Random

Happy Eostre

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Mark

Eostre was originally a Pagan festival, with it’s roots in the Norse and Germanic ritual of the Vernal Equinox, or Spring. It’s heartening to know that ancient man had an instinctive respect for Mother Nature, thousands of years before the spread of Christianity. It’s only comparatively recently in our history that the traditions of Eostre were adapted by modern religions.

The Rites of Spring and also Harvest show an understanding of the planet which sustains us, and the Sun and the Earth were worshipped as the givers of life. As we pollute and over-populate our world and regard our own planet with cynicism, I wonder if a return to a more spiritual innocence might be the salvation our ecology needs. Organised religions become increasingly redundant as they fail to embrace the human condition. True spirituality means a respect for the planet, and for each other, and yet distracted religious figureheads still make astonishingly ill-judged comments about contraception. If that energy could be focused on our future on Earth rather than the obsessive, hand-wringing preoccupation with the sex lives of others, then we might actually be able to sustain the planet we live on.

Stephen Hawking says that if we continue to expand at our current rate, then our future lies only in the stars and our window for the colonisation of other planets is less than two hundred years. Is our tenancy on Earth due to end? Is it impossible to reverse the damage that we’re doing? In the spirit of Eostre, fertility and rebirth, we need to consider renewable clean energy, such as Solar Power, stop poisoning the bees with chemicals and seriously consider the size of our population.

I don’t want to be one of the last of the Earth-dwellers: Easter should be about the celebration of nature and awareness of our position in the ecology of Earth. Not zombies in diapers.

Categories: Random, Vibe Monitor | Tags: christianity, Earth, Easter, ecology, Environment, Eostre, faith, Fertility, Festival, god, history, Life, nature, news, Ostara, Pagan, random, Religion, ritual, spirituality, Spring, Stephen Hawking, Sun, thoughts, vernal equinox | 11 Comments

Postcard From Bishop’s Stortford

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Mark

It’s funny going back to your place of birth, secretly hoping that it still looks like the place you left behind, and your house hasn’t been replaced by a Tesco or Starbucks. I was relieved to see that nothing much had changed when I returned to Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire after more than thirty years. Give or take the odd PVC window frame, and a rash of Ground Forced gardens, it was exactly how I remembered it. I have a lot of happy, hazy memories of growing up here, and we moved away ‘up north’ when I was eight. Relocating to Cheshire was like a cold shower compared to this sleepy, sunny market town in the Home Counties. We went from Cider With Rosie to Wuthering Heights on a one-way ticket. This short film is a tour of my childhood…

Press Quality for HD and watch in fullscreen.

The video features the track Since I left You by The Avalanches, my all time favourite song, which samples old soul band The Main Attraction and Rose Royce, amongst others. It’s a burst of sunshine, and makes me happy every time I hear it.

Categories: Random, Travel, Vibe Monitor, Video | Tags: Bishop's Stortford, Castle Gardens, England, Heath Row, Hertfordshire, Hockerill, iMovie template, Life, Mark Wallis, news, People, photography, random, Since I Left You, Snowley Parade, Summercroft Primary School, The Avalanches, The Vibes, Travel, UK, video | 9 Comments

Earth Hour

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Mark

Living by candlelight

Turn off your lights at 20.30 wherever you are in the world, and spare a thought for the environment.

Since 2007, a wave of darkness has swept round the world on the March 31st as people focus on the impact of our power-guzzling on Mother Earth. Incredibly, some snippy refuseniks are claiming that lighting candles will have a greater detriment to the atmosphere than the electricity saved! Even if that were true, Earth Hour is a growing movement which focuses on a vital issue, promoting awareness in a world with a mean appetite for consumption.

It looks like the Pagans had the right idea. They worshipped the Sun and the Earth, and after all – what else is there to worship? When the temperature really starts to rise, no amount of mouldy old pages are going to save anyone. Think about it. Turn everything off. Twitter can wait. Light a candle for Mother Earth.

http://earthhour.org/

Update: my images from Earth Hour. You can tell I’m a total hippy, can’t you?

Categories: Random, Vibe Monitor | Tags: candle, conservation, Earth, Earth Hour, Electricity, Environment, events, green, March 31, news, Pagan, Religion, spirituality, Sun, WWF | 3 Comments

Spring in the Park

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Mark

Escape from the City!

I’m first from the starting gun when the sun comes out and we hit the nearest park, desperate for ultra-violet rays and proof that flowers are actually growing. I know I said we’d be stopping off at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (see previous post) but there’s the tiniest crease in the fabric of space and time which takes us from the kaleidoscopic colour of Park Güell in Spain to… Heaton Park in north Manchester, England.

This is yet another chance for me to wave the Union Jack – this time, while sunbathing. Culture shock, maybe, but I suggest you grab your sunglasses and get a load of this: it’s a Scottish Highland Cow. Or bull, as both male and female have horns. Also the oldest known registered breed of cattle. I wasn’t expecting to come face to face with a horned beast (not on a Wednesday afternoon and certainly not in broad daylight) and was kind of hoping for something more like an ice-cream van.

Heaton Hall has been here in one form or another since 1684, and the grounds were designed in the style of Capability Brown, England’s finest landscape architect in 1839. It’s the largest park in Europe.

The funfair was in town…

There’s a beautiful boating lake, with an island in the middle, full of ducks and geese and swans.

I tried to make this one look like an old postcard from the 70s, partly because the brightly coloured train which drives around the park is like something out of The Magic Roundabout.

If you liked this, then my previous post from Park Güell in Barcelona will completely blow your mind…Get some colour!

Categories: Photography, Random, Travel, Vibe Monitor | Tags: architecture, Capability Brown, flowers, Heaton Hall, Heaton Park, history, Landscape architecture, Life, Manchester, news, photography, random, Scottish Highland Cattle, Spring, swans, The Magic Roundabout, Union Jack | 12 Comments

Gaudi Wonderland – Park Güell, Barcelona

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Mark

‘A fool or a genius, time will tell,’ said Antoni Gaudi’s tutors as they handed him his degree. Spain’s greatest architect is famous for his gothic psychedelic style which predates the colourful extravagance of the sixties by decades. Park Güell, so named because it was based on the English Garden City Movement, was definitely a work of genius: an undulating pleasure garden of vibrant colour and form.

We stayed in Sitges on the coast, just outside Barcelona, and ventured into the city for a Gaudi expedition and shopping at Desigual. You have to take two escalators up a mountainside until you reach the summit which boasts sweeping views of the city, with the Sagrada Familia just a toy on the horizon.

Speaking of toys, Park Güell is like falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. A panorama of spiritual symbolism and gingerbread houses create the ideal environment to relax and enjoy the view. I listened to a busking violin as craftsmen repaired broken tiles, which betrayed the real age of the place.

After the tourists have gone and the sun starts to set, the park starts to feel magical, and you can almost see through Gaudi’s eyes. Influenced by Moorish architecture, Gaudi was a visionary, a Modernista with perhaps a penchant for mushroom tea…

I was fascinated to see how Gaudi recycled unwanted ceramics, or trencadis amongst his mosaics and made something beautiful out of damaged and discarded materials. It’s incredible to think this place is a century old.

Gaudi actually lived here in the park in this house which was intended to be a show home: Park Güell was originally supposed to be a housing development for rich aristocrats! I wonder if their names were Dougal, Florence and Zebedee?