The joy of going out into the rain is not just knowing that there are no people about, no dog-walkers with their five metre nooses, no phone-starers with their five metre absences, no-one period. As a cyclist whose three main enemies are cars, dog-walkers, and phone-starers, this is bliss. Two out of three ain't bad. But that's not all. The joy of going out into the rain is also the misery of getting drenched and soaked and cold, so that the next time you go out and it's not raining...
Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.
Walt Whitman
Yep, it's that time of year again: the 'golden time' when leaves turn yellow, when the sun shines golden, and little magical mushrooms sprout forth from the belly of the cool breath'd Earth. Not all of these little magical mushrooms are magic though. Some of them are distinctly un-magic as in poisonous and lethal. Up here, in my secret field to the south of Glasgow, the fields are covered in all types of mushrooms from fly agaric to your common toadstool and inkcap. But it's the little liberty caps I'm after, and this golf course (with no golfers) is prime territory.
I pity people who do not know 'the hunt' and how to forage for food. It's a joyful thing to forage and get to know your health-giving territory. Yet, it's also hard, which is why people no longer do it, because it's much easier to pop into the Co-op with your big SUV and your even bigger belly. Joy however is borne on the back of hardship and the hunt/forage gives you that hardship through bodying forth into the land, braving the elements, and engaging your own locomotive and locating powers. (Moreover, I don't think the Co-op do magic mushrooms). All this natural being confers not just a sense of wildness upon the creature (that has been hitherto over-domesticated to the point of poodle-hood) but a sense of overall Health and Wholeness. This health and wholeness is as much about the psyche as it is about the body, and so these mind-altering mushrooms offer to the mind what vitamins offer to the body. This is what you are after all: a 'body-mind-earth-system' who navigates the land and animates itself through galvanizing its own sensing body. Now, forager, go forth to seek and find...
The box of course is Pandora's box from Greek mythology which wasn't Pandora's box at all but her husband's which she opened (think 'reading your lover's diary') in his absence thus releasing all manner of emotional and physical curses upon the Earth. Today, the 'box' takes many forms: smartphone, car, office, apartment, the room... but it could also be your toilet...
So, next time you go to the toilet, be careful, because Brad or indeed Kevin may be hiding in there.
Usually science opposes nature, tears it apart, treats it like some sort of expendable resource. So, when the refurb. job at the local science museum finished boy was I surprised to see Nature being embraced.
Who would have thunk it, eh, the devil reaching out for God's hand...
Graffiti, in whatever format it takes, is a valid form of expression, perhaps the most original, since it is never compromised by another before 'publication'. Young people especially need their voice to be heard, and graffiti, often, is the only way for them to do it. It can be done in a messy manner to be sure but even that mess is a valid form of expression, perhaps the most original, because, yes, it reflects the mess that you have made of the Earth and your Self. Yet, time and again, I see the council 'whitewashing' (chance would be a fine thing) this stuff as soon as it goes up, and making an absolute dog's dinner of it. I mean, are these words so potent and true, that they simply have to erase them by hook or by crook? Are my half inch letters so on the button that the council simply can't take it? That those who work for the council have their knickers in such a twist that they're almost tearing their hair out. And all this when advertisers just around the corner are advertising the crass and the crude in billboards four storeys tall.
Has graffiti removal had its day in other words? Should we not leave the graffiti alone as an accurate reflection of our society? We have all been de-faced and dis-figured (removed from our original configuration and face) under progress and capitalism. So what's the deal then with not being able to return the favour in kind?
The supreme art of war writes Sun Tzu is to subdue the enemy without fighting. This was how my Tae Kwon Do teacher approached the martial arts: you're here to learn how not to fight, and how to not fight. This is one of the warrior's attributes: intelligence, and awareness. Which is why I'm going to title my next stencil project - Warrior.
Because this world is sorely lacking in intelligence and awareness. And people need re-minding.
