pistyll Rhaeadr

to the waterfall in caress of darkness we creep. to meet. to introduce. to offer up. to listen.become. think of every waterfall i have ever stood beneath. feel the rush of the river on its way down. the constant rock. the ever changing water and in her silver in the moonlight shimmer smooth treasures wait to take us to the dreamworld and help us stay awake. what shall we dream tonight you and i? let us hold hands and dive in. x


back from the mountains. back to the gentle valleys. the slow steady river. still landing..

i have just returned from a vision quest in the welsh mountains under the island's tallest waterfall; pistyll rhaeadr. a land still alive with the stories of its making. not a faint whisper but a roaring wind. the sound of water crashing down and as i drift into sleep the wind and the water and the wind indistinguishable. by day two my tent a crumpled mess flapping about on the valley floor, my defences along with it.

writing starts.. suddenly from nothing~something is happening even if it doesn't mean anything. its cold here, right through to the bones. thoughts come and go and the time goes by; i remain.i am heavy and slow moving. autumn is here and the wasps are clutching to the dregs of summer the way i do. that delightful September melancholy looming. the red berries of the rowan are here already , got me thinking about the last time we saw them;collected bagfulls of them and left them in the freezer to never become jelly. it was a good day though, golden sun on the reservoir banks, red berries all the way around. how many more days are there like that hiding away dusty corner until a memory glistens and you rummage through the box to get it out again?

a blind white horse
twin sycamore seeds
a buzzard dive between two trees
waterdroplets on the nettles in the moonlight
the long night
an hour of sun in the morning
wet prayer bundles in the wind
a lone black feather in long grass
the light of a fire not too far away
crow shouting in the morning "come out come, out and see the dawn"
a girl whispering her secrets into a huge moss covered rock
the flower tops on the thistles that were not there yesterday
a spider's web started over.

a prayer on the wind
to go more softly
to not waste the minutes
to sew up old tears
a prayer for compassion
for dreams
for friends...

once there were circles all over this land. now only traces.. and fading. but we remember for we were there. and we walk these circles still.

i feel my edges. my circumferences. a glowing trace. a stillness. a stone in my hand. a fire inside. i feel your force, the cold of your water. the white of your falling. the rocks you are made of and the height you can see from. i feel our meeting this night. i at your feet. your constant flow. we both witnessing the other. we fit so perfectly here in this moment together. i feel the light fall down from the heavens, filling me up. the light like fires in my palms, the smoke; incense on the breeze. i see how it feels to be you. a constant flow, giving. i have been here a thousand years and others before me.

becoming automatic

I will spend 12 hours blindfolded inside a white canvas box. I will write automatically and as continuously as I can for the duration. The box will be filmed from above and the live feed projected back onto two sides of the box. The space will be lit inside so that from outside all that can be seen is the silhouette of the writer and the writing inverted on the canvas.



This work is born out of my research of writing from `altered states of consciousness and my experiences of my relationship as a writer with the liminal (threshold). I wish to further explore some of the ideas that came out of my written research project; specifically the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his notion of becoming, in this case writing as a process of becoming.


This performance is both an experiment and a drawing together of my writing practice and my shamanic practice. It draws on my previous work in Mexico where I explored the liminal as a context for writing and from my work with “the dark” as a tool of initiation.

Darkness and the (un)seen are themes that reoccur in my work as well as the boundaries between sleeping and waking and the writing that emerges from these states. In Shamanic tradition darkness forms a part of many initiation ceremonies both as a fear to be overcome and as a form of sensory deprivation to induce hallucinations and promote non-visual “seeing”, or perception of the “non-ordinary”. This has been a focus in my shamanic practice and the last couple of years have seen me taking part in a burial ceremony, cave meditation and a three-day blindfolded vision quest. This piece is a culmination of this work as well as an ongoing practice of writing in dark spaces.



This practice has brought up questions for me around authorship and “voice(s)” and in my final performance at Dartington I hope to embrace both “The Death of the author” and in Deleuzian terms all the voices of “the pack”.

“The pack is a mobile multiplicity, spreading through contagion and bounded by anomaly.”
-Deleuze and Guattari “A thousand plateaus”

I have also been looking at the automatic writings of Susan Hiller, particularly her work “sisters of Menon” and find a strong resonance in my work with her statement; “Identity is always a collaboration. The self is multiple, I am a location; a focus.”



This work also explores the relationship between ritual and performance and the role of the writer as shaman or “mediator” or again, in Deluzian terms; the “anomalous”. Underlying this is of course a questioning of the role of the audience/reader and In my presentation of this very vulnerable and open process in such a performative space I hope to engage the audience in a dialogue of these roles.




Following my performance I will open the box and invite the audience to come inside and view the outcomes (or at least a snapshot) of this process and continue this dialogue. I will be in the box until 15.00 to talk with anyone who is interested about my/their/our experiences of the piece.







This is a video made from film footage of the performance, (i left a camera in the space with an invitation to film) time lapse footage of the canvases and an interview immediately following the performance. - with thanks to Mae Karthauser for the interview and for staying up all night with me! thanks also to Jonathan Street for help with lighting/technology, and other night owls who stayed up for the duration of the performance!