THE SPIRIT OF PLACE
Some notes


NAMES OF CLIMBING ROUTES ON ROCK FACES

Harlot Face * Haste Not * The Eliminate *Grey Slab * Necropolis * Angels Highway
Shelterstone * Pegasus * Hells Grooves * Black Wall * A dream of white horses
Eagle Front *Pot Scar * Darkinbad * Croton Oil * Elephant Dance * Zig Zag
Mercury * Raven Traverse * Sundance Wall * Bullroar * Sleuth
Gimmer String * Praying Mantis * Mandrake
Mitre Ridge * Carnage


THE NAMES SPEAK OF THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACES - AS DO THE NAMES ON A MAP:

"The hill of evil counsell * Inkerman Street * Ellerthwaite (The Clearing of the Elders)
Grasmere (Pig Water) * Station Parade" etc..

YOUR LOCATION

Could be a river, a street, or a building, an area of town or country, Region,
Railway Line, Estate, Country, town or City, Village, field or Island...

It may be helpful if it is somewhere you like, or know a lot about, or have been to...but not neccessarily so.
It may be somewhere you have not been, but would like to, or you are interested in.

Ray Bradbury once wrote a wonderful story about a time machine - an ATTIC!
An old man travelled through time, via the memories stacked in boxes.
He visited the spirit of place of his own town in the years of his youth...
Perhaps your location might be a particular place at a particular time?


1970, 1956, 1940, 1932, 1910 1290...?



The book "Prairyerth" by William Least-Heat Moon is all about a small patch of Kansas,
and is a HUGE pile of almost obsessive information - thoughts and ideas.
He calls it a 'deep map.'


Think of your reference gathering as a kind of travel.
A journey into the essential character or spirit of a particular place.


An old Apache indian once said:
"The land tells us things. It tells us stories to help us live good..."

Open your self up to the spirit of place.

Let it confide in you, and whisper its secrets...


GATHERING INFORMATION CAN BE A SURROGATE VISIT



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© John Hodkinson. 2002