PRACTICE WALK 13: 3 MARCH 2016. HAM TO NORTHFIELDS, EALING.

I came across a pair of stainless steel posts as I was walking on the Thames Path near Kew. They mark the original meridian line that passed through The King's Observatory which was founded by King George III in 1769. The Observatory is visible in the gap between the posts - it is now a residence. Walking past Syon Park, Isleworth, over Kew Bridge and onto Brentford, the River Brent and Boston Manor Park. I ended the walk off Northfields Avenue 3 hours later.

PRACTICE WALK 12: 2 MARCH 2016. HAM TO CAESAR'S CAMP WIMBLEDON

Training with the pack and 10 miles feels as much as I want to walk. I've been trying to visit my local iron-age fort for ages but keep getting lost - this time we managed it. It is a scheduled ancient monument and is now part of a golf-course so it is not possible to wander about on it, but it retains some wildness and remoteness. The gorse is flowering and the birches, pines and heather give it a different character to nearby Richmond Park.

PRACTICE WALK 11. 29 MARCH 2016. CADBURY CAMP, NORTH SOMERSET

The Iron Age Fort was formally known as Camalet and was occupied from 6th century BC to the mid-1st century and is associated with King Arthur and Camelot... you can see Glastonbury Tor from the top. The stone monument was erected on the summit in the Millennium and indicates nearby Iron age settlements.

PRACTICE WALK 10: 28 MARCH 2016. BUCKTHORN WESTON, SOMERSET.

The roads are flooded and the first bluebells have appeared.

PRACTICE WALK 9: 26 MARCH 2016. THE MARSH HORSINGTON

The Red Hunchback is spotted in a remote rural lane on the Horsington Marshes, Somerset wandering  8 miles in torrential rain. The poncho is waterproof and covers my pack... I'm set for the rain in Spain.

PRACTICE WALK 8

A 5 mile walk on Box Hill with my 6kg  pack and walking poles - they turbo-charge weak legs uphill. 

BOX HILL SURREY

ON JOURNEYS

One of my favourite books is A DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS by J.E. Cirlot. My copy dates from 1976 and was picked up in an Oxfam shop in Totnes. It has an interesting entry under Journey...

"Travelling, Jung observes, is an image of aspiration, of an unsatisfied longing that never finds its goal, seek were it may. He goes on to point out that this goal is in fact the lost Mother; but this is a moot point, for we might equally well say that, on the contrary, its journey is a flight from the Mother."

I have decided to carry a small print of Epstein's 'Madonna and Child' with me on my journey to the Sea (El mar) and time will tell if I'm searching or fleeing or both...

PRACTICE WALK 7: 11 March 2016. STATIONS OF THE CROSS

stations X of the cross. An exhibition organised by COEXIST HOUSE which is part of Kings College London and is spread across 14 destinations in London.

A friend, Anna and I started at the chapel of Kings College on the Strand. A wonderful piece of high Victorian Gothic designed by George Gilbert Scott to see Terry Duffy's 'Victim, No Resurrection?' 1981 which was made at the time of the Brixton Riots. We then walked to Parliament Square to see the moving statue of 'Ghandi' by Philip Jackson, 2015 and into Methodist Central Hall so visit 'Intersection Point', 2015 by James Balmforth - a minimal crucifix turned into an X. From there a hike to Westminster Cathedral to see Gill's 'Stations of the Cross', 1915 and then another long walk to The Wallace Collection to see a series of works including a wonderful Limoges plaque based on Albrecht Durer's woodcuts.

After Albrecht Durer's Small Passion Woodcut Series, Limoges, France c. 1570-1625.

Our attention is directed to Station Five which depicts Simon of Cyrene helping to carry Jesus's cross - which he does, but his tiny hand is barely visible away from the central drama, placed at the left hand edge of the panel. A quiet unremarkable action.

Then onto Cavendish Square to see the Jacob Epstein 'Madonna and Child', 1950-52. Strong and unsentimental it has immense power, and strangely I had never seen it before.

The National Gallery was our next stop to see 'The Way to Calvary' 1544 by Jacopo Bassano. A strange painting - dramatic and full of contorted backs.

The church of Notre Dame de France near Leicester Square is a well kept and glorious secret. It is a circular space which once housed a panorama, but was converted to a church in the 1950s and is so French. It has a Lady Chapel with murals by Jean Cocteau, 1956.

The Courtyard outside St Giles Cripplegate in the Barbican houses 'Stations', 2016 by Roland Biermann. A dramatic wall of red-painted oil barrels.

Then onto the offices of the Salvation Army at the Millennium Bridge to see Station Ten - Jesus stripped of his garments. 'Sea of Colour', 2016 by Guler Ates made from discarded baby clothes.

I walked over the Millennium Bridge back to Waterloo Station under a new moon. Today was a 15 mile walk...

STILL

Distil (v) distil, late 14C. from Old French distiller, from Latin distillare "trickle down in drops" from dis - "apart" + stillare 'drip, drop" from stilla "drop".

“One of the key conditions needed for the success of the alchemical art is a closed and air-tight hermetic vessel, or “container” which is able to withstand the pressure needed for the transformation and “cooking” of the prima materia".

Paul Levy, 2009.

I spent a fascinating day at the Jensen’s Gin distillery in Bermondsey, in search of my second alchemical vessel: the Still. The distllery is tucked away in a dark railway arch in a hard to find back street in South East London, but the space is filled with a glistening stainless steel and copper still surrounded by bins of fragrant botanicals: Juniper berries, Coriander seeds, Orris Root, Licorice and Angelica.

I am going on a long journey. I have found a still. 

ELEVATION + APPLICATION

I have a new app on my phone: Camino Norte by Wise Pilgrim Guides. It maps out the route and lists albergues and places of interest en route. It also has has an ELEVATION MAP of each stage of the journey. Extremely scary and prompts another stint at the gym...

I start at Irun. Day 2 look alarming with an ascent of nearly 300m and then a sudden descent to Pasajes de San Pedro, where mercifully after 11.6km, there are beds and cups - which according to the key means BAR and BEDS.

PRACTICE WALK 6

A 8.5 mile (14,916 steps) walk on my home patch along the Thames to Richmond and back, on a beautiful Spring day. The Richmond 'Riverside Plane' (Platanus x Hispanica) is the tallest Plane tree in the capital and is listed on the London Tree Forum as a Great Tree of London.

RED HUNCHBACK

Burri gave the name Gobbi (hunchbacks) to a series of paintings in which the canvas plane is distorted and pushed into the viewer’s space, using tree branches or curved metal rods. 

FROM CORNELIUS

I was sent this photo via Facebook by Cornelius, my former Chi Kung teacher. I'm pondering its dark Yin rootedness as an antidote for my Yang wanderings. Another picture of endurance perhaps; the oak tree holding its leaves through the winter.

RED VESSEL

I spent a while pondering whether my new red water-proof hiking poncho is a utensil or vessel? I decided that since I could get into it, it was a type of vessel, probably a Still. I suspect sweat is the condensate… it is so far the only red object I am taking with me.

 “First there is the nigredo, the blackness, the ‘dark night of the soul’.  Then the light enters the process bringing consciousness and enlightenment….this stage of the work is called the albedo.   The redness follows; this redness is called the rubedo.  In this redness there is a warmth and an emotional relationship to the contents of the unconscious (that) has entered the process.  Redness is Eros, passion, and pneuma (spirit).”

Ann McCoy

“In the state of ‘whiteness’ one does not live in the true sense of the word.  It is a sort of abstract, ideal state. In order to make it come alive it must have ‘blood’, it must have what the alchemists called the rubedo, the ‘redness’ of life.  Only the experience of being can transform this ideal state into a fully human mode of existence.  Blood alone can reanimate a glorious state of consciousness in which the last traces of blackness is dissolved, in which the devil no longer has an autonomous existence, but rejoins the profound unity of the psyche.  Then the opus magnum is finished: the human soul is completely integrated.”

Carl Jung

The illustration on the stuff sack is rather disconcerting; a smiling hunch-back. More anon perhaps…

CREDENCIAL

Yesterday I collected my Credential del Peregrino. It permits me to stay in the albergues and pousadas, it also gets me high-carb discounted menus en route! It will be the record of my journey but is presently a grid empty squares...lovely possibilities.

It is numbered 1439

THE FUMERIO

I am presently making a very porous vessel at Pelham Hall, part of Morley College. It is a thurible or incense burner loosely based on the magnificent Fumerio that swings down the central aisle in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. 

The word is Galician meaning the "emitter of smoke", it weighs 54 Kg and takes 4-5 men to swing it via a series of pulleys over the heads of the  pilgrims. It is one of the reasons I'm setting out on this adventure - I want to see it!

My version is work in progress...

It will be 1m diameter sphere and when finished, will be suspended out in a woodland-glade somewhere...entitled "Censing Nature".

A labyrinth of sorts....

"Censing Nature' (Work in progress)

Sara Mark, 2016

Steel (1m diameter)

ALCHEMICAL VESSELS

“There are many forms of vessel described and depicted in the alchemical literature and emblematic engraving; a seeming multiplicity of forms of retort, pelicans, water baths, alembics, cucurbites, stills, etc.

However, in the interior work we will find that all these different outer manifestations reduce to three archetypal forms - which we can call the CRUCIBLE, the RETORT and the STILL.”

Adapted from http://www.levity.com/alchemy/vessel.html

Crucibles for melting metals

Steel with lead residues

Pelham Hall Forge, Morely College, SE London.

The Crucible is essentially an open vessel, dish, mortar or cauldron, open to the outside world but capable of containing material…allowing impurities or unwanted facets to dissipate, as well as substances and forces to enter.

PRACTICE WALK 5

A gentle stroll through Nimmings Wood on the Clent Hills (5,621 steps hardly counts...)

OVER CHALK

A beautiful day for a walk among tumuli on Whitesheet Hill... we find shattered earth and sky