Into the Wild

As part of my residency at L'Observatoire, it has been great fun to “go into the wild” as explorers of the nearby forest with 4 different groups of teachers and children from Blue House International 💙. The children were thrilled to go on adventure, and their enthusiasm and curiosity was infectious 🙌🏼👀🌳🖼👣🌴
Thank you all 💚

MacRitchie Me

My journeys into MacRitchie, Singapore's wild forest, became a journey into my own perception of nature - and the deeper into the wild I went, the stranger everything became.
In an attempt to adapt to the forest and the strange strangers I encountered on my way, I designed new clothes, and soon I became a stranger to myself.

In Pursuit of Wildness

Finding wilderness is a challenge these days, but finding wildness is possible anywhere. 
On International Day of Forests 2016 I found wildness in the central part of Singapore at LaSalle College of the Arts setting up my self-made tent called House of Wild Wood Woman. For the day I was immersed in the big, lush tropical forest.
Never stop dreaming :-)

Teach Me Tiger

We love wild things and everything wild, but do we really dare to embrace it? And do we want it? Or should it rather be stuffed behind glass or securely (dis)placed in zoos? It seems like our own wildness is so suppressed these days, that it is forced to express itself in other ways, e.g. today's fashion dictates "wild cats" in fabric print, shoes, clothes etc.
Here is a selection from my wardrobe set free for a while in the Singaporean jungle:

 

 

 

 

However, I must admit, I was really pleased, when I recently became aware that there is some kind of wildness left in the nearby, where I currently live. The Malayan tiger and other magnificent animals have been captured by one of Rimba's photo traps in Kenyir Wildlife Corridor, Terengganu, West Malaysia. - "Dear Tiger. Did you say "cheese"?" I hope not, but rather: "Meeeeeeeeeaaat".

Can we please have some more tigers and wild animals in the forests (and some more forests to accommodate them)? Then we don't have to constantly compensate with various superimposed, wildly tame disguises!

"In wildness is the preservation of the world" (from Henry David Thoreau's: "Walking".

Photos: top: from Bukit Timah Nature Reserve's Visitor Centre, bottom: Rimba.

Dr. Wild Wood Woman, I presume?

When you come from the cold temperate Northern Europe and relocate to such a different environment like tropical Southeast Asia, you can either continue communicating in your usual manner, now with a tropical twist, or you can choose to keep quiet for a period, while you acquire new skills and languages. I chose the latter - or rather it chose me.
Now after a year, I am still a beginner in tropical flora and fauna as well as in Chinese and tai chi. The Chinese character for "forest" might as well mean "sewing machine", in tai chi I 
have learned up to "the snake" in the 24-form, and I am now able to recognize and name 5 tropical plants, all trees.
But nevertheless I can't keep quiet any longer, so please accept my apologies for any future tropical nonsense.

Bewildered in the Wilderness

 The Map

The Forest of Kisses

The Entrance

The signpost: "UNscientific research area"

The Thread Trail

 

House of Wild Wood Woman and the two forest attendants

Entrance sticker: "Totally dazed in the plantation"

A forest feast in the alder wood and a chat about our different perceptions of nature

Early spring Wild Wood Woman went east to Rø Plantation, Bornholm, Denmark to host and guide a special trip in collaboration with Danish Nature Agency and NaturBornholm.
Reversing the letters in "Rø", they become "øR", which means bewildered, dazed and confused. The audience was welcomed in the woody VIP lounge by a doormat and two forest attendants handing out entrance stickers.
After a short stroll through The Forest of Kisses the trip continued outside the forest trails following a pink thread for approximately 1½ km. Inspired by Troy labyrinths and the name of Rø the trip went round and round, in and out, up and down, crossing and re-crossing in an attempt to find anOTHER way of perceiving the forest.
Finally House of Wild Wood Woman hosted an end-of-trip celebration in a delightful little alderwood situated in a glade inside a pine forest.
What a plantation! Surely forests ARE made of DREAMS!

Forever wild

a dream

a promise

a statement

an illusion

an invention

a lie

a truth

a tale

forever wild

As I said: There are NO WORDS

Theodore Roosevelt's (NO) WORDS about Nature at

American Museum of Natural History.

I have NO WORDS to add.

Into the Unknown Happy New Year!

I don't know where I am going, but I know where I am.

And I am reading "Walking" by Henry David Thoreau (much about him soon to come).

This little great book began as a lecture, first delivered in USA 1851 and later published in 1862 after his death.

It is a lyric, meandering essay celebrating what is wild and untamed in the world and encouraging the reader to truly understand the Art of Walking and become a real SAUNTERER.

He writes:

" I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks -- who had a genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING"

and:

"It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms".

And later in the book:

"No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker."

Thoreau himself preferred the impervious and quaking swamps to towns and cities with its cultivated lawns and fields.

In this spirit I shall enter 2008 with a walk into the unknown - and who knows - if I take a flight next year and look down at 2008 - my route might have turned out to be a STORK like in Isak Dinesens little story from "Out of Africa" - described here.

...og gå så, og gå så og gå så min ven