Did you know that part of the inspiration behind the name “Quartz” is the shining or sparkling white of St Ninians foundation at Whithorn?
It can be argued that the whole of the British Isles gained the name “Alba” in antiquity because of the “chalky white” cliffs in the south. “Candida” Casa uses a word which can mean “sparkling white”, and the way in which Quartz crystals shimmer can be a reminder of this.
Christmas Light installed in St John’s Dumfries
The Christmas Light installation is now in place. Drop in between 10.30 and 4 to contemplate how light is received and reflected, shaped by all those who have contributed.
The deeper meaning for christians, especially at this time of the year, is for us to reflect on how we respond to the eternal light which has always surounded us. Recognising, Recieving, and then shining as Nuggets of Joy wherever we find ourselves.
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We are working away and sticking peoples symbols to mirrors. Every ‘Nugget of Joy’ will contribute to the overall effect.
This Sunday, the 18th of December, will see the first component of the artwork installed.
Working away at Frothy Coffee in DumfriesFrom those who gathered for the contemporary service.
As well as for regular services, the building is open for prayer and reflection between 10.30 and 4 each day. You are welcome to drop in and watch the light being gathered and reflected – shaped by all who have contributed.
Quartz has been using Haiku this weekend as part of the Wordsmith Crafts CiC setup at Kirkcudbright Art and Crafts trail.
The following is taken from notes written by Kate, who has been leading this activity.
A selection of Haiku
We have been giving people a space to stop. The whole of Kirkcudbright becomes a walking trail and on Friday we had a couple of chairs to rest in which were appreciated.
I have experienced people being surprised by what they have achieved, that they have come up with such a profound haiku. One lady took ages, told me lots about her life and the struggles she faced. She was in tears when she finished her poem, and it was a lovely poem for her sons.
Another experience I have enjoyed was asking children if they know what haiku were and wathcing their parents being really impressed that their child knows all about them.
We have a bowl full of words on cardboard strips. Having words provided means that people encountered words they weren’t expecting. One lady was ambushed by the word forgiveness- we had a brief conversation about it but I suspect more thinking and heart-searching happened after she left.
In addition, giving people the opportunity to write their own words allowed one girl to ignore all the rules and simply state “My name is Bee”. One man wrote a lovely poem about someone special in his life. Young twins who hadn’t learned to read yet enjoyed picking up words they liked the look of, and then the adults watching re-ordered them, #SensingMeaningfulness.
Saturday was wet and windy to start so there were no haiku for the first few hours, but some lovely ones arrived with the sunshine later on. It was great to see parents and children working together – parents were happy to help without taking over or changing things that they thought weren’t quite right.
During the morning haiku hiatus, the finger labyrinth we also have on the table, being made of glazed pottery and therefore much more waterproof, came into it’s own. Some had seen one before, but many learned to use one for the first time. I had a great half-conversation with a lady who was trying to get her son to do it as he had had a difficult day and she thought it would help him.
Not everyone felt able to stop for long, but we had many brief conversations about laying burdens down safely and picking them up in a different mindset. I felt able to say that I speak to Jesus in the middle.
The labyrinth of chairs we set up in St Johns, linking activity inside the building with activities like this in the wider community.
More to follow! Sunday and Monday still to go.
As well as the Quartz area Wordsmith Crafts has a workshop where people can become 5 or 10 minute apprentices and learn to make copper armbands. This is a hands on encounter with millennia old skills. Conversations about value, time, and our relationships with the people who have contributed to making the Scotland we know today.
There is also a shop area where artists associated with WSC can exhibit and sell their work. This helps support the artists, and fund the installation at the trail – any surplus will be directed to helping people access the full resources of their Heritage through other projects.
Just some Iron Age folk discussing heritage, in between customers.
A Quartz Outerweave at Kirkcudbright Art and Crafts Trail
Thought becomes a woven banner.
We will be #SensingSpirituality in Kirkcudbright during the last weekend of July 2022. The trail is open from 11am to 5pm on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. You can find more info here
We were last there in 2017, and are looking forward to returning. This year we will have three main activities to help people use art and crafts to become aware of, explore and express the invisible things which make humans more than just their physical elements.
The theme for the trail this year is “Cats” in memory of one of the trails founders. We have taken this and then approached it through a poem called “Pangur Ban” The poem compares a monks search for meanings in texts to the quest of his pet cat trying to catch mice.
Either writing freestyle, or by arranging from a selection of words people will be encouraged to reflect on their environment and make an observation. Traditionally this type of poetry is 17 syllables in a 5,7,5 pattern. The poems will be fleeting glimpses of meaningfulness, but they can be photographed and then tagged #SensingSpirituality to be found online as long as the internet lasts…
Weaving
Continuing our practice of collaborative artwork, individuals can record their reflections on ribbons of cloth or paper. These are then woven into a tapestry using a warp weighted loom. Fragments of thoughts will be visible in the final banner, but each is anonymous as part of the whole.
The Cats mirror
Interested?
Come along and see for yourself what we are up to! Quartz takes the challenge of leaving our spiritual comfort zone to find “The face of God in friend and stranger” seriously. We will be setting up in Kirkcudbright to learn as well as help. We contribute from our own traditions and the experience of walking the paths we have made, and we hope to receive from the discussions this inspires. If you would like to get involved in helping do this, then talk with us and we can work out how to help each other.
Studio and Cluaran
Hair clasp by Kirsten Milliken
As well as the Quartz project being on display, we are inviting people to glimpse a travelling version of the Wordsmith Crafts Studio . We will have a workshop set up where we will be experimenting with Iron Age crafts. Making rings and broaches. Some of these will be replicas, some “in the style of” and some will be contemporary creations.
Iron age fibula broaches
We run 10 and 20 minute craft workshops. In these people can drop in and make something, and then take it away with them. We provide the skills and learning for free, but anything made in the workshop has a value and a trade needs to be made in order to take things away!
We will also have a shop front where the artists involved with Wordsmith Crafts can exhibit and sell their work.
The act of making art can visualise some very complicated emotions. Art in public can be an action that ‘moves’ many people. If you are a dancer, then dancing can be protest as well as performance, and we who are crafters have folded angels.
We can also help in other more direct ways too and here is a list of agencies and individuals who can help get that aid to where it is needed in Ukraine.
The following quote comes from a translation of the life of St Mungo as told by Jocelin of Furness early in the 12th Century.
The robin in the story is the one on the coat of arms of Glasgow, and its story is well known. What is perhaps less well known is this discussion about why a serious churchman of high standing should pay attention to sparrows, rock pigeons … or a robin redbreast.
Now a certain little bird, which is called a redbird by the common people because of its ruby-colored small body, was accustomed to receive its daily food from the hand of Servanus, the servant of God, by the command of the heavenly Father, without whom not even one sparrow falls toward the earth. And having accepted such intimacy, he displayed familiarity and tameness towards him. Sometimes he was even accustomed to rest upon his head, or his face, or his shoulders, or his lap, assisting him as he prayed or read, and by the striking of its wings, or by the sound of its inarticulate voice, and by whatever gestures of affection, it would exhibit those towards him. And sometimes the face of the man of God, overshadowed by the acts of the bird, was covered with cheerfulness, admiring truly in the small creature the great power of the Creator, by whom the mute speak and irrational things are known to experience reason
And because many times this bird came near to him or departed by the command and will of the man of God, it reproached the unbelief and hardness of his students’ hearts, and exposed their disobedience. And let this lesson not seem unsuitable to anyone, seeing that God, by the voice of a mute animal and one used to the yoke, rebuked the folly of the prophet, and Solomon, the most wise of men, sent the slothful man to the ant in order that by contemplating his labor and diligence, he might shake from himself his stupefaction and sloth. And a certain holy and wise man summoned his religious to consider the work of the bees, so that in their little bodies they might learn the beautiful discipline of ministry. But perhaps it will seem a wonder to some that a man so holy and righteous would take delight in respect to the play or gestures of a little bird. But let it be known to those of such thoughts that righteous men at times need to be softened from their own sternness so that those who in spirit go out to God are more temperate to us at times Even the bow must sometimes be loosened from its excessive strain, so that it will not be weak and useless for sending the arrow when the time of need comes. For birds seek with outstretched wings to fly in the air, and then once again with these same wings they descend to settle down to the lower earth.
Have a look for the stories referred to in the text (the first prophet mentioned is Balam). More importantly, keep an eye on your garden, or the park when you go for a walk. God has been speaking with humans, teaching, a lot longer than we have had words to write about it.
But what has this to do with analogy or creative worship?
If we allow ourselves time to experience wonder, and put into practice the belief that God is generous, then we can train ourselves to notice the goodness in everything.
This video uses timelapse to speed up the process of crystals forming. Where did the idea to do this come from though? Perhaps someone had to spend a day without timelapse noticing the beauty – they then became able to draw everyone’s attention to what they noticed, with the aid of timelapse.
Water is referred to a lot in the gospels. We learn to understand Jesus with an analogy of being thirsty and needing a drink. This is then developed to imagining a type of water that if you drink then you will never be thirsty again. Some people react to the experience of dissatisfaction or continuing spiritual thirst, after they have chosen Jesus, by thinking that “life giving water” is just an analogy and the reality will be encountered in full when we pass through death into eternal life.
Learning to delay gratification is an essential life skill! However, doesn’t Jesus also stress the presence of the fullness of God in life now?
If we spend time watching ripples, experiencing the way light sparkles, the different sensations of taste then we can enjoy the reality of water now. Not just so that we can write blog posts, or make better analogies, but because in living we learn to live and enjoy life.
Art, Scientific method, even suffering can then become cups that hold the living water. If we can encounter and explore reality through them, then religion, worship, can help us express and explain what we encounter as a community. If we practice the presence of God, then we learn to taste the presence of God in something as common as water. Or in the physical and chemical properties of tin.
Art is part responding to the invisible urges of the moment, and part trudging through debris to carve out a new furrow. Each artist has their own methods, but for me I relish the importance of wildness in the way I work. I expect, and look out for, moments and find that this is rewarded by things coming together in ways beyond what I can imagine.
#NithMirror in progress
So several decades of staring at engravings, the waters of the Nith, an opportunity to reflect provided by “The Stove Network” and a day with just the right light on the fallen leaves all came together one morning.
Another Stove project is “Nithraid” and one of it’s themes is restoring the relationship the people of Dumfries has with the river. #NithMirror was born staring at the water, and reflecting – finding insight. The labyrinth in the leaves is made by walking in a way which transforms the park on the river bank.
Within minutes of making the labyrinth kids were racing into the middle of it and puzzling out its path. #NithMirror won’t solve all the problems of flooding, car parking or closed businesses- but it did draw out something deeply rooted in human being, and invites people to become involved with their landscape.
Look out for more #NithMirror incarnations! And take some time out to reflect while you watch a video of the remaking of the labyrinth and listen to Kate singing “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”
