Notes To Thinking/Dreaming Self and The Work I Made
The Burren National Park, County Clare, Ireland
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE BURREN?
It is visually stunning.
The light holds shifting changing mystery
It's not the changes of wind or weather.
It's the amount of water contained in the air.
A constant swirling mist of air carrying so much water
The way the light interacts with the water.
The relationship between my body and this water is profound.
Here I have to drink lots more water than I normally do.
An adjustment, because it's so very different from the dry air of Melbourne.
It is as if I have to increase the water content of my body
to be balanced and full here in the Burren.
The rivers that flow out of the Burren into the sea
are constantly full and rushing powerfully.
WHAT ABOUT THE LAYERS?
Today up there walking among the unbelievable rocks
that make up the ever changing landscape
layered stripes of the limestone karst,
I paused in my walking to look about
and see if I could get a sense of what I am searching for.
That trigger for ancestral memory.
It is important because I seek an understanding, a perception,
about the possibility of other layers in life that affect the way we live.
The energy of other living.
And the energy of the land of other living.
Layers of ancestral memory the energy of others atmospheric energy
other organisms and life forms other ways of thinking that are different
other …
Am I creating a link between ourselves and difference?
A bridge between the known and the unknown?
The tangible and the intangible?
More than anything it is this last.
It is about opening the possibility of perceiving with other than our own set of
accumulated ideas and belief systems.
Of allowing ourselves to think outside the box of religious, political, social and environmental systems
we are exposed to through family of origin, schooling, social, political and religious mores.
Of being open to considering other possibilities, engaging with the unknown.
To know our ancestral land is to understand her rhythms, her seasons, geology, flora and fauna, topography, her moods and songs of longing, calling her beloved human spirits back,
back to be nourished by that place, by the minerals and microscopic life forms
that enhance life and are particular to place
And to the ancestral relationship to the place.
Once we have developed this relationship, this love affair, with our ancestral lands,
we will want to protect it, nurture it, defend it from damage.
Ferociously.
We will become fierce activists.
THE DIAMOND OF MYSELF
The diamond of myself has emerged here in Ireland
The part that has been honed by years of experience
Crystalized through hard work
Shaped by great tumult
Formed by unexpected joys
Forged by hard won wisdom
Strong, confident, wise, funny
Sparkling in simpatico with that wonderful Irish way of twinkling.
Energy Tracks In Limestone Karst
PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH?
I don't know if my particular approach to research is phenomenology; placing myself in locations and in situations where I might experience ancestral memory. Sometimes memory seems an inadequate word. Why?
Because on those occasions when I have felt/experienced/thought something that may be called ancestral memory there is a flush of something more than memory. It is as if a portal into another world within me has been opened. It is fleeting, though I suspect practice would strengthen it. It is very alive when I am making work.
I am exploring another layer of my existence. Of our human existence. And our human relationship with the planet.