NUMINOUS LANDSCAPE

The Hawk of Black Hill

—

A Winter Solstice bow to mystery, longing, and participation mystique.

I originally wrote the majority of this piece in January of this year, intending it to set something of a course for the months ahead. For one reason or another I did not complete it at that time, yet it has been on my mind to do so. I think there is something important about this not being 'finished', so I have decided not to tie everything together into a convenient conclusion. Instead, I hope this can be a trail which allows space for entering the story through your own imagination, to bring together the components with significant moments and endeavours that are personal to you.

The Solstice is a time for stepping into who we want to become as the light begins to grow again. That seems an especially appropriate medicine for right now, given what appears a continual darkening of events, and quite possibly there is also the experience of being pulled away from a chosen or intended course, how we wanted things to be.

Which direction are your creative longings facing? What, or indeed who is speaking to you now, yet struggling to be heard through through the noise? 

This has to do with attention, cultivating awareness of what calls to us unexpectedly from the periphery, the margins. The edge of our senses is an important place, it is the horizon that the hunter must be fixed upon, present for both danger and opportunity, for this is where both emerge - when either is too close the time has passed to seize opportunity, or to avoid the danger.

My thinking here is that what asks for (and requires) our individual attention to serve it, may speak subtly, through languages other than words, older than thoughts, and via numerous images, sensations, and events. 

Black Hill

Acrylic and ink on paper

22x16 cm

2018

Creating image to honour, and deepen connection with a place, and its unseen aspect.

During the past few years certain locations in the Scottish Borders have been of great inspiration to my work. During the Autumn of 2017 I stayed at Dryburgh, by the River Tweed, in sight of the Eildon Hills, and not far from Black Hill. This was the first of many enjoyable visits to this part of the world, one I have since come to find very rich in its energies, and appearances. Just prior to my stay I happened to read about the Ballad of Thomas The Rhymer, but had no conception of where the story was set. It came as an intriguing surprise to find the 'Rhymer's Stone', which is situated on the north eastern edge of the Eildon hills, and marks the spot of the Eildon tree, from which 'true Thomas' looked out and met the queen of the faery, who took him to the underworld for seven years. Visible from this spot, although I did not know its name at the time, is Black Hill, which despite being several miles distant is a prominent and alluring feature of the landscape. Over the next few months on my trips from Edinburgh to the Eildon I became increasingly aware of Black Hill's powerful presence. Initially content to view it from afar, during the Spring (2018) I set my intention to find it.

Black Hill in the distance, as seen from the Eildon Hills near the Rhymer Stone. 

I began to work on an image in acrylic and ink, evoking some of the strikingly vivid, near luminous shades of green that appear in the clear light of this area. This was to be a small piece, and one of the first I made combining these materials. Like all of my work it is not intended to be an image about a place, but rather from it. The following day I made the train journey to Tweedbank, crossed the river and walked over the hills, down to the smaller but no less resplendent Leader Water. The strong greens contrasted to great effect with the rye red earth, Black Hill gleaming in the spring sun (top image). I did not climb the hill on this occasion. Although I enjoy the clamber of a hill trail, I generally prefer the view of looking upwards from the valleys. Another reason is that if an area feels significant for me (as this one did), it seems important to be courteous, to visit and pay attention, come in to some relation with the place first. We are talking not about a mere lump of matter, but a living being, possessing a sentience quite other to my own. 

Sparrowhawk with a fresh kill (pigeon) at the studio door.

The following day I returned to the studio, with the radiance of Black Hill fresh in my mind. I worked intently, to commit as much as possible to paper. When returning to the studio (in central Edinburgh) during the afternoon the scene that I found at the entrance stopped me in my tracks. A Sparrowhawk was crouched over a Pigeon, talons grappling with a significant prey. Intending to take 'work in progress' photos I had a camera in my pocket. The hawk eyed me intently. There we were, both surprised and uncertain in each others presence for a couple of minutes. I had seen a Sparrowhawk locally only once before, lurching out of some nearby trees about two years prior to this, and not at all in the time since. The visit to the alluring Black Hill, the intention to come into relation through image making, and a visceral moment of supreme rarity upon the studio threshold - itself a doorway to the imaginal.  

In myth the hawk is often a traveller between realms, a messenger, prophetic. But I don't want to dwell too long on overarching meanings, or hawk 'imagery', because the danger in doing so is that we turn this particular bird into merely a symbol, and completely miss the living breathing presence that it is, with its own life, appearing in relation to very particular circumstances. This is a danger with an overly psychological approach to myth, animism, or magic — it becomes all too easy to kill the bird itself by reducing it to something that just represents something else, rather than being that particular power or potential. 

Black Hill as a work in progress

When I'm working on an image I find that it requires simultaneously high levels of concentration, focus, and intention in terms of its crafting, and yet also a sense of expanding awareness for what may wish to be communicated through it. This is a developing conversation between what I think the work is about at its inception, and influences that appear to come from without, making sure that a false sense of knowing and certainty about the piece does not hamper its development. On reflection I would say that when an image simply does not 'work' (and therefore never sees the light of day), there has been an imbalance during its construction, either a lack of clarity, or attempting to have too much control over it. The Hawk in its hunting must need something similar. A panoramic vision of a wide landscape, gradually narrowed to a fixed point of attention, but without losing awareness of all that surrounds it.

The view from Black Hill (taken at a later date after several visits) towards the Eildon Hills, and Rhymer's Stone. 

What of the 'blackness' of Black Hill? 'Black' is a very common name, applied to many geographical features across Britain. Alfred Watkins, writer of The Old Straight Track came to consider that in reference to hills, black may refer to a place which had a beacon of fire, lit by the local inhabitants - in Anglo-Saxon times the word meant 'shining, pale', the root word for our 'bleach.' Mythologist Martin Shaw suggests that 'black' refers to something of interest beneath the surface, a site of archaeological significance, used for varying purposes throughout different eras. 

In alchemical terms, the first stage of the process of transmutation is called Nigredo, which constitutes a 'blackening', decay and putrefaction. Referring to a substance that is impure, but with the potential for change through the application of certain procedures, already containing its essence to be revealed, the prima materia. This is the principle of transmuting led into gold, or in spiritual and psychological terms, the sacred within the profane, the remedy within the affliction. Ultimately there is nothing to discard, nothing to dispose of or be ashamed about, and in fact it is that very 'substance' which must be 'discovered' because it is only that which can be transformed. 

Light is born within darkness. 

Going back to the start, and the tale of Thomas The Rhymer. Thomas's home was Earlston, a small village just north of Black Hill. I can imagine Thomas sitting by the Eildon Tree, where the Rhymer's Stone now stands, gazing towards his home, which would not be visible from there, but Black Hill would be exactly in his line of sight. Perhaps this is the 'underworld' from where the Faery Queen emerges, and then takes Thomas on a journey not so much to a foreign land, but a realm that is his real 'home.' 

If the Underworld - the beneath the surface world - is a place of teaching and initiation, one key strand often found in myth and folktale (which are both created from reality), and as such is also present in our everyday lives, is that the protagonist has to either be taken against their will, or simply has no alternative but to go, perhaps to retrieve something precious without which life cannot be endured. It is almost a prerequisite to not want to go there.

What is required is a Psychopomp, a guide to the underworld, or world beyond and before death. The job of this being is not to judge, but simply to guide. And perhaps that is what we need now, as a culture at large, but also quietly, individually, without fanfare. Often appearing uninvited, in dream, or perhaps in animal form...

I would be very glad to know if any of this strikes a chord with you in some way. Perhaps encounters or experiences in places that you recognised as significant at the time, or maybe did not consider before but appear in a new light now. Please feel welcome to get in touch if you would like to. I will reply to you as soon as I can, including over Christmas. 

I wish you all a restful and restorative midwinter, however you may be choose, or be obliged, to spend it. 

Thank you for reading