Participatory Inquiry, episode 113: Rainforest

John Kellden
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

“In a network, there’s two rainforests, one flourishing around Gaia’s tropical zone, the other, a flourishing in our minds, an ecosystem of living signs.”
@johnkellden

Rainforest
Most of us have never been there. We do know about them, the lungs of our world, without which we would perish.

“All my knowledge of the world, even my scientific knowledge, is gained from my own particular point of view, or from some experience of the world without which the symbols of science would be meaningless.”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Listening to those who remain
Our thirst for knowledge catalyzed our exile. Now, having been away for aeons, some of us feel called to journey there, to try to understand some of the ancient rituals and listen to some of those who never left. Human beings just like us, yet who chose to remain in paradise.

“The whole universe of science is built upon the world as directly experienced, and if we want to subject science itself to rigorous scrutiny and arrive at a
precise assessment of its meaning and scope, we must begin by reawakening the basic experience of the world, of which science is the second-order expression.”

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Seamlessly intertwined tunes
We who fell, long to return to the garden. It’s just, the garden in our imagination, bear very little resemblance with the existing paradise, a paradise which is under threat.

a flourishing in our minds, an ecosystem of living signs

Under threat from multinational corporations, loggers, miners and others who are ignorant about the web of life, the fabric of ecosystemics, the 8bn strong human song of living signs, where each and everyone of us carries a unique yet seamlessly intertwined tune.

a biosemiosis of becoming

“To return to things themselves is to return to that world which precedes knowledge, of which knowledge always speaks, and in relation to which every scientific schematization is an abstract and derivative sign-language, as is geography in relation to the countryside in which we have learnt
beforehand what a forest, a prairie or a river is.”

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty

What is a human life? What is a rainforest? They are two parts of a pattern which was, is and forever remains unbroken, a pattern of deep, meaning-making connectivity. A return to the rainforest is a return to nature.

Participatory Inquiry, episode 113: Rainforest

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John Kellden

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Cards catalyzing stories, Conversations that mind and matter, Digital communities & immersive productions. https://goo.gl/Ypd5u8

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