Murdo Eason – From Hill to Sea – Page 13 – walking / writing / between world and word

Grangemouth Rapture

The Grangemouth petro-chemical complex sits on the shores of the River Forth with another industrial behemoth – Longannet Power Station – on the opposite side. Both are visible for miles around and at night it is difficult not to be utterly captivated by the dazzling, artificial white light, belching steam and orange flares which shoot into the sky. A curious mix of dark satanic mill and industrial city from the future. On 9th October, the orange flaring was the most extreme that I’ve ever seen. Whilst the pictures are not great it should give a flavour of the eerie effect created.

This was originally posted on twitter on 9th October:

Looks like the Rapture is beginning over Grangemouth tonight.

Flame on!

Now playing: Fire! Orchestra – Exit

Wheel of Life

retired tyre

wheel of life

worlds within worlds

from the ocean

land forms

islands

an archipelago

of weather

and time

telescope, or

microscope?

thin world portal,

sea or sky?

an autarky

of green

only open

to sun

and rain

the high lands

shape

invisible cities

littoral drift

lagoon

an oxbow lake

The Charlestown limeworks were one of the earliest industrial complexes in Scotland at the advent of the industrial revolution. Conceived in 1752, within ten years, they had become the largest lime producing facility in Europe.

The Charlestown limestone was quarried locally. Coral laid down 300 million years ago formed calcium carbonate (limestone) which was heated in the kilns with coal to 900°C. During this process the weight of stone reduced by 40%. More of a devils’ share than an angels’ share.

Working conditions have been described as a “hellish scene” with the hot air thick with sulphur and ammonia from the limeburning. The list of worker’s functions leach from the page into the ‘old words’:

Kilnheadman

Drawer

Trimmer

Slaker

Emptier

Sawyer

Mason

Wright

Labourer

Overseer

Today the kilns exist as another, largely, forgotten memory of an industrial past. The encroaching green fingers are tightening their grip.

on the old railway track

traces of sleeping

sleepers

above the surface

vertical calm

conceals

unseen networks

of rhizomatic agitation

On Charlestown Brae

the old horse trough

a flowering

of water and air

the need to create, islands for contemplation.

≈

Heat formed

in black ocean

a coastline emerges.

Inlets, an isthmus

white tundra,

transmuted gold.

≈

From a short walk in Charlestown, Fife.

Now playing: Steve Roden – Four Possible Landscapes.

Reference:

Norman Fotheringham, Charlestown, Built on Lime (Charlestown: Charlestown Lime Heritage Trust, 1997).

City State / Citadel

Now playing: Arne Deforce & Mika Vainio – Hephaestus

Unofficial Britain: The Tower

We have contributed a short piece called The Tower to Unofficial Britain which you can find here

Unofficial Britain is a new hub for unusual perspectives on the landscape of the British Isles, exploring the urban, the rural and those spaces in between. It is the creation of Gareth E. Rees, author of the highly recommended Marshland: Dreams & Nightmares on the Edge of London, published by Influx Press. He is also author of The Marshman Chronicles and is now broadcasting weird missives from the coastline of East Sussex.

Now playing: Githead – ‘Transmission Tower’ from Landing

Tidal Flux

Worlds with – in worlds

tidal

flux in

Firth of Forth

Now playing: Chris Abrams / Mike Cooper – ‘Memory of Water’ (from Oceanic Feeling – Like)

The wild wood

Beyond the hawthorn, lies the wild wood

“cuckoo, cuckoo”

over the threshold

forms and colours

of the Otherworld

… snake-eye stirs

‘

jaw click, snout

and a slither

of tongues

threat or supplication?

paw or claw?

who hears the cry

of the wild wood?

no-one here

anyone?

the oracle

of the wood

whispers:

… always the leaves

… always the light

≈≈≈

Hawthorn bushes and the call of a cuckoo conjure up the tale of Thomas the Rhymer a thirteenth century Scottish mystic, wandering minstrel and poet. Folklore tells of how Rhymer meets the Faery Queen by a hawthorn bush from which a cuckoo is calling. The Queen takes Rhymer on a journey of forty days and forty nights to enter the faery underworld. Some versions of the tale say Rhymer was in the underworld for a brief sojourn. Others say for seventy years, after becoming the Queen’s consort. Eventually, Rhymer returns to the mortal world where he finds he has been absent for seven years. The theme of travellers being waylaid by faery folk and taken to places where time passes faster or slower are common in Celtic mythology. The hawthorn is one of the most likely trees to be inhabited or protected by the faery folk.

The wild wood can be found amongst the terra incognita of farmland, old paths and hedgerows between the village of Pattiesmuir and Dunfermline, Fife.

Now playing: Bert Jansch – ‘The Tree Song’ from Birthday Blues.

NOW SING (and soothe the city fabric)

Whilst in Glasgow recently, it was a sad sight to walk along Renfield Street and see the hollowed out shell of The Glasgow School of Art. Even in it’s fire-damaged condition, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s architectural masterpiece remains identifiable as one of the great buildings of the world.

On the other side of the street, a shiny new neighbour, the Reid Building, hunches over its ailing, elderly companion. A reflective sympathy of glass, metal and concrete. On the balcony, Michael Stumpf’s installation, speaking to the moment:

As an invocation, it’s a good one:

NOW SING

As twilight descends, and the sounds of Sauchiehall Street murmur below, we can imagine the Reid Building and all people passing, singing soft lullabies. Songs to comfort. Songs to bring back light and air to soot-blackened lungs. Songs to soothe the city fabric.

So no fire damaged pictures of The Mackintosh Building. It’s presence will always be there: to heal, challenge and sustain the human imagination, whatever its material state.

(and soothe the city fabric)

Now playing: Richard Youngs – ‘The Future is So Different Today’ from Summer Through My Mind

Solstice

On the longest day

…………………………………….all

…………………………………………………..hail the light

≈

21 June 2014. Walking along an overgrown railway track near Crombie in Fife. As ‘night’ approaches, darkness fails to smother the light. Even the Giant Hogweed (?) appears to embrace the sky.

Now playing: Loren Mazzacane & Suzanne Langille – Come Night

a thinking space

……………………….t h i n k i n g……..s p a c e

………………………………………………f o r

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