goldleaf goose, sublime suchness

an unfinished and unfinishable a-z,
for simon whitehead
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‘Every word was once an animal’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

‘Why not then continue to look at it all as a child would, as if you were looking at something unfamiliar, out of the depths of your own world?’ (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)













Absence Action Age Agency Air Amplifier Animal Appearance Architecture Arrival Artefact Attention Awake Awareness Aura Autumn

Back Badger Balance Beach Beginning Belonging Between Beuys Biofeedback monitor Bird Blackthorn tree Blaze Body Bog Bonemap Boot Border Boundary Bow Branch Breath Bricolage

Canopy Cardiovascular Cartography Cat Cell Chaos Child Choir Choreography City Cloud Coastline Cold Collaboration Collect Colour Community Compassion Composite Composting Complicity Connectivity Consciousness Contact Contemplation Context Country

Damp Dance Darkness DAT Dawn Daydream Daylight Disappearance Dislocation Decay Deep map Departure Dérive Desire path Detour Détournement Digicam Digital delay Direction Dirt Distance Ditch Document Documentation Dog Dowsing Drawing Drift Drone Dwelling Duration Dusk Dust

Ear Earth Echo Ecology Edge Elegy Elsewhere Elvis Embodiment Encounter Energy Environment Ephemeral Exchange Excursion Expectation Expedition Experience Extraordinary Event Everyday Eye Extremity

Face Farm Fear Feather Feedback Feral Field Filltir Fire Flotsam Fluidity Flux Foot Footprint Fork Found objects Fragility Front Fulton Funeral paths Fungus

Gaffer-tape Gentle Geography Ghost Gift Goldleaf Goose Gorse Granite Grass Gravity Ground Guitar

Habitat Hand Haunt Hawthorn Hazel Heel Heal Heart Hedgerow Helium balloon Here Hide Hill Histories Home Homing Hoof Hope Horse Horsehair Hotspot House Hybrid

Identity Illuminate Image Imaginary Immersion Improvisation In-between Indeterminate Inside Interaction Installation Interconnection Intervention Intersection Intimate Invisible Interstices Itinerant

Journey

Kinetic Knee Knowledge

Landscape Lane Leaf Left Legs Ley lines Lichen Lifeworld Light Line Lippard Listening Llyn Location Long Lost Lungs

Manoeuvre Map Mark-making Material Maybe Mediation Meditation Memorial Memory Message Microphone Migration Mile Mind Mix Mnemonic Mobile phone Mobility Monitor Moss Movement Mud Music Mythology

Narrative Navigation Nature Neighbourhood Network Night Not-self Now and now and now

Oak Observe Ode Omission Online Opening Ordinary Orient Other/wise Ownership Outside

Palimpsest Passage Past Paper Path Pathways Participation Pavement Paw Peat Pet Petal Petrified oak Phone Pigeon Pilgrimage Pitch Place Plant Plastic animals Play Pony Possibility Potato Poplar Prayer Preseli Presence Private Process Projection Proximity Public Pull

Quarry Quebec Question

Radio mic Rain Ramble Raw Reality Reception Recollection Recycle Red Refuge Relationships Relic Remains Remote Repetition Research Residue Resonance Return Retreat Reverb(eration) Right Ritual River Road Roam Rock Root Route Rhythm Rowan tree Ruin Run Rural

Salt Sapling Scale Score Sea Season Sediment Seed Self Senses Senitised Sensorium Shadow Sheep Shelter Shoe Site Sky Skyclad Skyline Slate Slow Smell Snyder Social sculpture Silence Silver birch Sitting Solnit Somasonics Song Sonic material-image-energy-soup-map-ecology Sound Soundscape Space Spirit Spore Spring Stalk Standing Star Stem Step Sticks Stomach Stone Story Stray Street String Studio Stuffed goose Summer Sublime Suchness Sun Symbiosis

Table Tail Tarmac Task Telekinesis Territory Text Texture Then There Thought Timber Time Topology Torch Tormentil Totem Touch Trace Track Trail Trajectory Transformation Translocation Transmission Travel Tree Twig Twilight Tycanol

Uncertainty Unconscious Undergrowth Urban

Vibration Video Virtual Visceral Vision Vulnerability

Wah pedal Wales Walking Wall Wander Water We Weather Weight Wilderness Wind Wind turbine Window Winter Witness Wooden horse Woods Wool Work

X-marks-the-spot X-roads

Yap Yearn Yellow Yes Yew Yin Yang You Ystwyth

Zenith Zero Zigzag Zodiac Zone
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afterwords

‘Memory and oblivion stand together, both are necessary for the full use of time … We would try to encourage those who intend to struggle against the hardening of the imagination (it threatens all of us) to not forget to forget in order to lose neither memory nor curiosity. Oblivion brings us back to the present, even if it is conjugated in every tense: in the future, to live the beginning; in the present, to live the moment; in the past, to live the return; in every case, in order not to be repeated. We must forget in order to remain present, forget in order not to die, forget in order to remain faithful’ (Marc Augé, Oblivion, 2004)
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Text originally published in Simon Whitehead, Walking to Work, Cardiff: The Arts Council of Wales/Shoeless, 2006, 62-3

Photographs: Simon Whitehead

For Simon Whitehead's untitledstates website, see here