The plum in blossom…

… becomes music in the wind.

The Síya? in blossom …

… is the music of bushes cast across a scree slope.

West of Olalla

The break in the slope created by a rock face …

East of Central

… becomes the break that allows life to root in it, such as this poison ivy.

Blind Creek

The music of the plants, such as this sumac in Cawston…

Keremeos Creek

… allows for a secondary line of music breaking through it, just as the poison ivy broke out of the broken slope, just as the síya? did.

This music is quite complex, really.

It could be called “chance” order, by someone who could not see music.

That would be sad. 

After all, our bodies know this order.

Our minds know this order.

Calling it “chance” is as much as saying that only mechanistic relationships exist, in the way of a language based on walking. Compare it, for example, to a language like Nutsalk, based on being in one place.

The English (bottom line of this text) moves action from a person, through an action, to an object or another person. It creates relationships of dominance,. The Nutsalk, on the other hand (first line below) …

… takes all of this and makes it a single noun. There is no verb, no person, and no object. They are one moment in conjoined time and space. There are relationships of grammar and consciousness here, but whereas the English allows us to subsitute one object for another with impunity (that’s very powerful), the Nutsalk allows us to present different united relationships, that embed action within place-and-person. Every word is a new relationship. It would be no surprise that English music is linear and unfolds in time, while a language of place unfolds in place, right where it is.

Effectively, if you are in place you can see music. The extensions of time are present. Past and future, within the parameters of this music, can be read from the image above. They are present, although not realized. To realized them would mean one had to realize a different relational image, and to do that one has to live it. As that’s not possible, obviously, one has to provide the conditions for this life to take place. Without a future or a past, the present is brutal.

McLaughlin Canyon, Okanogan County

We should be aware of the power of language and never use it as if it were simply a transparent reflection of the Earth. Replacing our bodies and the Earth with the artificial intelligence of a language that forces us to see the world as chance is the form of self-harm and violence known as artificial intelligence.

Every sentence is a map of the world.