On this hybrid essay artist and researcher Sarah Scaife displays on sauntering, the etymology of the phrase and its potentialities for wellbeing.
In a interval of serious ill-health, my current follow of artwork strolling turned out to be a helpful supply of each company and wellbeing. I walked, typically alone and typically accompanied, just about daily through the yr I used to be receiving remedy for breast most cancers (Scaife, 2020). This was not strolling for train, although it had that profit too. This was “sauntering”.
Relatively than placing out in direction of an finish level, sauntering is a manner of coming into into respectful although unsure dialog with the more-than-human. I exploit David Abram’s (2017) phrase ‘more-than-human’, to recognise that which many people name ‘nature’ as sensuous, alive and interconnected. This immersive manner of strolling turns into a type of ceremony; in sauntering, the land I stroll on begins to really feel holy, past any faith, by which I imply an interconnected and dynamic entire. In my lived-experience, sauntering on this manner turns into a follow of reconnection which may maintain issue and include the holes in my very own wellbeing.
Artists have methods of strolling for wellbeing
Strolling artist and scholar Dee Heddon led Strolling Publics/Strolling Arts, an investigation into strolling and creativity throughout COVID-19 (Heddon et al, 2022). Billinghirst et al (2020) provides a way of the breadth and vibrancy of strolling as inventive follow, with contributions from present practitioners who stroll explicitly for wellbeing. Like a lot in well being politics, there are obstacles to strolling together with entry to secure native areas (Billinghirst et al 2020; Heddon et al, 2022), however strolling presents wealthy potentialities too. Artwork strolling for wellbeing has deep roots, entangled in social, communal, climate-activist and private wellbeing, journey, problem, organised protest, pilgrimage and procession – or a mix of a number of of those.
For a few years and in lots of locations, artists of all genders and financial backgrounds have walked for and with their very own and others’ wellbeing. Artwork walks vary throughout city and rural, suburban and wilderness, solo and collaborative. Walks could be on foot. They could be within the creativeness (see for instance Wilson’s 2022 Recipe for strolling with out leaving your own home, which she developed throughout a interval of sick well being which stopped her going outdoors).
Earlier than and through the pandemic I made my very own artwork walks to discover and help my relationship with well being. At this level in my life, I’m lucky to dwell in an exquisite a part of south-west England, although I haven’t at all times. Since my yr of most cancers remedy, and the pandemic quickly after, I’ve continued this strolling, typically inviting different individuals to affix in.
Strolling can take many kinds
Strolling artwork takes varied kinds, every with its personal resonances. The strolling artist as ‘flâneur’, a time period first utilized by Baudelaire within the nineteenth century, refers to 1 who strikes with confidence via an city and cultural milieu (TATE, 2024). One of these strolling has attracted critique inside a feminist historical past of artwork because it centres on the white male gaze. My very own artwork strolling follow is fully totally different.
In winter/spring 2024, as a part of my practice-based analysis, I supplied wellbeing workshops with a small group of people that have additionally skilled breast most cancers remedy. This was in collaboration with Emma Capper, a professional and skilled Nature and Forest Remedy information
For a while, I’ve puzzled tips on how to encapsulate the qualities of this explicit strolling follow in phrases. While planning our workshop collection I used to be reflecting on this with Emma Capper. We spoke of the vary of considerably specialist strolling traditions, together with climbing, trekking, forest bathing (her explicit follow), promenading, and pilgrimage, in addition to the flâneur. As she and I wandered on in dialog, Emma instructed that my intentional strolling follow is a type of sauntering. My physique felt a surge of recognition.
This mixed-media essay places ahead an outline and instance of sauntering as a specific from of artwork strolling for wellbeing. The written a part of this essay continues with a brief journey via entries into dictionaries of etymology, to wander via and discover deeper which means within the phrase saunter. I then invite you to affix me in a sound world as I saunter out from my dwelling and alongside an area river.
Let’s go for a saunter….
To me ‘sauntering’ initially implies a sluggish and aimless, even perhaps purposeless stroll which works in opposition to the up to date drive to achieve a purpose. Phrases are carriers of tales and cultural shifts. In Center English, the time of Chaucer’s earliest identified manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, there’s a phrase ‘santren’. Relatively than strolling, it means to hesitate, muse or brood. The etymological dictionary speculates that sauntering is ‘maybe’ associated to an older which means of babbling and idle chattering; once more, the implication is that the saunter is one thing of a waste of time (Barnhart, 1988).
Allow us to now contemplate the phrase saunter as two syllables: ter- and saunt-.
Ter- is a model of the Center English verb terren, to tarry some time. Ter can also be a model of terre, Latin for land or earth or floor; a relative of tir, floor or earth in Cornish, Bretton, and Outdated Welsh. This brings us to the eighteenth-century phrase terrain, in “the sense of a tract of land thought-about with respect to its pure options” (Chambers dictionary of etymology, 1988).
Saunt- or sant is a model of ‘saint’, with Latin origins. Earlier than 1200, saint was spelled ‘sont’. The older which means of this phrase doesn’t reference a specific particular person, however relatively a normal sense of being holy or sacred.
As Emma Capper and I walked and mirrored, Emma recalled that there’s a folks etymology story regarding John Muir, a 19th-century pioneer of nationwide parks in North America. She shared it with me later. Right here is one model:
[Hiking]. I don’t like both the phrase or the factor. Individuals should saunter within the mountains — not hike! Have you learnt the origin of that phrase ‘saunter?’ It’s an exquisite phrase. Away again within the Center Ages individuals used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when individuals within the villages via which they handed requested the place they had been going, they’d reply, ‘A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And they also turned often known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we should saunter via them reverently, not ‘hike’ via them.
(Harer 2019, attributed to John Muir by Albert Palmer in “The Mountain Path and its Message,” 1911, p.27)
To present ears, there’s a friction on this folks etymology which references “the Holy Land”. When capitalised, this phrase refers to a specific area to the east of the Mediterranean Sea with a posh and contested historical past and geography. Phrases are loaded, however we have to use them and I’m drawn to Muir’s recognition that the land itself is holy wherever we’re on earth.
My very own follow of strolling will not be a pilgrimage to achieve, to reach in, or certainly to dominate a specific sacred website. Pilgrimage will not be the precise time period for this type of strolling. Sauntering entails wandering just a little, listening with care, permitting oneself to be drawn in to the world past the self. Sauntering is emergent and engaged, strolling in respectful dialog with the more-than-human.
In his basic ebook on notion and language, David Abram displays on the dynamic methods during which the languages of a more-than-human world reverberate with our personal voices. “We commonly discuss of howling winds, and of chattering [or babbling] brooks. But these are greater than mere metaphors” (Abram, 2017, pp.82). He goes on to suggest that “[human] language will not be a purely psychological phenomenon however a sensuous, bodily exercise born of carnal reciprocity and participation” with the more-than-human.
This dialogue entails sensory “tuning and attuning” (Abram, 2017, p.80). For me, sauntering is a technique to strengthen my connection to a rooted and native, typically sacred sense of place. It’s typically a type of prayer, principally a type of drugs.
I return to the Chambers dictionary definition of that phrase ‘terrain’, referenced above. Within the eighteenth century, at a time when a scientific lens filtered western perceptions of nature, terrain was outlined as “a tract of land thought-about with respect to its pure options” (p.1127). In different phrases, rocky and steep or damp and marshy. By making some playful changes, I now outline ‘sauntering’ as strolling in sensory relationship with a specific tract of land, thought-about with full respect for its sacred, pure options.
As I stated, in my latest analysis follow, Emma and I sauntered with a gaggle of people that have, like me, skilled breast most cancers remedy. These saunters are discreetly and ethically documented, however not totally recorded in a manner I can comfortably share right here. Returning to Wilson’s thought of strolling within the creativeness, might I invite you to pay attention as an alternative to a recording made on 14 April 2024 as I saunter alone, a couple of minutes away from my dwelling.
I invite you to recall the older and deeper meanings of the phrase. You’ll discover that this sauntering is certainly sluggish and aimless, in some methods purposeless, hesitating, brooding. It entails us in noticing – which can sound like babbling and chattering, musing aloud or internally – as I transfer about. I really feel higher for it.
Placed on headphones and settle in when you’ve got time. I invite you to tarry some time on this soundscape and saunter together with us.
readers can discover one other of Sarah Scaife’s hybrid items revealed within the Polyphony right here: https://thepolyphony.org/2021/10/29/fluxambol-prototyping-a-medicine-of-uncertainty/
Concerning the creator
Sarah Scaife is a practice-based PhD researcher within the Division of Communications, Drama and Movie on the College of Exeter. Knowledgeable by lived expertise of breast most cancers remedy, her analysis explores medicines of uncertainty. This PhD is funded by the AHRC via the South, West and Wales Doctoral Coaching Partnership and is co-supervised via the College of Bristol.
References
Abram, D. (2017). The Spell of the Sensuous. notion and language in a more-than-human world. (2nd ed.). Penguin Random Home.
Barnhart, R. Ok. (Ed.). (1988). Chambers Dictionary of Etymology. Edinburgh, Chambers Harrap.
Billinghurst, H.,Hind, C. & Smith, P. (Eds.) (2020), Strolling Our bodies. Papers, Provocations, Actions from Strolling’s New Actions, the Convention. Triarchy Press.
Emma Capper, Nature and Forest Remedy information (2024). https://creativejourneys.org.uk/
Harper, Douglas (2019) https://www.etymonline.com/columns/publish/john-muir-and-‘saunter’
Hartoum, Mona 1985, 1995 Efficiency Nonetheless https://www.tate.org.uk/artwork/artworks/hatoum-performance-still-p80087 Accessible 13 April 2024
Heddon, D. (PI), Maggie O’Neill, M., Qualmann, C., Rose, M., & Wilson, H. (2022). Understanding strolling and creativity throughout COVID-19 – Strolling Publics/Strolling Arts Public Report. www.walkcreate.org
Scaife, S. (2021). Fluxambol: Prototyping a Medication of Uncertainty. The Polyphony. Conversations throughout Medical Humanities. https://thepolyphony.org/2021/10/29/fluxambol-prototyping-a-medicine-of-uncertainty/
Scaife, S. (2020). Magical aesthetics: strolling with eight legs. In H. Billinghurst, C. Hind, & P. Smith (Eds.), Strolling Our bodies. Papers, Provocations, Actions from Strolling’s New Actions, the Convention. (1st ed., pp. 1–10). Triarchy Press.
Stratmann, F. H. (1891). A Center English Dictionary containing Phrases utilized by English Writers from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (1974 printed version, edited and up to date by Henry Bradley). Oxford College press .
TATE artwork phrases glossary: Flâneur (2024) https://www.tate.org.uk/artwork/art-terms/f/flaneur
https://www.tate.org.uk/artwork/student-resource/exam-help/ritual
Turner, Marion (curator) Chaucer Right here and Now exhibition at Weston Library. College of Oxford Bodleian Libraries. https://go to.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/chaucer Visited in particular person 6 April 2024.
Wilson, Louise Ann (2022) Walks to Bear in mind: ‘With reminiscence I used to be there’ Reminiscence-Stroll Recipe in Heddon et al.,The Walkbook https://walkcreate.gla.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/THE-WALKBOOK.pdf
