mystery

Costumes…

| Stuart France

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“So what’s it all about, then?”

“Oh, lots of things, like, duty and service, and honour, and love, and friendship, and devotion and good government, and bad…”

“But ultimately?”

“Ulitmately it’s about the need to balance polarity.”

“Is that an individual polarity or a collective polarity?”

“Somewhat inevitably, it is both the polarity of an individual psyche and the polarity of a collective state.”

“And erm, do we touch upon Matriarchy and Patriarchy at all?”

“Given that brief it would be very difficult not to.”

“And we seek balance in this sphere too?”

“But of course…”

“So, how come Aruru, the Mother-Goddess, gets to wear a delicate tiara of jewelled flowers,

while Anu, the Father-God, gets a plant pot plonked on his head?”

“It’s just the nature of things.”

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Lord of the Deep – Workshop April 2019

The Silent Eye’s Spring workshop for 2019

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The glories above were unamed.

The word for that world beneath, unuttered.

Source and time, unfettered, merged…

From the mingling waves-of-water came mud and slime.

Enshar and Kishar, twin halves of the globe, shone out of them.

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A DRAMATIC ADAPTATION OF THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

The Oldest written story known to man…
What spiritual treasures lie hidden in this, five thousand-year old, Epic?
What can this ancient civilisation teach us about the questions of existence?
Join us on the quest of a life-time, this month, to find out…

*
‘Gilgamesh is among the greatest things that can ever happen to a person.’
– Rainer Maria Rilke.

Fully catered weekend package, including room, meals and workshop: £235 – £260

Click here to download the Booking Form

For further details or to reserve your place: rivingtide@gmail.com

Lord of the Deep: The quest for Immortality

26-28 April, 2019 – Great Hucklow, Derbyshire

Deluge…

| Stuart France

https://silenteyeblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/silent-eye-master-n9-soul-devpt-smaller.jpg?w=276&h=274

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“You know Shuruppak, the ancient city?

I was its king, long ago, when the Great Gods sent a flood.

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Ea informed me and I built a big boat.

I loaded up the boat with everything that was valuable.

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Soon after, the flood burst forth…

For six days and seven nights the storm raged, swamping the earth.

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On the seventh day it stopped raining.

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No land could be seen, no life at all.

The human race was turned to clay.

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When the waters dried the Great Gods assembled.

Enlil blessed us: ‘Utnapishtim and Shiduri shall live forever!’

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We were taken to a distant place at the source of two rivers.

This is where we live.”…

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Lord of the Deep – Workshop April 2019

The Silent Eye’s Spring workshop 2019

*

The glories above were unamed.

The word for that world beneath, unuttered.

Source and time, unfettered, merged…

From the mingling waves-of-water came mud and slime.

Enshar and Kishar, twin halves of the globe, shone out of them.

*

A DRAMATIC ADAPTATION BASED ON THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

The Oldest written story known to man…
What spiritual treasures lie hidden in this, five thousand-year old, Epic?
What can this ancient civilisation teach us about the questions of existence?
Join us on the quest of a life-time, this April, to find out…

*
‘Gilgamesh is among the greatest things that can ever happen to a person.’
– Rainer Maria Rilke.

Fully catered weekend package, including room, meals and workshop: £235 – £260

Click here to download the Booking Form

Into the Deep…

| Stuart France

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…Shiduri, the tavern keeper, sat,

at the edge of the Great Ocean,

her golden brewing-vat resting by her side.

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Gilgamesh, whose heart was still full of anguish,

strode toward her…

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‘This desperate man must be a murderer,’ thought Shiduri,

‘Why else would he be heading straight for me?’

She locked the lid of her brewing-vat and stood in front of it.

*

Gilgamesh heard the lock click and looked up.

There stood Shiduri staring at him, “Who are you,

and where are you going?” she said.

*

“I am the king of Wall-Girt Uruk,” said Gilgamesh, “I am

going to find Utnapishtim, so that I can ask him about the Herb of Immortality.”

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“Why is there so much grief in your heart?” said Shiduri.

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“My beloved friend, Enkidu, is turned to clay,” said Gilgamesh,

“Won’t I too, one day, lie down in the dirt like him

and never again rise?”

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“There are none who can cross the Great Ocean

to Utnapishtim,” said Shiduri,

“Only Shamash, who traverses the sky, is brave enough!”

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“But I am the man who slew the tree demon, Humbaba.

And it was I who tore the Bull of Heaven limb from limb.

There must be a way!” cried Gilgamesh, drawing his knife…

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‘Gilgamesh is among the greatest things that can ever happen to a person.’
– Rainer Maria Rilke.

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The Silent Eye’s Spring workshop for 2019

A Dramatic adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh…

Full details, cost and booking form are available by clicking HERE

 

Lord of the Deep: Death of the self?…

| Stuart France

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‘…When Anu heard this, he called for the Bull of Heaven,

And handed its nose rope to the Princess Ishtar.

Ishtar led the Bull of Heaven down to earth.

 

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When the Bull of Heaven snorts on the earth,

a crack will open in the land and swallow all the men-folk…

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When the Bull of Heaven snorts a second time on the earth,

the land will crack open further and swallow all the women-folk…

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When the Bull of Heaven snorts a third time on the earth,

the land will crack open still further and swallow all the child-folk…

 

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I will cast your corpse down the narrow streets,

that the city orphans may gorge on it.

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I will toss your innards to the city dogs,

that they might fight over them.

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I will present your two horns to Shamash

to serve as a flask for his sweet oils.’

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A DRAMATIC RETELLING OF

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

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The Oldest written story known to man…
What spiritual treasures lie hidden in this, five thousand-year old, Epic?
What can this ancient civilisation teach us about the questions of existence?
Join us on the quest of a life-time, this coming April, to find out…

*
‘Gilgamesh is among the greatest things that can ever happen to a person.’
– Rainer Maria Rilke.

*

Fully catered weekend package, including room, meals and workshop: £235 – £260

Click here to download the Booking Form

Updated Gilgamesh booking form

For further details or to reserve your place: rivingtide@gmail.com

Lord of the Deep: The quest for Immortality

26-28 April, 2019 – Great Hucklow, Derbyshire

Our Song of Truth…

| Stuart France

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We circle the Long Stone, feet planted gently but firmly on the earth…

Arms and hands hang loosely by our sides…

We close our eyes…

We breathe deeply…

We perform our breathing exercise…

And then again breathe deeply, listening only to the sound of our own breath…

After a time, the silence is broken by the Seed Sound of someone’s Word of Truth…

Nobody knows who sounded…

Nobody cares…

We are leaving the world of personalities behind…

Before the first Seed Sound has ended, another has sounded, and another, and then another, as our Song of Truth is raised…

Emboldened by the anonymity, carefree in the rising Song of Power we each sound out our Truth, chanting it again and again, delighting as each Seed bounces of each other, one or two entwining, playing and cascading off one another…

Until finally…

As the light of day fades…

Only one sound can again be heard…

Echoing off deep in to the starry far distance…

Everything returns to silence…

And we again focus on our breathing…

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Hearing Beyond Fear…

| Stuart France

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We do not take these things lightly.

We try to approach them as informally as possible.

We want to share their magic and inspiration with others.

We want people to enjoy them as we do, in respect and reverence.

We ask people to give as they receive.

We never ask anyone to do anything we are not also prepared to do.

We never insist they take part in any of the exercises or meditations.

We meet always as a community to share our experiences and to learn.

We leave in peace and harmony.

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Being Beyond Seeing…

| Stuart France

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One of the ‘hardy perennials’ on many of our workshops is the thorny problem of intent.

Thorny because much of what we now see may not have been originally intended by the erstwhile perpetrator or perpetrators, yet some of what remains most definitely was!

On our recent sojourn around Cornwall, having been cruelly divested of our guide book, we still managed to find one particular unsought spot ‘blind’, as it were, and this is pretty much the task we had now set our Companions…

The telluric current we were ‘following’ passed through the remains of Penrith Castle and on through the site of the Old Church.

The legends that attach themselves to these sites in many cases assume the outward appearance of unbelievable ‘gibberish’ and most certainly do not follow the reasonably delineated form of history, official or otherwise…

And yet, the wry smile which they inievitably engender, the moments reflection which they sometimes inspire, if held onto, and wondered about, and returned to, and nurtured, may well turn into a personal revelation carrying more truth than any spuriously contrived history.

Did Arthur’s Knights ever fight Dragons was the unspoken question gnawing away at the fringes of consciousness? There were none which immediately sprang to mind. And if not, then why not? Given their raison d’etre it would, at first sight, be an obvious way for them to spend their time.

The telluric current we were ‘following’ specifically passed through the body of Penrith Parish Church and was marked on either side by a Sun Dial and a conglomeration of stones which now goes by the moniker of the Giant’s Grave.

The plinth on which the Sun Dial now stands is undeniably late, but has it recently replaced a much earlier one? The conglomeration of stones are much, much, earlier but how long have they been associated with a Giant?

Perhaps, at least as long as the story of Yvain and his friendly lion…

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Feeling Beyond Form…

| Stuart France

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We certainly hadn’t intended to talk about Arthur, let alone Merlin when we pencilled in Penrith as the starting point for our weekend workshop.

But the land has a way of communicating it’s own ‘sweet terror’ and when we came across a Welsh Triad referencing Penrith or ‘Pen Rhionydd’ as one of the ‘Seats’ of the legendary British King the ‘cogs’ had inevitably started to turn…

Our June workshop in Dorset had thrown up some poignant ideas with regard to how the ‘ancients’ might be regarding their kinship with Mother Earth…

The constellation we now know as Orion, with its mid-summer rising over the Cerne Abbas hill figure may well have gone under a different name in former times and we still have Arthur’s Wain or ‘Waggon’ illuminating a course across the night sky, better known today as The Plough…

Since our research for the very first literary outing we penned together we had been aware of a plethora of local legends that predated our national Dragon Slayer, George, himself a late medieval replacement for Edmund, as Patron Saint of our Blessed Isles and all relating a similiar tale of sinuous earth energies ‘brought to book’.

The Lambton Wyrm, The Wantley Wurm, and The Laidley Worm, which also featured in our September workshop, to name but a few that we had, only recently, encountered.

Could the notions of authentic, living-land directed, leadership and ‘snake charming’ be linked in some esoteric way we had singularly failed to spot?

Our thoughts came home to Penrith with a jolt of recognition.

The ‘Spirit of Place’ had certainly been operative all those years ago when first it had impinged upon our consciousness and insisted we cross the busy main road to say, ‘Hello’…

And was that any different from being dragged to Dragon Hill at Uffington, or being repeatedly accosted by Glastonbury Tor, not to mention our Ambush by Stone at Long Meg? etc.

What were these sites trying to say?

There was really only one way to find out…

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