First, a shameless plug for something I'm running a week from now:
waterbodies is a workshop to connect with the water around you. waterbodies wants you to get wet! waterbodies wants you to remember what water tastes like! waterbodies wants you to know where the water comes from, and where it goes! waterbodies wants you to feel that complexity is natural! waterbodies wants you to feel like you belong here! waterbodies wants you to melt into the world and find yourself anyway.
Saturday, May 25th at 1pm at magic & pasta in Berkeley, CA, Ohlone land. 1135 Page St, then turn the corner to the garage. Please wear shoes that can get wet. Bring a towel, water bottle, and memories of childhood if you can. MORE INFORMATION HERE.
Saturday, May 25th at 1pm at magic & pasta in Berkeley, CA, Ohlone land. 1135 Page St, then turn the corner to the garage. Please wear shoes that can get wet. Bring a towel, water bottle, and memories of childhood if you can. MORE INFORMATION HERE.
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I've been writing poetry off-and-on for a few years, but in April (National Poetry Month), I wrote some poetry every day. The timing was perfect, as April ended up being a bit of a rollercoaster. A daily reflective practice helps me get in touch with how I'm feeling and gives me a place to pour my energy.
In writing, I've been reflecting on the metaphors I use and find important in my navigation of the world. In language, what isn't a metaphor? A word is a word, but it projects some array of connotations and denotations into the minds-eye of the reader. My first interest in poetry came through reading Aram Saroyan's Complete Minimal Poems (beautiful edition), which helped me recognize that poetry doesn't have to be long-winded and densely wrought to have emotional weight; it can be playful, brief, and still knock the wind out of you. Saroyan's work also plays with words both as metaphors (i.e. linguistic objects) and objects in themselves (as typographic objects).
Earlier this year I noted how Learning Gardens developed a sense of importance around the metaphor of gardening. I find "gardening" deep in connotations, connections, and values that I appreciate. I've also written about water, how water in the landscape has served me well as a metaphor for an entity that exists as both solute and substrate, or for things where boundaries are both necessary but often difficult-to-define.
If you've ever worked with a group on a complex project, you know how much time can go into making sure everyone is on the same page—a state that can be more easily reached through an easy-to-grok metaphor. Call this a "conceptual model," call it "shared language"—it boils down to having similar metaphors for understanding the object of your focus.
In this sense, a metaphor is a tool for grasping something. A glove, a handle, a mode of holding. ("Grasp" feels a bit strong here—alternatively, "hold" or "cradle" may make more sense.) We approach abstract, intangible, and complex things through metaphors as a way to build an understanding. Douglas Hofstadter has a great lecture about this and more, "Analogy as the Core of Cognition."
Some metaphors stick, and some are useful only once. As one's relationship with a metaphor deepens (either by spending a lot of time with it, or seeing it ubiquitously), the metaphor can expand, and our understandings along with it. We can start to "jump" between metaphors, where two adjacent metaphors may connect their two otherwise-distant signified entities.
I've thought about mathematical notation as metaphor, too. Einstein Index Notation is one of my favorite mechanisms by which, in trusting the expressive power of the notation system, I've found myself able to make conceptual leaps. For instance: within a train of logic, I might be at a moment where the physics of the problem make sense and are well-expressed by the mathematical symbols, but I need to make a jump to another point. With this notation system, sometimes the in-between steps have no physical reality. But, once on the other end, the connections between the notation and the physical entities I'm seeking to capture re-emerge. The notation—a metaphor itself—acts as a bridge between two other coherent metaphorical states.
My poetry practice has been a way for me to engage with some metaphors I hold dear—water, gardens, the moon, the skull, bedrooms. Sometimes writing poetry feels navel-gazing to me, but I'm trying to believe in the act of creating and publishing a metaphor as valuable and lovely. Sharing metaphors is sharing your set of keys to concepts and feelings, which gives others the opportunity to find some new understandings, too.
Nic has a great channel on Are.na for more thoughts on this: Theorizing Metaphor.
Seeking a foothold,
Lukas
I've been writing poetry off-and-on for a few years, but in April (National Poetry Month), I wrote some poetry every day. The timing was perfect, as April ended up being a bit of a rollercoaster. A daily reflective practice helps me get in touch with how I'm feeling and gives me a place to pour my energy.
In writing, I've been reflecting on the metaphors I use and find important in my navigation of the world. In language, what isn't a metaphor? A word is a word, but it projects some array of connotations and denotations into the minds-eye of the reader. My first interest in poetry came through reading Aram Saroyan's Complete Minimal Poems (beautiful edition), which helped me recognize that poetry doesn't have to be long-winded and densely wrought to have emotional weight; it can be playful, brief, and still knock the wind out of you. Saroyan's work also plays with words both as metaphors (i.e. linguistic objects) and objects in themselves (as typographic objects).
Earlier this year I noted how Learning Gardens developed a sense of importance around the metaphor of gardening. I find "gardening" deep in connotations, connections, and values that I appreciate. I've also written about water, how water in the landscape has served me well as a metaphor for an entity that exists as both solute and substrate, or for things where boundaries are both necessary but often difficult-to-define.
If you've ever worked with a group on a complex project, you know how much time can go into making sure everyone is on the same page—a state that can be more easily reached through an easy-to-grok metaphor. Call this a "conceptual model," call it "shared language"—it boils down to having similar metaphors for understanding the object of your focus.
In this sense, a metaphor is a tool for grasping something. A glove, a handle, a mode of holding. ("Grasp" feels a bit strong here—alternatively, "hold" or "cradle" may make more sense.) We approach abstract, intangible, and complex things through metaphors as a way to build an understanding. Douglas Hofstadter has a great lecture about this and more, "Analogy as the Core of Cognition."
Some metaphors stick, and some are useful only once. As one's relationship with a metaphor deepens (either by spending a lot of time with it, or seeing it ubiquitously), the metaphor can expand, and our understandings along with it. We can start to "jump" between metaphors, where two adjacent metaphors may connect their two otherwise-distant signified entities.
I've thought about mathematical notation as metaphor, too. Einstein Index Notation is one of my favorite mechanisms by which, in trusting the expressive power of the notation system, I've found myself able to make conceptual leaps. For instance: within a train of logic, I might be at a moment where the physics of the problem make sense and are well-expressed by the mathematical symbols, but I need to make a jump to another point. With this notation system, sometimes the in-between steps have no physical reality. But, once on the other end, the connections between the notation and the physical entities I'm seeking to capture re-emerge. The notation—a metaphor itself—acts as a bridge between two other coherent metaphorical states.
My poetry practice has been a way for me to engage with some metaphors I hold dear—water, gardens, the moon, the skull, bedrooms. Sometimes writing poetry feels navel-gazing to me, but I'm trying to believe in the act of creating and publishing a metaphor as valuable and lovely. Sharing metaphors is sharing your set of keys to concepts and feelings, which gives others the opportunity to find some new understandings, too.
Nic has a great channel on Are.na for more thoughts on this: Theorizing Metaphor.
Seeking a foothold,
Lukas