Gaureima

I've been catching up on the (Australian) ABC TV series "Back to Nature" this week. Today's post takes its name from the Yugambeh word that I learned from this show translates to "story" in English, but more literally means "to take care of". In Yugambeh culture, to share stories is to care. To care for Country you must tell its story.

Coincidentally I listened again this week to an interview with Michael Christie from last year. In his opening remarks Christie points out that in Australian Aboriginal cultures knowledge is "something you do rather than something that you have". This brief interview about a paper he published is fascinating to me as an Australian librarian, but it left me deeply unsettled. I first listened to it last year, but I'd left it in my Pocket account because I felt it was important to share, intending to do so in a blog post or my "Marginalia" newsletter. The newsletter was encouraging bad behavour from me (more on that in future, perhaps), so I've abandoned it at least for now. But whilst I was "cleaning up" as a result of that decision I listened again to this interview — this time after having tossed around some of Christie's revelations either consiously or unconsiously for a while in between listens.

If knowledge is something you do rather than something you have, what does that mean for libraries? I'm reminded of S. R. Ranganathan's First Law of Library Science: "Books are for use", but whilst close, this isn't quite the same thing. Christie talks about texts or database entries as records of past knowledge events, rather than records of the knowledge per se. In this way, we might think of library collections as more akin to something like a television archive than we generally imagine.

In this context, I threw away my usual cynicism when "Back to Nature" invited me to share on social media a photo of flower that inspired me. One might think this is just a ploy to garner enthusiasm for the show, and of course in some respects it is. But it's also an attempt for a television show to have real impact. For it to make going "back to nature" something Australians do rather than merely something they watch.

I learned my lesson in last year's extended COVID lockdown, so when the new one rolled around this year I was ready. I haven't gone for a run every day but I have done so every week and more days than not. This morning was gorgeously crisp and clear. I took a new route. Daniel Sherrell shares in "A world without weight":

...when I was looking for something in particular, I never seemed to notice it. True noticing involves an element of surprise, a vulnerability to the unexpected.

And so it was with me this morning. The horrors of COVID-19 have been many, but for me a positive has been — as I have noted here before — that I've become a noticer. I wasn't looking for anything in particular this morning, just going for a run. But I suddenly realised that it's the season for wattle trees to bloom. More than that, I realised for the first time how many wattle trees there are on the Eastern side of the Birrarung/Yarra just near my home. I couldn't help smiling as I ran slowly up the incline, met by exhuberant blooms each step of the way.

I stopped to take a photo against the blue sky. I didn't realise I'd be sharing it on Twitter tonight. I noticed without realising what I was looking for. Now I'll always remember that August is wattle blossom time around my place.

=> Wattle

=> Back to Nature | Michael Christie on Indigenous Ontologies and Digital Humanities Databases | A world without weight