This is the first of a series of blogs which will give some background to the paintings and drawings, in my forthcoming exhibition. They were inspired by a 1000 kilometres walk in Spain, called the Via de Plata.  I recorded my experiences first hand with drawings and sketches en route and wrote a daily blog which can be read at the bottom of the home page on my website www.dandowling-artist.com. However, the final images would not exist without the physical process of walking 1000 kilometres, without the people I met, and without the amazing experiences, together they make one piece of work.

The Via de Plata is one of the many Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes.  It is by far the longest and runs from Seville, in the south, to Santiago de Compostela, in the north, almost the total length of the Iberian peninsula. The original Caminos were walked by the Celts in those halsian pre-Roman days.  These ancients followed lines of energy, ley lines, using the old magic and the old knowledge. Their final destination was not the present day Santiago de Compostela, but the mystical Finisterre. Finisterre, as the name implies, was thought to be the end of the world.  Our ancestors stood on the very edge of the known world and watched their sun-god disappear into the west every evening, only to reappear in the east every morning.  By any standard, this must have been an amazing experience.  Did they accept this as their reality or were they deliberately exploring ways to obtain insight into their world by parting the veil between the physical and the spiritual.

Is this the reason why people have always, and nowadays increasingly more so, walked Caminos?  Do they want to step out of the routine of their life and walk to the limit of their reality and peer over the edge?   I think this is feasible and perfectly possible to do so, provided you are prepared to leave the paraphernalia of everyday life behind.

This was certainly my experience on walking across the Meseta with my friend Victor.  The Meseta is a high central plateau, ranging from 400 to 1000 metres in height, and occupies 40% of Spain’s land mass.  We spent an amazing few weeks walking across a  vast landscape, under massive skies, enjoying endless discussions and putting life and reality to rights.  For me, because there was nothing even remotely familiar and nothing to cling on to, my reality, quickly, became living in the moment. I was definitely somewhere else. Of course, this can only be appreciated in hindsight. Victor was living in a reality nearby, possible closer to the edge.

 

The three paintings illustrated are from a series of five.  They will be the smallest pieces in the exhibition, but depict vast spaces, with tiny figures walking through their lives.

The exhibition will open on Thursday 1 December 2016, in the Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, 216 Falls Road, Belfast BT12 6AH.

 

 

This is a beautiful 15.6 kilometres walk along a gorgeous coastal path and then forest tracks.  It is easy to moderate and accessible to everyone, for a map and statistics go to . We parked in Omea…

Source: Omeath-Carlingford Circuit

This is a beautiful 15.6 kilometres walk along a gorgeous coastal path and then forest tracks.  It is easy to moderate and accessible to everyone, for a map and statistics go to

http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=14880444 .

We parked in Omeath at the shore front and walked along the coastal path towards Carlingford.  This path joins up with the Greenway or An Bealach Glas which follows the line of the old Newry to Greenore railway track.

If you are thinking of doing the walk at this time of the year, September/October, bring a few containers, sloes and blackberries are abundant.

The Greenway is 7 kilometres long and, apart from a short section on the road, with a footpath, it follows the coastline into Carlingford.

Carlingford is well worth a wander around and a cup of coffee or something  more substantial.  Once ready, you can simply return along the Greenway, or if you feel like a moderate challenge, walk up the fairly steep hill straight ahead from the village square.  The hill levels out at the intersection of several minor roads and tracks.  Turn right and follow the yellow walking man signs on black posts.  They will lead you along a beautiful forest walk with wonderful views of Carlingford and Carlingford Lough.

Keep following the signs for roughly 7 kilometres.  There are chances to drop down sooner, but the sooner you drop down the further you will have to walk along the busy and narrow main road.  The forest path will eventually turn into a narrow track, but still, well sign posted,and ends at a stile.  Turn right at the stile down a rough grassy track which will bring you onto a tarmac road and then the main road again.  However, if you turn left, on the main road, you are only 200 metres from the turn back down to Greer’s Quay and the Greenway.

The section on the main road should be negotiated with care, it is both narrow and busy with very little room for walkers. Once you reach Greer’s Quay, it is a very pleasant 3 kilometres back to Omeath along the Greenway.

 

The weather forecast threatened  wet and windy and it had every appearance of a duvet day, nevertheless,  we decided to blow off the cobwebs with a circuit of Black Mountain. This is an excellent choice for a gloomy day. It’s close to Belfast and there are three well sign posted and very beautiful circuits mostly on paths but with some rough ground.

We started at the National Trust car park on Divis Road which can be accessed from the Upper Springfield Road, just after Hannastown.  It is clearly indicated on the right with a brown sign.

It was a gloomy one.  It was the kind of day when you would not be surprised to see Heathcliff striding across the open moorland with Cathy in hot pursuit, background music by Kate Bush or  glimpse the aquiline features of Basil Rathbone protruding from beneath a deerstalker and clutching a meerschaum, howl growl music by the hound from hell.

The going is good on paths, with only the occasional swampy, slippery section across open ground.  Staying with the Holmes/Baskerville analogy, the Great Grimpen Mire where innocent souls can be sucker down to a watery and lonely grave never to be seen again by mortal man, it is not.  However, occasionally, the water can come over the top of your boot.  So, enjoy and tread carefully!

The Tollymore Circuit is an easy, 16 kilometres walk on tracks and minor roads. The walk starts in Newcastle, in  Donard Park car park. For a map and more information go to Wikiloc http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/edit.do?event=info&id=13837800

Leave the car park and  walk along Newcastle’s sea front. When you reach the river, turn left inland and follow the Ulster Way signposts.  Cross the road to pick up another path,  go across two footbridges crossing rivers and then, follow a tarmac path alongside the Shimna River.  Exit the park at the main road, turn left, cross the bridge and enter Tipperary Wood on the right and continue to follow the river upstream on Tipperary Lane to a minor road. Turn right, keep left and climb up the hill.   Go through a gate, cross a stile and follow the zigzagging forest path. At the first intersection go sharp left.  Follow this track which handrails the old boundary wall of Tollymore and then follow the black arrows.  A series of beautiful paths and tracks will, eventually, lead you back out of Tollymore at Priest’s  Bridge and the Tullybrannigan Road.

Turn right and climb up the tarmac road. At the summit notice a narrow concrete road between the houses on the right.  This will bring you to a grassy track  on the left which will lead you, full-circuit, back  to the first gate and stile.  At this point you can retrace your steps to Tipperary Lane or go through the gate straight ahead and follow the track, hand railing an old wall, to Drinnahilly Wood which is clearly visible straight ahead, and back to Donard Forest and the car park.

On our various expeditions, my Dutch friend Niels had noticed signs requesting the passing hiker  to respect the local flora and fauna, including leprechauns.  In respect of the latter, treasure hunters and fortune seekers were not encouraged.  The signs all bear the logo of the European Union and were erected in those halsian pre-Brexit days.  In P.J. O’Hare’s pub , in the square in Carlingford, after the Barnavave walk, he noted a glass case containing, what purported to be, the worldly possessions of a missing leprechaun called Michael, including his clothes and various everyday accoutrements ( pot of gold not included).  A  substantial Euro reward was offered for the safe return of Michael to his friends and family and since leprechauns are notorious for going commando we can only assume that he is not only out there and missing but also bare-assed.  These displays are common, if not endemic,  in Irish bars, so we can safely assume that Michael not only has a few bare-assed friends, but they could be legion.

On the Tollymore trek, we stopped for lunch in a beautiful leafy glade.  The rain stopped briefly and a few  pale rays of sun filtered through the trees turning everything an intense green. Thoughts of the missing Michael came to everyone at the same time and we felt that he was close by.  As we munched our sandwiches and swilled our tea, it was comforting to think that, in spite of so many changes, the post-Brexit leprechaun, although missing and bare-assed, was still with us safe and sound.

This is a beautiful 14 kilometres walk along forest tracks and old traffic free roads, although there is one rough muddy section which necessitates boots rather than shoes.  The walk is very well m…

Source: Barnavave Loop

This is a beautiful 14 kilometres walk along forest tracks and old traffic free roads, although there is one rough muddy section which necessitates boots rather than shoes.  The walk is very well marked with the red arrows but for a map, more information and photographs go to http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=13732618

It starts in the square in Carlingford Village, climbs  up the hill and then turns right along a forest track where you can enjoy wonderful views of Carlingford Lough. At the stile, it turns left and then handrails the fence above the forest. This is the rough part but it can be negotiated with care.

After approximately 6 kilometres, the landscape opens up again to give excellent views of Carlingford, Slieve Foye, and Barnavave and the track improves to a broad grassy path.

This will take you to Maeve’s Gap and then downhill to a deserted village. From here, a stile gives access to a series of old roads which will bring you back to Carlingford.

 

This is a painting called “Bagáiste” (Baggage) . It is watercolour on paper, 50×70 centimetres. The inspiration comes from my recent Camino in Spain even though the scene in the background is taken from a much earlier work and shows Donegall Square and the City Hall.  I thought that it was important to bring the Camino and my French friend Victor, he with the rucksack, to Belfast.

As a metaphorical image, emotional baggage can be defined as the carrying of all the disappointments, wrongs, and trauma of the past around with one in a heavy load.  We all carry it to a lesser or greater extent. However, the independence, self-reliance  and total detachment from our everyday lives that we can achieve on experiences such as Caminos, gives us the ability to not only become aware of but also to dump same in the recycling where it belongs.

The painting shows two  faceless men ( I seem to be getting very fond of them but there are a lot around these days) with a devil on their shoulders. A prime business type trailing her baggage, neatly secured under lock and key, a huge lady carrying the things of childhood in a large old brown paper bag and a twenty-something  still being lectured   by a ghost from the past. And there is Victor.

Yesterday we visited the Brú na Bóinne complex  in county Meath, an excellent and highly recommended experience. The Brú na Bóinne complex consists of three main structures, Newgrange, Knowt…

Source: Time Surfing at Brú na Bóinne

 

Yesterday we visited the Brú na Bóinne complex  in county Meath, an excellent and highly recommended experience.

The Brú na Bóinne complex consists of three main structures, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth together with a plethora of satellite tombs.  It is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum.  How was it built?  This is a magnificent feat of construction and engineering, built before the invention of the wheel and metal tools. Why was it built?  Speculation abounds ( aliens not excluded).

The three main structures have been accurately dated to between c. 3200 and 3100 BC. This makes them five hundred years older than the current form of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt , as well as predating the Mycenaean culture of ancient Greece. They have each been, very accurately, aligned with the rising or setting sun at different solstices.

We started at Knowth and admired the many examples of, what is said to be abstract Neolithic rock art.  However, whether or not there is meaning in these swirls, chevrons and lozenges, has been lost in the mists of time and, I think, is even beyond speculation.

I found Newgrange more accessible. You enter through a narrow nineteen metres long passageway which ascends about a metre to reach the central chamber. However, once you reach that small corbelled space, you realise that you have not only walked nineteen metres but also travelled back in time, five thousand years.  What you are seeing and feeling is exactly what our Neolithic ancestors experienced.

Most monuments record past glories, but the people who built Newgrange were not only sun worshipers they also wanted to communicate with future generations, they were time surfers. The structure is aligned with the rising sun at the solstice, at midwinter, at the time of the shortest day, around the 22nd December .  At this date and for a few days on either side the rising sun floods along the passageway and lights up the central chamber for a brief seventeen minutes.

For those not lucky enough to be there, the effect can now be created artificially. The chamber is plunged into darkness and the artificial sun god starts his journey along the passageway.  It has a gentle hypnotic effect and you become very much aware that you are not only standing in the place of those Neolithic people on that very first midwinter morning  five thousand years ago but also in that of future generations, five thousand years and millennia to come.

The concept of long periods of time is a difficult one for our human brain to conceive, we tend to think in terms of our own life span.  However, the light will continue to flood in every midwinter morning as long as there is a sun to shine and, maybe, long after there is anyone left to enjoy it.