14th September 2008 Angle Tarn, near Patterdale
“Transports of Delight”
Paul writes:
Woke up to Andrew Motion on Radio 4 asking, “Where is home?” Is it a place or a psychological space we sometimes reach?
A shorter drive (we’re nearing the end of the journey) to Hartsop. Legs then transport us up the steep Angle Tarn Beck against the flow of the crashing waterfalls, testing my endurance on land. Goats on the crags above, show us how agility really works.
During the ascent, an alternative hexagram is built from larger slabs of rock – Heaven over Lake – a stable structure.
Angle Tarn welcomes us and allows a relaxing swim.
Later, below, over a pint , we watch a horde of bikers preparing to leave. Gear on. Last cigarettes. Pulling their rocket machines into action off their stands. “To Harrogate!” they say, and they’re gone.
We ponder the meaning of ‘transport’ to John Coltrane in the car home. To carry across. To become changed. To develop new awareness through new experiences. To keep moving.
Can all days be as good as this?
Wed 10th Sept – Grisedale Tarn
Richard writes:
Grisedale seemed pretty desolate when we got there – like taking a dip in a lake on another planet – Neptune for instance. Grisedale – means valley of wild pigs? – none that we could see unless they meant us – it didn’t take long for the wild pigs to get in the water and swim across.
More reflection – the sense of journey, of 'pilgrimage to a certain state of mind' has been building, and the intensity of each lake-crossing experience has become more distilled – Paul asks how the day has been enlarged – and we both thought about this in our own way – “a frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean and a summer insect cannot talk of ice and snow’ – we have ‘crossed the great water’ and know something of our insignificance – this knowledge may have enlarged the discussion – and made the day more significant.
Paul meticulously built a small rock sculpture on the way down by a stream – as we left it to its fate at the hands of the elements or people, I felt that chapter, that unrepeatable phase of the journey, suddenly slip into the past tense – the question for me then is – is home any closer?
The quote about the frog is from 'The Book of Chuang Tzu'.
10th September 2008
Grisedale Tarn (Wind over Lake)
Paul writes:
Stark and deep, hidden between mountains, discharging into the glaciated valley. At first sight, anxieties rose.
Today, high wind turned the water into a sea, making swimming across the tarn more of a challenge than we had anticipated. Wind chill was high and the water temperature, tested when back on shore, was 11 degrees.
On the drive to Richard’s, I’d listened to the cheers of the scientists at Cern as the beginnings of their experiment to recreate the aftermath of the Big Bang proved successful – an attempt to retreat in time.
Throughout the day we explored the meaning of John Cheever’s reference to the enlargement of the day’s beauty.
Wild swimming brings focus on the here and now – the essentials and the minutiae of experience, slowing and lengthening time.
Later, we agreed that our openness to ideas and thoughts brought about by our activity enlarges our experience, awareness and creativity, and in this aesthetic lies the art.
Descending, we gathered stones for the hexagram – “Wind over Lake”.
The day was truly enlarged.
8th September – Easdale Tarn
Richard writes:
Good swim – sunny day – a warm wetsuit – wow – what a difference! More painting on a secluded crag – Paul continued tracing a line in red across the rock. I see it as an equivalent of our journey ‘beyond the rock’ so to speak. I did iconic stick figures swimming into a crack in the rock – into the ‘world beyond’ the rock.
This is our eighth stretch of water – time to reflect …….
Paul’s question – where is the art in this journey? – tentative answer: the art is the symbolic performance of a 'swim home' and the recording of our ‘entopic visions’ (our altered states of mind) induced by the swimming on the way.
Do the marks say: ‘we passed this way’; ‘I was here’; ’ I left my mark on the world’; ‘this is what I experienced, what I ‘saw’’ – all sort of futile in the sense that the world turns and our marks and traces are worn away by the days and eventually disappear – if this is the case then making the marks ‘in the place’ and ‘at the time’ whilst still feeling ‘the heightened sense of existence’ induced by the swim must be the point.
It’s the moment of creation (together with the increasingly feeble marks/records we leave behind) that is really the sum of it – and it passes leaving only a few traces and then only for a while.
31st August 2008 Thoughts on Stickle Tarn
The altered states that Richard and I have been discussing in this Swimming Home project, and a film project in which we are also collaborating, can be experienced in different ways. Together, however, we have experienced and discussed aspects of experience that affects our sense of the 'here and now'.
What does this mean? An example. Two days ago we approached Stickle Tarn after an hour and a half climbing. We arrived at the tarn fatigued and sweating heavily due to the ascent and humidity. The tarn appeared awesome – it was unknown to us as swimmers – the low cloud increased its mystery and influenced our thoughts that drew on fear and mythology. Rationality falls away because of unknown elements.
We swam across and back in cold water, stretching our boundaries into discomfort. Afterwards, as thoughts and emotions settled, fears subsided and bodies warmed, it was a long way from the point of first arrival and sight of the tarn. We 'knew' the water and the mountain better than before. Our experience in this theatre had altered our awareness of the landscape and our awareness of our own inner landscapes.
We now better understood the phrase that had earlier been on our lips, "It furthers one to cross the great water".
