almias psychogeography event (almscliffe crag

Hi! first post i think? Hope this is ok in this section of the forum....

We are looking for info on the folklore and history of almscliffe for our psychogeographical project on almscliffe crag....

http://almias.org.uk/


http://www.wetherbynews.co.uk/magazine/Psychogeography-event-at-Harrogate-Fringe.6324895.jp

if anyone needs anymore info, i'm happy to help! We have quite a lot of text-based material from the online archives but one of our group is an oral historian and if anyone has any info, stories, gossip, or complete fiction they feel is appropriate, we'd love to hear it. We hope that this will continue past the fringe festival tour and end up being a useful resource on the crag, but also it should be pretty interesting on the day if anyone fancies it!

In return i can offer you some of my recent photos from down the fairies parlour cave under the crag....




first section



the floor past here slides down to a wall, with two possible fissues leading off to left and right. I've explored the left passage to the end, but not the right yet!



back up to the surface!

thanks all

This concept I like. It is a great step in the future direction to our underestanding and interpretation of sacred/etc sites.

Great photo's.

Please keep us informed & up to date.

Best regards

john

Intriguing-sounding stuff Layla (and good images aswell).

I don't think I'll be able to get along - but hope the event goes well. We're up in the region today, seeking out occult histories as usual, having found some prehistoric stuff a few miles west.

All the best - Paul

no worries paul, this whole project has been a constant battle against conflicting schedules! We would love to hear about any sources you had in regards to what you said about UFO sightings over the crag though, as we have a few ideas around that area?

thanks lowergate i'm glad its an idea other antiquarians can relate to, usually i find art projects very lacking in relevance to their 'place' as it were, it makes a lot of sense to all of our group (since we are all heavily focused around the idea of a genii loci in our workings) to centre it all around somewhere like almscliffe.

john lennon

A FLOWER’S TEARS (Fear of our self & others self)

A taverna, back of nowhere
strong spirit to ease the soul
a small child with care drawing
pencil slow in motion

Just a moment of nothing
a few moments out of time
to glance at the moving pencil
and the graceful hand that held it

Such care and concentration
whatever could her picture be?
to move the head a little closer
to see what eyes could see

Eyes took in her heart was crying
for a life that would never be
hers’ only toil and birth
and the misery that is Earth

Some they bloom in springtime
the mountain crocus blooms in fall
yet this was the very first time
the eyes took in a flower’s tear

john

Hi Layla!

Soz I aint replied earlier. I've been really busy with various things o'er the last few days.

listerinepree wrote:...usually i find art projects very lacking in relevance to their 'place' as it were, it makes a lot of sense to all of our group (since we are all heavily focused around the idea of a genii loci in our workings) to centre it all around somewhere like almscliffe.

Art projects tend to be hugely lacking in intrinsic natural relationships. The environment seems to be either 'projected' or internalised as to some 'thing' upon which elements can be projected, played or taken; in contrast to sitting with the site, wholly, without the distractions of our daily internal dynamics, to feel the place as it is. But this in itself can also be difficult, don't y' think? - as certain impressions or feelings tend to be aspects of ingrained beliefs or other ingredients emerging from our personal unconscious.

D' y' think that, perhaps, after going to a place many many times and learning to identify our unconscious projections (be it at Almscliffe, at home, in the city or the woods), that eventually, once we've got to know those parts of ourselves pretty well, that we can begin to feel the real genius loci of places? If not, could we sometimes confuse genius loci with unrecognized aspects of our own persona?

I'd be interested to hear of any prolonged, repeated communications with Almscliffe, in the various weather conditions, night and day. Seriously. This is how our ancestors communed with these places as they were intrinsically enfolded within Nature all the time, and so understood very simply the differences between internal psychologies and those very notable interactions in the "consciousness of sites": rocks, streams, trees, etc.

(hope I'm making sense! )

No worries! glad you are busy, more books soon i hope?

Well me and phil have been going up as much as possible, once a week at least. Last week we were there from 6pm to 12.30...we've been up at all times of the day on various occasions, hoping to stay there one night if possible (freaking cold today though!) it does have a completely different atmosphere at different times. Its interesting watching the way the flow of people moves in shifts, from walkers to climbers to kids smoking weed at dusk (to us moping around waiting for the moon to appear from behind clouds)....its been absolutely fantastic spending so much time there. I've always appreciated the way you learn to truly love a place from repeatedly visiting and knowing it like a part of you gives you an inner focus, like a form of meditation or higher conciousness. To know reality more deeply/completely in a lot of ways.

It stands to reason that people dont feel any connection to these places when we work and live in such artifical, sterile and unnatural environments. It almost feels alien to a lot of people to walk and be outdoors. I think whenever possible, you should avoid having a roof over your head, and shoes on your feet. LOL when did i become a hippy!?

also, paul, did you publish anything on 'rom's law' and if so, can i buy it from you??

listerinepree wrote:Well me and phil have been going up as much as possible, once a week at least. Last week we were there from 6pm to 12.30...we've been up at all times of the day on various occasions, hoping to stay there one night if possible (freaking cold today though!) it does have a completely different atmosphere at different times. Its interesting watching the way the flow of people moves in shifts, from walkers to climbers to kids smoking weed at dusk (to us moping around waiting for the moon to appear from behind clouds)....its been absolutely fantastic spending so much time there. I've always appreciated the way you learn to truly love a place from repeatedly visiting and knowing it like a part of you gives you an inner focus, like a form of meditation or higher conciousness. To know reality more deeply/completely in a lot of ways.

It stands to reason that people dont feel any connection to these places when we work and live in such artifical, sterile and unnatural environments. It almost feels alien to a lot of people to walk and be outdoors. I think whenever possible, you should avoid having a roof over your head, and shoes on your feet. LOL when did i become a hippy!?

Makes a lotta sense to me! There's a vast difference between the visiting tourist's experience of sites, or indeed the logical inspection of archaeological consciousness, and that experience gained by befriending & staying with a place in all weathers. We become acquainted in ways that are not perceived by those who don't do such things - but our relationships with the places is as real as any had from contact with people. It's just different I s'ppose...though the experiential communion is operating with substances that aren't after anything, nor questing anything, merely being the place as it is. I've found encounters with such places to be sometimes very enriching, as the more I've gone to some of them, the more disengaged I've become, numerous times to that state of no-mind (if y' get wot I mean!). Many times of course, bugger all occurs, apart from we get cold, wet and laugh at ourselves! An experience that will obviously have occurred very very regularly to our ancestors, as they were outdoors, living it day-in day-out, and so will have had subjective encounters at places and given them reverence for much the same reason we would if we gave ourselves a lot more time in the same sorta places.

I just wonder why such simple encounters with reality ever stopped happening, or why people preferred to be disconnected from the world. Weird...

listerinepree wrote:also, paul, did you publish anything on 'rom's law' and if so, can i buy it from you??

'Fraid they all sold out. Soz... I only got 100 copies printed and they went very quick. I'll let y' know when I do another print-run (it'll happen in the not-too-distant future). I keep thinking of using Lulu.com or CreateSpace and run 'em off from there. Anyone had any experience of 'em?

The almias site is up and running now with E-book and music made on Almscliffe. If anyone here is interested in coming on the 25th of july just let me know, we have a few of the 'earth mysteries' contingent coming