i spent a third of my life living in Glastonbury. it was an easy place for an outsider, since only the outsiders were the real insiders. i had begun to study certain forms of divination long before i moved to Glastonbury, but it was there that i actually practised as a divination counsellor.
my criteria for being a useful divination counsellor is that one should have a neutral approach, clarity of vision, considerable life experience, an enthusiasm for patterns and cycles, and no ulterior motive. ulterior motives include doing readings for gain - in my book. of course i understand that there are many who don't share this view, and why should they? but once you combine money and service, you have to be pretty sure that the person you're serving is not yourself.
many of those who came for readings berated me for not charging, which they interpreted as failing to value myself, though i suspect what irked them was that they felt beholden. their discomfort with that was, of course, part of their 'process' - how easy it is to spot another's 'process', and how hard it is to perceive ones own! they had their own ideas about my 'process' - but as far as i was concerned, not charging meant that i had nothing invested in a reading other than the satisfaction of making connections, however tangential, and the privilege of accompanying others as they struggled - or joyfully played - with the unfolding puzzle of themselves.
so: does divination 'work'. well, yes - incontrovertibly. forty-one years of observation have convinced me, anyway. it works because it is essentially a process of amplification of information which lies beyond the grasp of normal consciousness. one can do the same thing with almost any communicative medium - painting is an example - but the metaphorical language of the Tarot, the I Ching and other conventional forms of divination lends itself particularly to the way the imaginative mind forms creative associations. of course, output depends on input: the trick to any good reading is asking questions: a reading is all about finding ones way to the right questions.
divining the future, however, is a misunderstanding: what divination does is to locate the viewer at a vantage point from which he or she can more comprehensively view the present. since time is almost anything but linear, from this vantage point one can perceive the divergent and uncollapsed potential of the present - we call this the future. however, in order to activate the future, we have to engage with its uncollapsed state in the here and now. our very act of perceiving is an act of engaging, which means that perceiving the future and creating it are one and the same, when done with intent; hence the need for a responsible (and respectful) attitude, when practising divination.
when living in Glastonbury i knew of many readers who had only minimal experience with their medium, and little grasp of its interactive and potentially subversive nature. by using divination to solve mundane problems, they were handling the subtle divinatory tools as if they were puzzle books with solutions at the back. mostly with good intentions but with poor judgement, they tended to arrive at restrictive, banal, or emotionally loaded interpretations. it was clear to me that these practitioners weren't finders, they were seekers. that is - they were essentially uncreative, with an unhealthy belief in answers. i can't possibly say they did more harm than good, because i don't know. there are many ways of getting to the same place, and certainly the path shapes itself to the traveller. seekers tend to keep to signposted ways; finders, on the other hand, are always blundering about - but probably both arrive at the centre of the maze. the difference between them is that, at that point, the finder keeps going...
the way divination works, i think, is also the way dowsing works. we know so much more than we realise. the knowing isn't out there: it's in us, or rather, we're in it. yet, rather like hearing a message tapped out on radiator pipes, we have to work out the code - we need to learn a new language. doing this requires a musician's ear, an artist's inner eye and a mathematician's feeling for 'elegant' solutions. it's all about patterns, harmonies, incongruities (and therefore jokes) and learning to see connections which lie beyond the reach of the conscious mind. it's like doing a jigsaw with blank pieces: the game is whatever you say it is, and the picture is whatever you see. this is deeply unsatisfying to anyone who wants an authorised version of reality, but it's very pleasurable to the creative mind.
i don't believe it's the divination practitioner's place to impose a reality-picture on others; the purpose of a reading is to awaken the querent's own visionary understanding. but just as there are practitioners who want to feel powerful by hijacking their client's reality, equally there are some clients who only want to be led: who set the practitioner up as some kind of an authority figure.
there are ways to handle this, but it can be risky: if you're holding a hand out to a drowning person, you don't let go and leave them to flounder if they want you to do all the swimming for them. my own way is to be rather subversive and anarchic - play the Fool, in other words. this allows both of us to play (the highest creative state) and the querent to become powerful in their own right, rather than dependent on me. but, as with all things Foolish, the risk is that you tumble back into the void with nothing resolved. not that that is necessarily an undesirable outcome: sometimes things need to be un-resolved, before they can get resolved again, in a different way.
i no longer do divinatory readings for anyone but myself. even those i do for myself are few and far between: i have learned to be more comfortable with a narrower perspective, which imposes fewer demands. in that respect i have almost - but not quite - attained the blessed state expressed on the t-shirt of a friend of mine, which depicts a cabbage and underneath, the words: A CABBAGE WAITS.
those who've been through the mill one too many times will smile at that. the rest won't understand.
Friday, 13 November 2015
Monday, 1 June 2015
THE NAKED PILGRIM
By one of those strange coincidences which haunt pilgrimage, I happened to watch this DVD on 25th July. Only on getting to the last episode did I learn that 25th July is the Feast Day of Santiago.
This is a candid and moving exploration into the nature of pilgrimage, and Brian Sewell's emotional integrity does full service to the subject. It isn't an easy thing to do: going on pilgrimage. Whether one is a religious believer or not, the implacable nature of any pilgrimage is that it turns one inside out. Springs bubble up, lids won't remain shut. Whatever one imagines one is undertaking is almost certainly not what's going to happen. What does happen is whatever is needed to effect a transformation. Setting out always counts as assent, though reaching the place of pilgrimage is often not the end of the journey: change needs time afterwards, to ripen.
It seemed to me that despite setting out on what he'd hoped would be a bit of a jaunt, Brian Sewell was fully aware that this pilgrimage was more than that. Yet though emotionally buffeted, he was able to face his sense of being 'nothing' (as he described it) without the comfort of self-delusion. Personally shorn of belief, he started out with the observer's protective carapace, yet became drawn towards the honesty of other pilgrims on the Way, despite their religious fervour. He describes his discomfort at feeling tearful, but dissolving and resolving are the necessary ebb and flowtide of the process; the gift here is that he neither hides nor dramatises his feelings.
It soon becomes clear that though interesting, the architecture is simply not the point. Despite Brian's erudition his heart isn't in it, and the buildings become mere backdrops to the real journey. The most tranquil stage is the last, where he completes his journey to Compostela on a gentle mare and can finally adopt the pace most appropriate to pilgrimage.
If I have any criticism at all, it is that sometimes the narrative seems sketchy and the scenes jumpily unconnected. I wonder how much had to be edited out so as to fit the broadcasting time? Perhaps fewer shots of Brian driving, and more of him discussing his experiences with fellow pilgrims would have added depth. I was also astonished that he could stand in Chartres Cathedral and not once look down at the labyrinth! Although this does seem a fitting metaphor for a pilgrimage which was going on under his nose, unremarked.
The final scene, in which he burns the clothes he's travelled in and wades naked into the sea, moved me and has since left me tugged around by the undertow of this journey. Not for the first time I have been wondering about pilgrimages: why we need to make them, and even whether we can go on pilgrimage without leaving our home? Certainly there is no requirement for religious belief, yet somehow every need for faith of a different kind: faith in meaning.
'The Naked Pilgrim' is so much more than a tour of cathedrals, or a look at why bits of dead people should be revered and mounted in kitsch boxes. Like the best music, not everything is articulated: there are silent spaces, and the inexpressible is allowed to linger, unworded.
I'd love to spend an evening with Brian Sewell talking about all the roads we take, and why we take them; I'd even buy the wine.
This is a candid and moving exploration into the nature of pilgrimage, and Brian Sewell's emotional integrity does full service to the subject. It isn't an easy thing to do: going on pilgrimage. Whether one is a religious believer or not, the implacable nature of any pilgrimage is that it turns one inside out. Springs bubble up, lids won't remain shut. Whatever one imagines one is undertaking is almost certainly not what's going to happen. What does happen is whatever is needed to effect a transformation. Setting out always counts as assent, though reaching the place of pilgrimage is often not the end of the journey: change needs time afterwards, to ripen.
It seemed to me that despite setting out on what he'd hoped would be a bit of a jaunt, Brian Sewell was fully aware that this pilgrimage was more than that. Yet though emotionally buffeted, he was able to face his sense of being 'nothing' (as he described it) without the comfort of self-delusion. Personally shorn of belief, he started out with the observer's protective carapace, yet became drawn towards the honesty of other pilgrims on the Way, despite their religious fervour. He describes his discomfort at feeling tearful, but dissolving and resolving are the necessary ebb and flowtide of the process; the gift here is that he neither hides nor dramatises his feelings.
It soon becomes clear that though interesting, the architecture is simply not the point. Despite Brian's erudition his heart isn't in it, and the buildings become mere backdrops to the real journey. The most tranquil stage is the last, where he completes his journey to Compostela on a gentle mare and can finally adopt the pace most appropriate to pilgrimage.
If I have any criticism at all, it is that sometimes the narrative seems sketchy and the scenes jumpily unconnected. I wonder how much had to be edited out so as to fit the broadcasting time? Perhaps fewer shots of Brian driving, and more of him discussing his experiences with fellow pilgrims would have added depth. I was also astonished that he could stand in Chartres Cathedral and not once look down at the labyrinth! Although this does seem a fitting metaphor for a pilgrimage which was going on under his nose, unremarked.
The final scene, in which he burns the clothes he's travelled in and wades naked into the sea, moved me and has since left me tugged around by the undertow of this journey. Not for the first time I have been wondering about pilgrimages: why we need to make them, and even whether we can go on pilgrimage without leaving our home? Certainly there is no requirement for religious belief, yet somehow every need for faith of a different kind: faith in meaning.
'The Naked Pilgrim' is so much more than a tour of cathedrals, or a look at why bits of dead people should be revered and mounted in kitsch boxes. Like the best music, not everything is articulated: there are silent spaces, and the inexpressible is allowed to linger, unworded.
I'd love to spend an evening with Brian Sewell talking about all the roads we take, and why we take them; I'd even buy the wine.
Monday, 25 May 2015
Sunday, 24 May 2015
THE PAINTING AS A PLACE
from 'The Shape of a Pocket', by John Berger:
'The painter is continually trying to discover, to stumble upon, the place which will contain and surround his present act of painting. Ideally there should be as many places as there are paintings. The trouble is that a painting often fails to become a place. When it fails to become a place, a painting remains a representation or a decoration - a furnishing.'
and, continuing in the same essay, he says:
'Working alone, the painter knows that far from being able to control the painting from the outside, he has to inhabit it and find shelter in it. He works by touch in the dark.
.... How does a painter work in the dark? He has to submit.'
'The painter is continually trying to discover, to stumble upon, the place which will contain and surround his present act of painting. Ideally there should be as many places as there are paintings. The trouble is that a painting often fails to become a place. When it fails to become a place, a painting remains a representation or a decoration - a furnishing.'
and, continuing in the same essay, he says:
'Working alone, the painter knows that far from being able to control the painting from the outside, he has to inhabit it and find shelter in it. He works by touch in the dark.
.... How does a painter work in the dark? He has to submit.'
Saturday, 23 May 2015
ARMOURED HEAD
'Armoured Head'
2013
oil paint and metallic acrylic paint, on paper
61cm X 46cm
this and many other of my artworks at this link:
Thursday, 21 May 2015
THE FERRYMAN (SONG)
i have written many songs - some of which i even used to play and sing in public, a long time ago. the only one i've so far launched on the web is the 'The Ferryman' - at the link below.
i wrote (and sang) this in the 1980s. at the time i didn't have much in the way of recording equipment, but the sound is clear enough.
i created and added the visuals later, when i made the video.
'The Ferryman' is dedicated to my father, who loved the words.
i wrote (and sang) this in the 1980s. at the time i didn't have much in the way of recording equipment, but the sound is clear enough.
i created and added the visuals later, when i made the video.
'The Ferryman' is dedicated to my father, who loved the words.
MY PAINTINGS AND OTHER ARTWORK
'The Red Cloak'
oil paint on canvas
70cm X 70cm
2011/12
this - and many more of my paintings - are on Flickr, at the following link:
there are also many of my paintings at the excellent site ArtStack, at this link:
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
MY PAINTINGS ON ARTSTACK
this site is where i'm now putting up my paintings.
it may be necessary to register with this site to view art works, but to do so is free and takes only a few minutes. it's an excellent site, with an enormous amount of art work of every kind - very well worth exploring.
click on this link to go to my own paintings:
it may be necessary to register with this site to view art works, but to do so is free and takes only a few minutes. it's an excellent site, with an enormous amount of art work of every kind - very well worth exploring.
click on this link to go to my own paintings:
'The Precarious Day'
oil paint on canvas
50cm X 60cm
THE FOOL'S DREAM
click on the link to view this short video i made in 2005 (using digital images i 'drew' with software called Dogwaffle).
The Fool falls asleep beside a river, and a bird flies overhead. He dreams of finding a doorway, entering and meeting the Other. Very quickly, what began as a beautiful dream turns into nightmare, and the Fool is badly wounded by the cruel thwarting of his innocent love. Yet out of that pain emerges tranquillity, and the messenger bird soon arrives with news of a happier future. At last the Fool finds joy with a kindred soul, and dances with delight. The bird reveals itself as an angel, and a goldfish leads the Fool back to the dark river where the dream began.
The Fool falls asleep beside a river, and a bird flies overhead. He dreams of finding a doorway, entering and meeting the Other. Very quickly, what began as a beautiful dream turns into nightmare, and the Fool is badly wounded by the cruel thwarting of his innocent love. Yet out of that pain emerges tranquillity, and the messenger bird soon arrives with news of a happier future. At last the Fool finds joy with a kindred soul, and dances with delight. The bird reveals itself as an angel, and a goldfish leads the Fool back to the dark river where the dream began.
KORA ZIKO QUAGA
years ago i created a language - eventually it had 800 or more words.
in the 1990s i wrote a poem in this language, and at this link you can hear it spoken:
the poem is called 'Kora Ziko Quaga'. this means 'Love is the Law'.
i created the sounds and visuals on the video.
in the 1990s i wrote a poem in this language, and at this link you can hear it spoken:
the poem is called 'Kora Ziko Quaga'. this means 'Love is the Law'.
i created the sounds and visuals on the video.
I AM A PAINTER...
I am a painter. People sometimes ask me 'what kind of painting' I do. So I interviewed myself to find out...
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