William Blake - Auguries of Innocence
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
Blake is one of my favourite poets and these lines have revisited my consciousness just recently on my visits to Dartington Hall and its wonderful grounds rolling with banks of primroses and daffodils, magnolia in fleshy pink on china blue skies. The grounds are a natural stage where nature and art unite in harmony. This is a place where a philosophy of holistic education for the perfoming arts,natural sciences, crafts and creativity imbues every space and inspires the soul to take flight with the birds. There is a plaque with these lines from Blake's 'Auguries of Innocence' etched in slate in the grounds near to a statue of what I can only conceive to be the goddess Flora with garlands of flowers in her hair.
The other inspirational gardens I love are those at Heligan, near St Austell Bay: again with Tim Schmidt's love of the arts and nature there is once more this delicious blend of creativity and wild,free nature. There is also this philosophy of bringing the arts, nature, education and environmental awareness together. Here again,in the grounds of Heligan,the goddess dreams on her bed of primroses and the imagination awakens in the form of the Green Man or Giant to stimulate and animate the Goddess Gaia..Mother Earth.Like the Romantic poet's, our imagination is brought to bear upon the natural scene to give it eternal and lasting qualities: to transform it into a very individual, unique world of our own creation with its own harmonies and resonance. Like a painter we paint the scene with our soul...the mage or magician in us waves a wand and the smallest aspects of nature are a world within a world, a vision of the whole of creation: timeless and eternal.
On the course in Creative Arts Therapy,we bring our imagination to the healing process and seek ways into the unspoken parts of the body which have been wounded or locked away. The aim is to be a witness to the unfolding of the flower of the human being before us and to create a space where that individual can find a safe means of self expression through play and creativity; movement, voice, art, drama and poetry. I am only at the beginning of this process myself and yet I am intrigued and astonished by the depths of the spaces within me which are now being set free. This inner growth is reflected in the blossoming around me and in the flowering in every tree, bank and field.
In the grounds at Dartington there are little doors in the roots of trees...one imagines a gnome living here, a Pogle like in the children's TV series of the early 1960's 'Pogles Wood'.I watched an old episode on You Tube and it brought back great nostalgia as well as reminding me that as a child I had imagined these knitted puppets to be green and alive when now I can see they are made of wool, their eyes are even knitted or felt and they are in black and white.....in the episode...six I think..they are visited by a witch....imagination truly is a wonderful thing! My next journey is going to be with the 'Double Deckers' climb aboard!!
Blessed Be xxxx
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