a taster

Jane Austin's Pride & Prejudice

movement: past, possible, present

very short, adapted by Maura Hazelden

He came down. He is to take. You must visit him. He comes. The girls may go. You may send them. You must indeed go. He comes. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go. You must go. If you do not, he should not go. You should have gone. He left the room. Mr Bingley will dance. He would return. Mr Bingley returned and sat with him in his library. The party entered the assembly room. He danced. Mr Darcy danced only once. Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged to sit down. Mr Darcy had been standing. You are dancing. One of her sisters sitting down, turning round, he looked. You had better return. Mr Darcy walked off. Elizabeth remained. Mr Bingley had danced. They returned, she entered the room and danced with her twice. He danced as she was going down. He danced. He walked here, he walked there

He danced. He had danced. I would not dance. I promise you never to dance.

The visit was returned. She danced; two or three officers joined in dancing. Mr Darcy stood near, Elizabeth moving. Are you not dancing? I have not the least intention of dancing. Elizabeth turned away.

more about the work HERE
to buy the booklet look HERE

Text that was on the gallery wall in Ysgwydd

“I learned a strange and beautiful thing. Birds have hollow bones – their bones are not solid like mammals’ bones, like human bones, but are filled with air pockets, a bit like bubble-wrap only less regular. (This is why when you pick up a dead bird it feels so insubstantial in your hand, unlike, say a mouse). This is a deft evolutionary development – archaeopteryx, the earliest winged dinosaur, had feathers but solid bones – to make flying easier for them. At menopause women’s bones thin out and fill with air pockets – in acute osteoporosis, under a microscope they are almost indistinguishable from birds’ bones: at menopause women can learn to fly as free as a bird.”


Sara Maitland



“Flying is woman’s gesture–flying in language and making it fly . We have all learned the art of flying and its numerous techniques; for centuries we’ve been able to possess anything only by flying; we’ve lived in flight, stealing away, finding, when desired, narrow passageways, hidden crossovers. It’s no accident that voler has a double meaning, that it plays on each of them and thus throws off the agents of sense. It’s no accident: women take after birds and robbers just as robbers take after women and birds. They (illes) go by, fly the coop, take pleasure in jumbling the order of space, in disordering it, in changing around the furniture, dislocating things and values, breaking them up, emptying structures, and turning property upside down.”

Hélène Cixous

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Maitland, S 2009, p. 20 A Book of Silence. London: Granta Books.

The verb voler – to fly also to steal. Both meanings are played with here
Illes fusion of masculine pronoun ils, which refers back to birds and robbers, with the feminine pronoun elles, which refers to women
Cixous, H 1976, p. 887 The laugh of the Medusa. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 1 (4), 875-893.



 Ysgwydd

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sensing listening sounding : sensing listening moving : workshop information

a worksop linked to the Holy Hiatus Symposium 25th/26th September in Abertiefi/Cardigan arrnaged by Ruth Jones. A link to further information on symposium

workshop details:
Friday 24th September Abertiefi/Cardigan
3.45 - 6.45 then sharing space together 7.30 - 9.00.

the sharing space is open to others who either already have experience in moving:sounding as devotional, or who would like to bring their existing meditation/prayer practice into the space.

Booking essential. (more details to follow...)

Holy Hiatus was intially created when I was commissioned by Ruth Jones to make one of a series of commissioned artworks by various artists. I chose to collaborate with Lou Laurens. We created a six hour performance using repetition and stillness. This is now an annual ritual in our lives. 2010 will be the third performance.
Maura Hazelden

From Lou on the sounding workshop
‘The mystery of music concerns a set of powerfully affective structures that come from… who knows where? But if music is a gift, then the act of listening also becomes creative and potentially devotional.’[1]

I have evolved a practice based on deepening audience/performer awareness of the relationships between the singer, the song, the time and the space in which one sings.

Silence, listening practices and meditations, ritual, repetition and music, have all been used across many cultures and ages to generate ‘holy’, or spiritual, experience. In the workshop we will explore the singing body and the listening body; allowing the possibility of transformation; giving our breath, and our time, to this end. We will look at ways of listening that encourage the voice, or voices, to emerge: listening through sounding. All kinds of voices are welcome to participate in this workshop.

Maura and I have discussed our collaborative performance in terms of ‘reverence’. A reverence for what is. A reverence that is inclusive.

[1] Boon, M. 2008, The Wire, Nov. issue

From Maura on the moving workshop
Arnold Mindell suggests that we have suppressed our innate tendency to express ourselves in movement; his work with “therapy” clients often shifts from words to kinesthetic expression. “I wanted to see how dreams lived in the body”. The somatic experience is often ignored in prayer & contemplation. Yet as one considers even just the Christian church one can see movement entering into the spiritual/worship experience. The Shakers gained their name through the phrase “shaking Quakers”. Within the society of friends/Quakers there is talk of the physical sensation that precedes giving ministry, but the ministry is then verbal. I want to see how prayer is lived in the body.

In the second holy hiatus performance I set aside a space that I could use for an immediate expression of prayer – a move away from repetition and stillness. It is mainly this area that is to be explored in the workshop, but we will attend to repetition in the exercises. It is hard to label what exactly we are doing with words, Lou and I have some difficulties when discussing it! I tend to list: prayer/meditation/contemplation. At the end of a ballet lesson dancer & teacher perform a reverence (in French this refers to a curtsy or bow) it is a thank you, a moment of respect. And of course reverence also means: a feeling of profound awe and respect and often love; veneration; an act showing respect. It is devotional.

The first thing to attend to is listening. Listening to the world, listening to self, listening for the silence in which to move….or not. The workshop is aimed at people who have a curiosity to investigate the body/movement in prayer/contemplation/meditation. You may already use yoga or forms of dance, but no experience is necessary. The shared time is also open to those who are experienced in this form and wish to have the opportunity to share a space with others.

………….


Both groups will start with a warm up & become aware of our bodies then work through until 6.45. From 6.45 – 7.30 we will have food together; we will provide a soup that is gluten free & vegan. Please bring what else you feel you may need, a light meal is preferable! We will provide tea/coffee/herb teas/ water. Please wear loose comfortable clothing. A cushion and blanket may prove useful also.

...........

Lou Laurens holds an MA in Sonic Art. She trained as a singer, and has developed her vocal practice with leading teachers and performers, many working within the arena of post-dramatic theatre; she has also trained in Deep Listening techniques with Pauline Oliveros. Her practice includes solo and collaborative vocal performance, composition, and curation/facilitation. She teaches voice and leads community choirs. Her work explores relationships and encounters between individuals, communities, languages, and places.

Maura Hazelden had an early training in dance, particularly the rigours of ballet. After moving into the visual arts due to physical difficulties she spent 5 years “untraining” her body working with improvisational techniques. Working with non dancers, mixed levels of experience and performance artists she has built up a personal approach to preparing the body for movement that allows both a warm up and body awareness. Over the years movement has been both a public and a private act for Maura as she came to regard it as a creative tool, a form of therapy for body & mind and also as a devotional form. She has also trained in design and fine art working with drawing, the photovisual, installation and performance. Maura’s current area of interest is investigating how language might express the bodily experience.

initial rection to Holy Hiatus (untitled) II

The bare bones of a reaction to holy hiatus II

It seems more unknown even than the first time, because something became known but that just thickens the plot.

I roll out lining paper under the screen. To draw on? To write on? I tried to draw write what I felt, it didn’t look pretty but it was chest felt as I did it. Then others decided they would write and draw on it….wonderful. I felt inspired by their being moved to do so.

The audience was different. Some did come to participate in prayer or meditation

The sounds from last year being played surprised me – my breath, I heard it. A lot of the time I found I was listening carefully – especially when I was still.  The cctv  video of last year played and at times I turned towards the screen and saw that I was in synchrony.

I chose to use improvisation four times. My repetitive movements fell away and it was deep movement prayer that occurred. Quite astonishing, but thorough, no doubt about that.

The first was something I can only call a god prayer. I lay face down, spread, prostrate on the floor. Eventual slow curling uncurling, curved reaching movements emerged. It was a calling out; it was an acknowledgement. How do I put this into language? I feel it deep within: emotional but also an abstract thinking. Was it “arglwydd, dyma fi”?

Another prayer was for someone. At Quaker meeting I suppose we would call it holding them in the light. But it was also a want to be with them, to be close, but not as strong as the words “I want you”.

Then another about confusion hurt and wondering /seeking how to reach out again; were things so changed that my reaching out would be internal, an opening of the heart, a forgiveness all round?

This is not strictly a performance – it is real, I could only do this for 6 hours stripped away to being – I do note times where a surface of performace slides in, then out. The audience or possibility of audience means I have to do it. Even working with Lou, my collaborator was probably not enough to have made it happen. A public commitment.

When Lou began to sing with the recording of her last year’s voice I felt that the two of us were really starting to work together (but that implies a some sort of not quite really working together earlier). My hands had become very important as I moved; at one point I stood arms down slightly stretched out, palms forward – I looked up, Lou was doing the same.

The very end had us both sitting, Lou singing from her seat, this seemed unusual, she usually stands. My movements became much reduced yet fluid, the room was becoming darker. It was a perfectly unplanned end.

all the text for "a plant game for the Arnolfini, Bristol."

INTRODUCTION LINK here

± hairless ann of sprawling habitat, with round stems, cordate lvs; fls 5-38 mm, with deeply bifid white petals, no longer than the spreading, oval, usually hairly sepals; 3-8 red-violet stamens; 3 styles. 5 free sepals, 5 free bifid petals. Seeds round, 0.9-1.3 mm across, red-brown, with rounded warts on surface. Br Isles, Eur; vc in ar, wa everywhere. Fl 1-12. One of the world’s most successful weeds.

Sprawling stems, branched and leafy, the upper leaves stalkless. 2 -14 in. The upper leaves slightly more narrow and lance shaped and the lower ones larger and rounder. The leaves come off the stalk in opposite pairs. Flowers all years, five tiny white petals deeply notched to appear as 10 points. The stem is rounded with a single line of hairs. These hairs aid the collection of water into the plant, which explains its lush look. A potent weed of garden & arable land.

Culpeper: It is so well known to most people, that I shall not give a description of it.It is a fine soft pleasing herb under the dominium of the moon.The juice or distilled water, is of much use for all heat and redness in the eyes, to drop some thereof into them; and is of good effect to ease pains from the heat and sharpness of the blood in piles, and generally all pains in the body that arise from heat.It is good for cage birds, and makes a god dish like spinach, if carefully cooked.A more modern recommendation is for pesto.
One of the most troublesome weeds in gardens and on farms. Nevertheless it is of considerable economic and biological interest, representing a high stage of evolution. Provides food for small birds nearly all year round. Retains a considerable amount of water.

I’d try the pesto or add to skin cooling ointment

Green, lush damp, prolific.
Pamplina, Mouron des oiseaux, morgeline, Daržinė žliūgė, RăcovinăVogelmiere, Pihatähtimö, vesiheinä, Våtarv, gwlyddyn y dom, Craches, Maruns, Winterweed

Keeping upper arms against body throughout bring hands together in front of body, cupping each other, forearms horizontal. Circle your hands out one to each side, rotating in elbow until thumb and index fingers meet in front of your chest palms out. Take them back out and round to cup position. Repeat as you will, trying to alternate the cupping (i.e. left on top of right, right on top of left…)

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Ann weed with weak erect stems to 40cm; lvs ± cottony, pinnatifid, with short, oval-oblong, blunt lobes, upper lvs clasping, lower salked. Fl-heads 4mm across, ± stalkless, in dense clusters at first later stalked; short outer bracs black tipped, inner narrow, 8-10mm; ray florets usually abs; achenes hairy. Br Isles, Eur; a on ar, wa. Fl 1-12

A more or less upright plant with weak stems and irregular branches. The bright green, widely spaced leaves are divided into toothed lobes. Flowers all year with compact little flower heads that look like tiny yellow tipped shaving brushes. Fluffy parachute seeds. The name derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning ground glutten.

Unpopular with gardeners but prized for its medicinal properties in earlier times. It was used as a poulticing herb in Anglo-Saxon times. Said to be a cure for staggers in horses.Culpeper: This herb is under Venus and is as gallant and universal a medicine for all diseases coming of heat. It is very safe and friendly to the body of man, yet causes vomiting if the stomach be weak. The juice of the herb, or as Dioscorides saith, the leaves and flowers, with some frankincense in powder used in wounds of the body, nerves, or sinews, help to heal them.
I’d feed it to my rabbit, if I had a rabbit

Crinkly but neat

Almindelig Brandbæger, Gewöhnliches Greiskraut, Gemeines Kreuzkraut, Birdseed, Cineraria, Hierba cana comun, Hierba carmin, Hierba de las quemaduras, Pan de pajaros, Suzon, Xenixel, Séneçon commun, Herbe aux coitrons, Séneçon vulgaire, 개쑥갓, Calderugia, Erba calderina, Senecio comune, Verzellina, • ,סביון (צמח) Klein kruiskruid, ノボロギク（野襤褸菊), Starzec zwyczajny, Cardo-misto, Tasneirinha, Cruciuliţă, navadni grint, Korsört, Kanarya otu, creulys

Bend arms at elbow, lifting, (like children doing animal paws) limp wrists. Leaving thumb static curl fingers up and open out repeatedly (keeping palms facing down), a wave like motion also letting wrist articulate in a movement that occurs naturally. 5 curls and pause. Repeat as you wish.

~~~

Hairless ann, smaller version of helioscopia (hairless ann 10-30 cm tall; single erect stems; lvs 1.5-3.0 cm, obovate, v blunt, tapered to base, toothed above. Umbel five-rayed, with 5 large obovate toothed, yellow-green bracts; 4 infl-glands, oval untoothed, green; fr smooth.) but with all leaves stalked, untoothed, green, oval, blunt;bracts shorter, narrower than in helio., green; 4 glands of infl crescent-shaped with long horns. Umbel usually three rayed, main bracts in a whorl of 3, oval, pointed, untoothed; upper bracts triangular, pointed. Br isles, Eur; vcon ar, wa Fl 4-11

A hairless plant, branched above. The bracts immediately below the flowers are separate and similar to the short stalked, smooth edged leaves. The flowers of this family are most unusual, they lack petals and sepals. Each cup-like structure contains a female flower and one-or sometimes several-very small male flowers. They are flanked by four or five glands which are often horned. A milky latex sap

The milky latex sap is toxic, and used as a therapeutic agent for the removal of warts and sunspots on the skin. If eaten by cattle or horses it can make them ill, or even kill them. In Africa plants of the same family have been used to provide poison for the tips of arrows. If the seeds are crushed, they yield an oily juice than can act as a strong purgative. But Culpeper warned that the juice was “very offensive to the stomach and bowels by reason of its sharp corrosive quality, and therefore ought to be used with caution”. Recent work also suggests that it may also be effective in treating superficial basal cell carcinomas.

I’d just look at it

Vivid yellow green prettiness

Garten-Wolfsmilch, Albahaca venenosa, Lechetrezna redonda, Mariquita, Pichona, ésule ronde, Euphorbe des vignes, Calenzola piccola, Tuinwolfsmelk, Ésula-redonda, vrtni mleček, Rävmjölks-Törel, Küçük sütleğen, llaethlys bach.

Open palm of left hand in front of body (as if holding something to show) with right hand imagine you are holding a needle between thumb & index finger. Now make the action of sewing one stitch into each finger tip starting with little finger ending on thumb, it is a fairly long thread that you image. Repeat on other side. Continue for as long as you wish.

~~~

Ann, 10-40 cm high, often over-wintering, with a strong smell; leaves palmate to base, sparsely hairy, shining bright green, the lfts pinnately-cut; stem and leaves often reddish-flushed. Petals 9-12 mm with stalk, blade 4-6 mm, pink (or white), unnotched; anthes orange or purple; frs netted. Br Isles, Eur, vc in wds, hbs, rocks, shingle. Fl 4-9
Stems branch from the base, some upright and some sprawling; they can have a reddish tinge.

The fern like leaves have three to five lobes, blushing from green to red as they mature. They come out from the stem on stalks opposite each other at intervals. The small bright pink flower has five rounded petals without notches, seed heads form a spike. The leaves if crushed give a strong scent

In the Middle Ages the widespread belief in the “doctrine of signatures” the fiery red of the stems and leaves in autumn led to the belief that it should be used in the treatment of blood disorders and in particular the leaves were used to staunch the flow of blood. It is so rich in tannins which are astringent that this traditional for bleeding is practical & useful. Tannins: compounds that cause proteins in mucous membranes and other linings of the human body exposed directly to the tea to cross-link to prevent leakage or infection. Freshly picked leaves have an odour resembling burning tires when crushed, and if they are rubbed on the body the smell is said to repel mosquitoes.
Culpeper: Herb Robert is under Venus

I’d use it to stop bleeding in a cut.

A delicate dance of leaf & petal

Ruprechtskraut, Hierba de San Roberto, Groot robertskruid, Bodziszek cuchnący, Герань Роберта, Haisukurjenpolvi, Stinknäva, Робертова герань, y goescochStanding with arms relaxed at sides lift left hand as if to cup cheek with fingers a little splayed, tilting head to left at same time, but stop short leaving a space between hand and cheek, pause, return arm to side. Repeat on right side. Continue in this manner as long as you wish.

~~~

Comprises some hundreds of closely similat ‘microspecies’, to complex to separate here. In general, a per herb with tap root and basal rosette of lanceolate obovate, sparsely hairy, ±sharply lobed and –toothed lvs; fl-heads 2-6cm across, solitary on lfless, hollow, unbranched stems, several per plant; milky latex abundant, florets bright yellow; no scales among florets; involucre-bracts in 2 erect inner rows, and on outer row of shorter ones that may be adpressed to head, or spreading, or arched back. Achenes ribbed, beaked, with white pappis of simple hairs. Br Isles, Eur; va in mds, gslds, rds, wa, dunes, mt rocks Fl 3-10

Long leaves deeply divided into triangular, often toothed lobes and form a flattish rosette at the base of the plant. Several long-stalked flower-heads may grow upright from the rosette. The flower-heads contain up to 200 individual yellow florets, which close up at night or in dull weather (or if picked and put in a vase). The seed heads create a distinctive globe. Has a milky latex sap. One of the most common weeds in Britain and a constant source of annoyance to gardeners but a great source of nectar in early spring.

All parts of the plant are suitable for use internally & externally. The fresh juice of the plant is applied externally to fight bacteria and help heal wounds. The plant has an antibacterial action, inhibiting the growth of Staphococcus aureus, pneumococci, meningococci, Bacillus dysenteriae, B. typhi, C. diphtheriae, proteus. The leaves are high in vitamins A & C, can be eaten in salad, blanching makes them less bitter. The flower can be used to make wine and the roots to make a coffee substitute. Used as a tonic and blood purifier, for constipation, inflammatory skin conditions, joint pain, eczema and liver dysfunction. When placed in a paper bag with unripe fruit, the flowers and leaves release ethylene gas ripening the fruit quickly. A liquid plant food is made from the root and leaves. A dark red dye from the root. A cosmetic skin lotion made from the appendages at the base of the leaf blades distilled in water…………I’d give it to my rabbit if I had a rabbit

Sunshine and insects buzzing

Maslačak, Mælkebøtte, Löwenzahn, Sonnenwirbel, Märzblume, Eierblume, Dotterblume, Butterblume, Pfaffenblatt, Pfaffenröhrlein, Mönchskopf, Saurüssel, Brunsblum, Kuhblume, Hundeblume, Pissenlit, タンポポ属, Løvetann, Одуванчик, 蒲公英屬, Swine's Snout

Stand with ams to side palms facing to the back. Raise both arms fairly stiffly to sides to about 45° keeping palm facing back wards, fairly swiftly 3 times then pause and repeat. Continue as you wish

~~~

Variable ann or bi herb with erect main stem, 3-40 cm, hairy or not; rosette of pinnately-lobed to undivided lvs; clasping stem-lvs with basal pointed auricles. Fls in erect racemes; fls white, 2.5 mm across; frs erect, cordate, narrowed to base, notched above, flat, 6-9 mm long, on long stalks. Br Isles, W Eur; va weed of wa, rds, ar. Fl ± 1-12.

Stems can be branched or unbranched. Dull green leaves vary from slightly to deeply lobed; the lower leaves form a rosette, while upper leaves clasp to the stem. Small white flowers cluster at tip of stem, the 4 petals are up to twice as long as sepals. The fruit forms a distinctive notched triangle, eventually forming an alternate pattern up the long flowering stem. Seed buried in soil can remain viable for 35 years or longer.A successful weed growing throughout Europe even as far north as Greenland. It is self pollinated and, because of this, distinctive variations tend to establish themselves in particular localities. The odour of the plant is peculiar and rather unpleasant, though more cress-like than pungent

It has an aromatic and biting taste, but is less acrid than most of the Cruciferae, and was formerly used as a pot-herb. It causes taint of milk when freely eaten by dairy cattle. An important herbs to stop bleeding an effect due to the tyramine and other amines; including heavy menstrual bleeding, nosebleeds, and as a post-partum herb. It contains a protein that acts in the same way in the body as the hormone oxytocin, constricting the smooth muscles that support and surround blood vessels, especially those in the uterus. Culpeper says it helps bleeding from wounds - inward or outward - and: “if bound to the wrists, or the soles of the feet, it helps the jaundice. The herb made into poultices, helps inflammation and St. Anthony's fire. The juice dropped into ears, heals the pains, noise and matterings thereof. A good ointment may be made of it for all wounds, especially wounds in the head.'

I haven’t used it…yet

Twiggy pretty, decorative, distinctive

Gewöhnliches Hirtentäschel, Taschenkraut, Schneiderbeutel, Schinkenkraut, Säcklichrut, Löffeli, Herzkraut, Bauernsenf, Bolsa de Pastor, Cucliyo, Devanaera, Jaramago Blanco, Jarilla, Pajito Blanco, Pata de Gallo, Pimpájaros, Zurrón de Pastor, Surron de pastor, Calzoncitos, Pan y queso, Paniquesillo, Sarronets, Bourse à Pasteur, Molette à Berger, Capselle, Bourse de Capucin, Bourse de Juda, Moutarde de Mithriade, Bourse à Berger, An Sporan, Borsapastore Comune, Borsacchina, 냉이, 荠菜, ナズナ（薺), Tasznik Pospolity, Пастушья сумка обыкновенная, Сумочник пастуший, Lomme, Çobançantası, Грицики звичайні, Herderstasje, navadni plešec, Clappedepouch & many many more


With arms to side lift elbows with arm bent so forearm horizontal and hands, splayed, are in front of face, fingers tips nearly touching palms outward facing. Swivel wrist to make palms face your face, do this fast 5 times pause (palms will be facing face) repeat (palms finish facing out). Repeat as you will

~~~

A low per herb usually less than 20 cm with runners and erect fl-shoots; 3-12 mm across; 5 free sepals, 5 free bifid petals; petals white, bifid, equal to or slightly longer than sepals; upper bracts and sepals hairy, with narrow chaffy edges. Stasmens usually 10; capsule 9-12 mm long, curved. Br Isles, Eur; vc in gsld, beaches, dunes, rds, wa, mds etc.(Grows much taller in wet muds)

A low, hairy stemmed plant, the non flowering stems are sprawling (up to 20cm across) and the flowering stems more upright. The leaves are fairly rounded lance shape. They come off in pair on opposite sides of the stem and are very hairy. Tiny flowers, five white petals with sepals of same length

Culpeper: The moon owns this herb.The juice taken in wine, or the decoction drunk, cures the jaundice, though of long continuance, to drink thereof morning and evening, and abstain from other drink two or three hours after.It stayeth fluxes of blood at the mouth or nose, and inward bleeding also; for it is a singular would herb for wounds both inward and outward.There is a syrup made of the juice and sugar, by the apothecaries of Italy, which is highly esteemed, and given to those that have a cough, and in phthisic, and for ruptures or burstings. The distilled water of the plant is applicable for the diseases aforesaid, and to wash outward wounds and sores, and apply tents of cloths wet therein.

A favourite weed of mine, I would add to a cooling skin ointment…or just play with the leaves.

Softest creature

Hierba del cuerno, Oreja de raton, Gewöhliches Hornkraut, Gemeines Hornkraut, Ceraiste commun, Ceraiste gazonnant, Mouron d'alouette, Cencio molle, Cerastio cespitoso, Peverina cespitosa, Peverina minore, Gewoone Hoornbloem, navadna smiljka, Höns-Arv, clust-y-llygoden gulddail.

Lift your left hand to your mouth run your ring finger back and forth, very very lightly on your lower lip. Repeat with right side. Continue as you see fit.

MAP AND IMAGES HERE

contact fflofflach@yahoo.co.uk for further details, the booklet is £6.00 including 2nd postage to UK.

a ramble

Holy hiatus ramble

A ramble through Holy Hiatus/Liminal

thoughts from the symposium and the performances

The linear splits and changes

Suspending every day norms including status changes the encounter with the other (any lasting effect?) An I/thou culture; such a shame that the use of thou has gone in English and it is now seen as old fashioned and formal whereas it is The Informal and the method of address to peers children and animals….and god. Therefore if one sees that of god in everyone then everyone needs to be addressed as thou. And if one believes all are equal under god, again one needs to address all in the informal/intimate – and all titles thus vanish. In welsh as in French there is still the thou form. I personally would address all as thou and/or with their given names.

Equality can’t exist in hierarchies. Categorisation is a useful construct, it enables us to understand what we are talking about and maybe suggests peoples’ roles, but there is no need to stack these categories up and create a hierarchy. The cleaner is as vital as the managing director. The baby sitter that comes to look after the children of the highly paid therapist’s children should be paid more – the low wage allows the other the opportunity to earn more….Politics and “religion”.

How can a liminal state a ritual break down this, meld it into something more; how can the experience transform and allow a change? Some ritual highlights difference, some gives brief respite. There are lords of misrule rituals still occurring through Europe and crazy anarchic folk traditions that do resist being taken over by health and safety and “authority” and long may they dangerously live! But some rituals perpetuate hierarchy.

How could you ever go back to lord and serf in the heart after facing each as an equal? You can return to your work – the lord serving the serf as the serf serves the lord – with full appreciation of each others contribution/role. possibility ambiguity separation cessation liberation betwixt and between twilight anti structure playfulness

Theatre: some theatre is still sacred. A visit to the theatre is a wonderful knowing suspension of belief, and entry into a fiction that becomes real. Make a safe comfortable space to get unsafe in.
Gilding the lily: Consider the lily of the fields

Experience/religious experience/the ecstaticMiester Ekhart wrote of the nothingness of god; also he and Buddhists talk of non-attachment; there is a sense in which one should not be striving for something, even the “perfect” meditation or prayer, yet we are told “seek and ye shall find”. How to find the no-thing… Is the religious experience (exstatic/vertical) really useful? Once experienced is there a striving to re-enter this state thereby ignoring the now, the mundane, the being here, being present. Movement used to reach an ecstatic state such as in groups who pray with calling out waving of hands clapping swaying. How does this compare to the whirling of the dervish? Is that less group euphoria? How about a more individual intuitive approach to movement and prayer? Is the nightclub (even without the alcohol and drugs) a group, sound enhanced, ritual getting out of it space (sound, loud sound annihilates inhibitions as much as alcohol; many people seem scared of silence/quietness). Should we get out of it? I know some people’s thinking on meditation is that it is an escape, it is a chill out. But meditation is surely about being in the now with whatever, being fully aware of pain, of happiness, anger, grief – all feeling and sensation but allowing it to pass (or accepting it sticking around). The full experience, but without attachment.

Get into it, not out of it. More horizontal than vertical in experience, more ordinary than extra ordinary. Make washing up the prayer…..Immigrants, incomers, loss of identity – or sometimes the immigrant/incomer sticks rigidly to Their Culture, maybe becoming very conservative and unchanging compared to those “back home”. The safety, the protectiveness of sticking with tradition…but not the confidence to let it grow and evolve as it would do in a “safe “place. Is that what has happened to culture in the south of Wales, where the language and way of life is do threatened – much less so in the north where there is the feisty and contemporary also. It is my experience that even those people who speak the language fluently and take part in the culture, but come from an English family can still be despised and not wanted, as they are still not “ethnically” Welsh.

Was not my work welsh culture, of cymru, and if it wasn't what was it? Is it then actually subversive, or as colonisers can we by definition never be subversive???? Can I just say it is welsh but also have to accept that others would deny that? Would that get me anywhere satisfactory?

Recognition of alienation
Bring it back to mortality
I would just like to feel at home.
I have had it with being the other, being singled out for the sideline, being seen as a reactionary/trouble maker just because I sometimes see things differently; have different opinions to the group. I wouldn’t want to be a member of a group that was all cosy and agreeing. There’d never be any growth and prejudice and “fear” of The Other would merely be fostered. But of course I am not going to mute my views and I have never learnt to keep my mouth shut even though I have known since childhood that it wouldn’t lead to security in a group…. I so much want to hear from The Other.

Hurt hurt pain. Grief and anger tumble in a furious tail chasing whirl. Tears tears impossible to talk, the only way to get words out is to feel the anger. A public place – thankful for slight building site remains and huddle round a corner, by the fire escape door.

Loss of a culture, not fitting, not belonging, anger at miss readings. Economics, money. Where does the individual stand? What say do they have if they have no economic clout? I go through therapy I do my positive thinking then horror of horrors I find I am restrained from the outside, for real. What do I do now? How do I feel? Betrayed by the new age thought police. Oh the terrible terrible gap between rich and poor.

Culture: one of my great griefs, sense of loss that was happening on Saturday, was the loss of my culture. I think it is an issue at the moment as I am still dealing with the loss of the Place that represented it to me most, that had still been available to me until it was disappeared by people with money that wanted some hideous tidy idyll and could have it because they had money and could afford the place and the lawyers. So the anger isn't just at loss but injustice. Also how money does win over all and it stinks - let them try and eat money, but they can still buy food they don’t yet need to eat money. Of course also bound up with childhood and the close relationship with my grandparents and the land that I lost when I moved to west Wales aged 9....where I then wasn't wanted...and sometimes still feel I don't belong. Loss of my culture means I don't feel much in common sometimes with my peers, not that I think I always should and I love to hear and feel other experiences of the world. I guess I also get bugged by mistaken identity. Also loss of a rural culture means we are all losing touch with the land, though many do rediscover it. But sometimes new fangled how to look after the woods etc misses something deep and ordinary. And sometimes what annoys is that there isn't only one way to lay a hedge. Trivial I know, but perhaps loss of cultural diversity is like loss of diversity in flora and fauna - just not as bad. And people forget that dinner comes originally with its feathers/fur ON.

Homogenous boring safe is what seems to be happening – even with all the excitement & fun….Is there a tendency to feelings of alienation? P.A.N mentioned a common (as in often, not for all) feeling of not belonging. When I was young, before I moved here, I didn't belong with my peers and spent a lot of time alone and knew it and didn't mind, was very philosophical about it...or more had the feeling of being there. Though I am just reading an article that says as children we don't have self reflection - phooey I say, or maybe some of us just had too much quiet time on our hands so came to it earlier.

oh and preservation does indeed fix things so very much

um yes - the functioning hedge is the thing that matters. I think my dad finds it awkward seeing hedges that belong in another part of Britain - perhaps the styles grew from the type of trees and stock in them, who knows..... Some hedgers don't believe in trees being left in them.... trees is for woods. No, at the symposium it wasn't a romantic or real look at rural past, can't put finger on it. Seen as history/gone/other; too much symbolised? RS Thomas and Ted Hughes put some things into poetry that speak of the hard rural past without too much fuss, romanticism or extreme “this was woeful...”. Perhaps there was too much categorising going on, and reading symbols into the actual. And of course not seeing the dinner for the feathers, at least I could laugh by then.

All bull fighting can disappear without a trace as far as I'm concerned - as with fox hunting why should an animal suffer for our "liminal" or "raw" experience. Tradition, pride, experience, none of it counts against cruelty. Even at the risk of homogenous culture. We are surely thinking creatures with a sense of ethics as well as being instinctual. I know that I can think no other way. The people that go in with the bull as they did in the Cretan times are a different matter - body and body. More a celebration of both.

Send people out to kill their own food, after training, if they want a bit of death. Sit with people dying who have no-one else to sit with them.

Sudden realisation: I find it annoying when writers/philosophers/anthropologists etc use WE, sometimes I don't feel part of that particular we. Reading, struggling to read, as I kept getting cross, The Spell of the Sensuous (because it seems a popular texts with artists working in some areas that I do) I realised he was talking of a we that was NOT my experience - much prefer Coming to Our Senses.....

Prayer comes up in relation to my performance with L; she notes a quotation from me in a book…. The sense of gladness I have about prayer, which I feel keeps the world turning; metaphorically, spiritually, (actually?) for people. A prayer for us all. But not sure if I've expressed it right. I once told a catholic father, at a Cistercian monastery that I was glad there were people praying, monks and nuns of all religions; he was surprised and said many Catholics don’t think like that, they believe monks and nuns should be out there Doing Stuff. During a reiki session, I was told that I was previously a nun (the day after a strange hallucination [internal vision, touch and smell] whilst distraught of wearing a damp woollen habit, which was unknown to the reiki healer); that my problem with this life was how to serve god in a “secular” setting. I only believe in this one precious life, but it made sense.

Ritual: ritual can be everyday. Ritual can be meaningless, merely habit. But even meaningless ritual can suddenly give insight, inspiration. Ritual can become superstition, can be used to control, can be mindless, can be political and can uphold rigid, judgemental ways of being. When does ritual cross the line to obsessive compulsive behaviour? When in the depths of depression an attempt at /sense of ritual, that is being methodical and ordered about getting up making tea eating breakfast…. can hold me together, and lead to me recovering myself enough to move forth. Ritual can give meaning to daily life, draw attention to the ordinary and essential, can bring mindfulness. Perhaps one day it becomes all ritual thereby flipping to no ritual all mindfulness. “Do everything as if for god*”. As if…such a relief that I am not always doing everything for god, because I don’t, can’t yet, and anyway is there a god to do it for? But I can do it “as if”….here the ritual comes in handy! And one day I may find that I am all mindfulness: doing everything for god….. but mostly probably existing in the "as if" state with occasional breaks through thresholds....

Washing up is the prayer, the meditation; not the thing to escape from with prayer/meditation

* my definition of god is actually undefined and still under investigation, it maybe that I discover absolutely no god, or the absolute nothingness of god.