Rock art archaeologist Christopher Tilley wrote: "Most academics cannot under- stand landscape, except in an abstract objectified manner, because most of them have not been there or experienced them except in a vicarious way, and temporal

experience is lacking, which is precisely why most reduce landscape to
a matter of visual representation as opposed to bodily experience."

Most archaeologists are too busy measuring, photographing, annotating; that is,
by sacred I mean that which is transpersonal beyond rational experience, and which carries a feeling of numinosity. These phenomena are a mystery connected to the source of doing science, instead
of experiencing "landscapes as they are sensuously lived."

someone there
picking persimmons
in the rain

In the 17th Century, "Site triumphed over Place, cartography over topography." Smooth maps replaced gritty land, and Cartesian separation of body and mind
was ground into educated minds. Thus, scientists are trained to see the world
in a strict methodology Paleolithic and indigenous people would find amusing.

Scientists could be taught to sense mountain sheep bounding up a spectral
wall safe as coyotes trot through a landscape "whose existance is extended
by the dreams of an entire people," foxed by their imagination. To touch this
wall would be to feel the temper of eternity.