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Subtle Agroecologies
not seen one before. 2 Such exercises can include drawing the outline of a plant without looking
at the paper, using shading for depth with no regard for actual shades or shadows, or creating the
form by shading the outside area of the paper as if chipping the form from a block. You could also
use watercolour paint, pencils or pastels to mix the exact colour of different parts. One of the most
useful drawing exercises, and this one should never be left out or cut short, is to draw from memory. You may think that you know everything about the appearance of a plant, only to have that
assumed knowledge disappear the moment the plant is hidden from view. Drawing from memory
by closing your eyes and building in your imagination the plant as you have come to understand it,
is extremely helpful in trying to build the bridge – so crucial to Goethean science – between the
phenomenon and the human being as a scientifc instrument. You need to set aside any personal
concerns about your ability to draw; the point is not to produce a beautiful picture, but to train
your perceptions.
Another tool you can use is to ignore pre-existing knowledge, for example, the names of
things, and instead to see and describe them outside of learned classifcations. This restriction
on nomenclature is helpful when sharing observations in a group. Finding a word that expresses
what you are seeing rather than taking the ready-made one prompts more looking and thus more
potential to see fresh relationships. Still, it is impossible to continue in exact sense perception
indefnitely. To register all the great amount of variety and detail would be, as Goethe said, ‘like
trying to drink the sea dry’. (1995: 24). Simply amassing facts about the phenomenon as a static
object at the moment at which we are observing it will not allow you to really see what the thing
is nor come to any frm idea of it. Exact sense perception is only the foundation on which the
following stages rest and to which they return, when necessary, to compare conclusions reached
by other means.
Jochen Bockemühl’s work on phenomenology (1985) uses the four elements (earth, water,
air, fre) as a helpful way of characterising each of the stages. This frst stage has an ‘earth’
quality: the solid facts are gathered, and the feel of the process here is one of careful exactitude.
Although fascination with detail is appropriate, we should not get carried away. For some, this
stage is experienced as being rather tedious, yet for others it is very satisfying, and such differences in themselves show something of our personalities. In the training mentioned earlier, we
spent several days on each stage with our chosen phenomenon. With the plant it can be hard to
stay in this mode, for example, you will be tempted to describe things as ‘growing’ or ‘wilting’
and generally anticipating future states or imagining past ones that you think you have known;
it is quite a discipline to hold those imaginings back and stick with the present.
Before leaving the frst stage, it is also worth mentioning that, in gathering information, you
may also use secondary sources. It can be helpful to know what other people have discovered.
For a plant, you could turn to some botanical knowledge, or the relevance of the plant in agriculture, herbalism, myth or even the language of fowers in mediaeval paintings. The important
point about using secondary sources is to avoid them to begin with (apart from checking in
regard to poison) and then have a sceptical eye and always return to the primary source, the
plant itself, for verifcation. You need to be alive to the fact that with secondary sources you are
gathering what other people have said and they could be working from presuppositions and not
from the plant itself. Secondary sources might give you new ideas or other forms of access to
your phenomenon or questions to pose for further investigation. On the other hand, it also gives
you more material that you have to set aside in order to really see the plant.
Do not move on until you have a collection of drawings and descriptions and a solid feeling of
getting to know the ‘what is’ of your plant. This will provide your anchor for the work ahead.
2 A number of drawing exercises are helpfully detailed in Margaret Colquhoun and Axel Ewald’s 1996 book New Eyes for
Plants: a Workbook for Observing and Drawing Plants.
Subtle Agroecologies
not seen one before. 2 Such exercises can include drawing the outline of a plant without looking
at the paper, using shading for depth with no regard for actual shades or shadows, or creating the
form by shading the outside area of the paper as if chipping the form from a block. You could also
use watercolour paint, pencils or pastels to mix the exact colour of different parts. One of the most
useful drawing exercises, and this one should never be left out or cut short, is to draw from memory. You may think that you know everything about the appearance of a plant, only to have that
assumed knowledge disappear the moment the plant is hidden from view. Drawing from memory
by closing your eyes and building in your imagination the plant as you have come to understand it,
is extremely helpful in trying to build the bridge – so crucial to Goethean science – between the
phenomenon and the human being as a scientifc instrument. You need to set aside any personal
concerns about your ability to draw; the point is not to produce a beautiful picture, but to train
your perceptions.
Another tool you can use is to ignore pre-existing knowledge, for example, the names of
things, and instead to see and describe them outside of learned classifcations. This restriction
on nomenclature is helpful when sharing observations in a group. Finding a word that expresses
what you are seeing rather than taking the ready-made one prompts more looking and thus more
potential to see fresh relationships. Still, it is impossible to continue in exact sense perception
indefnitely. To register all the great amount of variety and detail would be, as Goethe said, ‘like
trying to drink the sea dry’. (1995: 24). Simply amassing facts about the phenomenon as a static
object at the moment at which we are observing it will not allow you to really see what the thing
is nor come to any frm idea of it. Exact sense perception is only the foundation on which the
following stages rest and to which they return, when necessary, to compare conclusions reached
by other means.
Jochen Bockemühl’s work on phenomenology (1985) uses the four elements (earth, water,
air, fre) as a helpful way of characterising each of the stages. This frst stage has an ‘earth’
quality: the solid facts are gathered, and the feel of the process here is one of careful exactitude.
Although fascination with detail is appropriate, we should not get carried away. For some, this
stage is experienced as being rather tedious, yet for others it is very satisfying, and such differences in themselves show something of our personalities. In the training mentioned earlier, we
spent several days on each stage with our chosen phenomenon. With the plant it can be hard to
stay in this mode, for example, you will be tempted to describe things as ‘growing’ or ‘wilting’
and generally anticipating future states or imagining past ones that you think you have known;
it is quite a discipline to hold those imaginings back and stick with the present.
Before leaving the frst stage, it is also worth mentioning that, in gathering information, you
may also use secondary sources. It can be helpful to know what other people have discovered.
For a plant, you could turn to some botanical knowledge, or the relevance of the plant in agriculture, herbalism, myth or even the language of fowers in mediaeval paintings. The important
point about using secondary sources is to avoid them to begin with (apart from checking in
regard to poison) and then have a sceptical eye and always return to the primary source, the
plant itself, for verifcation. You need to be alive to the fact that with secondary sources you are
gathering what other people have said and they could be working from presuppositions and not
from the plant itself. Secondary sources might give you new ideas or other forms of access to
your phenomenon or questions to pose for further investigation. On the other hand, it also gives
you more material that you have to set aside in order to really see the plant.
Do not move on until you have a collection of drawings and descriptions and a solid feeling of
getting to know the ‘what is’ of your plant. This will provide your anchor for the work ahead.
2 A number of drawing exercises are helpfully detailed in Margaret Colquhoun and Axel Ewald’s 1996 book New Eyes for
Plants: a Workbook for Observing and Drawing Plants.