I began reading Terrance McKenna during the mid-Seventies and continue to this day. Additionally, I often listen to various videos of McKenna speaking against a background of dub-step music. His essential ideas are familiar to my experience, sort of like old friends.
“temptations of caves, whispers of wells and springs, messages from marshes, receipts from rivers, murmurous mountains,”
You have my vote for all of those - except perhaps marshes of which there are none on the hill if course!
But rivers and springs and wells… I will truly look forward to…
A wonderful and informative post Alex, as always you know your subject in such detail! I’m going to have a think about how you can work around the cross posting although as you say and we’ve already discussed, it’s not going to be easy!
Excellent, thought-provoking writing, Alexander. Thank you for the nudge back to ‘The Frayed Atlantic Edge’ by David Gange … history has become written from cities looking outwards when in fact history was made in those edgelands. The city dwellers (the money-makers) plundered what they needed (including humans) and abandoned them when the well ran dry. ‘Barren’ reflects the capitalist’s perspective … barren because of its lack of money-making resource. Those of us who see beauty in softer hues and untamed (unexploited) wildness rail against the lazy descriptions.
Cladh Hallan is quite a place. I visited it several years ago as part of an archaeology conference with Mike Parker Pearson leading the tour. (My overriding memory of him, however, is of coronation chicken running down his beard, lol).
This post was another real pleasure to read, as I'm discovering Alexander. Thanks. So much to chew on and agree with.Funny isn't it, how there’s a ways an imposed hierarchy forced onto nature, so that lichens and moss and even grass are demoted as tedious or un-sexy, as if equatorial diversity is the standard and anything less is “barren”. Although, I agree with you, it's mostly, as you say, a poor use of descriptive.
I love your idea of the dead calling out as they are ungraven by the behaviour of the living. What a great image. It landed really nicely with me.
I know what that guy from The Shamen meant. I’ve always thought of it as our (so-called) civilisation having tripped and fallen, but is yet to hit the ground. We are living through the strange moment where we are sailing through the air but have not crashed and felt the pain.
Thanks for mentioning Terence McKenna. I'm not surprised you got into McKenna (sorry, I don’t mean to be presumptuous - what do I know?), but I’ve always loved him. Lots of mad nonsense sure, although (for me) it really doesn’t matter if (a lot of) what he says is pseudo-science (it is), because (for me) he’s really an old school storyteller, and that beautiful human skill encourages ones own mind to get into gear and start thinking. It’s never been about being taking on facts (as is currently expected), McKenna’s strength is to get you to think for yourself through his astounding narrative. He is the fireside speaker and I love him for that.
Great post. Really got me thinking and feeling. Thanks Alexander.
I began reading Terrance McKenna during the mid-Seventies and continue to this day. Additionally, I often listen to various videos of McKenna speaking against a background of dub-step music. His essential ideas are familiar to my experience, sort of like old friends.
“temptations of caves, whispers of wells and springs, messages from marshes, receipts from rivers, murmurous mountains,”
You have my vote for all of those - except perhaps marshes of which there are none on the hill if course!
But rivers and springs and wells… I will truly look forward to…
A wonderful and informative post Alex, as always you know your subject in such detail! I’m going to have a think about how you can work around the cross posting although as you say and we’ve already discussed, it’s not going to be easy!
Loved this and really looking forward to sharing the ancestral piece on Monday.
Excellent, thought-provoking writing, Alexander. Thank you for the nudge back to ‘The Frayed Atlantic Edge’ by David Gange … history has become written from cities looking outwards when in fact history was made in those edgelands. The city dwellers (the money-makers) plundered what they needed (including humans) and abandoned them when the well ran dry. ‘Barren’ reflects the capitalist’s perspective … barren because of its lack of money-making resource. Those of us who see beauty in softer hues and untamed (unexploited) wildness rail against the lazy descriptions.
Powerful words. Food for thought.
Cladh Hallan is quite a place. I visited it several years ago as part of an archaeology conference with Mike Parker Pearson leading the tour. (My overriding memory of him, however, is of coronation chicken running down his beard, lol).
This post was another real pleasure to read, as I'm discovering Alexander. Thanks. So much to chew on and agree with.Funny isn't it, how there’s a ways an imposed hierarchy forced onto nature, so that lichens and moss and even grass are demoted as tedious or un-sexy, as if equatorial diversity is the standard and anything less is “barren”. Although, I agree with you, it's mostly, as you say, a poor use of descriptive.
I love your idea of the dead calling out as they are ungraven by the behaviour of the living. What a great image. It landed really nicely with me.
I know what that guy from The Shamen meant. I’ve always thought of it as our (so-called) civilisation having tripped and fallen, but is yet to hit the ground. We are living through the strange moment where we are sailing through the air but have not crashed and felt the pain.
Thanks for mentioning Terence McKenna. I'm not surprised you got into McKenna (sorry, I don’t mean to be presumptuous - what do I know?), but I’ve always loved him. Lots of mad nonsense sure, although (for me) it really doesn’t matter if (a lot of) what he says is pseudo-science (it is), because (for me) he’s really an old school storyteller, and that beautiful human skill encourages ones own mind to get into gear and start thinking. It’s never been about being taking on facts (as is currently expected), McKenna’s strength is to get you to think for yourself through his astounding narrative. He is the fireside speaker and I love him for that.
Great post. Really got me thinking and feeling. Thanks Alexander.
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