julie boileau

The Track

A track in the forest is created by regular and maintained passage through the jungle. The track is animal. The ground is so regularly trampled that the mark remains. The path to the water, for example, is so frequently used that a small track forms over time. For the walker, only this small trace—often just a few inches wide, sometimes barely perceptible—guides the way; in other words, it helps avoid getting lost. Sometimes scientifically straight, the tracks follow the contours of the land, avoiding or crossing difficult passages: rocks, fallen trees, water holes, forests of vines, or bamboo groves. All around this track is the tropical forest. So, it is crucial not to stray too far.  

Improvisation is risky; the track is the friend that protects you from madness. Imagine taking one wrong step and turning around twice, and you become part of the forest! It is this line that ensures the return to camp, a delicate signpost for humans who love to wander the forest but no longer have, or perhaps never had, the faculties needed to navigate it. It becomes the clearing passage for humans who no longer wish to stoop down.  

Be careful! This track is not an excuse to stop paying attention to where you step. The animal may like this less dense area, and it sometimes walks the human-made tracks, which can be surprisingly practical. Smells and sounds can be a betrayal, and the wild animal, fearful of humans, crosses this tear in its territory, often perpendicularly. If there's an encounter, the animal will fix its gaze, surprised, before fleeing far from danger.  

Perhaps a snake is napping here? After all, the leaves are drier, and prey is exposed.  

As for me, I think the track is also a path of healing, a health route for the mind.  

This track is temporal, or timeless, depending on how you see it. It is an ultra-present path where every second matters, but it fades as soon as it passes. It only persists if I continue to walk; the step before becomes unknown, and the step after must be thought of right now. You see, on the track, there’s no way to be anywhere but in the immediate moment. Unraveling this forest thread, my thoughts, which might otherwise get tangled, glide without sticking. I can observe them, but I can’t catch them. When I reach the clearing (camp, creek, or dégrad), where the forest opens up to the sky for a few meters, my thoughts remain calm, gently nestled in the present moment. And then, I forget them.  

You might say that walking is always a good way to untangle thoughts, but in the forest, there’s an added dimension. Thanks to this landscape, where living matter is everywhere, both body and mind are engaged with each step, and I regain my balance. The track, sylvan in nature, is therefore a good moderator.  

And once the imagination and the temptation to take a "side step to see" are contained, I see the forest from this narrow ribbon that allows me to cross. My eyes lift from the ground to the trees.  

If the track is a good untangler, the forest is the weaver. The living species are interwoven here. The track allows one to be in a listening position. It’s not complicated; it reveals the complexity of things. The apprehension of a potential danger that might isolate the senses first shifts toward a sharpened awareness, and the perception of sounds and movements intensifies: understanding begins. One then realizes that we are part of the whole. Becoming an element of the world is, of course, more reassuring. How wonderful it is not to limit things to oneself!  

Responsibility becomes collective, even systemic. This approach allows for a global and precise understanding of the functioning of the Earth.  

On the other hand, in the forest, one rarely goes alone. It’s safer if something goes wrong. The track then becomes the bridge between bodies that harmonize to survive. We follow each other, we change scale, shape, we become a group: one body with parts that can complement each other. Among these members, one might know, for example, that drinkable water can be found in this trunk, another hears better, another offers reassurance... The relationship, that is, the in-between or the between-ten, is what truly matters.  

In the end, this walk along the track teaches us the smallness of a being, like a human, for example, but also its importance; its disappearance can have global consequences. And everything unravels.

Thinking in Connections

In the tropical rainforest, everything is there, but everything remains impossible to define.

I often recall this "innocuous" sentence from D. Ribeiro, who studied the Urubus in Brazil: "The indigenous people do not have a fanaticism for the truth." Everything can be retold, believed, learned. "Truth" does not matter. Life adapts to the environment, and language does too. The opposite would be vain, too limiting. Thus, the indigenous people described by Ribeiro prefer laws dictated by stories, each one different but with the same moral: the forest is populated by spirits where balance is a game of "give and take" and where death is omnipresent and accepted. The case is too specific, but the tale allows for the inaccuracy of interpretation and provides indications of danger, permissions, and explanations for things observed. Myth frees time.

Language and myth are thus connected. One weakens the other. The theoretical language that allows us to be precise in time, space, and history also distances us from a more global and original view of the world. In fact, it is impossible to explain anything about the forest without omitting the main part. There are no truths told, only truths lived.

The more I learn, reading my many teachers on this subject, the more I am convinced of the power of forests. I am absorbed, captivated by its presence, its history, what it represents in our cultures, the philosophy it nourishes. I love everything it brings, all the species it shelters. It is Everything. It is Time. It is complexity. It cannot be described by words, fixed objects, or definitions but in connections, consequences, systems, and exchanges. Even more astonishing, all the scales of size and lifespan are brought together, intertwined, and erased.

Since I started going into the forest, I have been searching for a language of the in-between. The words we know are too narrow, too lettered, symbolic, quantitative, boxed, to account for interdependence. Should I speak in circles? Impose a vocabulary or a grammar of connection? Limit myself to flexible, unfixed words? Should I recontextualize every statement? Or, like Alice, should I understand that the forest resists language?