculture):

Geomancy is an ancient word denoting knowledge of the invisible and visible dimensions of the Earth and its landscapes. I see it as an essential complement to modern geography, which is interested exclusively in one level of reality, the material level of existence. To convey the idea that geomantic knowledge in a very specific way complements the material point of view of geography, I refer to geomancy as “sacred geography.” By “sacred” I mean that the task of geomancy in our present day is not simply to foster public interest in etheric, emotional and spiritual levels of places and landscapes, but also to promote a deeper, more loving, and more responsible relationship toward the Earth, the Cosmos, and all beings, visible and invisible.

Very Mandala OS.

• Exploring Usepaths
• A Flaneur Drifting Along Modern Ley Feng Shui Songlines
• “Nature spirits and demons are, like you know, at war.”
• Characteristics of a religion
• Skeptic’s Are Idiots