Ponderings Upon Losing Yourself To Find The Way

Lady Liminal Dialects of the Hum, Landscape

“There’s no reason, there’s no sense, I’m not supposed to feel. I forget who I am, I forget…”

Utopia: Goldfrapp & Gregory, 2000

As many of you know, I like to wander, wander and ponder. Uplands, downlands, forests, seas of peat, oceans of concrete; all captivate me. I lose myself when looking upon the ground just as much as when I gaze up at the firmament. Even artistic depictions of landscape leave me transfixed. I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve spent staring deeply into Nash’s megaliths, Constable’s clouds, Munro’s circles, and Nevinson’s fractured futurescapes. Relinquishing fully my corporeal form, surrendering myself entirely to the vistas that they depicted. For me, the temporal ceases to have any control once I’m unleashed upon the world(s).

People approach landscapes differently. Some prefer to stay within fairly populated areas, the ‘safety in numbers’ approach. Others are content to head a wee bit off of the beaten track, but are conscious never to stray too far from the path, or the car park…

Many years ago, during a conversation with a Dartmoor National Park Ranger, I was told that the vast majority of visitors to that most beautiful of moors never strayed more than a mile from their transportation, and rarely dared to venture beyond the well-trodden paths. Not that I’m mocking this restraint, Dartmoor is a truly sublime place, one of my most favourite places within the whole universe. It is as beautiful, as it is treacherous. One moment you can be basking in the most glorious sunshine, only to be enveloped by thick, impenetrable fog minutes later. There are many who traverse the high moor. From spectral hounds to poor souls who chose to end their lives rather than live with the pain of unrequited love, fae to demons, men who escaped the infamous prison at Princetown, but not the moor herself, ghosts that emanate from the transmitter up on North Hessary Tor. It is wise to be cautious whilst navigating such spaces…

There are people who prefer to engage with landscapes psychogeographically. Drifting, studying “the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals” (Debord 1955, Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography: The Situationist International Text Library). Again, I hold no vexation with psychogeography, it just doesn’t work for me. I guess this is due to a feeling that PsychoG is just too wrapped up in theorising, in ‘thinking’.

When I’m outside I cannot think, I can only feel. I have to give myself up entirely to the landscape with which I’m engaging. I have to fully immerse myself, enmesh my flesh, my psyche, within the concrete, wood, water, soil, stone, Hum. To let these collective elements permeate through to the very bones of me, to the actual DNA itself. The landscape calls to me like a siren. At times it feels as if these differing terrains are manifesting as a giant magnet, focused solely on me. Sometimes this pull induces very real physical pain. Whether it’s a positive or negative experience, I can’t hold back. I have to persist, and experience; to feel, not think. Pondering can take place once I’m back home…

I guess it’s almost something akin to the curiosity that Miranda, Irma, Marion and Edith, in Picnic At Hanging Rock, feel once they set out to climb the monolith. Deep down they know that they should step away from the path and head back to the others, but the urge to go on, to persist, is too strong. Edith wakes from this reverie and thus, is ‘saved’, whereas the remaining three girls, and their teacher, Miss McCraw, who had also begun to scale the rock, continue to climb. All, but Irma, are never seen again. Did ascending Hanging Rock enable transcendence for the remaining schoolgirls and their teacher? Were they in fact the ones that were saved?

Even when I’m outside I negotiate space in ways that may seem strange to others. I carry my phone with me, unaware of whether I’m taking photos, recording soundscapes, or ruminating aloud… Sometimes I’ll stand upon a single spot for hours, oblivious to the time, the changing light. Often, especially when I’m surrounded by pylons, I’ll just lie on my back, staring up at the sky. Watching the daylight ebb, giving way to the nocturnal. Being alone and enveloped by a celestial blanket, whilst calmed by the galvanic lullaby, is one of the most glorious things. As I lie upon the ground and look upon the pylons piercing the twinkling constellations, I see the energy emanating from the electric ley. It is so powerful a sensation. It literally feels like my heart is going to burst through my ribcage, like a cannonball, and pierce the sky, the stars, The Hum itself. It’s on those nights that I feel truly connected with everything, time has evaporated. I am young me, lying in my bed, pondering my electric hopes and dreams. I am bereaved me, chasing after my dad, desperately trying to reconnect through chemical interventions. I am current me, finally finding my place within the universe. Entangled together, but constantly changing, evolving? There’s no place for stasis within The Hum. Even five minutes from now I will not be the same person who has written this sentence…

“Most of the day we were at the machinery, in the dark sheds that the seasons ignore. I held the levers that guided the signals to the radio, but the words I receive, random code, broken by fragments from before. Out in the trees, my reason deserting me, all the dark stars cluster over the bay. Then in a certain moment I lose control and at last I am part of the machinery…”

The Belldog: Eno, Moebius & Roedelius, 1978

The above song, The Belldog, was sent my way by a very dear friend, who I feel may also be a bit of an Eno obsessive, intent on converting myself, and others, to the cause! Joking aside, they sent me this piece, alongside another Eno track, which will feature shortly, after reading my various articles and blogs. These lyrics convey wonderfully how I perceive, and engage with, my Liminal Worlds. That it’s only at that exact point when ‘reasoning deserts me’ and I relinquish control, submitting fully to sensations, experience, the Sturm und Drang, that “at last I am part of the machinery”, The Hum, the cosmos. We must be prepared to lose ourselves in order to find the way…

This Romantic mindset, Landscape Punk outlook, call it what you will, has enabled me to wander, and wonder, within some truly phantastical and awesome surroundings; subterranean, digital, paranoiac, pulsating. Movement within all four of these realms, no matter how unsettling, enables transition. It is only by being willing to shed the somatic, to step away from the rational, to take the leap and go deep, that we can fully connect. Channelling childhood dreams and imaginings, alongside adolescent trauma and adult fears, has unlocked realms that my young self would never have thought possible. It’s not always easy, at times it can be terrifying, bordering on the preternatural, but it is always truly Empyrean…

“Over the nights and through the fires, we went surging down the wires, through the towns and on the highways, through the storms in all their thundering…”

St Elmo’s Fire: Eno, 1975

Wee Bec, ‘Little Star’, I’m calling to you from the 21st century. Never stop dreaming, feeling, shouting out into the ether. The universe is listening, The Hum is carrying your call throughout the world, and others are hearing it. One day, somewhen in the future, you and they will connect. Together, you will “surge down through the wires, through the towns and on the highways”. You’ll explore the Liminal Worlds together, finding release through following the markers, taking the leap, and, finally, being able to move beyond.

The Hum, the universe, has got your six Little Star. Don’t be afraid, we’re all here, waiting for you…

Brian Eno in Suffolk