Becoming indigenous

Indigenous
From pond to stream, to wood, to hill, to city street, to urban garden, this blog came out of time spent just being and an awareness of belonging that runs so far below the surface of my self, it is beyond debate and discussion and shapes my very being….

When our sense of belonging goes deeper than enjoying a view or appreciating a flower, when it lies so deep that we can no longer separate joy, sorrow and the land, then, maybe, we belong.

The twisted heather stalks of my nerves,

a heart reach from small...

Are threaded with veins,
Pickled by generations of whisky.

Clouded skies reflect in clouded eyes,
And I am bound to these hills,
So closely, i can no longer
Separate bone from stone.

My joy burned out with the heather,
Delight drifting on the smoke
Withering with scorched fur and scales,
But I am still here,
As skin sifts into sand,
And sand into skin,
And flesh slips into earth.

But soul,
Soul and spirit dissolve
Into mist and a sunset
Burning long and bright behind northern hills.

G MacLellan, June 2016

to wide horizons

Gathering shadows

 Gathering shadows at dusk

impressions of the Southwest Peak

Over the cold, wet reach of last winter, I was working with friends from Telltale to prepare an interpretive plan for the Southwest Peak Landscape Partnership. The Partnership encompasses a sweep of land along the western edge of the Peak District from the Dale of Goyt, down to the hollows of Macclesfield Forest, up to the drags of the Roaches and out over the Warslow Moors. It is a wild, varied and rich landscape that often seems a little forgotten compared to the honeypots of Dovedale, Castleton and Kinder Scout and their hordes of visitors. Climbers clamber over the Roaches, walkers follow ancient footpaths, witches gather on hilltops and by deep still pools, and casual visitors picnic all over the place. The Roaches also hold Lud’s Church about which I ramble without any provocation at all. So I won’t here.

Part of my role in the project was to work with residents and users of the area to gather a more emotional map of the area rather than a sensible map of what and where and how. So we met and talked, told stories to each other, remembered and shared memories and gathered ideas into a series of poems

There are 4 poems. I will post two now and two more shortly. I hope you enjoy them

MOMENTS

Ramshaw Rocks brood over the road,

Remembering ancient seas,

And a river runs cool under Three Shires Head,

On a hot summer day,

Music, laughter,

The voices of a village.

Open space on the moors,

Picking bilberries,

The ancient woods

Below the Roaches,

On the last day of summer,

The heather lies purple on Hen Cloud.

Crisp snow

Gathers shadows at dusk,

The aurora glows across the sky,

The Roaches slip into space and quiet,

Sometimes the mist fills the valleys and the hills look like islands.

2. CONTINUITY

Cotton grass blows on the moors,

Dandelions burn the fields yellow,

The last hay meadows fill with flowers,

With bees, with butterflies.

With the rain,

The fields slip into mud,

Water on shale soils puddles into,

A haven for rushes,

Always more to explore, here.

A picnic on the grass overlooking the valley,

Connects with other times, other picnics,

A pause in the cutting,

Hay banked up on Whitelow meadow.

Laughter.

Children have run down to the river,

For centuries,

Families, friends,

On the grass overlooking the valley,

Again, and again,

A picnic over centuries,

A long living in these dales,

Under the moors and the bogs and the ridges.

Hen Cloud, Windgather, Goyt

There is always more to explore,

Pilbsury Castle in the moonlight,

Always more to hold us here,

A barn owl flies in the dusk,      

Little owls, deer

The secret lives of the moorlands.

Always more to love here,

The warmth of a form where a hare was lying

And the voice of the curlew heralds the spring.

With thanks to our poets, to Telltale and to SWP Landscape Partnership!

Foxhole Cave

Scrambling, slipping, sliding, slithering. The entrance to the cave dropped us past a last green of moss, of fern, and into mud and darkness. A crowded huddle of a living space, but this is where it seems people lived, here in these first few yards where daylight could still slide in, like us, through the cave’s narrow mouth. A packed-earth floor, clay filling the foot-trapping spaces between boulders, a campfire’s charcoal found here and only here in all the long twisted digestive system of the cave. Deeper in, and would that fire-warmth and fire-light become a quiet smothering death? So here, here they lived and died, or maybe here they slept? And living and working and being together happened out there, where the dale dropped in deep folds below High Wheeldon, where the sky stretched into wide horizons, where the world spread its life before the watchers on the hillside.

We slid further in, clambering, the caves lubricating us generously with a saliva of pale sandy-coloured clay that I still find in the treads of shoes and the folds of coats. Deeper, darker, swallowed. And thrilled. The clay floor reveals itself in handfuls of the finest bones. The accumulated residue of centuries of fox droppings. Mice, voles and water voles, their incisors like over-eager chisels, far too long for such small animals. Digestion pauses. Torches off. Crouch on a boulder and listen to the silence. Perch on a boulder and feel the darkness. Water seeping through the limestone to drip. Each drip only magnifies the absence of other sound. A candle breaks the darkness. This is the real cave, this cold world touched by a glimmering light, this enchantment. This is Foxhole Cave.

That alimentary canal splits, a side-stomach. A bear cave. A bear butchered here. It had to have been here first, who would have – could have – dragged it down here to dismember it? Hibernating? Was it caught and speared? These are bear caves, the homes of cave bears. Their skulls and our skulls resting together in the darkness. What bound us, bear to human? Anything beyond a pendulum swing of predator and prey? That cave enchantment? That’s what I want – the rumbling power of a bear totem in the depths of the cave. The song of Grandmother Bear in the clapping of hands, the stamping of feet, voices singing under the glittering night-sky, by the cave-fire, here in the deepest darkness.

But I don’t know. We don’t know. The story speaks to me, lures me into words and poems and the endless enchantment of skull and stone, but the evidence lies in bones in boxes, lies buried under the accumulated debris of a dark cave, lies in the tiny shard of chertz discarded on the cave floor.

The afternoon reclaims us with sunlight and grass and unconcerned sheep and the cave’s mouth closes quietly and firmly around its darkness and its secrets. We are covered with cheerful, triumphant clay and I am full of stories.

Notes

1. Useful reference: 

Edmunds & Seaborne, Prehistory in the Peak, Tempus, 2001, ISBN 0-7524-1483-6

2. A thousand thanks to Paul Mortimer of the National Trust for letting us muscle-in on his reconnoitre of the cave for later public visits.

3. This wasn’t really a Collections activity but the event will feed into the work of both Richard Johnson and myself in Buxton Museum's Collections in the Landscape project. This project is expanding public access to the Museum’s Collections both in the museum by redeveloping the Wonders of the Peak Gallery and through school and public activities and enabling access to the Collections through virtual resources

4. Cave Bear: no, the skull in that photo was not awaiting us in Foxhole Cave. You can go and visit it at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery 

Thanks

Once again to Paul Mortimer for bearing with a group of over-excited artists and educators with grace and charm

To my fellow adventurers into the depths: Richard Johnson, Sarah Males, and John Roff.

John works at Hilton College in South Africa who supported his visit - helping us all inspire and reinvigorate each other!

A few more bones

A few more bones

without apology, I enjoy bones. I have a pile of skulls, shells and bones in the living room complete with festive toadstools and twinkly lights (is it any wonder I live alone with axolotls and fish?)

And with Bone Detectives brewing, I've dug out a couple of ol' bone poems. Enjoy, dismiss or ignore, it's your choice

SOCKET

The sweep of the sky,
The rain's bow,
The curl of a wave,
The sand's dune,
All contained in
The scoop of an eye's socket,
And the bowl of a skull.
A world cradled in
My electric palms

first published in Old stones and ancient bones: poems from the hollow hills, by Gordon Maclellan (me!)


and here is The Bone Pit, written as part of a narrative poem for Buxton Museum's Wonders of the Peak audio trail

THE BONE PIT

A drumming thunder of running hooves, a racing sweep over the hilltops.

Steaming breath, rolling eyes, the wind flare of mane.

The heart beats quicker, hooves before paws, before claws, before teeth.

         Remember those who have gone.

         Bone upon bone,

         Rattle and fall,

         Tooth and horn,

         Fang and jaw,

         Warm flesh, fur and feather all grow cold

         Together in the bone-pit darkness

And wait.

Wait for a pick, for a shovel and a gentle touch

To lift the darkness of 10,000 years.

10,000 years is not so long.

We can look up and out, beyond these Buxton walls

And see the hills the old animals saw.

The folded dales may remember them yet and

All those we have lost may

Still walk in the dreams the land is dreaming.

         Aurochs, giant deer, bear, lion, and mastodon,

         Remember those who have gone.

         Bone upon bone,

         Rattle and fall,

         Tooth and horn,

         Fang and jaw,

         Warm flesh, fur and feather all grow cold

         Together in the bone-pit darkness

Haregate Hall and crystals

Haregate Hall and stray minerals

wet tissue picture of a geode

The lively lovelies of Haregate Hall are back!

a line-up of the usual suspects

a meoment ind evelopment

After the dramas of our last Haregate entry, the Cast have glued themselves together a bit more and relationships are clearly developing...

Unfortunately, this was just a short series of workshops and my time has finished...I may never know what happened ot Lady Mary Dovery-Little, and the Brigadier and this ominous looking bishop....

This post is a bit of a chance to catch up on images. As well as the last Haregate ones, I've had a few pictures back from people who joined in Marvellous Minerals

 at Buxton Museum earlier this month

crystal picture in window

Borax and copper sulphate crystals

 With so many thanks and much laughter to the Borderland Voices Art Club and the mad scientists of Marvellous Minerals

Characters for a new adventure

Papier-mache People of the Peaks

Borderland Voices

2^nd February 2016 

a gentleman awaiting his face and a tricorn hat

                         

Working with BV’s Tuesday Art Group in Leek, we have started shaping a set of characters who might have, should have, may once have, lived, loitered or even lingered in the Staffordshire Moorlands

we started with sketches and rolling and scrunching paper

Elbows, knees, hats and shoes and faces next week…..

ready for some clothes

 

elegance taking shape

Deep dales and wild places

Deep dales and wild places

A new story for the Moorlands

with Gordon MacLellan

Wednesday 17^th February 2016

Flash Village Hall

(off A53 between Leek and Buxton)

7.30 – 9.30pm
SNOW WARNING 16TH FEB: HEAVY SNOW IS FORECAST FOR THE AREA TOMORROW. I WILL AIM TO POST STATUS ON HERE BY 4 PM TOMORROW (no, happen we're not bein' nesh: the road to Flash closes quickly!)

From the Dale of Goyt to the sweep of the Warslow moors, the South-west Peak is a landscape full of variety and excitement. Old stories are embedded in these hills with Gawain hunting for his Green Knight, stray mermaids, lost loves and wandering brigands.

This evening will explore some of those old tales and invite people to add ideas about the Moorlands today and help start some new stories.

Where are your favourite places, dreaded places, secret places, wild and windswept treasures, where are best places for picnics, or long walks or playing or walking the dogs? We will gather those ideas and feelings and start spinning a new landscape of stories and poems.

Join me for an evening of ancient tales and modern wonders

Practical stuff:

• Free
• Refreshments provided
• No booking needed but if you are coming it would be helpful if you could let us know!
• finding the hall: turn onto Brown Lane (signposted to Flash) just south of Flash Bar/Knights Table. Hall is 100 yards along Brown Lane on left

Ffi: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Organised for: http://www.southwestpeak.co.uk

Images: 

double sunset at Glutton

icicles in Lud’s Church

Stories Alive! a thunderstorm of chopsticks

Stories Alive!

twilight music 

18th Jan 2016

it's quite hard to catch stamping feet....

Ben wrestles sticky tape

We began with noise…

This was a twilight session for teaching staff from the 5 nursery schools of the Stories Alive! Project. As the project draws to a close, we have been looking at areas we would like to develop more – not necessarily as a project but perhaps within individual nurseries. Our musician/storyteller, Ben McCabe had done an excellent job of inspiring both children and  staff musically during earlier workshops, giving all of us new confidence  in ourselves as musical people, so we gathered for an afterschool session with him.

We began with noise….

Over 2015, Stories Alive! placed 5 artists in 5 Nursery Schools (see below) in and around Burnley in East Lancashire. Our teams have been challenged to develop sets of activities to help embed storytelling and storymaking in Nursery practice, in families and in the children we are all working with. There have been storyhouses built, storysacks made, stories mapped, little adventures, big adventures, whole storyworlds of adventure. Because of the carefulness of photographs of young children, I’ve charted relatively little of the project so far but will hopefully catch up a bit now….

So we began with noise….

chair drummers, poised

We sang a journey: improvising an adventure with repeating sounds, actions and words, reflecting on the value of combining sound and movement. We played musical I-spy, creating improbable stories with improvised lines

It wasn’t all just fun, you know. We talked about the importance of playing with sounds for developing verbal skills. We thought about rhythm, story structure, dance and the abstract thought processes that represent action or objects with sounds and the value of recording patterns of sound - creating group scores as a way of thinking about writing. And we made a spectacular amount of noise with sets of cooking chopsticks (other wooden rods are available) on the backs of chairs (other furniture is also available)

ready for action

And that was fun. The rest of the evening was fun, too, but this was spectacular. A rippling seashore of noise breaking over the chairs: rattles and scrapes and thumps and scratches and 50 people laughing and concentrating and releasing a thunderstorm in a school hall

This has been a good project. This is still proving to be a good project!

Nursery schools involved

Taywood 

Newtown

Rockwood

Basnett Street

Rosegrove 

thunder

Stories Alive! is supported by Grants for the Arts 

and the Stocks Massey Bequest

Summer woods: the stories of the trees

Summer Woods

finding the stories of the trees

Saturday 18^th June 2016

Morgans Woods, Horsham

At midsummer, step into the long green shadows of the trees, touch earth and bark and wonder, pause, listen and reach out to the storyteller within you

Join artist and storyteller Gordon MacLellan, the Creeping Toad, for a day of delight, storymaking and discovering the stories the trees tell us

winter trees...

Summer Woods offers a creative connection to woodland. We will write a journey that will take us into the heart of the wood, shaping poems to feel our way through the trees, exploring, finding moments to treasure: characters, faces, maps of connections. This will be a playful day, a cheerful encounter with a woodland, a reminder that a smile helps us learn.

Working in the ancient woodland of Morgans Wood, we will gradually build our own links to individual trees or glades until by the end we will each (hopefully!) have a story to tell and have built our own tree book with drawings, poems, riddles and that story from the heart of the wood. Here in the Sussex Weald, oaks and hornbeams grow their stories and buzzards sing their songs over the treetops.

...cheerful leaves...

To book: contact Gordon to book and pay, form below

Costs:  full price £80, early bird booking £70 (before 31^st March 2016) (includes drinks and materials, bring your own lunch).

Payment: can be by cheque, BACS (contact Gordon for details) or Paypal (to: creepingtoad@btinternet.com)

Directions and any other instructions sent with booking confirmation

Camping: spaces for overnight camping are available at £10 a night (bring your own tent!) (see note below)

For more information about the workshop, contact Gordon at creepingtoad@btinternet.com

BOOKING FORM

Please provide the following information:

Name:

Address:

Email:

Telephone:

landline

            mobile

How many places are you booking?

Payment: how are you paying?

Directions will be sent with booking confirmation

Will you want to camp before or after the workshop?

How will you be travelling? Nearest Station is:  Horsham

If coming by car, can you offer any spaces to other participants?

 

...glowing trees

Camping further information

If you want to camp, we need to know on booking or well in advance. There is space for small tents and some campers. All camping is self-catering and water will need to be brought onto site. Please note that facilities are very basic and no showers or buildings are available. Small manageable fires may be permitted on request. £10 per head per night payable on the day.

who knows who - or what - else we might encounter?