Photographs taken by William Logan
Reflection
In theory this journey was going to be short and sweet, although when does that ever work out. I decided to make the most of the day, so we left to begin the walk at 10am on the 21st of December. I chose this day specifically as it is the first day of the winter solstice, which is a particularly important day to the Celtic peoples. I wanted to tie a knot between this day 100's of years ago and the present day so that there would be more meaning behind my actions. So, I enlisted the help of my friend William Logan, who is a graphic student at Nua, to help me document this process. This made the experience collaborative. As we walked through the fog, across muddy fields and roadsides, we noticed how calm and tranquil the landscape felt, as if there was a blessing that had fallen on the land. As I lay down the clay pieces and anointed them with the woad, I felt lighter, not just because of the weight I was carrying around, but because it felt like a burden had been lifted from my soul and I was leaving it inside the clay. The buzzing of the pylons created a dreamlike atmosphere, which made the whole experience seem surreal. Eventually we reached a box full of glass and fragments of pottery, I traded one of my clay pieces for a piece of glass. The exchange of objects made me feel more at one with the land. Not far from there, we stopped and blessed a tree with woad pigment and then dressed it with the finest woad dyed wool, after mapping out some space, I left the wool upon the tree in the form of an offering. My gift to the landscape and the tree that would have been rooted to that spot for hundreds of years, and hopefully hundreds to come.
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