the big here

a feature of living as i experience it nowadays is that much of my experiencing takes place in a more reactive / responsive mode than in a proactive / creative mode. the terms of my work confine the creative element of that tetrad to a prescriptive role that compels the form of my relationship with knowledge to be that of a purposeful rather than playful dynamic.

some features of my being in the big here are subjugated to a lesser place in my knowing because they carry less value, less utility, and so sit ignored somewhere in the deep mapping of my mind labelled “here be dragons”.

kevin kelly, being the clever, insightful person that he is, is as aware of this as anyone. i live atop a hill covered with what i suspect is glacial till carved out a very long time ago somewhere south west of here and deposited as the glacier passed over an outcropping of rock buried somewhere deep beneath where i am sitting. i know that its surface is comprised of a mixture of large boulders, smaller boulders, gravel, and sand. in some places on this hill, it is possible to dig down several metres through fine yellowish sand and still not hit the bottom of that vein.

knowing about what you walk on, live on, ride on, sleep on and so on, is one of those details that are submerged beneath the detritus of daily life. as one of kevin’s “cool tools” he has assembled a set of questions that ask you to consider your immediate component’s parts of the larger components parts of what is called a biome. the underlying big question is - do you know anything about the inner workings of the watershed in your area?


what’s very cool about this is that kevin has posted the answers provided by people from all over. of course, the answers to the questions are necessarily site specific and have been posted not so much for you to determine if you are right or wrong, as to act as signposts for your thinking. the answers are easily more fascinating than the questions and make for good reading!

have a look at
the big here.