Echoes Across the Century
I arrived at Bank tube station and walked out slap bang into the middle of London town, my feet bejewelled with pearls for the occasion; the pavement so hot in places I was glad of cool shady slabs that greeted me in the shadow of the tall elegant buildings, reaching for the sky.
In the absence of any G’s to help my google maps spring into action… I (inevitably!) walked in the opposite direction to the one I needed to be going, until a kindly stranger set me back on course…
There was much activity near the Guildhall, policemen and firemen, and water and scrubbing and sweeping… The road closed… A lorry had burst into flames not long before I happened along, and I saw the tail end of the recovery operation.
An art form in itself witnessing people working together as one, everyone intent on the same task, the commitment 100%, energy focused, activity intense, a system working at its best…
This, all in response to a system collapsing, fire bursting forth, consuming, destroying… The charred remains still standing small and damp on the road…
And yet always, there is rebirth.. The chance to experience life renewed… The Phoenix rising from the ashes…
There is a quote that says
‘Like a Phoenix she will rise from the ashes of despair and soar…’ Easily written, always a possibility, but often too hard to do… And yet life continues. Birth, death, rebirth and over the centuries the wounds have the opportunity to heal, to transform, to transmute, to make fresh new life
These thoughts fell in alignment with Jane’s installation ‘Echoes across the century’… I was visiting it for the third time, after Jane had just completed her final talk… The exhibition will come down in ten days, but there will be more that ‘rises from the ashes’ as the exhibition is packed away, lies silent… There is the energy within these ‘ashes’ of expansion possibility, Jane’s energy, her creativity emerging into something new, life renewing…
The exhibition explores the echoes of the war across the century, the effect of the loss, the loved ones gone…
How do we ever rise again from the ashes of despair? How indeed…? The greater force of nature, of the universe, is creativity and destruction, around and around… The two side by side, the yin to the yang and death and life too, stand side by side, as do despair and joy…Side by side.
And beyond these figures standing straight and tall, together, the opposites of each other… Pulling and resisting, exhausting tiring journey, which never ends… Until we remember, discover, uncover that the answers to our despair and our loss and our pain are not outside us… The life renewed, the healing, the rising is from within… The still small voice of calm…
‘Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake,
wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.
The vlog that follows is a very joyous celebration of friendship and fun that occurred as I joined Jane in her Installation and gave her a barefoot surprise….!
I have been running all of my life – it feels I was born to run. In the running step I experienced freedom and my true expression. I came to see that I needed to ‘get out of the way of myself’ and let my energy flow through the running step; allow it to express itself in the dance and the motion of running. I ran for England and GB for some years. My first international was in 1979, a three mile cross country race; and I continued to run at international level until 1993. Two of my best results were first place in the Dublin City Marathon in 1985 and 7th place woman, 3rd British woman in the 1986 London Marathon in a time of 2.36.31, which gained me selection for the Commonwealth Games.
As a little girl I ran barefoot for many years, and then I put on shoes to race around the world. Fifty years later I am travelling the world as a nomad with my husband Anadi and I have taken off my shoes and I am running barefoot again….
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