joining timbers would itself be a way of doing philosophy; if we understand that philosophy is a love of wisdom, rather than the elaborate systems that are often used to represent it.
the most striking feature about making some sort of structure out of timbers ontologically, in terms of the being of the act, is the inherent giveness of the material- the timbers are heavy, they have distinctive grains, finishes, trees out of which each one came in particular- each tree being one distinctive being, one distinctive life, in a whole world full of living things, a forest of them literally. so the material stands out as given; it is also called out of the panalopy of beings that is balanced precariously up in the air- desperately balanced even. (I sense the desperation of trees nowadays, though perhaps this is imagination.) Every good timber has the character of a noble tragedy and a passing on. aphorism, and philosophy shades into poetry. a poetic kind of timber framing might have the same sort of character, the same sort of presence in the practice - fostering a sense of the given and its potentials- though it might, qua poetry, spend its evenings differently.
