The man who does not know nature, who does not walk under the leaves as under his own roof, is partial and wounded. I say this even as wilderness shrinks beneath our unkindness and our indifference. Nature there will always be, but it will not be what we have now, much less the deeper fields and woodlands many of us remember from our childhood.
Winter Hours. Mary Oliver 1999
A background in education, fine art, installation and movement practices strengthen the roots of my ongoing investigations. My attention has moved form working with hidden aspects of the domestic environment to focusing on aspects of the natural landscape and in particular the element of water. My work has often been enhanced and expanded by working in collaboration with other artists and practitioners, in particular by a long, mostly practice based, creative collaboration with artist Ann Rapstoff ( www.annrapstoff.co.uk ). This collaboration has emerged in many guises and began with initiating and running the live art platform for emerging practitioners, VAINliveart in 2000 and 2001. A number of practices underlay my work; extensive somatic study and practice within the natural landscape with Helen Poynor ( www.walkoflife.co.uk ), the embodiment and teaching of Gabrielle Roths 5 Rhythms™ ( www.gabrielleroth.com ), and the study of Native American earth based shamanic teachings, through working with Chris Luttichau of Northern Drum ( www.northerndrum.com ), these practices support my own work and enhance my ability to respond intuitively within the natural landscape.
Books filled with writings of experiences arising through relationships with the natural landscape and its wild inhabitants line my bookshelves. I feel a deep personal recognition of the drive by increasing numbers of both factual and poetic writers, to voice experiences of time spent in the natural landscape. These writings often move with me as I work out in the landscape in all weathers and in all seasons. My own words readily pour out of me in response to the different landscapes I work within. Responses through the written word are as rich a vein of my practice, as is movement and performance. I write in response to collaborating with the song of birds or to having been wrapped in the movement of air or as a result of opening to a subtle awareness of the passage of water through the hydrological cycle and its effect on the lay of the land or in response to simply sitting a while with my back against the trunk of a tree.
Underneath these responses I am aware of a growing understanding of the great depths of earth and rock beneath me where the memories that lay in the ancient layers and hold of the story of the earth. I work with transmogrification of experiential and intuitive information of aspects of my physical home, the earth, into art through my personal home, my body. I find myself becoming the physical voice of the spaces and places between.
Hilary Kneale currently lives in Oxford, UK. She is the mother of three young adults.
Ocean ripples and rolls gently landward covering the sand puling at its surface. The water rolling, floating, jostling the pots out of their city skyline, their black mouths, gaping hollows, shout at the sky and readily suck in the small oceans that fill their vortices. Their turning becomes the oceans turning. I watch them go as they begin their travel into another element. I move in the water between them as they surf between land and air and water. I bend to catch sight of each precious poem in clay as it turns its tongue to another language, the sound of the word last spoken in a human tongue. Now each vessel becomes a tiny chamber in which the resonance of the ocean may speak. Each chamber descends beneath the waves as my attention shifts to the wider watery landscape of their new tribe. I no longer hear the dance of the words now writing their own poetry beneath the waves. The hours slide by as I sit with the shifting places where ocean meets shingle, listening to the long pull of the waves that is sung by each tiny stone, a repetitive refrain that slips under my skin like an old, old song. My mind surfs remembered words on the vessels, as they shuttle beneath the waves, a collective in motion in the body of the sea.
I move in the hours, the time shifts with me at the edge of the ocean. The tide moves in its way and gradually exposes the land once more. A few vessels are visible on or in the sand, they have moved on, they are not mine, I do not touch them, I see them and leave them be, they are heading east in their own time, moving with the tempo of the wind and the sea.
Copies of book available £10 inc. p.p.
I teach Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythms™, informed by Helen Poynor's Walk of Life non-stylised movement practice, my teaching is inspired by my own work as an environmental artist and ongoing study of native American and Celtic land based shamanic practices.
The 5 Rhythms™ is a movement meditation practice devised over many years by Gabrielle Roth, its roots are ancient and reach back to the prayerful practices of times past, the work links to the prayer dances of native Americans, to the songlines of the Native Australians, to the yoicks and dances of the Sámi people, to the land based spirituality of the Celts and all other indigenous peoples who were more deeply connected to their bodies, the whole fabric of the earth and all living things. I have practiced the Rhythms over the last 14 years and became an accredited teacher in 2004.
Helen Poynor's Walk of Life work also facilitates focused presence within the body through movement within the natural landscape. The practice is a non-stylised movement exploration of the micro and the macro habitats of both the body and the landscape. I have worked with Helen for a number of years in my capacities as a movement practitioner, a teacher and an artist, I am currently in a second year long training of the practice.
"Hilary teaches with a wisdom that comes from living life to the full and paying attention. She has a sense of humour that keeps the sacred every day, she is eternally curious and genuinely fascinated by life. She is the sexiest funniest heartiest shapeshifter!"
Sue Rickards. 5Rhythms™ teacher. London
www.acalltodance.com
Creative and Healing Work in the Natural Landscape
I offer opportunities for individual guided self-healing in the natural landscape, working to establish a reconnection to the body through the spirit and substance the of land.
I have had a close relationship with spirit within land, and with trees and plants for as long as I can remember. I have learned to work with trees as living divining rods.
I will accompany you as you take steps into the mirror of the landscape and trees, to find healing through the wisdom and teaching of these ancient beings. I will assist you in finding your particular medicine through walking, sitting with the deep silence and language of the land, I will hear your stories and find with you the keys you search for.
I recommend that we spend a minimum of half a day together, taking time to slow into the rhythm of the land before our work begins.
Adventure into the Landscape of each Season
For over 6 years, four times a year, I have worked with Cathy Ryan to offer a day of rich and creative time to mark the change of the seasons. With a group we spend time in local woodland in silence, to actively witness the subtle seasonal changes. When we return from the wood, we eat together and then spend time making creative responses that hold a personal intention in line with the essence that each season brings.
Vision Quests in 2012
Since time immemorial, people have gone to the wilderness to seek guidance and
renewal, to find the conditions where spirit may be rekindled and reborn within
them. The Vision Quest is a rite of passage for those seeking greater clarity
regarding their life purpose and meaning, or for those undergoing a major life
transition. By reconnecting with the land in a sacred and ceremonial way, we will
enter into a place of silence and solitude where the Mystery can be revealed.
May 24th arrive by 5.00pm - May 29th departure 6.00pm
Cost: £325
For queries and further detailed information please contact:
Hilary 07799 694546 hilarykneale_hotmail.com
Rick 07598 976922 tefalus_supanet.com
Karn 0781 6475321 karn_moller_hotmail.com
Links
www.kitchenanticsandappliances.com/
www.annrapstoff.co.uk
www.barbaradean.co.uk
www.moda.mdx.ac.uk/
www.summerdancing.co.uk
www. thedomesticsoundscape.com/wordpress/?page_id=936
www.ilandart.org
www.liamreeves.com
www.christiankipp.com
www.gabrielleroth.com
www.walkoflife.co.uk
Hilary Kneale
Acknowledgements
Web site photographs by Christian Kipp, Clawz Moon, Ann Rapstoff, Hilary Kneale
Anne Pfingst, Gian Paolo Cottino. Glass eggs made by Liam Reeves RCA.
Interview recorded, edited and produced by Felicity Ford for The Domestic Soundscape Cut & Splice podcast series, commissioned by Sound & Music 2009
Website built by Clawz Moon
