Arboreal Dialogues

In 2021 I started the blog Arboreal Methodologies as a space to collect my thoughts and actions in the forest. It started off as a walking the land approach to decolonise my thinking in reaction to listening to and reading Indigenous thinkers

I will be sharing some of that thinking in this blog - and those who have inspired me. The name Arboreal Methodologies came about through dialogues with Professor Jayne Osgood and we wrote a chapter together about our different arboreal relationships - she wrote about the UK and I wrote about the small Swedish forest I was building a relationship with.

In the last year the methodologies has created a structure for me to engage with the forest and research. But now my relationship with the forest has made me reconsider the name. methodologies was something I was doing to get know... I was listening, I was acting. The aim now is for a more reciprocal relationship where the forest and I are in dialogue. As yet I am unsure what this means... just as I was once unsure how walking the land would work, or how arboreal methodologies would impact how I interacted with the forest. It is a kind of getting lost. Of being uncertain. Of embracing that and giving myself permission to be unhurried and allow the dialogue to unfold. Like the previous arboreal blog - this is mostly for myself. But if you find your way here, you are welcome to join my journey.