Gilberts Quasi Post Apocalyptic Picnic.

 So: a Cornish greenstone comes to Norfolk, perhaps not to rest but at least to reside for a while.

Although arriving this time by post, let's entertain an alternative travelog. Eroded out of the high mountains of the Variscan Orogeny - thrown up 350 million years ago give or take, when continents collided and the Cornubian batholith grumbled and cooked its metamorphic onion layers; then carried by flash torrents north-east into the Triassic desert sandstone beds now of the English Midlands. After a lengthy rest, remobilised, carried east by a wide river rolling and tumbling from the Cambrian mountains to the area that would become the North Sea basin. Maybe it halted who knows where on the way, but then in latter times was caught up in the cut and thrust and gush resulting from one of the several ice tides that crawled south and east until surfacing for the time being in Norfolk.

Now on display in a small woodland, resting on this neglected picnic bench, it seems somewhat out of time in this quasi-post-apocalyptic evocation - but then, after a journey like that you would wouldn't you? However, change being the only constant, a more extended perspective would suggest this rest is only temporary.

The picnic table will soon return to the earth but I like to think that descendents of the inquisitive roe deer who have lately nudged the Gothvos stone off the table's lichen encrusted edge might still find harbour in this woodland yet a while - 

wherever and on whatever continent it may be.

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AhgwsrshU6vek2xOpiJUBZGsxNAB?e=WC5BCb

Gilbert Addison 08.10.22 Anthropocene/Holocene/Quaternary/Cenozoic

Calm in Karstlands with Nadneen Samudri.

  West Jamaica

Gothvos Stone deposited and photographed by Nadneen Samudri in Cockpit Country Jamaica,  Jamaica and the other islands of the Antilles evolved from an arc of ancient volcanoes that rose from the sea millions of years ago.  

During periods of submersion, thick layers of limestone were laid down over the old igneous and metamorphic rock.  In many places, the limestone is thousands of feet thick.  

The country can be divided into three landform regions: the eastern mountains, the central valleys and plateaus, and the coastal plains.

The highest area is the Blue Mountains range.  These eastern mountains are formed by a central ridge of metamorphic rock running northwest to southeast from which many long spurs jut to the north and south.

 For a distance of over 3 kilometres (1.9 mi), the crest of the ridge exceeds 1,800 metres (5,900 ft).  The highest point is Blue Mountain Peak at 2,256 metres (7,402 ft).  The Blue Mountains rise to these elevations from the coastal plain in the space of about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi), thus producing one of the steepest general gradients in the world.   In this part of the country, the old metamorphic rock reveals itself through the surrounding limestone. To the north of the Blue Mountains lies the strongly tilted limestone plateau forming the John Crow Mountains.  This range rises to elevations of over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft).  To the west, in the central part of the country, are two high rolling plateaus: the Dry Harbour Mountains to the north and the Manchester Plateau to the south.  Between the two, the land is rugged and here, also, the limestone layers are broken by the older rocks.  Streams that rise in the region flow outward and sink soon after reaching the limestone layers.

The limestone plateau covers two-thirds of the country, so that karst formations dominate the island.  Karst is formed by the erosion of the limestone in solution.  Sinkholes, caves and caverns, disappearing streams, hummocky hills, and terra rosa (residual red) soils in the valleys are distinguishing features of a karst landscape; all these are present in Jamaica. To the west of the mountains is the rugged terrain of the Cockpit Country, one of the world's most dramatic examples of karst topography.

SEA GRAPES

BY DEREK WALCOTT

That sail which leans on light,
tired of islands,
a schooner beating up the Caribbean

for home, could be Odysseus,
home-bound on the Aegean;
that father and husband's

longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is
like the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name
in every gull's outcry.

This brings nobody peace. The ancient war
between obsession and responsibility
will never finish and has been the same

for the sea-wanderer or the one on shore
now wriggling on his sandals to walk home,
since Troy sighed its last flame, and the blind giant's boulder heaved the trough from whose groundswell the great hexameters come to the conclusions of exhausted surf.

The classics can console. But not enough.

Calm in Negril

The coastline of Jamaica;  The northeast shore is severely eroded by the ocean. There are many small inlets in the rugged coastline, but no coastal plain of any extent.  A narrow strip of plains along the northern coast offers calm seas and white sand beaches. Behind the beaches is a flat raised plain of uplifted coral reef.

The southern coast has small stretches of plains lined by black sand beaches. These are backed by cliffs of limestone where the plateaus end.  In many stretches with no coastal plain, the cliffs drop 300 metres (980 ft) straight to the sea.^[1] In the southwest, broad plains stretch inland for a number of kilometres. The Black River courses 70 kilometres (43 mi) through the largest of these plains.  The swamplands of the Great Morass and the Upper Morass fill much of the plains. The western coastline contains the island's finest beaches and at least one perfect Greenstone Pebble brought there from Kernow by Nadneen Samudri.

Momentous Intent with Johnny McGovern δράω

Perhaps after I have posted Johnny McGoverns elusive and at the same time, fine photographic study of a mysterious West Penwith Well, perhaps when Johnny sees his image of the well, no longer trapped inside his camera, nor floating in the digital ether of his computer, perhaps then he will know if there is actually anything further to say besides, "In this Well did he place a Gothvos stone".

He may recall sensing a spark or smooth coolness in his palm emanating from the stone as he positioned that pebble, although I conclude these scenarios from my own experiences, placing Greenstone for the moment as I have done before but this placing is Johnny's placing, not mine.

A Stones Throw.

The clear photography yields detail but less reliance on spirits and shadows than the blurred Gothvos images taken previously with a plastic camera in Turkey, motivating stories on a cultural, geographic threshold obscured by distorted shadows, bleaching light, desert cedars and resins stimulated by the Sun and the Cicada. In Johnnys photographs the inscription is clear, fine granules of Mylor Slate re-heated by volcanic activity can be discerned, micro fossils and quartz intrusions, A stone material favoured by Cornish Greenstone Axe-Head polishers who gleaned this rock from the now submerged forest quarries of Mounts Bay and Gwavas Lake that have all but sunk and continue sinking.

The well is a water course and the Gothvos Stone represents, (among other things) the votive Greenstone Axe Heads that were evidently positioned in rivers and lakes by people alive in the Bronze Age, to whom we people connect, far greater a connection than through affectations such as wealth or status. I am bending the arc of Johnny's narrative-free activity in order to divine an outer pragmatism, a ritual, a detail of conjuring that I can use as a metaphorical bridge across the marsh of the mythos, where things beyond reasonable doubt risk being taken down "a peg or two" gradually the products and undertakings of these "marshy areas" are treated with  more Human-Scale definitions, the few Special things were sacred because they stood out exclusively to those who were seeking them. Those things were blessed although, not by the church. They walked under clearer skies and brighter stars, they drank clear water and breathed fresh air, they organised existence and mythos as the same.

Walking doesn't require navigation, in West Penwith there are many notable carns, cairns and stones with a few church towers, aerials and aircraft tracking devices that are permanent enough to use as simple wayside markers or as alignments between features, Given time and familiarity there are great miracles to uncover from the seasons growth, subterranean water courses, sunken mines and tidal phenomena, there is no reason to rehearse unless the formality of rehearsal uncovers the hitherto unknown, each rehearsal is distinguished by its difference.

 The core modus operandi of old ways can never really be known either, each attempt distances the enquirer further and further into amalgamous terra nova as befits the insulations of urbanity and reliance upon some form of capital, this idea seems to thrive once it has exhausted the realms of reason. 

How elemental are the constituent factors of this moment drawn of five photographs recording a moment in the event, an assemblage of hewn granite itself an armature for lichen, tendrils and moss, the sod has become mortar for a living organism and yet at its inception it was hostile, radio active and molten. Could the action of an intervention here in this old pasture invite the notion of something other, not just a landscape feature indicating available, potable water, but something more like a portal dispensing or exchanging other than water, is this Dromenon. 

Johnny the solitary wanderer Mág Samhradháin on his summery excursions throughout  East Breffny (Bréifne), Dumnonia and Kernow, did he navigate, with what did he know his own whereabouts?, his imagination? Did he lay markers or carry devices, yes a box full of air and a smile.

Julie encounters Ruskins world

  23 September at 16:13 From the magical hand and eye of Julie Bowles encountering Ruskins world and connecting us to it.

23rd of September 2021, Yorkshire Dales and Lake District in September 2021 for the first time, a much needed escape following a year of Lockdown in London. Carrying my Gothvos Greenstone in my backpack over miles of hikes, passing scars, fells, forces and forests.  Until the morning of my birthday, when I arrived by boat across Coniston Water to Brentwood the home of John Ruskin ; A Prophet of the 19th Century to many.  

A Londoner, Ruskin moved to Brentwood on 12th September 1872.  Brant originates from the Norse for "steep". The house is set in over 250 acres of woodland overlooking the visually stunning Coniston Water, including more than half a mile of lake shore laying in the shadow of the Old Man. Coincidently, Ruskin Park is close to my London home, named because Ruskin lived nearby. 

During Lockdown it had been one of the green spaces I had taken a daily walk to maintain some equilibrium in all the pandemic madness. 

Also coincidentally , I grew up in Oxford where Ruskin had studied, taught and founded his Drawing School before I moved to London in my early 20's. After visiting the house, the artists studio Ruskin had built for one of his relatives, I visited Ruskins Treasury. Ruskin was fascinated by mountains, minerals and geology and amassed a personal collection of over 2000 specimens in his lifetime. I like a nice fossil myself!  Then I walked the steep woodland trail and gardens above the house and found a mossy home for placing my stone at the base of an Oak Tree.

Placing my Gothvos Stone at the foot of this Oak Tree gave me such a sense of peace and stillness looking out over the hills and lake below in the September sunshine, on my birthday. 

Oak is a wood favoured for its strength and durability. The technical name of the Oak, Quercus is said to be derived from the Celtic quer (fine) and cuez (tree). The Greeks held the Oak sacred, the Romans dedicated it to Jupiter and the Druids venerated it. 

Artists have used its even grained, honey coloured beauty for carving and turning and it was a core part of the distinctive timbered houses. Oak's elasticity and strength made it particularly advantageous in ship building.

Edward the Confessors shrine at Westminster Abbey is of Oak that has outlasted the changes of 800 years. Oak logs have been dug from peat bogs in good preservation and fit for rough building purposes that were submerged a thousand years ago. In the Severn, breakwaters are still used as casual landing places where piles of oak are said to have been "driven in" by Romans.

The bark also yields a brown dye which was formerly used in the country to dye woollens of a purplish colour. The Scottish Highlanders used it to dye their yarns. Oak Galls gave the strong black dye from which ink was made. The bark of the tree was valued by the leather tanning industry as it contains a lot of tannin. In Brittany, tan compressed into cakes was used as fuel.

Many old British parishes contain what became known as the Gospel Oak, this was a prominent tree at which part of the Gospel was read aloud during the "beating of the bounds" - ceremonies at Rogantide in springtime, a practice supposed to have been derived from the feast to the god Terminus.  When psalms and gospel truths were uttered beneath their shade and blessings asked for the people.  Many of these gospel trees are still alive in different parts of Britain. In Somerset the very ancient Oaks of Avalon, Gog and Magog were named after the last male and female giants to roam Britain. The trees are reputed to be the remnants of an Oak-lined processional route up the nearby Glastonbury Tor.

The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is purported to be the tree where Robin Hood and his merry men hatched their plots.  Acorns were of considerable importance for feeding swine, in many country districts acorns are still collected up in sacks as food for Pigs.

For Herbalists the medicinal stringent effects of the Oak were well known to the ancients, by whom different parts of the tree were used. Galen applied the bruised leaves to heal wounds. The Older Herbalists considered the thin skin covering the acorn  effectual in staying the spitting of blood and the powdered acorn in wine was considered a good diuretic. 

A decoctation of acorns and Oak-bark with milk was considered an antidote to poisonous herbs and medicines. A Tonic derived from boiling Oak bark was used to treat harness sores of horses and it is the bark which is now employed in medicine, its action being slightly tonic, strong astringency and antiseptic. Like other astringents it has been recommended in agues and haemorrhages also it is used as a remedy in chronic diarrhoea and dysentry, externally or as a gargle in chronic sore throat. 

Placing my Gothvos greenstone at the foot of this Oak Tree gave me such a sense of peace and stillness, looking out over the hills and the lakes below in the September sunshine on my birthday. 

"Dearest, bury me

Under that holy-ole, or Gospel Tree

Where, though thou see'st not, thou mayst think upon

Me, when you yearly go'st Procession.

Robert Herrick

Julie's Greenstone came from the sunken Oak Forests of Gwavas Lake, Penlee. Muer Ras Julie.

Val Thorens, Parc National de la Vanoise France.: Enter The Void.

Benjamin Schweitzer takes the Cornish Greenstone back to the Alps 

Back before the scars in social veneer began to surface, lauded by some typically incoherent larger than life,... larger even than death Characateurs, we were heading for a return visit to the blessed Mon Viso Italian Alps, as we did in August 2019, to the sacred mountain lakes up there where wood stoves perfume the summer in the shade of the valleys and the people go about the business of living with dignity and determination.

 Alighting in Genoa February 2020 was not a good idea, the irony of being attracted to a city that boasts its populations longevity, and attributes this "in-the-pink longevity" to steep hill walking, grapes, garlic, olive oil and countless other factors which are simple and make light work of scientific-advancement, was a possible man-trap to be set by the authors of covid-19 for yours truly.

Cinque Terre - Genoa 2020

 
Then along came Benjamin, a Scenographer telling his story by design, through drawing and a complex infusion of the digital signal and the constructors hammer, conducting us through a symphonic composition of herbs, olive oil, rustic infusions and Franco Battiato Niente è come sembre  from his home in Firenze to the French Alps through the placing of the Object high up in the mountains on the ski slopes of Val Thorens.  Adventures!

Now embarking on a journey monitoring the peaks, avalanches, clouds of information and landslides of new ideas in the lecture theatres and the academic rock-pools of northern England, like so many of my colleagues waiting for summer in the mountains, when the retreating snow reveals the mysteries of consciousness, creating a  Tabula Rasa for the here and now and so his story rests, locked between the strategic palimpsest and polished substance of Aether, perhaps his stone tells us more from existing rock which the 19th century inhabitants of the mountains, lived off, and in the landscape. With  the rising increase in the population, many mountain people learned new trades to survive. foundry-chimney sweeps, glaziers, boiler makers, knife grinders travelling far from home to sell their skills. The chimneysweeps of Orco Valley and Val di Rhêmes, came down towards the small towns in the lowlands in small groups, who had to do the hardest and most thankless part of the job: cleaning the chimney flues. There is a visitors' centre dedicated to this traditional trade in the park at Locana.

Copper - Venus.
There is evidence of medieval copper extraction in the Orco and Soana valleys. Copper was extracted from the mines present in the area, melted and processed first at the forge, and then refined, tinned and sold as metallurgical stock for the craftsmen in the workshops. The copper works have left their mark on the landscape, with the mines and the paths that lead to them, the water supplies, the forges, the workshops and the itinerant locksmiths and tinsmiths.
This tradition is now being preserved with a project by the Ecological Museum of the Orco and Soana valleys, which includes the recently restructured and refurnished copper forge at Ronco. Perhaps more importantly , is the Copper School in Alpette, where the experience of hand-crafting copper objects is passed on. 

Iron or mines? at Cogne
In Valle di Cogne the presence of lode veins of iron-ore played an important part on life in the local community. Initially the exploiting of the mine was open, anybody could extract the mineral, build a forge and cut down trees to burn. At the beginning of the 19th century the metallurgical processes were modernized within the organization of the mine, with the forming a co-operative, which was superseded by "Società Nazionale Cogne", thereby reaching a high level of productivity until, like everywhere else we await news of a revival. 

Not Far Away in Distance

A Greenstone Primer

I'm curious about the secret life of this blog which ordinarily features postings of Greenstone Gothvos (sea pebbles) placings made by people in a variety of geographic situations. 
Since google is running (ruining) my life with absurd demands for greater and greater security measures, some of those stories seem to have slipped beneath some sort of imposed horizon, a non event horizon, which leaves me feeling almost as fraught as if they had survived and were being held aloft as examples of illiteracy.

GAVRINIS ISLE 

Guirv Enes and Guerg Enes, respectively. The old Breton word Guergis not related to gavr, but to parallels such as Gaul gwery, or Old Irish ferg, signifying "wrath".

Upwards and Onwards: this May we went to Carnac, Brittany, to see The St.Michel Tumuli a massive barrow containing a passage grave in which several Greenstone objects, Jadeite Axe Heads and other extraordinary findings and the Island of Gavrinis.

 

The Gulf de Morbihan from St.Michel Tumuli

Currently we may value Jadeite for its intrinsic value, measured in monetary terms infact we're almost obliged to refer to it in that way directly from our DNA: money and capital have existed for a long time now, who is to say there were no localised or quasi- currencies in existence five thousand years ago? I want to entertain the notion that if any currency did exist, it would be a very different undertaking than our present tokenised money, such is impregnated into small plastic cards and pixelated screens and our coinage or paper money, I do realise that the process of polishing Greenstone for many hundreds of hours, presumably to imbue it with a(n unknown) value possesses similar visual outcomes /attributes to impregnated magnetic-strip-plastic. The hazy idea of quid pro quo or bartering is a separate ordeal centred on the market place and trading, although that could form an eventual over generalised concept of what drove these people, I'm looking for values be they moral and or aesthetic. Instinctively (for that is the territory) I'm drawn to a limited shared value within a syndicate of interested parties, And I'm reading ritual all over the scant but compelling evidence.

 The fact substantiated by an accretion of studies presented by Neil MacGregor, that the Jadeite craftsmen were an enormously influential cult that smothered the areas Bronze age Morbihan in Southern Brittany and their creations have been matched with the high quarries in Monviso with emanating  examples found all over western Europe creating sub-cults - certainly in Britain via the quarrying of Elvan Greenstone; Mylor Slates and Gabbro in such locations as Penlee Gear Rock Cornwall. The retrieval of these beautiful artefacts (stone axe heads) is almost exclusively pointing to their investiture within water and water sources, already giving rise to Arthurian excalburian romance but more poignantly a value system embodying a social gratitude for the elements and for the environment.

The Entrance to The Passage Grave, there are about twenty nine stones all about two metres by one with radiating arcs grooved into their granite surfaces.

Click on the link above for a little intense movie.

Penlee Greenstone at Gavrinis Passage Grave 

The idea of pilgrimage springs forth when attempting calculations of walked mileage between Gavrinis island where the Axe heads are venerated in stone and stories to the quarries in Monviso, the Italian Alps are about a thousand miles / two thousand Kilometres in the most directly taken route, its no big undertaking when you compare the distances apart where the Greenstone Axes have been found, presumably physically carried there and usually deposited in a watery place. The idea of pilgrimage is partly inspired by my ignorance about the people who went each year to Piedmont Monviso were they Breton, Dumnonian, it was thousands of years ago and so much research is questioning the received ideas that have gone largely unquestioned in mainstream debates. I had the sense when I was there that the mountains were a place like a centre for a radius of locations, not just a single destination for an isolated group.

A lot of discussion seems to recognise an epic global event when humans received a go-ahead moment, regardless of their whereabouts, a green light to proceed in the quarrying and making of greenstone axeheads, some of these may have performed utilitarian functions but they are extremely "beautiful" objects, the line of their form is exceptionally fine by any sophisticated or inherent standards. Axe Heads and Adzes seem to be the main object quotient in the western areas, but during this universal Greenstone moment many societies in far flung locations looked for and exploited their own local "greenstone" as in New Zealand where Maori craftsmen produced nephrite objects and axeheads during this concerted moment. These visits, makings and détournements are synchronised with the torturous business of the Government of the United Kingdoms ejecting itself from its European status and re establishing itself as something uncertain, I use the term détournement because my intrusion is slight and temporary, "quiet" I have heard said, (generally of my work) I think such intrusions are the only sure way we can ever know what these objects and events mean, it is fair to say there are no truths in a given field, in this context certainly, when I am present in the spaces the history of five or seven thousand years simply falls away, I am in a poem or certainly the situation is poemic in my interpretations of my quest, I've come to realise that factual information doesn't exist around these places.

At the foot of Monte Viso a Greenstone oblation from Penlee.

On Ferragosto (August 15th) we visited Monviso, Piedmontese for a few days bringing greenstone from Cornwall to the foothills quarries and at Lago Fiorenza. 

The astounding peak of the Mountain is given no justice in this photograph which only attempts to fix the documentation of the stone-placing-action. Ferragosto although a holy-day of St.Mary is also a day bringing families to picnic, to enjoy the outdoors together including walking and feasting in the mountains. The location, when approached as fearfully as I did gave me confidence but thin air, I was walking on paths of greenstone, alpine plants some oddly familiar, what the hells Ground-elder doing up here? thriving up here? higher and higher, my sandals were terrifically pagan and pilgrimesque but truly unsuitable even in the refugio bar, the light can be extremely haunting, the drama of the light is one thing but the sheer scale and perspectives associated with height and cloud are truly breathtaking, btw so is the mountain driving on hairpin surfaces that appear to be on the move themselves, superb engineering.

The spectacle of the Greenstone occupies a locus that defies my appetite for understanding, a poemic type of understanding partly I trust this is as a result of my initial interest seeming so arbitrary, I remind myself of Arthur Stace walking the streets of Sydney surreptitiously inscribing the word Eternity on any surface he thought nobody else was looking at. I mean of course the method in which Stace "received" his involuntary infatuation with the word Eternity. Arthur Stace was attending a bible meeting at which the pastor's use of the word "eternity" indelibly imprinted itself into his psyche and he was enthused with the purpose to take the word as far and wide within his city bounds as he could. Why Greenstone? Ask mr Ottery my geography teacher.

Oncino

Epistemological Solipsism blowing down the backroads heading South. by Jonathan Polkest

The Other Sided unresolvable otherness.

For someone spending or having spent a vast amount of potentially solipsistic activity loitering behind theatrical scenery or more propitiously manufacturing said devices, or aspects of manufacturing: urging, planning, drawing, painting, constructing or “shifting” scenery or scenic affects, for someone of such ilk it remains a mystery to me why such a person nurtures a deep fascination for “the other side”, the Dark Theatre, the over-scribed and under scryed about-face, the dusty void and out-of-hours, the lock-in, the type of deserted railway platform after the train departs and not the railway platform before the train is arrived, a slackened emptiness of departure and not the tense anticipation of pre-arrival, for someone of such a disposition I am neither surprised nor unconscious  that such a person is me and possibly you if you have read thus far.

The great drama that played out in the devising of the device, the orthodoxy of the system fuelled by the pyramid of authority borrowed for the fleeting two dimensional reflex from the visceral three dimensional desensitised loutish reality. Great humour and craic but sweaty hours and schemes, all night get ins and get outs and chemically overloaded neurones. The preparation for the Ritual of Performance is out-performing the Ritual, we have sacrificed the bull too soon. Such is improvisation a slightly bit unplanned and therefore more ceremonially sacred than the comparatively cliched Ritual, and yet the Ritual is good because it is functioning at the right time in the proposed place, a sacred place made more sacred with flattage, raked floors, controlled drapery, lighting effects, sound effects, all the attributes of a spectacle, a special time, a special place that proceeds 

a procession of acts and actions.

The Buds of Bloomsbury

But my friends we have come too late.

The Gods live up there in a different world.

Endlessly they act as if to spare us,

Little they seem to care whether we live or do not.

Holderlin.

I recall an image of a beautiful Ben Nicholson painting in a book by Norbert Lynton, pretty sure I’ve got that authors name right, I have a fascination for Nicholsons work on the Line, but the feature I loved best about this particular example of Nicholsons works were the two photographs - one taken of the front of the canvas showing clearly the figuration, the tonalities, the slight blurring using a wash over the incisive modulating graphite line and the accompanying “twin” photo of the reverse of the same painting, showing the chalked codes of various galleries and curators, labels, numbered raffle-ticket labels, customs and excise, framers labels even postage stamps which I presume were used as a type of legitimising authority, in the days when authority was presumed, visible, represented by such paraphernalia as the queens head on a postage stamp, rubber stamped evidence of a process of judgement and validation, the stamp itself concealing something powerful and unknown, as official as pound notes and fivers but it would be blasphemous to stick actual money on there, representations of power not actual power.

The modus operandi was to display the “tyre tracks” in the gritty journey of the painting between being shown in one place and travelling to the next gallery, more stamping, more signing, translation, more validation. The validators accretion spoke about a lot, more than its travelling history, for me it spoke about its other sidedness in way that brown paper, bubble wrap rags, unprimed flax, textured masonite are equally as eloquent.

The Dark Theatre

These signals are all the scrape marks and scratches of the Dark Theatre, a peculiar smell emanating from dust being heated in the coloured gels of a theatre lantern, a faint whiff of fire retardant soaked drapery and in earlier times the smell of glue size, the right place at the wrong time, the wrong place at the dark time, against nature. 

Seasons are marked by ritual and ritual is the perfect emphasis to seasonal variation, to elevate the ordinary to the sacred, the arboretum in autumn as the sugar content in the sycamore leaf drives the green to yellow, the yellow to orange and orange to vermillion, leaving us with burnt umber everything winter. and so it was that we walked to Charleston along the South Downs but it was winter and everything slumbered but such a heavy, heavy slumber.

Object Theatre - The Dark Theatre