Scottish Centre for Geopoetics

A couple of years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, part of an international institute begun by the Scottish poet and thinker Kenneth White. I quote from its website:
“It seeks a new or renewed sense of world, a sense of space, light and energy which is experienced both intellectually, by developing our knowledge, and sensitively, using all our senses to become attuned to the world, and requires both serious study and a certain amount of de-conditioning of ourselves by working on the body-mind.”
This is exactly how I see the process of bioregioning.
I have written recently about how we can come up with bioregional maps for Scotland using Geographic Information Systems. However, it is vitally important that such desk-based work is complemented by getting out and actually experiencing the region that we are modelling on a computer.
I have just been reading an article on the geopoetics website by Alastair McIntosh. He quotes one of his former students, Jamie whittle, who made a pilgrimage up and down the catchment valley of the Findhorn (he walked up the river to its source, then paddled back to the sea).
Whittle reflects:
“What I am beginning to sense is that consciousness is infinite. Looking back at how trapped inside the glass bottle of my own ego I used to be … [I now see that] it is only by quieting the ego that we may have the awareness to experience the world more deeply, more groundedly and more colourfully.”