The Ground Beneath Your Feet

In this chapter, we consider the importance of ‘starting from where you are’, and how so much good ecofiction comes from close, long-term observation of the local (what has been called ‘deep mapping’; or ‘deep place’). Beginning with intimate focus on the body—our own personal terroir—we’ll slowly extend our focus to the immediate locality, from the doorstep to the nearest park. There will be close attention given to the senses, to acts of perception. The notebook will be our primary tool. Through words we’ll seek to capture ‘qualia’ (phenomena), and start to intimately, incrementally create a subjective ‘map’ of our local universe—one echoed in the counter-mapping projects of indigenous peoples, and in the new ‘situated’ fiction emerging from BIPOC writers, thereby connecting an embodied, visceral local awareness to global consciousness. Finally, we will reflect on how interiority enriches exteriority and vice versa.