‘The forest of the mind dies with the one outside.’ — Jesse Narens

*Updated continuously.

A

     Agulation: A conflicted feeling when you see people using water liberally.

     Anthromes: The types of biomes or distinct regions created by humans.

     Afterdrop: Raindrop which falls after a cloud has passed.

     Auspice: Bird witness; trouble the phenomenology of miracles, perhaps miracles arise when we lend ourselves to prophetic attention, as in tracking patterns enough that gxd beings to reveal their self to you.

     Augery: Prophetic divining of the future by observation of natural phenomena, particularly the behavior of birds and animals, but also by scrutiny of man-made objects and situations.

     Armogan: Fine weather for traveling or starting a journey.

     Ammil: A fine film of silver ice that coats leaves, twigs, and grass when a freeze follows a thaw.

     Aperature: A space through which the world could be seen.

     Abri: Shelter used by mountaineers, typically an overhanging rock.

     Alpenglow: Light of the setting sun seen illuminating high mountains or the underside of clouds.

Anthropangea: A planet drawn together by technological tethers and the resulting intermingling of flora and fauna. See also: Anthropangaeans (Tim Fox)

B

     Billow: Snowdrift.

     Brim: Cold, drying wind that withers plants.

     Brocken Spectre: A phenomenon where a person’s giant shadow is magnified onto clouds miles away giving it an angelic appearance.

     Brivet: To wander an area or look through items without specific purpose to satisfy idle curiosity, especially in a furtive or illicit manner.

     Blenky: To snow very lightly, derived from a word for ashes or cinders.

     Bole: Stem or trunk of a tree.

     Blinter: A cold dazzle; The radiance of winter stars on a clear night.

     Broch: An iron age dry stone hollow walled structure found in Scotland.

     Balophilous: Salt loving plants.

     Bleb: Bubble of air in ice.

     Blunt: Heavy snowfall.

C

     Casaperdida: The fear of losing one’s house to an event related to climate change.

     Caivies: Swiftly moving clouds.

     Coddiewomple: To travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.

     Carapace: A bony or chitinous shield or shell covering some or all of the back of an animal. Ex. A turtle shell.

     Cruciform: Shape of a cross.

     Cairn: A mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark.

     Circumambulation:

     Chatoyant: Showing a band of bright reflected light caused by aligned inclusions in the stone.

     Corrie: High hanging, glacier-scooped hollow on a mountainside.

     Cragfrost: Unable to advance or retreat on a step climb; stuck, usually requiring rescue.

     Clock Ice: Ice cracked and crazed by fissures, usually brought on by the pressure of walkers nad skaters.

D

     Dendrophile: A lover of trees.

     Domra: Obscuration of the sky by haze.

     Disaster Collectivism: The way communities radically come together, both forming new and building on existing networks of mutual aid, to take care of each other in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

     Daal’mist: Mist which gathers in valleys overnight and is exhaled when the sun rises.

     Dēor: animal. (DAY-or / ˈdeːɔr).

E

     Ekstasis: The state of being beside oneself or rapt out of oneself. Of displacement, cession, or trance.

     Ecological Amnesia: A Phenomenon of forgetting or not knowing the natural abundance of the past (shifting baseline syndrome) thus losing our connections to wildlife and the will to care about stopping its loss.

     Eit: The practice of placing quartz stones in moorland streams so they sparkle in the moonlight and attract salmon to them in late summer and autumn.

     Externalization Society: The process by which a society tirelessly creates an ‘outside’ so as to pass along various burdens necessary to maintain itself.

     Ecological Imperialism: Solving a problem through displacements that benefit only the core. Ecological imperialism relies on the plunder of the periphery while shifting the ill effects of the problems brought about by that plunder back onto the periphery as well.

Ecognosis: A weird way of knowing informed by your lived experience. (Timothy Morton)

F

     Feetings: Footprints of creatures as they appear in the snow.

     Fizmer: Rustling noise produced in grass by the wind.

G     

     Ghomanidad: A reframing of humanity from being and viewing itself as a force that is extractive to one that is regenerative and energizing.

     Goldfoil: A sky lit up by lightning.

     Gleen: Sudden burst of warm sunshine (sunblink).

     Glassel: A seaside pebble which was shiny and interesting when wet and which in now just a lump of rock.

     Gneiss: A metamorphic rock with a banded or foliated structure.

     Grumma: Mirage caused by mist or haze rising from the ground.

     Gwann: Moor, meadow, downland, usually walkable.

H

     Heyiya: A commitment to reshaping desire, forming ecological connections, and disconnecting from ecocidal forms of collective life.

     Hunger Stones: Stones written and places in rivers during times of drought as warnings to future generations that famine is coming.

     Honeyfur: Soft seeds of grasses.

     Hematic: Relating to or affecting the blood.

     Hailropes: Hail falling so thickly it appears to come in cords or lines.

I

     Inosculation: Intertwining trees that can no longer be distinguished as singular entities. They are ‘en-kissing’.

     Insouciant: To be free from worry, concern, or anxiety.

    Ing: Wet meadow especially one by the side of a river.

     Imperial Mode of Living: The societies of the global north’s reliance on large scale production and consumption via extraction from the lands, labor, and people of the global south. (Coined by Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen)

J

     Juncary: Land overgrown with rushes.

K

     Ki, Kin, Kir: Neo-pronouns for non-human species that recognizes they are our relations and not objects.

     Kin:

     Kinship:

     Kinfolk:

    Klett: Low lying earth-fast rick on the seashore.

L

     Landskein: The brain of blue horizon lines in hill country on a hazy day.

     Landraising: Waste disposal site which is above the height of the surrounding land.

     Law of Compensation: Agriculture can only be sustained if the nutrients in the soil are sufficiently replaced. (Coined by Justus vin Liebig)

     Landslaughter: A living, inhabited landscape killed like a steer and its life blood drained; its hide and tallow rendered into money; its flesh surveyed and cut into parcels, marketed in tranches and laid out for sale on the courthouse steps.

M

     Millernarianism: The belief that a radical change will soon transform society as we know it.

     Mermerosity: Anticipating the disappearance of familiar things.

     Mythopoetic: Making myths, storytelling, poetry, as a means of self understanding.

     Moraine: An accumulation of earth and stones carried and finally deposited by a glacier.

     Murmuration: A  flock of birds that is swarming.

     Metanoia: The journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self, or way of life.

     Moonbroch: Hazy halo of cloud around the moon at night; supposedly a sign of bad weather to come.

     Marram: A course grass found on sandy beaches.

     Mycelia: Network of fine filaments constituting the tissue of fungus.

N

     Nemophilist: A lover of nature.

     Netherlands Fallacy: To ignore the international transfer of the burden of environmental impact and to assume that the global north has solved its environmental problems simply through technological advances and economic growth.

O

     Ophidian: Serpent

     Osmium:  Hard, heavy, metallic element.

     Onomasticon: A listing or collection of words; especially in a specialized field.

P

     Pulcreate: Using your creative energy to make beauty in the world.

     Polyphonic Symphony (Polyphonic Swarm or Polyrythmic Pulse): When multiple voices and narratives weave together to make one without melding together but overlapping in a beautiful whole of individual narratives. A song done this way can be listened to over and over again and each time new stories will be heard. 

     Prophetic Attention: 

     Polylith: A prehistoric monument consisting of many stones.

    Portent: A sign or warning that something especially momentous or calamitous is likely to happen.

     Pyrocumulous: Dry thunderstorms caused by forest fires. Generally they generate lightning that inevitably causes more fires.

     Pirr: A light breath of wind.

     Parochial: Having a limited or narrow outlook or scope. Being narrow-minded.

     Parhelia: Mock Sun; An atmospheric optical illusion that consists of a bright spot on one or both sides of the sun.

     Phenologist: Someone who studies the periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced seasonally and with habitat and climate variations, migration, etc.

Q

R

     Rotscape: The terrain of digestion, rot, and decomposition.

     Riparian System: An ecosystem that is the interface between land and a river or stream. It is the vegetation, habitats, and communities along the banks.

     Rodden: Raised silt bank left behind by a drained river.

     Roarie Bummlers: Fast moving storm clouds.

S

     Sumbiography: An account of the cumulative influences on a person’s life that have culminated in their values towards the relationship between humans and nature.

     Snowbones: Patches of snow seen stretching along ridges, in ruts, or in furrows after a partial thaw.

     Solivagant: To wander alone.

     Smeuse: The gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal.

     Slogger: The sucking sound made by waves against a ship.

     Sheep Fank: A sheep enclosure in which a flock is gathered for shearing, dipping, or marking.

     Shieling: A hut or collective of huts once common in wild and lonely places in the hills or mountains.

     Slunk: Muddy marshy place, a miry hollow.

     Snape, Sneap: Boggy place in a field, often containing small springs and requiring drainage.

     Spangin: Walking vigorously.

     Smored: Smothered in snow.

     Slaag: Low part of the skyline of a hill.

     Skalva: Clinging snow falling in large damp flakes.

     Skith: Thin layer of snow.

     Scarp: Steep face of a hill.

     Scree: Mass of small stones and pebbles that forms on a steep mountain slope.

Strange Loops: Ways of being and of expressing Being.

T

     Terra Carta: Earth charter.

     Trans-corporeality: We inhabit the liminal spaces between bodies, the human and the non-human, both permeable and permeated.

U

     Underland: The landscapes and traces left behind in caverns, caves, bogs, wells, cinotes, burial chambers, etc. 

     Ungive: To thaw.

V

     Verglas: Thin blue water ice that forms on rocks.

W

     Werring: A moment of collective transformation when rotting structures become ripe for new growth.

     Wend: To pursue or direct one’s way. To proceed, meander, travel, or pass.

     Weald: Wooded uncultivated territory.

     Wolfsnow: A dangerous sea blizzard.

     Windle: Snowdrift.