A constant element of an alt-antiquarian perspective is to experience the world with senses as alert as they can be at the juncture we find ourselves at any one time. It’s a mode where neo-antiquarianism, psychogeography, phenomenology, forteana and more may coincide – a state of not looking for anything, but being ready for anything that might emerge…. Which can be less serious than that preamble might sound, but is essentially an extension of the earth mysteries approach I embarked upon decades ago, to appreciate the unsuspected connections in the world around us (for me this was the essential meaning of Alfred Watkins’ appreciation of leys, before the rest of us started overthinking, and why Watkins is part of the UK’s psychogeographical heritage).
Unexpected encounters or ways of seeing might reveal something intensely personal, something insightful, something unutterably banal or ridiculous – but anyway something that keeps the senses alert. An encounter that collides with a thought, whether conscious or unconscious, and then, alchemically, confers a meaning on that encounter is an omen. And the world – not just crows, hares, or weather conditions – is ominous. It literally is there to re-mind us. And then we can only chuckle and move on, reaffirmed that the universe has a subtle dimension or at least a sense of humour. I have used the term ‘meaningfully meaningless coincidences’ for some of these experiences that seem to hold an import that is real if a bit opaque at times (see Alan Richardson, Spirits of the Stones, Virgin 2001, p55-57; ]ohn Billingsley, ‘Follow her forward, the innocent hare’, NE167, March 2022, p13-18). Omen and coincidence are not wholly separate and both demand some measure of reflection, or imply a path that might be taken. Or they might simply be reminding us to pay attention, and haul us back from whatever daydream we are in [The Alt-Antiquarian, Para leer en forma interrogativa NE168, June 2022, p24-25. https://northernearth.co.uk/the-alt-antiquarian-9-para-leer-en-forma-interrogativa/]
In this missive from the meaningfully meaningless I have no other particularity to impart, just a desire to share moments that have enlivened my outings, and like striking two Zen pebbles together, re-minded me from whatever distraction I was in.
Lay-by in Sowerby Bridge, W Yorkshire
At the root of all we do in this world, I reckon, is place – not who we are, but where we are. And this street in Conway, N Wales, reminds us of that in a psychogeographic blending of Welsh and English.
In this contemporary realm of physical senses, a timely reminder in Malta that not all portals are materially accessible… 
And the world can come alive, with a mysterious expression, or calling out at us….
We may stumble upon the site of surely some ancient heroes’ battle at a bridge near Halifax,
or a curious fact about Ancient Egyptian dietary habits and testicles in a charred scrap on another outskirt of Halifax.
The otherworld may try to slip by unnoticed, like this ‘fairy feller’ performing shamanic ascetic practices in The R Dove at Hartington.
Or the monster taking a drink in the R Spodden at the Fairies’ Chapel at Healey Dell 
while a small mammal from another dimension hurriedly tries to disguise itself in Sherwood Forest;
but this old lady in Studley Royal dozed just a little too long, perhaps.
We hover on the edge of a shadow world: an allusion to the spectral magic of the freemasons on the Rochdale Canal at Hebden Bridge.
If I were a witch’s hat, would I perch on the roof of the Huddersfield Methodist Mission?
And if I were a Christian would I see Jesus in this piscina at Rievaulx Abbey in 1996? 
We may encounter more contemporary warnings encoded in this drifting world. Like the dangers of AI as robot giraffes advance on Hebden Bridge?
This bus stop in Heptonstall, W Yorkshire, no longer has buses to stop there. But once they did, on a trip across the tops from Hebden Bridge to Burnley, and one such trip took a load of travellers to an alien abduction and impregnation experience at the Bridestones above Todmorden… the fictional episode in the 1969 student short film The Watchers [https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-watchers-1969-online] predates the celebrated PC Godfrey CE3 encounter in the town in 1980 [Jenny Randles, The Pennine UFO Mystery, Granada 1983; Alan Godfrey, Who or what were they?, priv. 2017].The bus is no more, but the stop remains, a spectre of that imaginary link with other worlds and a monument to a bygone architectural style
At a time in the mid-2010s, when Hebden Bridge was suffering all-too-frequent floods and was regularly prefaced in national media as ‘flood-prone Hebden Bridge’, a shop opened in town….
maybe we shouldn’t psychogeographise too much, but certainly if we do, then unlike Guy Debord and his Situationist associates in 1960s Paris, we should do it sober, as this notice outside a pub in Castleton, Derbyshire, reminded me.
Now study can be tiring, and it’s time for my afternoon nap, so it’s good to know this institution offers somewhere for that essential power nap.
Perchance to dream…