Thoughtfactory’s Notebooks: Rhizomes

bark, trees, roads, bushland

Posts for Tag: dead leaves

dead leaves #4 (mono no aware)

This photo  in the ongoing series of the aesthetics of mono no aware (the pathos of things) was made whilst on an autumn  poodle walk with Akira, our new silver standard puppy,  in the local Waitpinga bushland: 

The Japanese aesthetic of mono no aware  emphasizes a gentle, wistful sadness or sorrow at the fleeting moments  in  the impermanence of life.

The term mono no aware (物の哀れ) was coined by Motoori Norinaga, the eighteenth century literary scholar, with his  study of The Tale of Genji that showed this phenomenon to be its central theme. He  combined aware, which means sensitivity or sadness, and mono, which means “things.”. The mixture of these words can be translated as the pathos or the feeling of things and implies an awareness of the fleeting, impermanent nature of life (mujo). 

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dead leaves #2

Another study of dead leaves in the Waitpinga bushland in the Fleurieu Peninsula. This was in  the spring of 2024.  Like the others in the series  the photo  was made whilst on a poodlewalk --this time an early morning  with Kalani.      

This is a bushland that is slowly drying out from the decreasing  rain and increasing temperatures. It is slowly becoming hotter due to rising carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas).  The waste products of fossil fuels are still dumped in the air free of charge.

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dead leaves + photographic self-questioning

I have spent quite some  time walking  in  the local Waitpinga bushland this autumn.  I walked with Maya on the morning walk and with Maleko on the afternoon walk. Whilst being preoccupied with dipping my toes into making  walking art I noticed  the dead leaves hanging from the branches of the eucalypts as well as the bark. 

 I'd ignored them up to now as  I had been primarily focused on the bark with a 35mm film camera. The leaves were concealed -- merged into the background.  In the last couple of weeks of walking I started to look at the dead leaves as I walked past them. Their speckled brownness   stood out from  the background  world of green.  I started to  photograph them closeup.   

What emerged was  the  simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer presence-at-hand. The seeing involved in the encounter with the present-at-hand gives precedence to the entity and it does so precisely because it detaches itself from the background context. The emergence of the dead leaves  into presence can be understood as an event of the un-concealment of the dead leaves  out of concealment. The photography discloses this coming into presence. 

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