Pedology
"Hands are just as important for thinking as brains. The unconscious mind does take in far more information, and processes it immeasurably more quickly and accurately, than the conscious part of the mind does, or even notices. Most of what we know, we know unconsciously - and we really do do our best thinking "without thinking".
Bob Hughes, Dust and Magic, p7&8
I might call this walking blog my pedology, as a playful play on words.... Pedology is the study of the soil - perhaps an apt title for the blog that I am keeping as a part of this journal, with a play on the Latin root for walk and the odd link to the Greek root for child as in Pedagogy, which is literally 'child' and 'lead' or Lead the Child. Although I maybe it is better to be led by the child.
"While I am working I am not conscious of what I am putting on the canvas" Pablo Picasso
I experimented with working in this way a year ago, for the Research Methods module, as this in some ways a research method, the research being into my own thought processes. The format is simple, to provide a structure for thinking around the subject. The structure is the morning walk that I do two or three times a week, to exercise the dogs. I walk up into the Mendips. To provide further structure I have restricted the recording to two gates, one at the bottom of the hill and one at the top. The idea is that, in watching my feet, watching the ground pass, I can empty my head of thoughts. In then talking, the thoughts that come arrive without premeditation, and can thus often surprise me, in the connections and associations that arise. Back home I transcribe the recording using speech to text software. I have decided to do this without any alteration, correction, or punctuation. The flow of thoughts as the come through the spoken word are very different from written notes, or crafted sentences. I have left them just as recorded. I transcribe the recordings to make them more searchable, and then add a summary and tags so that the reams of text will be more useful to me in tracking my route through this project.
I also briefly explored an online service called jott, whereby recording made on the iphone can be sent directly to a server that will do speech to text, emailing back the result. This proved to inaccurate and unreliable at this point in time.
The photo that accompanies this page was taken on a walk.