Sonic Faction, 165–191

Chapter

The Westmorland Fells

EXCERPT

The forest extends to within two hundred metres of the summit of Mickle Fell. Is this the Eemian forest from 120,000 years ago? Is it the forest seven thousand years in the past, during the initial high point after the last glaciation? Is it the Westmorland Fells five hundred years in the future? Or is it a more unplaceable, otherworldly forest—a forest of the oneiric-real, one that would be Futural, and could help to generate a forest in the actual?

In any case, this relates to a terrain of the planet. Which is to say that it is not a part of a human territory, and is also to say that what is in question here, alongside the Futural, is the planet, as opposed to the specific terrain that is the Westmorland Fells. It is possible to start anywhere, but this starting-point has some slight advantages.

This is therefore about the planet, and about the path that leads away from ordinary reality, a path that to a great extent involves a heightened effectuation of the faculties of dreaming, perception, lucidity, and decision-making, or navigation.…