A Feast of Ideas and Passions

Tagore 150 at Dartington Hall
1^st to 7^th May 2011

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky

and I lift my eager eyes to thy face

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish

– no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tear
Tagore, extract from 'Brink of Eternity'

A full day of food for thought, belly and heart – and a little more food for the belly than usual! The curry tent and its hypnotic music is becoming a regular haunt for this writer with its generous portions of wholesome spicy, home cooked vegetables served by a friendly duo who clearly love their work.

Wandering through the grounds listening to discussion sparked by events and talks, bumping into old friends, making new ones easily through the shared, unspoken understanding that by the nature of being at the festival we are of the same tribe, idea, belief and passion, wanting a better world full of creativity, connection and a desire for deep change. The weather held and at times offered bursts of sunlight followed by welcome warmth cutting through the cool days of May after so much April sunshine.

I have heard and read much of Jane Goodall and her work but had no idea just how much she has done and is doing in the world to help make it a better, more loved and respected place for humans, animals and plant kingdom alike. And it is clearly a better place for her life within it.

In defiant defence of our world and all the beings within it, Jane is indeed a force of nature. The Great Hall was packed. Her message delivered clearly and simply. No one could mistake her feelings of despair for the world we have created; she made the 'we' very clear. But she possesses an unflinching faith for the possibilities of change and the hope she has for a better world. Very much in line with here her Roots and Shoots charity motto 'Never Give Up.'

It would be easy to be overwhelmed by the staggering accomplishments of her life and for me to think, “how could I get close to that, why bother?” but she clearly believes we are all capable of making an important difference in the world no matter how small – and in fact we must. It's not simply up to the politicians to do this. We are the leaders we've been waiting for. I couldn't agree more.

Questions from the floor seemed at times to be more about personal platforms for individual work and beliefs and at one point a gallery questioner almost seemed to be moving into a heckle about the destructive force of technology, demanding a response from Jane. She held the question firm, making it clear that for her, technology used correctly, was a key part of our future and has a place in helping to alleviate poverty and the reliance on fossil fuels. I couldn't help thinking about her momentous discovery of the chimpanzee who had created a tool to eat termites and how this changed the world view of humans being unique because they are the only species to create tools.

She then unseated religion and belief as being another key division between animals and man with her story of seeing a group of chimps dancing by a massive waterfall, hurling rocks into the water, staring up at the cascading water in wonder and how this echoed mankind's nature based beliefs and the worship of mystery and beauty in the natural world.

Jane received a much-deserved standing ovation.

Stephan Harding and Philip Franses delivered an ambitious 45-minute talk on the relationship between Einstein and Tagore using Goethe as the bridging point. I heard somewhere that it is good to read or engage with material, words or ideas that requires thought, every day. This certainly demanded some mind bending concepts to get my head around, imagining riding beams of light and ending where you began before you've even left your starting point (part of Einstein's discussion on light as an immeasurable force). I left a little baffled but boosted by the colour they brought to the talk and their evident, shared passion for blending science and belief in a positive and workable way.

There is a feast of ideas and passions at this festival and I would be wise not to gorge myself too early in my hungry search for creative, spiritual and intellectual satisfaction. Time to wander and sit and digest and let the ideas percolate and of course, eat a little more curry...

Tagore Tales
Rabindranath Tagore. William Rothenstein in his book Men and Memories quotes a story of what happened when Yeats arranged a small dinner for Tagore before he left for India. After dinner, “we asked Tagore to sing Bande Mataram. He hummed the tune but after the first words he broke down; he could not remember the rest.

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback. www.casparwalsh.co.uk

The Vision Becomes a Reality

Tagore 150 at Dartington Hall Estate

1^st to 7^th May 2011

“O Sun of India's sky,
O World-Poet,
O Moon of Bengal's heart,
You were beautiful in your inner life,
You were beautiful in your outer life,

You were beauty incarnate in God's entire creation.
Gloriously and triumphantly you secure your place
In the world-assembly with your creative force,
Supremely meaningful and fruitful in various walks of life.”

- Sri Chinmoy from 'My India'

Illustration by Norman Young

There could be no better or appropriate place in England than the Dartington Hall Estate to hold the celebratory festival marking 150 years since the birth of the great artist, philosopher and social activist, Rabindranath Tagore. The festival has been two years in the making and spearheaded by Tagore adorer and Resurgence Editor in Chief, Satish Kumar. The high level of organisation involved; the vision and passion to honour Tagore and his life's work is now buzzing through Dartington Hall and the surrounding grounds. There is a palpable sense of pride at the many events on offer and the list of luminaries who have signed up in great number to discuss their unique interpretations of Tagore's work and life.

I am drawn to the festival as a writer and I confess, prior to the first day on Sunday the 1^st of May, I was for the most part, ignorant to the scale of Tagore's work and its impact on the world.

My many teachers told me about the great writers and poets, but only ever about the English ones. I never heard the name, Tagore once mentioned. He began to get my attention proper soon after I moved to Dartington in 2008 in relation to his significant influence on the founders of the Dartington Hall Trust, the Elmhursts'. But Tagore still remained pretty much, just a name, making little impact on my ill educated western mind. I had also not heard of Tagore's epic work of poems 'Gitanjali', which won him the Nobel prize for literature in 1913.

An interpretation of 'Gitanjali' was presented on Sunday evening in the Great Hall as an audio visual event to mark the opening day of the festival. Within five minutes of being immersed in the beautiful montage of slides projected onto the Great Hall walls, Tagore's poetry writ large alongside, exemplary live music and dance and pitch perfect recitations, I became fully and acutely aware of what the fuss was and still is, all about. The poems featured within these sublime ninety minutes were clearly devotional and expressed the pure joy of Tagore's life in relation to nature and nature in relation to the fullness of blissful, human experience. Believe me, it's not easy to write poems about bliss. Poems about pain and heartache flow easy compared to the unique ability to express a view of the world through joy and a pure heart without reverting to shmaltz. Tagore achieves simple, clean and beautiful devotional poetry with apparent ease, producing something brilliant, clear and memorable. The show received a much deserved standing ovation.

Preceding 'Gitanjali' was the staged performance piece, 'The Awakening' bringing together three women from Tagore's poetry, fiction and drama. Four very accomplished dancers brought this work to life accompanied by a storyteller and traditional musicians. Aside from an early problem with sound, this was superb. Another first for me. Their skill as dancers was mesmerising; each with their own individual style. Having the story unfold through dance, alongside recitations kept me fully engaged throughout and falling a little in love with the colour of the outfits and the beauty of the dancers.

I noticed an artist scribbling away next to me trying to capture their rapid movement and energy. I asked him to scan and send them to me to share them with you here:

Tagore Tales

After Wilfred Owen lost his life in the first World War, a letter written for his mother in the event of his death was found in his tunic. It quoted Tagore with these chilling, beautiful words from 'Gitanjali':

“When I go from here, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable”

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback. www.casparwalsh.co.uk

The Minute and Miraculous

After the long, lagging winter, the season of singing is at last upon us. Fuzzy buds and blossoms burst from the trees and shoots come burning up from the ground in a colorful profusion.  Minute wonders surround us, yet they are so easily overlooked. The petals of magnolia or bluebells when examined closely reveal how they draw and translate their beauty from water and light – into prismatic glory.

In these signs of vernal renewal I find a kind of counter balance issuing from Nature; an answer to the human-created chaos unfolding around the globe. We wage war, poison Earth and sea – yet still, she sings. The exquisite trills of robins, spinning out like dewdrops along a spider’s silken line are, just like the flowers, awash in light. 

In spring perhaps more than any other season, we sense reminders of the divine all around us.  This ancient, eternal dance of renewal brings into perspective this current blink of history, overshadowed by the rage of homo sapiens. Flowers and birds were here first and in one form or another, they shall endure and in this, there is a certain solace. And for those so inclined, invitation stands, that if even for a few moments, we may set down the human drama and “be as the lilies” – discover to our delight, that there exists a place for us within the symphony.

Leah Lemieux is an author and lecturer who works on dolphin protection, education and conservation initiatives. www.RekindlingTheWaters.com

April

The tree that the Celts traditionally associated with April was the hawthorn, a tree of love and fertility. But the hawthorn does not usually flower until May which is why it is also called the May tree. The blackthorn flowers now, around Easter. Its soft white blossom is in stark contrast to its harsh black thorns. Known as the crown of thorns, the blackthorn tells us of the difficult tasks that must be faced, indeed, that cannot be avoided. This is the place of shadow that must be honoured before the fullness of spring can be enjoyed.

In the mythology of hawthorn, we hear more of these difficult tasks. The hawthorn goddess Olwen was the daughter of Yspaddaden Pencawr or Giant Hawthorn.  She was known as ‘She of the white track’, for white blossom sprang up wherever she walked, leaving white tracks across the land, just as the flowering of hawthorn in the hedgerows does now. The nephew of King Arthur, Culhwych, fell in love with her and was set by her father countless impossible tasks before he could claim her hand. He was helped by the Knights of the Round Table and won his bride.

So Olwen’s white track becomes the bridal train leading us across the land to the place of union. Here where the sun and earth are joined in the marriage that is spring, where the masculine and feminine within us become one, this is our inner alchemical wedding. April is the time of preparation for this, where the sacred tasks are set.

But just as the hawthorn does not blossom until the end of April, it can be hard in the early part of the month to discern our white track from all the others available to us. Its whiteness, as it were, is not apparent yet. The white track is not a road of oughts and shoulds, it is a path of heart. We may not recognise it until we feel it. Stepping onto it thrills us to the core.

Ian Siddons Heginworth is an environmental arts therapist, founder of the Devon-based Wild Things community programme and author of Environmental Arts Therapy and the Tree of Life, Spirit’s Rest Books. www.environmentalartstherapy.co.uk

March

The ash tree is the tree that the Celts associated most with the month of March. In Norse mythology, it was Ygdrassil, the World ash. This ancient and shamanic image illustrates three levels of consciousness, as well as the journey of a human life.

The roots of Ygdrassil are found in the underworld, the unconscious self. Because it contains all the material that we have chosen to repress it is also our past and in particular our childhood. It is our foundation, the place that we are growing from. In the myth, the world serpent gnaws incessantly at these roots. As a symbol of the dark feminine, the wounded feeling self, this is the gnawing of our wounds demanding attention. This dark material is the compost from which life blossoms.  The alchemists call it the prima materia, the dark lead that lies heavy on our hearts.

At the beginning of March, down among the dark roots of the World ash, we can connect very deeply to this prima materia and feel it as raw and intolerable once again. Up among the branches at this time, the buds of the ash tree are black as lead.

The trunk of Ygdrassil is the here and now, this world that we live in, the present. It is here that the alchemical transformation of the prima materia takes place. When we allow ourselves to be in relationship with our feeling self we begin the transmutation of our wounds, changing the lead into gold. This is conscious adulthood, our life work. Here the trunk of the tree becomes the sealed container in which the process unfolds as naturally as the spring.

In the branches of Ygdrassil, we find the future and those elders who having worked their alchemy are now harvesting their gold. In the myth, the lower branches are the home of deer, which graze upon the leaves while the eagle, the higher self looks down from above. As symbols of love and gentleness, the deer are an indication of the nature of this harvest. We may strive for material wealth, but it is in the fruiting of relationship, both with ourselves and others, that we find real gold. This is a harvest of the heart and it can be there in all our futures.

Ian Siddons Heginworth is an environmental arts therapist, founder of the Devon-based Wild Things community programme and author of Environmental Arts Therapy and the Tree of Life, Spirit’s Rest Books. www.environmentalartstherapy.co.uk

Photograph: Ash Tree Marmit www.sxc.hu/profile/marmit

February

As the days grow longer and warmth returns, that which has been frozen begins to thaw and feeling returns to the Earth. 

The month of February begins with the ancient festival of Imbolc. Meaning ‘in the belly’, Imbolc marks the first stirring of life in the womb of the Earth. Dedicated to the goddess Bride, it is the first fire festival of the year. 

Bride, or Bridie, is the virgin goddess and all brides represent her as they walk towards union with the solar masculine. Hers is the new, soft body of the Earth as the water begins to flow again and the soil becomes the womb, dark, moist and enveloping. As she nurses the seed within, it begins to reach out to her.

As feeling returns we too find ourselves again in a womb, but one of our own making. The life that has contained and sustained us until now becomes the soil from which we must spring

The tree that the Celts associated with the month of February is willow. Known as the Queen of the waters, the willow is the most feminine of trees. Its Celtic name Saile, means to leap or let go, which is why the leap year falls in February. Willow calls upon us to make this leap, but the only way is to release feeling, to grieve for all that has passed and so cut the ties that bind us to the past. As we do so, life changes and we surge ahead.

To go willingly into grief, to learn and develop its ways as a practice for life, is a great gift to ourselves and to our children who then learn not to fear it as we did. Once the practice of active grief is learnt, we can feel our way all the way back to our beginnings seeking out the grief that was held there and releasing it now. Letting go, letting go, letting go. Each time we cut the strings that hold us back and bind us into familiar patterns and self-fulfilling prophecies, we take a leap. We leap into the unknown, into a place where anything is possible and long forbidden dreams can manifest themselves at last.

Ian Siddons Heginworth is an environmental arts therapist, founder of the Devon-based Wild Things community programme and author of Environmental Arts Therapy and the Tree of Life, Spirit’s Rest Books. www.environmentalartstherapy.co.uk

Are you a good guy or bad guy?

Almost nobody likes to think of themselves as a bad guy. Whether an embezzling politician, a soldier in Rowanda, a Japanese dolphin hunter or just the average person on the street, we fool ourselves with stories of necessity to justify and cover up any of our less noble acts. But where does a clear-eyed look at the role we play in this world leave us? A few questions to ask yourself:

Are you in it for the money? 

Is your job, or whatever takes up the majority of your days, something you are doing out of love, care or compassion, or is it simply something to pay the bills?

How much and how often do you give?

What do you offer the world, or those in need, free of any charge? This could mean time, effort, skills or support that is monetary, spiritual, physical or emotional.

Is this once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Every day?

How aware are you of the potentially harmful impact of your daily actions on other people, animals and the environment and how much do you care?

For many, honest answers may start to paint a less than pretty picture.

Example: I know a geologist working for a mining company. He enjoys his time in the remote, rugged pristine places, examining rock samples for traces of precious minerals. He writes songs about the beauty he beholds and he makes a lot of money at this job. He has a young family to feed. But when, and if, the desired deposits are found, the company moves in and utterly despoils the once beautiful wilderness to claim these ‘natural resources’.  But by then, this geologist is already far away at the next site….

In the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the Earth, is he a good guy or a bad guy?

If we cannot view Nature with the same concerned care we extend to our own families and loved ones, if we cannot make this change, we have no future. 

Leah Lemieux is an author and lecturer who works on dolphin protection, education and conservation initiatives.

www.RekindlingTheWaters.com