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Wood and Water The Labyrinth of the Heart
The Callanish Dance: the
cycle of the year celebrated in the sacred landscape of the Western
Isles.
Jill Smith.
Capall
Bann 2000. Pb. £9.95.
Regular readers of Wood and Water
will know Jill Smith as both writer and artist. They will also be
aware of her interest in the stone circle at Callanish on the isle
of Lewis in the Hebrides (see my review of another of her books,
Mother of the Isles).
Following visits to Callanish in the early 80s, she moved to Lewis
in 1986 and lived there for ten years. During that time she visited
the circle in all seasons and in many different weathers, and it was
a great influence on her life.
This book records her feelings about Callanish and the surrounding
landscape, together with details of her life on Lewis. I find this
mix of the spiritual and the physical in its everyday aspects
particularly rewarding. I feel, as she does, that sacred sites are
best visited as an integral part of one's daily life, and not on a
rushed visit. As she says, "Sites need time — time to just be with
them in stillness, with no expectation, not imposing anything of
one's own on them, but sitting and listening and waiting to see if
they have anything to tell." (p. 67.) She also refers to some people
who were at Callanish at the lunar standstill who were "trying
loudly to keep to some event schedule that was going awry" and
comments that "You don't have to do anything, you don't have to add
anything." (p. 110.)
I was interested, too, in the details of her earlier life. I had not
realised that she had had an earlier career as a very different kind
of artist, involved in creating ceremonial and ritual theatre for
public performance.
The book contains ten of her drawings, mostly showing aspects of
Callanish in different seasons, and with a fine colour cover.
Wood and Water
71, Summer 2000
© Daniel Cohen
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Wood and Water The Labyrinth of the Heart
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