Christine Rhone visits a little-known piece of London’s mystical heritage No need to travel to Poland or Spain – the cult of the Black Madonna is thriving in NW London. Not just one, but two major shrines exist in the borough of Brent. The name of this recently created borough comes from the River […]
The Black Madonnas of N W London Read More »
Jake Kirkwood reviews an e-book project and suggests it raises issues for development in earth mysteries and neo-antiquarian work. Almscliff Crag ALMIAS: Phil Legard, Layla Smith, and Simon Bradley E-book produced as part of Harrogate Festival 2010 – currently available online as PDF download If like me, you are somewhat reluctant
Bridging Perspectives: where psychogeography and e.m. meet Read More »
One of the harbingers of spring in the north country was Spaw Sunday. John Billingsley reports on a recent revival The blessing in 2010 (Roy Collinge) About 100 people turned up at Cragg Spa, in Cragg Vale, W Yorkshire, on Spaw Sunday (1st Sunday in May – in 2010 falling on
Spaw Sunday at a Calder Valley well Read More »
Michael Haslam recounts weird experiences on West Yorkshire and Highland moors Story: A Stone Circle on Midgley Moor I came to live at Foster Clough, on the edge of Midgley Moor, in September 1970. I’d visited the area a few times, and I had gained a rough idea of local topography. I’d come to join
Rock-solid Boggarts in a Ring: An experience of ‘other’ Read More »
A common theme throughout the history of earth mysteries is engagement with the spirit of places around us. Artists and writers have creatively explored this interface, and Mark Valentine suggests how drone music is exploring the same area For the past 10 years or so, a new musical form has been emerging amongst independent artists
‘A Flint for the Memory’: A Note on British Ambient and Drone Music Read More »
Traditions of a powerful ‘genius loci’ drew Jill Smith to an island in the near Atlantic, and a sense of presence Living in the Hebrides, I have for decades been somewhat obsessed by the islands and stacks of St Kilda, which lie 40 miles to the W of Lewis and Harris. They come and go
The Amazon Woman of St Kilda: a landscape figure Read More »
Traditional healing takes many forms and can be found in unlikely places… John Billingsley came across some curious Japanese traditions in an Orkney showcase. On a trip to Orkney, I came across a page of a diary written by J J H Scharbau,1 a doctor visiting Japan in 1874 and evidently diligently collecting traditional cures
A Japanese water healing pharmacopeia of 1874 Read More »
A previously unrecorded solstitial sunset brightens up an evening on a Pennine moor. An archaeo-astronomical site described by John Billingsley (images) and David Shepherd (text) This composite feature was described some time ago (Shepherd 2007, 2014), the essential point being that the new, midwinter sun appeared to rise / be born from the vulvaic Miller’s
Catching the Sun on Midgley Moor Read More »
Looking and seeing are different things, and understanding depends on what we do with them; this is where phenomenological perception is vital to our field Koyaanisqatsi, made 40 years ago, is a movie celebrating the beauties of the Earth, and the impact of modern civilisation upon it; a stream of images upheld by a Philip
#9: Para leer en forma interrogativa… Everyday Perception Read More »
“We shall not cease from exploration…” Eliot’s advisory for perception. 3 We have been talking of the past, and of the present, and of the hauntological membrane of experience between them. That membrane is of course unanchored, timeless, a hiatus between the twin towers of objective evidence and lived documented experience. Between the two lies
#8: “We shall not cease from exploration…” Read More »