In an era of artificial recording devices we are immersed in the corruption of Memory. We see through smartphones, and hear through headphones, and appear to record everything.
Yet, existentially, we record nothing except noise, the noise being the inauthentic and the twisted through: the mediated and fashioned. As organic beings we 'record' naturally through the natural media and technology of our senses and the body's various systems. When we outsource this natural recording ability to machines that appear to record (which record outside the body) then we are foregoing a vital part of our being: that of breathing with and being at one with the land you are walking through. Indeed, the feet are great recording devices, great communicators, insofar as walking openly is a form of talking with the landed and earthed self. To give up this kind of walking is to give up this chthonic discourse that reveals land and creature to be one. As its etymology suggests, to record (from the Latin prefix re- to restore + Old French coeur, heart) is a restoration of the heart. It is thus also a restoration of Memory. Through this kind of original recording one connects and anchors (to place). One becomes intimate with this place insofar as you begin to see its innermost secrets revealed. It is thus a revealing of our own innermost secrets and essences, and in this way, re-collects that which has been covered over. The body is grooved into the earth via the feet and the senses, just as the earth is grooved into the body. In certain persons of the earth, one can still see these grooves and natural indents (whether in the bare-boned feet or in the weathered and seasoned face itself) where sustained live contact has been made.
Yet, existentially, we record nothing except noise, the noise being the inauthentic and the twisted through: the mediated and fashioned. As organic beings we 'record' naturally through the natural media and technology of our senses and the body's various systems. When we outsource this natural recording ability to machines that appear to record (which record outside the body) then we are foregoing a vital part of our being: that of breathing with and being at one with the land you are walking through. Indeed, the feet are great recording devices, great communicators, insofar as walking openly is a form of talking with the landed and earthed self. To give up this kind of walking is to give up this chthonic discourse that reveals land and creature to be one. As its etymology suggests, to record (from the Latin prefix re- to restore + Old French coeur, heart) is a restoration of the heart. It is thus also a restoration of Memory. Through this kind of original recording one connects and anchors (to place). One becomes intimate with this place insofar as you begin to see its innermost secrets revealed. It is thus a revealing of our own innermost secrets and essences, and in this way, re-collects that which has been covered over. The body is grooved into the earth via the feet and the senses, just as the earth is grooved into the body. In certain persons of the earth, one can still see these grooves and natural indents (whether in the bare-boned feet or in the weathered and seasoned face itself) where sustained live contact has been made.
By truly recording the land, you enter into a fresh relationship with it, one in which the land can no longer be treated as some thing which is there to serve and provide for you whilst you pollute it with your fumes and your inauthentic ways of living. The land has now been returned to the heart - walked and recorded naturally - as your heart expands to encompass it. The land and organism are now one and together, together simply meaning 'to gather (yourself)'. This natural exploration, of gathering and collecting, of restoring and originating, is at the forefront of Memory and remembering. Remembering not as recalling dry episodic facts and dates, but 'existential remembering' that connects you with everything else so intimately as to force you to re-examine the nature of identity, and of being.
It is this organic gathering that we most need today, galvanized through the moving blood and through the natural media of the cleansed senses and the self-cleansing locomotive body. Without it, we will remain as existential shrapnel - if you artificially record, you will artificially remember - natural beings contaminated by artificial recording devices, and fragmented entities hellbent on tearing each other apart for no other reason than our own existential ignorance.
The human is the diamond needle that records and plays back the song of the earth simply by walking and being in it.
