Lessons From A Witness Tree

Abstract

This article uses reflections from childhood memories of sensory experiences and interactions with the multispecies community to explore how the more-than-human world bears witness to one’s presence. They are also used to discuss how a greater sensory awareness of the more-than-human world increases one’s sensitivity to shared but unequal vulnerabilities in a changing and precarious climate. The author suggests that how we interact and come to know a place through the senses matters in the traces we leave and the kinds of relationships that form as a result.