Truth and Infinity
Written Word Weekend, in Drumshanbo over this August bank holiday (Fri 31st July - Mon 3rd August). We plan on making this into an annual event and hope you will be able to support us in this by attending if possible. To get a flavour of what will be on offer, this Friday 17th July in Berry's Tavern in Drumshanbo, there is a press/fundraising launch. This is the same venue we are using for all the night time events during the festival as well. Anyone is very welcome to join us there between 8 and 10pm for a wine and cheese reception plus some readings, music and a raffle. This is the night before the Joe Mooney Summer school officially begins so it should be a busy and fun night in the town anyway if you choose to come, there will probably be a session after our event till late.
The Written Word Weekend itself will feature readings, workshops, cabaret, book stalls, a poetry brunch and an historical walking tour of the town. So far we have 11 events, 9 that are free, 5 that are open for members of the public to read and 5 suitable for children. I'll just mention below our main reading event to be held on Sunday but please look at our website for all further details of what will be on offer.
all the best
Stephen Rennicks
http://writtenwordweekend.blogspot.com/Sunday 2nd August
Doors 8pm
Berry's Tavern, High St., Drumshanbo.
Dermot Healy
John F. Deane
Marsha Mehran
Ita Daly
Natalia Beylis
Eileen O'Toole
Plus DJ & Book Stalls
€5 entry
(This event supported by South Leitrim Arts)
http://writtenwordweekend.blogspot.com/
Written Word Weekend, Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim. Four days of events based around the written word which I am helping to run. This is the first year so try and support it. To be held over August bank holiday weekend 2009.
http://www.writtenwordweekend.blogspot.comLabels: written word weekend
The 8th August 2008 marks the end of the three year land art piece entitled ‘666 777 888’ by the artist Stephen Rennicks. You can view a video which will give you a flavour of what it is all about at link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEZRcKVYKkYTo go deeper go here.
http://www.freewebs.com/666777888After that the next step would be to experience it for yourself. Directions are on the website, it will be open to view for all time but if anyone wants to join the artist for a tour in the near future you can email him privately.
http://www.freewebs.com/stephenrennicksAll along the project took and used existing megalithic stone structures as starting points and inspiration. There are now three sites, representing past, present and future in the landscape in a direct north/south running line.The first to be completed encompasses the present and is physically represented by an already existing ancient site of stone mounds of which an additional one was erected by the artist on 6th June 2006. This is located at Kilronan, over looking the town of Keadue in Co. Roscommon. Stone does not betray its age in this context so the ‘new’ mound could therefore have been built today or at anytime in the past. This places the structure as close as humanely possible in the circumstances to the eternal now of the present.The second site which represents the past is located to the south at the hill of Sheemore in Co. Leitrim, itself the site of a megalithic cairn. The white cross which is famously illuminated at night was placed on top of this cairn in 1950. It was illuminated red for one night only by the artist on 7th July 2007. Now firmly an event and memory of the past for those who saw it. The third and final part of this trilogy is the location and laying of foundation stones for a viewing point over looking the past and present sites. Located at the final turn in the roadway leading to the Wind Farm at Kilronan, where an ideal expanse naturally exists for the erection of this further stone mound. The final size and scale of which will be determined by the public, who it is hoped by the artist, if they deem it worthwhile, will collectively and anonymously build it over time by stone, rock or one pebble at a time. Regardless of this outcome, by using your imagination from this point you can glimpse perhaps a millisecond or more into your future and in so doing gain a perspective of another kind. From there, with the aid of these physical time markers, you should be able to experience an objective view of your place in the thread of time. What you see there may shock or simply confirm what you already know. The purpose of the artist is only to aid people in this matter.
Stephen Rennicks is taking part in this years Architecture show at The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim. The brief was to re-imagine a bridge and four artists and four architects were invited to take part. To view his concept, entitled 'The Natural Bridge', and the rest, you are invited to the opening at 5.30pm on Friday 23rd May. Stephen will also be leading a public tour of the whole exhibition on 31st May at 12 noon.
http://www.thedock.ie/He is also one of the artists featured in the Dennis McNulty curated 'Underground'. This exhibition will be held underneath Road Records on Fade St., Dublin, in what was previously a record shop. The theme for the show is 'the dematerialisation of the musical artefact' and 'the virtualisation of the musical experience'. Amongst other things he will have a film on show and an essay, ’The Return of Mystery’, in the accompanying publication. Stephen was invited to take part because of doing ‘Drexciya Research Lab‘. In operation since 2005, this is an online resource which takes the legendary and anonymous Detroit electronic music group Drexciya (1992 - 2002) and their many and mysterious on-going spin-off projects as its subject. This opening will be held on the 27th of June. For more precise details check Dennis McNulty‘s website closer to the date.
http://www.dennismcnulty.com/http://www.drexciyaresearchlab.blogspot.com/You will also find some button badge size art work of his at the ‘Badge Art Show’ to be held at the Mantua Project House, Co. Roscommon. The opening of this group exhibition will be held on Saturday 19th July from 8pm. It’s not too late to submit your own work to this joint Stitchy Press/Mantua promoted show. More details at following link.
http://www.myspace.com/badgeartshowThe 3 year in the making, ‘666, 777, 888’ project, which covers past, present and future comes to its conclusion on the 8th of August 2008. This is a land art piece which in very broad strokes so far involved; altering the horizon by building a mound of rocks to represent ‘present’ on 6th June 2006 at Kilronan, Co. Roscommon and one year later illuminating the normally white cross at Sheemore in Co. Leitrim red for one night only to create a memory for those who saw it, as the ‘past’ on 7th July 2007.
The ‘future’ aspect will be completed by aligning the 3 sites in a perfect row with a viewing point marker. It is hoped this viewing point will be built over time by people themselves but it will be given a good kick start by the artist first. Other ‘future’ aspects will come into play as well, as they did for the previous parts.
What all this means will be fully explained and documented online from 8/8/08. The artist will be leading a walking tour of the sites on the following day, Saturday 9th August from 2pm. Those interested should contact him by email privately to make arrangements and get directions. Come prepared for some light hill walking and with a packed lunch. If the day is good we can hopefully have a picnic enroute.
http://www.freewebs.com/666777888Finally, the first(?) purely virtual band, ‘Digitalis Ae’, now exists. This ongoing MySpace based project came out of an initial run at the above mentioned ‘Underground’ show but evolved into something else. It so far tackles at least two of Stephens favourite themes, imagination and context. Objectivity will hopefully get worked in there too over time!
http://www.myspace.com/digitalisae---------------------------------------------
http://www.freewebs.com/stephenrennicks
“By the beginning of our present 'earth condition' of evolution the human being had developed a physical body , a 'life body' and a soul body. A fourth member, the 'ego', is being incorporated during this stage - the spiritual core unique to each human being. The ego or 'I' is thus the youngest and least developed human member but, to the extent that we can gain access to it, the ego is capable of enabling us to take charge of our own destiny.
With our earth stage of evolution, the spiritual substance of the previous stages has condensed into physical matter. The coincidence of matter with the development of the human ego produces a new situation in evolution. The spatial separation between human beings and their environment gives us the basis for objectivity and freely determining how much, and in what way, we interact with the world. At the same time, this condensing process has the effect of obscuring the spiritual forces that lie behind the world as we experience it with our normal senses.
Thus having created the four-membered human being, the spiritual world has now withdrawn from our field of vision. In the free space thus created, it is now open to human beings to take responsibility for their own destiny and thereby the future of cosmic evolution. This future involves the further transformation of the human being and our world.
Today we face the challenge of seeing through the apparently material nature of the physical body to its underlying spiritual form, which originated in Old Saturn and to which it will return at the end of the course of evolution."
Andrew Beard
Stephen Rennicks has a new video piece entitled
'Transfixed by the Spectacle of the Means of our Destruction' on view at The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim. It runs on a silent 4 minute loop and is about exactly what the title states. Or put it another way, the feeling of going to watch 'An Inconvenient Truth' and having no choice but to drive home. Happy Christmas.
http://www.thedock.ie
Meditation for the Michaelic AgeWe must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes to us out of the future.
We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations of the future.
We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come.
We must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a divine world directive, full of wisdom.
It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust - without any security in existence, trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world.
Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us.
Let us discipline our will, and let us seek the awakening from within ourselves, every morning and evening.
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"A way of knowledge which brings the hidden to revelation is apt to overcome all hopelessness, perplexity and despair - in short, all that weakens human life on Earth and incapacitates it from contributing its service to the cosmic whole."
Rudolf Steiner
Want to go deeper?
“Certain people are over and over proclaiming to the world that democracy must spread to the whole civilised world. Salvation lies in making the whole of humanity democratic; everything will have to be smashed to pieces so that democracy may spread in the world. Well, if people go on to accept ideas presented to them as they are, with wholesale acceptance of the term democracy, for instance, their idea of democracy will be like the definition of a human being which I gave you: 'A human being is a creature with two legs and without feathers: a plucked cockerel’. Concepts are taken for reality, and as a result illusion may take the place of reality where human life is concerned by lulling people to sleep with concepts.”
“It is interesting to note that in 1910 someone (the French economist Francis Delaisi) wrote that large-scale capitalism had succeeded in making democracy into the most effective tool for exploiting the whole population. Financiers were usually imagined to be the enemies of democracy, an individual concerned wrote, but this was a fundamental error. On the contrary, they run democracy and encourage it, for it provides a screen behind which they can hide their method of exploitation, and find it their best defence against any objections which the populace may raise. "
"For once therefore a man woke up and saw that what mattered was not to proclaim democracy but to see the full reality, not to follow slogans, but to see things as they really are. This would be particularly important today, for people would then realize that the events which reign with such blood and terror over the whole of humanity are guided from just a few centres.”
Rudolf Steiner speaking in 1917
