Information and knowledge are not the same.
Some knowledge can't be transmitted via written language.
[Memory: I bob and weave while sparring, I spin fibers into thread using a drop spindle, I carefully dig up the roots of an oak tree without damaging them, I crack a hickory nut with a round rock, I shape clay on a potter's wheel]
Most knowledge has never been encoded into written language.
[the tiny bees that visit the frogfruit plant, the hiss of the wind in a canebrake, the scents of mint, oregano, diesel and orange peel in the leaves of wild herbs, the spicy bark splitting from a tulip poplar sapling, the rotting wood, the stagnant water, the patterns of the fireflies, the bumblebee pollinating the gentian, the mycelium, the shape that different roots make in the soil, their color and texture]
Whenever I talk to someone who knows the plants, I get into a spirited disagreement with them. Experts who learned from experience can never agree, because instead of absorbing the written information from a unified canon of sources, they absorbed the knowledge from their own experience, and every experience is different.
Using our minds, we absorb information; without our bodies, we cannot know. Knowing requires the organism to feel, sense, engage in behavior, and experience connections.
[I see the plants. I recognize the plants. I visit the plants. I look closely at the plants. I touch the plants. I sit with the plants. I feel the plants. I cut the plants. I crush the plants. I destroy the plants. I trample the plants. I kill the plants. I dig up the plants. I nurture the plants. I give life to the plants. I prune the plants. I burn the plants. I make something from the plants. I use the plants. I smell the plants. I gather the plants. I weed the plants. I visit the plants in the height of summer, in early morning and late evening, in the chilly days of fall, in the snow, in the spring, in the rain. I taste the plants. I enjoy the plants. I process the plants. I compost the plants. I cook the plants. I eat the plants. I consume their body. I breathe their breath. I know their names. I am a living creature among living creatures.]
The physical world, the living world of living creatures, is still here, all around us.
[There is, in the cracks and at the edges of an abandoned concrete slab, a thicket of wild raspberries. The raspberry planted itself. The raspberry grew itself. No one owns the raspberry, or even knows it is there; the raspberry owns itself. Take and eat; it is a gift. Taste and enjoy; you are an animal with a body that needs, a body that feels.]
Know the wild plants, but I cannot tell you where to find the plants, or how to learn them. It is not information. It is knowledge.
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