We’re playing at Hereford Cathedral on the 10th Oct at 5.30pm. It’s a healing and meditation service in celebration of Thomas Traherne and his poetry. We’ve written three mediations specifically for the service which should last for 45 minutes.

Sara will be travelling from the south for the concert. Charlie Kenchington will be joining us to recite some of the poetry. Maddy is also playing the vibes.

I’ll be bringing along some interesting instruments including a new harp. Hereford Cathedral is a special place. We hope you can make it!

Light,

David.

I have recently discovered the work of the poet, Pia Tafdrup. If you haven’t met her thoughts before try to think of her as an interpretation machine for philosophers who often ‘spiel’. Rather than attempting to impress via her ability to take deep concepts and articulate them, she takes big ideas and lets them ‘speak’ to you directly – from the heart as well as the mind.

Here are some quotes taken from a recent interview  (Poetry Review -Spring -2010) that I have found inspiring whilst writing and composing recently;

My poems aim for beauty, well aware that beauty doesn’t exist in isolation; beauty only manifests itself in brief  glimpses or enters into a relationship with the chaotic, the fragmented, the disharmonious, etc, which of course are all part of everyday life.

“My” angel (When an Angel Breaks Her Silence – 1981) – is punctured, it is a whole, it represents disappointments, disillusion etc. When a child is brought up with fairy-tales, reality is unpredictable and shocking.

I also found the following passages extremely inspiring in the way in which they describe the motivational muse that comes to an artist when in full creative flow;

I had no plan… I didn’t doubt, I wrote from urgent necessity – and still write for the same reason. The rhythm was just there are well as the theme

I didn’t want to write about something: the poem’s form should at the same time show the content. For example, a poem that expresses desire must demonstrate it in the choice of the words, or course, and all the way into the sentence construction. The body must interpose itself as form and the poem develop a syntax of desire.

I find that poetry has a unique linguistic possibility to be what is being spoken about – a poem that depicts snow must have a completely different, muffled construction…

Poetry’s density of meaning is not a desire to block out interpretation, but an attempt to open, in concise and pregnant expressions, the manifold quality of thought and imagination. Poems don’t just do research. They also construct a universe, an aesthetic world of images. The good poem should be both music and sensuousness – and at the same time carry forth an idea’

And we must end with a poem. Here’s one from The Dreamt Tree;

Whistling

The greenness, the drops on the forest floor
after the rain, the drops in moss and maidenhair,
the tall grass, the wet summer,
where the bird has a nest and the fox a lair.
It whistles in the trees, whistles in my head,
it sparkles, rushes, cold, hot, cold,
the drops tight in the leaf, it gleams, flashes,
when I touch the wetness, I shake the branches,
spread the shine, the wild glitter
that pours out of me too, heavy with light.
I open my mouth, stick out my tongue,
feel the wet, the star-coloured,
it whistles in the trees, whistles in my head,
the high summer, the wild grass,
your rain-wet taste, your raw fragrant rain,
I sink to the ground in the dark blazing greenness,
in a wedge birds rise high above the trees.

See more of her work at: http://www.tafdrup.com/en/books

Light,

David.

As I have been walking the past few mornings I have been considering the philosophical concepts of the ‘sublime’ and the ‘beautiful’. It is considered that the ‘beautiful’ relates to those forms that please and can be ‘contained’ within a thought. That is, they are not somehow beyond our comprehension and somehow comfortably close by. A flower is beautiful, a valley is beautiful, a vase of flowers is beautiful.

The sublime on the other hand takes on the form of a positive experience that goes beyond our ability to simply comprehend it. The universe – it’s inspiring, but it goes beyond being beautiful. It inspires in a way that brings a sense of wonder – of something bigger than ourselves – we comprehend that which cannot be comprehended.

Using these thoughts, mountains are sublime, hills are beautiful, yew trees are sublime, wildflowers are beautiful – all relative and conceptual but none the less self evident to your personal experiences.

It then struck me that the concepts of the sublime and beautiful also become evident in music.  My piece Supernature is very much grounded in the beautiful – flowers, valleys, hillsides, trees. A place to relax, to feel at peace – which is the motivation behind the piece.

However, I also fear that, to understand and appreciate the beautiful fully, one needs to see it in contrast with the sublime. I concluded I need to go beyond comprehension. The music must reach out to the sublime.

Therefore, this contrast between the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘sublime’ is a juxtaposition that will feature in the piece, Mother I am currently working on. Yes, there will be the beautiful  – small, green lush valleys – but there will also be big skies, the universe, the stars. There will be a contrast between ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’.

Mother will sometimes sing you a lullaby, but she will also sometimes throw you into deep space.

Light,

David.

He believed in the power of nature to express aesthetically how our physical, mental and spiritual being is intertwined as one.

His work was largely unknown in his time and seen as sentimental by the puritans of the day. However, his almost childlike directness and positive message is captured in one of my favourite lines:

My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence. All things were spotless and pure and glorious: yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious, I knew not that there were any sins or complaints or laws

We live in a world that is not ‘spotless and pure’. However, such visions provide us all with an ideal – a perfection towards which we can journey.

Light,

David.

Then walked the path to Silbury Hill. A magikal place +10. The whole area is like a giant garden of paradise dedicated to the mother earth. A cathedral in the open with the sky & stars as it’s architectural ceiling.

Then a trip to Glastonbury to the Tor and the Chalice well. Took some footage which you can see on the video.

Also set a poem by Julian Cope to a piece of music. Julian’s piece is called The Hunter: A Dedication. A piece that is as full of guts as it is beautiful. It’s taken from his book, The Modern Antiquarian. Hard to get hold of now but worth the hunt (it will take you to some special places). You can hear it on the above video.

Light,

David.

Light,

David.

PS. The fundamental elements of this track were recorded in the woods at Hergest Croft Gardens. You can hear my children (Maddy and Sam) playing in the background. The hammered dulcimar used for the second half of the track was made by Don Ewing in Ohio. It was all played live, first take – rough at the edges but certainly fresh and alive for it. The video footage I shot in the apple orchards at Perry’s Cider in the late summer of 2009.

Hope you can come. Please email for further details at dch@viewutopia.com

Suzanne Thomas produced an amazing nature mosiac under the Yew which you can see below.

UtopiaXO provided the music (with crazy lazer lights, strobes and video backdrop).

This was really a ‘friendly’ warm up gig to practice our new material. Lots of mistakes made (Dave almost falling over – nothing to do with the cider)  – but all in all a great experience.

We hoped to video the event but there just wasn’t time to set it up – the technical side of things being more challenging than first thought. So we’re presently arranging a venue in which to hold a live event at which we can focus upon video production. Should be ready before the end of the year so watch this space!

Thanks to everyone who came.

David.