The artist Stephen Rennicks who also works under the name Secret Society has created a trail to a previously lost lake in Co. Roscommon.
From the barest snippets of information our imagination is good at conjuring up images of places we have not seen for ourselves, in fact the fewer details we have to work with the more complete our own picture often becomes. In the same way that we might have a preconceived idea of a city like New York or Paris before we visit it, so too can we form similar impressions of anything which stokes our interest.
There must be at least a hundred Black Loughs in Ireland alone but the one I became interested in is in Co. Roscommon and lies just off the main Sligo route(N4), on the road to the village of Knockvicar. Not to be confused with the nearby ‘Black Lake’, it lies in a cluster of three which includes Deereen and Laundry Lough which are all situated in the same forested area popular with fishermen and walkers and nearby, but not a part of, Lough Key Forest Park. The area would be best known locally for its field of May bluebells close to the road. Black Lough itself has no pathway access or signage and cannot be overlooked from any point. Its probable lack of fish no doubt played a large part in it not being given pathway access along with its larger neighbours but unless you checked a map you would be unaware it exists.
The difficulty in finding it, it took me three attempts to locate, caused an image of the lake to build in my imagination and for me my trail to Black Lough at its most simple level stands as a metaphor for imagination but there is another opposing layer of meaning in this work which concerns more it having been lost.
The Russian philosopher Gurdjieff believed we live too much in our imagination, that we are in fact in a state of sleep. He saw Man as purely mechanical in his actions and reactions, so much so that he believed we lacked any real measure of free-will whatsoever. He illuminated on the danger of this fatal streak of inevitability in man when he spoke of being in Berlin at the outbreak of the first World War watching artificial limbs being loaded onto a truck that was bound for the front lines. Artificial limbs to replace arms and legs that had yet to blown off. At that time he envisioned two opposing armies of sleeping men under the command of generals and politicians who were in an even deeper sleep, paradoxically being more constricted in their actions by having control. Similarly today when there has probably never been a better market for body bags since Vietnam we should all be reflecting on ways to wake up.
Gurdjieff described this awakened state as objective consciousness and through a tough regime of manual work (to learn discipline over the body) and a technique he called 'self-remembering' (self awareness) believed he could reconnect us with this place inside us all. Of course at times we do get glimpses of this state, at the extremes of witnessing birth and death certainly but also more reassuringly this feeling can occur at the most innocuous of moments. So it is that the right person standing by a lake surrounded by the undisturbed goings on of nature can experience this feeling, doubly so if the image of this place had first been born in your imagination. As ever, the first step of any search is to know the place exists.
A path to Black Lough has now been marked by the artist using a series of red cord ties. Walking down the long straight path from the car park take the left hand fork in the road, the first marker is just a few feet down this path, you will be entering into the forest on your right. The route will take about 5 minutes to walk and you will have to crouch at times but stick closely to the numerous markers and you will find it easily. Take your time, enjoy the walk, remember that life is about the journey not the destination. As an added incentive for a limited time a pile of CDs containing the track ‘New Alarm Clocks’ by Secret Society which is directly inspired by the beliefs of Gurdjieff will be found at the foot of the final marked tree on the route.
For more information and directions please go to
http://www.freewebs.com/blackloughGurdjieff
http://www.gurdjieff.org
