Summary

The website content discusses the concept of Idea Songlines, drawing inspiration from Australian Aboriginal Songlines, as a metaphor for organizing and connecting ideas in writing and creative processes.

Abstract

The article "Idea Songlines" by John Rose draws a parallel between the ancient Australian Aboriginal practice of Songlines and the process of writing and organizing ideas. Songlines are described as pathways through the landscape, connecting significant locations in a fixed order, and are used by Aboriginal peoples to preserve and transmit cultural knowledge through songs and performances. Rose uses this concept to illustrate how ideas can be visualized and interconnected in a narrative structure, much like the sequence of locations in a Songline. He suggests that the mind is like a garden where thought processes nurture ideas, which are then shaped into a coherent sequence, akin to a songline. The article emphasizes the importance of editing and revising to ensure ideas flow logically within the narrative, and acknowledges that deleting a paragraph is not a loss but a transformation, as ideas can be reincorporated elsewhere. The process is iterative and requires judgment to know when the narrative is complete, culminating in the act of publishing.

Opinions

John Rose views thinking as an organ of perception, akin to the eye or ear, but for ideas.
He distinguishes between thoughts and ideas, with thoughts being the processes that lead to the creation of ideas.
Rose emphasizes the complexity of thinking, involving multiple interacting thought processes and feedback loops.
He believes that an epiphany can significantly alter one's worldview and lead to the emergence of new ideas.
The author suggests that the act of writing and publishing is a way of socializing ideas that have been cultivated in the mind.
He considers the narrative structure of writing to be similar to the fixed order of Songlines, where each paragraph represents a location or collection of ideas.
Rose reflects on the editing process as crucial for maintaining the narrative's context and coherence.
He posits that even when a paragraph is deleted, the ideas within it are not lost but can be reused in different contexts, enriching the mind's garden.
The article concludes with a personal note, hinting at a whimsical relationship with his magpie henchman, Magles, and the chaos that ensues post-publishing.

Idea Songlines.

Writing Stories as Idea Songlines.

Traditional Australian Songlines. Diagram by John Rose. (Pictures Public Release).

Songlines Explained

In her wonderful book, “The Memory Code”, Lynne Kelly described Songlines (or Dreaming Tracks) as “pathways through the landscape connecting a large number of significant locations in a fixed order”. Each location hosts performances of pertinent cultural knowledge. Songlines are carefully timed to coincide with changes in seasons. A songline is “sung as a long sequence of short verses, which together form a sung chart of the ancestral being’s creative journey”. Tribal elders, literally sing the landscape.

Songlines are an elegant way of thinking about knowledge, connections and relationships. Australian Aboriginals have the world’s oldest continuous culture. They have preserved and passed down their cultural identity by performing their songlines for over 65,000 years.

My art in rock, sand and light show how I visualise a songline. The sand canvas is the landscape. Stones represent various significant locations, such as caves, cliffs, mountain tops, river bends and billabongs.

The beam of sunlight represents my trek across the landscape and therefore the order of visiting each location. The sunlight moves and I use that as a metaphor for seasonal change. My art helps me to contemplate a songline as a series of linked ideas in a mental landscape.

Given the volume of professional publications on thinking. I decided that my first task is to explain what I understand by thinking, thoughts and ideas.

Visualising Songlines in Rock, Sand and Light by John Rose.

Thinking

Rudolf Steiner eloquently summed things up. “Thinking … is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colors and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas.”

Ideas and Thoughts

Thought’s old English origin means “to conceive of in the mind, consider”. So what is the difference between a thought and an idea?

In common usage and philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Put another way, an idea is the product of a thought process.

An idea can be the result of multiple thought processes in the same manner that a house is the product of a number of building processes.

Thought processes can, and in our minds do, combine and manipulate multiple ideas to create new ideas.

The function of our mind is to think. Thinking is complex and made up of many interacting thought processes with complex feedback loops. An epiphany is where we produce an idea that can change both our worldview and thought processes. In turn, an epiphany leads to the emergence of entirely new ideas.

Thought processes exist only within the mind, but we can socialise our ideas through writing, talking, reciting and performing.

Idea Songlines.

My mind is metaphorical garden, Thought processes potter around nurturing and tending pruning and growing shaping and arranging flowering ideas into beautiful songlines ready for socialising through writing and publishing.

Each paragraph is a location, fixed in reading order. Each location is a collection of ideas. Diagram by John Rose

This all sounds horribly simple, in fact, it’s deceptively simple. The songline provides a narrative structure to the story. When paragraphs (or stanzas) are edited, revised and stuffed with nuanced words they have to make sense in the narrative’s context. Check, agonise and correct!

Deleting a paragraph creates a broken songline. But, deletion is a poor description. The ideas within the deleted paragraph are not lost. They return to the mind’s garden soil, where thought processes may encounter them and give them new purpose in another songline.

Sometimes the narrative needs changing. This means changes, additions and deletions of locations within the songline. Change begets change. At some stage a judgement call is required: “Enough is enough! Magles, peck the publish button! Right now!”. Magles, my magpie henchman, loves this because he knows the mayhem that follows, but that is another songline!

Blessed be.