I do departures.
In about six weeks I will set off on a ten-day wilderness (well, Dartmoor) fast, “The Mead of Poetry“, led by Tom Hirons and Rozalie (Rozi) Hilton. Before this I have preparation tasks: to complete a day-walk with only water and to write my life story, confidentially. The setting off is formal, there is a ritual space, with “elders” who passed through before. There will be trials and risk of harm. It fits the cycle: cross a threshold into liminal space. That is what, for me, art has – and needs – the power to do. It is like top athletes, to be towards the top can take your life but if you don’t go there you never get there. That is the working of myth: the heroic cycle: stealing fire or wheat from deities and suffering the wrath of heaven, excluded. If it’s all you’ve got left, or you got none left myth becomes a real political problem. It is stories we fight for and tell for love.
rWorld2 