Friday, Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to a ‘Contemplation of my own Death’\u00a0 in the company of dear friends. Led by Brian Oakenleaf we spent three days untangling our own attitudes towards death and therefore, life. We discussed Scottish and family traditions, rituals and beliefs associated with death. We created ceremonies to honour our ancestors which is fully within keeping of the heritage of our place. We visited Croft Morag, a beautiful stone circle near Aberfeldy. Throughout the weekend I sketched as a way of catching hold of the days. The sense of duality in the examination of living with dying echoed many of the ideas that had emerged during the week. Alaistair Maclennan would have needed no introduction to the group.<\/p>\n
The idea that the difference between performance and spiritual ceremony was discussed. It was proposed that in performance one is not bringing one’s whole self to the experience whilst in ceremony it is entirely about fully inhabiting the intention and the moment, bringing one’s whole being to the circle. I wondered how actors I know would respond to such a notion. Sandy when playing the Duchess of Malfi came home nightly, wrung out saying that he had killed his sister and that it does terrible things to a man to do that 5 nights in a week. It could be argued that if he did not inhabit the act every performance, the audience would not have such a visceral experience. However Sandy’s main intention was to demonstrate to the audience how his jealousy drove him to the madness which in turn made him kill his sister. In ceremony, in our ceremony, we had no audience. To an audience we would have looked like a bunch of slightly demented white haired people moving slowly. It was not intended to be experienced or to be for the benefit of anyone else. For us it was a quiet, relective time to honour the blessing of life and the transience of our days. Yet I am making it public here. We ever dip in and out of experience and the story of being and sharing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friday, Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to a ‘Contemplation of my own Death’\u00a0 in the company of dear friends. Led by Brian Oakenleaf we spent three days untangling our own attitudes towards death and therefore, life. We discussed Scottish and family traditions, rituals and beliefs associated with death. We created ceremonies to honour our ancestors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/68877235299__DFEB6184-B3D8-4FE0-BB36-E0684C3FFF9D-scaled-e1667337264144.jpeg?fit=1868%2C1740","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":220,"url":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/uncategorized\/berlin\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":0},"title":"Berlin","date":"15 November, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 After the initial brilliant idea to spend a weekend in Berlin with Felix and spend a day at the Kathe Kollwitz gallery, it was a wrench to leave Scotland and my studio knowing that I would be away for 5 whole days. I pack sketch books, inks, pens and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/GDR-crossing-man-scaled-e1670175352444.jpg?fit=1200%2C547&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":50,"url":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/uncategorized\/wednesday-05-10-22\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":1},"title":"Wednesday Rules of Drawing","date":"5 October, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Wet messy play with Alex \u2013 actually rules of drawing. We listened to a variety of sounds and made marks in response. We were encouraged to work differently to our norm with different materials and to possibly close our eyes. It was a glorious session. The freedom to play with\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/86B07450-D214-4F0D-9F08-36846D73C8F3_1_105_c-e1666213467328.jpeg?fit=1024%2C768&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/uncategorized\/beginning\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":2},"title":"Beginning","date":"3 October, 2022","format":"image","excerpt":"Journal Drawing week 2 071022 \u00a0 Another overly exciting week. Overly because my energy levels are depleted and I feel like a wet dishrag. \u00a0 Monday 03 10 Started the week on Monday morning with a tutorial in the studio with Tania. We talked a about artspeak and my irritation\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/9D08AB89-4A14-4D7F-B0F0-057B6E263D3E.poster-e1666207644431.jpg?fit=1200%2C318&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":214,"url":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/uncategorized\/a-walk-with-marcus-coates\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":3},"title":"A walk with Marcus Coates","date":"26 November, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"A few days of getting to know Marcus Coates through YouTube and writing about his work. I would like to go for a walk with him. Maybe we could take a wee dram and walk up to see the osprey nest together? We might be treated to a kestrel visit\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Marcus-Coates-Journey-to-the-lowerworld.jpeg?fit=800%2C643&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":761,"url":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/uncategorized\/quipo-dance-and-costume\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":4},"title":"Quipu Dance and costume","date":"21 April, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I am delighted to think that we may have seen some of the development of this dance piece when we were sitting in awe under the wonderful Quipo in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Such a special day, such a special moment. As with all dance costumes, as\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/img_8444.jpg?fit=1179%2C1150&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60,"url":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/uncategorized\/friday-07-10-22\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":5},"title":"Friday","date":"7 October, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Reflective morning reading Wintering by Kathleen May \u2013 pondering on value of stopping and assessing and feeling. It is very helpful to be able to refer to another\u2019s beautiful prose to validate one\u2019s own actions. Although why I should need external validation to listen to my body, attune to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/27105B90-BE33-455A-9301-CD7ABE531ADD_1_105_c-e1666214386729.jpeg?fit=1011%2C458&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theheuch.co.uk\/Kirsty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}