“..I mark my way with gifts of roots and seeds, and wings of feathered things and salt and lead , borne on the wind; washed up from parched channels, amongst the clustered tongues of ferns..”
A central, complimentary function to my writing practice has, over many years become an essential component of my corpus of work – this is the making and leaving of offerings, or what I refer to as ‘placements’ . These are most commonly remnants and natural artefacts left in the land, which now lie hidden and discarded, a residual testament to lives once lived.
These naturally discarded objects, shells, seeds, husks, bones, feathers etc I see on several levels – they most obviously act as physical mnemonics, organic remnants that summon the essence of a place that I have visited – this seems to be innate in all of us, a gathering of organic memory brought back into the home – a harkening back to places that we have loved and gained spiritual succour from.
“..The nest of a small bird, a wind-blown bowl, now lost or discarded. Once a place for hatching and safety, elegantly formed; a delicate cradle threaded throughout with a weft of once-living things; mosses, grasses, feathers, lichen, wool. An organic vessel, still shimmering with the pulse of life...”
Equally, I assemble and create my own placements as elements of a personal ritual, created in private – a ‘conversation’ of sorts, a transaction with the land, an honouring of the place that has given me the gift of words and inspiration. Sometimes I create a small ritual accompanied by an incantation, a kind of linguistic alchemy which allows me access to the ancient energies of a specific place. At once, my placements then also become waymarkers on a deeply personal, spiritual journey into the genius loci, into the deep past of a place, and simultaneously as threads of an unspoken narrative, invisible lines of energy that connect me to a place, and connect one place to another – “my salvation, my way home..”
“..A parcel of leaves, twigs, seeds, shells, and husks, bound with twine. Collectively they are an analogue of an exploratory walk through Wistman’s Wood, an ancient woodland nestled at the side of Dartmoor. For me they act as material context, integuments, connective threads that bind and tie me to this relict place. I will take this parcel with me to another place, far away..seeding it, marking it….“
SELECTIONS IN ITALICS ARE FROM “PLACING THE MARK, MARKING THE PLACE” (2020), AND “THE MOOR, THE MIRROR”, 2021
The Land Incanted [ Earth & Memory ] 