Donna Frost

The critical creative collaborative inquiries in action 159 5 Becoming sensitized I was in the woods early today; the mist was yet to dissipate. After 10 minutes or so I noticed a fine cobweb, faintly covered with dew. Its delicate beauty could not be captured with my camera. In fact, the cobweb could hardly be seen at all on the photo. Its lines were too fine and the light too diffuse. It hardly mattered; all at once the woods seemed full of cobwebs. They bridged gaps and spanned spaces between branches, logs and leaves. They enclosed the tips of sapling trees, encased twigs and captured dying flying things. My eyes had been opened and now I could not ‘not’ see them. On the return trip I noticed all the webs I’d missed when setting out. This is an example of what it is like to work with our senses and to rely on them for important information within research. Sometimes we don’t see, smell, hear, feel or otherwise sensewhat is right in front of us. Once the ‘something’ has been perceived, it becomes easier to notice. All at once we notice similar ‘things’ or phenomenon everywhere. We have become sensitized. In this case the phenomenon was too delicate for a tool such as a mobile phone camera. If I had relied on the evidence of the camera alone I may have missed the cobwebs all together. I needed my own, bodily, senses and I needed to create the opportunity for them to become sensitized. As is sometimes the case in research situations as well, serendipity played a role here: I could just as easily not have noticed the cobweb the first time, or noticed it much later. Alternative explanations The fields were wet this morning. Looked like it might have rained earlier. Walking under the trees I heard an uneven pattering, as if here and there drops of water were falling, perhaps having collected on the leaves above and now dripping down. The patter continued as I walked among the trees and although the noise faded inmyawareness to become part of the background I expected at any moment to feel the water droplets dropping on me. Despite hearing particularly heavy plunks every now and again, I left the woods as dry as I had entered them. When writing of my walk, a short time later, I wrote among other things of all the acorns I had seen, strewn