Posts tagged RobGMacfarlane

Word of the Day: “glisk"––sunlight glimpsed through a break in the clouds; a fleeting glance at a glittering sight; a brief glow of warmth from a fire that’s burned low; a sudden flash of hope in the heart. (Scots)
Photograph by Michael Held pic.twitter.com/0w6Jl7YFCz

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) April 6, 2020

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1247041449578946561)

Cornwall Council declared #ClimateEmergency in Jan. & plans a 20,000 acre “Forest For Cornwall”. Good for wildlife, people & climate. I esp. like that it’s distributed planting: new trees “on our streets, in our hedgerows, new woodlands & forested areas”.https://t.co/eksJHPHH5I

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) July 19, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1152147443829628928)

“Nearly every book has the same architecture—cover, spine, pages—but you open them onto worlds & gifts far beyond what paper & ink are. Some books are wings. Some are horses that run away with you. Some books are puzzles, mazes, tangles, jungles…”
(Rebecca Solnit)

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) July 16, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1151230770993913857)

Word of the day: “nefelibata” –– literally a “cloud-walker”; that is, a daydreamer, one who wanders lost in thought or wonder (Portuguese; poetic. From the Ancient Greek νεφελοβάτης, nephelobátēs, “one who walks the clouds”).
Also–– esp. in art or literature––a rule-breaker. pic.twitter.com/bnZg5VvsrO

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) July 6, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1147384730876350466)

I introduced a remarkable person (Ai Weiwei) to a remarkable tree (the Great Oriental Plane Tree) this afternoon. Unsurprisingly, they got on very well. “It is a family”, said AWW on entering the tree’s green-gold space; just so, a branching, rooting, tangled entity. pic.twitter.com/bxqJhNin7J

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) July 4, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1146836203062382593)

Word of the (Solstice) day: “grimmelings”, also “grimplins”, “grimlins"––the first & last gleams of daylight (Scots, esp. Orkney), which around midsummer in northern latitudes blend to form the "simmer dim” (summer twilight).
Cf Swedish “grim(b)la”, “to glimmer before the eyes”. pic.twitter.com/vkmBgy75b9

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) June 21, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1141948979690856448)

“We are here by the grace of trees & forests. They make our atmosphere, clean our water & sustain the cycles of life that permit us. Just begin to see them. Notice the million complex beautiful behaviors that have slipped right past you.” (Richard Powers) https://t.co/o5kRg18FCL pic.twitter.com/xPHFZOT7Qb

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) May 29, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1133828324843761664)

Wow - the Wood Wide Web has been globally mapped for the first time! New research published in Nature today plots the c. 500-m-yr-old subterranean “social network of trees” at a planetary scale.
The World-Wide-Wood-Wide-Web, then. Jaw-dropping work. Here: https://t.co/cXHC8Sm7c3 pic.twitter.com/k4yOi2cGQh

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) May 15, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1128726697396850689)

Word of the day: “flygskam” - lit. flying-shame; the environmental guilt arising from air-travel (Swedish); cf “vliegschaamte” (Dutch) & “flugscham” (German). See also “smygflyga” (flying in secret) & “tagskryt” (boasting about travelling by train).#LexiconForTheAnthropocene pic.twitter.com/WJv5B3kImZ

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) May 7, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1125641515034906624)

I wrote a short essay about the notebooks I kept while writing Underland & the material traces that such journals carry (another kind of archiving).
I’d be v. interested to know what notebooks you like to use – and to see glimpses of their pages…
Here: https://t.co/zGjav3VDtE pic.twitter.com/dl0FfdvRmj

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) April 27, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1122120258364542976)

Word of the day: “micro-season” - in the classical Japanese calendar the year is divided into 72 five-day micro-seasons or kō. Thus 6–10 March is 蟄虫啓戸, meaning “Hibernating insects surface”; 11–15 March is 桃始笑, “First peach blossoms”.
Precise, poetic, attentive phenology. pic.twitter.com/nkAnie7Ty9

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) March 11, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1105000494244814849)

Words of the day: “trophic asynchrony”, “phenological mismatch” - disruptions to established seasonal patterns of migration, breeding, flowering, feeling etc caused by climate change.
Swallows in February.
Untimely unsettlements of being.#LexiconForTheAnthropocene
Ty @ginbat pic.twitter.com/somiPUQlTL

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) February 28, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1101014272208003072)

“What happens to us
Is irrelevant to the world’s geology
But what happens to the world’s geology
Is not irrelevant to us.
We must reconcile ourselves to the stones,
Not the stones to us.”

(Hugh MacDiarmid) pic.twitter.com/EVA7yjCi4P

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) February 11, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1095069209959243782)

Word of the day: “slipshape” - in contrast to “shipshape” (tidy, ordered, regulated), that which is “slipshape” is characterised by fluidity, uncertainty, shape-shift & flow.
Coined by Alice Oswald in her book-length river-poem Dart, “a songline from the source to the sea”. pic.twitter.com/fH0cNo2K2U

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) February 7, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1093404097384833025)

Word of the day: “xanthophylls” - the class of pigments responsible for the yellows in both autumn leaves & egg-yolks. Xanthophylls are present year-round, but as chlorophyll breaks down each fall, many-splendoured yellows – gold, ochre, lemon, amber – are disclosed by decay. pic.twitter.com/URTRTYYe3a

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) November 8, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1060426799610499073)

Words of the day: “empty forest” - a forest or jungle ecosystem that has lost its large mammals due to defaunation, while its vegetation remains intact. A habitat hollowed from the inside out.
Coined by Kent H. Redford, 1992. #LexiconForTheAnthropocene pic.twitter.com/Kc8L5uXSzv

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) November 4, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1058977199599030272)

Word of the day: “dree” - to endure, bear with fortitude that which is wearisome, to last out (Scots). A “dree” is both a hard task and also a long, drawn-out melody. “To dree one’s weird” is - unforgettably - to endure one’s fate, suffer the consequences of one’s actions. pic.twitter.com/EjdRuNhLcb

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) November 2, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1058252462811824128)

Words of the day: “terrain vague” - apparently empty or abandoned interstitial spaces in towns & cities; e.g. vacant lots, brownfield sites, marginal ‘wastelands’ (French). ‘Vague’ carries senses of flux (vague/wave, French), wandering (vagus, Latin) & vacancy (vacuus, Latin). pic.twitter.com/RIBZ8Uk3M2

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) October 25, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1055338289077596161)

Word of the day: “defaunation” - the loss of animal populations & species across all forms of disappearance; from extinction to extirpation to decline in abundance. #LexiconForTheAnthropocene
See for more on defaunation: https://t.co/Bg6AWDoIKD pic.twitter.com/C3q6dPW60B

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) October 7, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1048815247853801472)