{"id":762,"date":"2023-10-11T19:09:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T19:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/?p=762"},"modified":"2025-09-24T12:41:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T12:41:15","slug":"robert-macfarlane-paths-are-human-they-are-traces-of-our-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/?p=762","title":{"rendered":"Robert Macfarlane: &#8220;Paths are human, they are traces of our relationships.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/s-l500.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em;margin-right: 1em\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"400\" data-original-width=\"259\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEgqqHvC72sKhS_RVX1hTi2S9ZzKIV_qGnSVcdiHFV1WrLZnGyCCC16WgvfEbQ7soIDZirUz614BVyxZZDK1vn5JoIFzYMLDN5fZEP7v_P3-5K4kPC6F6_mThStKI8_1Lq5mXUX5QnchlvrcYFmdpxEop5QCTNvszmBwlFHTn8L3X-DeeN8e7fdf5PLW7oqJ\/s320\/s-l500.jpg\" width=\"207\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: left\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: left\">\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both\"><span style=\"font-family: arial\">Nature author Robert Macfarlane has written recently about the inherent poetry of desire paths. In his 2012 book The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Macfarlane calls them \u201celective easements\u201d and says, \u201cPaths are human; they are traces of our relationships.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both\"><span style=\"font-family: arial\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both\"><span style=\"font-family: arial\">&#8220;Desire paths have been created by enthusiastic dogs in back gardens, by superstitious humans avoiding scaffolding and by students seeking shortcuts to class. Yet while illicit trails may have marked the easier (i.e. shorter) route for centuries, the pandemic has turned them into physical markers of our distance. Desire paths are no longer about making life easier for ourselves, but about preserving life for everyone.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both\"><span style=\"font-family: arial\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both\"><span style=\"font-family: arial\">(Source:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2020\/jun\/14\/paths-of-desire-lockdown-has-lent-a-new-twist-to-the-unofficial-trails-we-carve\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2020\/jun\/14\/paths-of-desire-lockdown-has-lent-a-new-twist-to-the-unofficial-trails-we-carve<\/a>)<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.video.search.yahoo.com\/search\/video?fr=mcafee&amp;ei=UTF-8&amp;p=robert+macfarlane&amp;type=E211GB714G0#id=1&amp;vid=fd9224669162c7d1020438443628f309&amp;action=click\" target=\"_blank\">Lecture on landscape and the human heart<\/a><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=321FqIO_y2U&amp;t=41s\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-0\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-family: arial\">Lecture on landscape, travel and connection<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><br style=\"font-family: arial\" \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nature author Robert Macfarlane has written recently about the inherent poetry of desire paths. In his 2012 book The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Macfarlane calls them \u201celective easements\u201d and says, \u201cPaths are human; they are traces of our relationships.\u201d&nbsp; &#8220;Desire paths have been created by enthusiastic dogs in back gardens, by superstitious humans [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanhemus.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}