1876
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Out of the silence of centuries, discrete words will, one day, surface for us …
Edmond Jabès
text without words
unheard conversation
solitaire
(listening to the light)
setting sun reflects from a neighbour’s window
fading white wall whisper
shadow play, apple tree, evening breeze
spaces of silence
allow new possibilities
beyond the edgeless shape
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Now playing: Steve Roden & Stephen Vitiello – The Spaces Contained in Each
Lost coordinates:
Where untold stories bleed
into images beyond words
Where unheard sounds
of the spectral field become
entangled
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Now playing: Jim O’Rourke – Disengage
Aerated Waters
Marchmont, Edinburgh
P e r s e v e r e
P e r s e v e r e
P e r s e v e r e
P e r s e v e r e
Marchmont, Edinburgh
Not so Chic
West End, Edinburgh
‘Zona AntiFascista’
Patrick Geddes Steps, Old Town, Edinburgh
‘Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio’
Newington, Edinburgh
ARE
U
JELLI
Cowgate, Edinburgh
When the inside becomes the outside
New Town, Edinburgh*
Now playing: Jon Hassell – City: Works of Fiction
score of silence
with grace notes
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Now playing: Eva-Maria Houben – Piano Music (performed by R. Andrew Lee).
When a wall whispers: Not I
Caesura || Sentry
Island
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Now playing: Morton Feldman (Ensemble Modern) – For Samuel Beckett
sound of the moon
silent water
Firth of Forth 31.08.17.
Now playing: Christina Vantzou – ‘Moon Drone’ from No. 3
From Hill to Sea: Dispatches from the Fife Psychogeographical Collective, 2010 – 2014 is published by Bread and Circuses Publishing.
After a successful launch at the Edinburgh Independent & Radical Book Fair, copies of the book are now available from Word Power bookshop in Edinburgh and by mail order. See the Publications page here.
At the end of a walk
.
a congregation cry
under a full sky
.
Anticipating
the snow arriving
.
(Now drifting down)
Somewhere close to Aberdour, Fife, late afternoon, 16th January 2016.
Now playing: Hans Joachim Roedelius & Leon Muraglia – ‘Gently Falling Snow’ from Ubi Bene.
.
deep time
encoded
black
diamonds
murmur
fire music.
energies
of wind
and wood
weave
lambent tongues
of ancient
elemental
alchemy
.
Recently, we have been visiting the area around the coastal town of Leven. A fairly long piece is slowly coming to fruition. Until then, here is a short post.
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Walk up Durie Street in Leven and listen out for the bees singing. Perhaps, the sound of the skep is more of a muted murmur now, but raise your eyes from street level and you may hear them.
The first hive is above what is now the town library. Our industrious and co-operative little bees swarm around their skep as they have done since 1887.
This symbolic image on a former building of the Leven Reform Co-operative Society reminds us of the Rochdale Pioneers. In 1844, with an economy in decline, wage reductions and strikes, a group of unemployed weavers met at the Socialist Institute to debate the philosophies of Robert Owen and Chartism. Whilst there are many examples of co-operative societies existing before 1844, The Rochdale Pioneers formulated a set of guiding principles, upon which, an expansive version of co-operation was founded. Looking at these principles today, it is notable how well these stand up as a set of co-operative ideals:
1. Democratic control, one member one vote and equality of the sexes.
2. Open membership.
3. A fixed rate of interest payable on investment.
4. Pure, unadulterated goods with full weights and measures given.
5. No credit.
6. Profits to be divided pro-rata on the amount of purchase made (the dividend or divi).
7. A fixed percentage of profits to be devoted to educational purposes.
8. Political and religious neutrality.
Within ten years of the Pioneers founding efforts the co-operative movement in Britain had grown to nearly 1,000 co-operatives with many adopting the symbol of the beehive.
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We are back in Leven. Follow the echoes and walk further up Durie Street. On the clock of the former Co-operative department store, a golden skep, clotting the fingers of weak, ebbing sunlight:
Stand. Raise your head and look to the sky. Follow the thread of sibilant hum to the very top of the building. A change of tone – to low dissonant drone. A sign that the bees are, once again, getting ready to swarm:
Underneath the skep
intimations of new life
still sounding – echoes
of the Pioneers.
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Now Playing: Earth – The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull
References:
