Dec 292006
 

Searching for more clarity on walkingtalkingwriting: these images for what we are ABOUT:
Autumn2006pics_0431_1 Autumn2006pics_043_2

When ak and I last met to walk on Dartmoor a week or so ago, there was a moment in our talk …

… when we compared walkingtalkingwriting to Yoga (which we both do), and the ‘Salute to the Sun’ practice; the sequence of twelve movements; stretching the arms upwards-bending forward-lunging one foot back, and so on… ; first with the left foot leading and then with the right foot; "left" and "right", the alternating pair of movements, that are usually repeated in series of three.

So, ak and I continued in our conversation; first the "left" step, walkingtalkingwriting, we agreed, walkingtalkingwriting begins the process. But then the "right" step, what is this? It seemed on Dartmoor on the days before Christmas we were in the dark about the "right" step. Essentially dark. Something incognito. Over Christmas, the reading of the opening of St John’s Gospel, something emerged. Light. The "right" is action; journeys accross boundaries; over the threshold about who or what we meet.

"Left" step / "Right" step; I found aAutumn2006pics_043 detail in this photograph (taken last October in Istanbul) of ak standing in front of the remains of the massive columns formerly located in ‘The Forum of Theodosius’, the decorated columns, according to the Guidebook, being the design of peacock feathers. My reading recollected Theodosius (the last unifier of east and west, and who elevated the one Catholic religion among the competing views of Christianity, and put out the eternal fire of the Temple of Vesta in Rome), and the Forum as the place for meeting. And the closer reading of the columns, the design not only the lightness of feathers rsing, but also steps sunk into something hidden.

"Left" step / "Right" step – feet sinking into waves of flowing desert sand, feet sinking under waves of river, beach and sea; steps in series of three, first the "Left" leading, then the "Right" -
walkingtalkingwriting: journeys accross boundaries, about who or what we meet over the threshold .
Autumn2006pics_0431.. Autumn2006pics_043_1

mmj