Actually, before starting on that, did you ever see The Peripheral on Amazon prime? I really liked it and am very sad they're not making a second season. I mean, if you can manage seven... or was it eight? series of Game of Thrones or Vikings, why not two of The Peripheral? I am enjoying GOT, though my favourite character (Hodor) has just died. I know everyone else watched it years ago. It's amazing how hateful most of the characters are, which was not so much the case in other series I have enjoyed.
Right. So.
I have been reading Plants in Place by Ed Casey and Michael Marder. I'm glad to have read it but wouldn't say, "Oh! You've got to read this!" One chapter really struck me, though, and it was about plant intelligence (or thinking) being at the edges - root tips and the buds, leave surfaces and so on. This is where the plant receives information and responds to its environment. The edges are the places of transition and transformation.
That made me think about what Vinciane Despret and Frank Fraser Darling say about the peripheries of bird territories. These are the loci of transfer, vitalization, communication.
And then Casey and Marder make a distinction between boundaries and borders. The former marking places but porous - you can go through. The latter being rigid, solid, categorical. Now this made me think of the boundaries of the robin's territory. Other species can pass through at will (unlike, say, the Berlin Wall or Trump's hideous wall or the fences in Gaza, which prohibit the movement of animals). In addition, sometimes other robins pass through. The boundaries also seem to be variable. They are not indelibly mapped.
As an example, see the middle section of this video... which is mostly singing.
The book also had me thinking about conversation. Now, the etymology of conversation is super interesting. Con- is with; the suffix comes from a word meaning "to turn". So, turning with. In Old French and Old English, it had the meaning of being familiar with - "conversant with". It's moved away from that... to "make conversation" sounds like the very opposite of intimacy.
So, I was thinking about an older form of conversation - "living among, familiarity, intimacy". Which does not require speaking. This is critical. It is about LIVING with, not sharing opinions, lecturing, telling, explaining.
In this sense, everything and everyone in my garden is in conversation. With much of the activity taking place at the peripheries, the porous boundaries, the edges, the tips, surfaces and thresholds
Nope I have never seen The Peripheral nor GOT !!
Very interesting post with the ways of using the different words! Cool 😎 I like what you said about edges and "living with". And yes Bobbit and his singing - gosh he opens his mouth wide -- puts his heart & soul into it. x