MEDICINAL GARDENS, HEALING TRAILS, AND OUR PANDEMIC BODIES
MEDICINAL GARDENS, HEALING TRAILS, AND OUR PANDEMIC BODIES

Summary/Abstract: When I first started writing this contribution, I thought I would go deeper into the question of solitude and separation. Instead, I found myself thinking about different questions: what would Ibn ‘Arabi have had to say about shadow forms and their presences in our viral and pandemic time of 2020? What might he have said about pandemic bodies, viral contagion, and the Unseen, where everything is continuous and in continuity? So, this is the starting point of a conversation I wish I could have now, in person, face-to-face, with you. My paper’s considerations of Ibn ‘Arabi hopefully will work as a juxtaposition; that is, a set of resting places and vantage points onto the local, from where I stand. From February onward, it already seemed to me that we had missed having been able to gather together, one by one, all of our singular stories of coronavirus, our novel virus, and being able to see together, from the same vantage place of consideration, where the world is going now. This is a matter of perception, and in speaking to my standing place, perhaps I leave silent some different things.

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