(l) ‘Of Holes and Things’ 2020-21 oil on canvas 160cm x 200cm (r) ‘Woodrose Explosion’ 2020 watercolour 29.5 x 23 cm. Images copyright V. MacKenny
Ndaya Ilunga
(l) It’s only words; (r) Playing with empty words 2021 Images copyright Ndaya Ilunga
Margaret Courtney-Clarke
(top left) Fire in my Heart, Omaheke Region, Namibia, March 2019 (top right) The Ostrich Egg, Omaheke Region, Namibia, March 2019 (bottom) The Rain Dance #2, Omaheke Region, Namibia, October 2019
Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Cheyenne River Lakota, speaks internationally of Peace, Indigenous and Mother Earth perspective.
A master musician of the ancient Lakota flute, he performs worldwide and has featured at Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ruben Museum, Morgan Library, Apollo Theatre, United Nations, and uncountable other venues.
“This was a gathering of Original Nations and notions of beings with the elemental evolution of letting the mystery go where it will with music, spoken word and presence.”
“The music, which I call ‘improv-intuition,’ is intended to remove listeners from the constant hustle and bustle of cities and urban areas everywhere in the world and draw them into the stillness of my world,”
“Mine is a world where simple listening and Mother Earth transcend all other concerns.”
Spring at Morfa Dinlle: local Welsh names of the Lapwing
Elinor says: The number of different Welsh dialect names for lapwings is a reflection of how common the bird used to be. Collectively this set of names describe perfectly not only the distinctive features of the bird – the soft, feathered ‘horn’ curling at the back of its head and the lapwing’s unique repertoire of clicking, gurgling and whistling calls – but also the range of typical lapwing habitats. However, as lapwing numbers have dwindled, and as people’s everyday encounters with these birds have become less frequent, the local dialect names have also fallen out of use.
As I watched the lapwings wheeling and tumbling above Morfa Dinlle last spring I tried to recall as many as I could of these local names. They ended up spinning in my head, almost as if they were caught up in the vortex of feathered flight paths that filled the skyscape. I was struck by the entangled storylines of species decline and loss of language diversity; with one mirroring the other, and both resulting in blander landscapes and more impoverished lives. One of the lost local lapwing names – ‘Gwae fi’ [Woe is me] seemed to sum up perfectly my thoughts on that April morning.
Joan Gabie was commissioned by living-language-land to create a series of drawings based on seeds for their website. Her ink drawings of seeds and seed-bearing plants are intended to reflect the ethos of nurture and new growth.
“Seeds are like little worlds: contained within them the endless possibilities for life and newness.
The essence of sardaks: old traditional house, fields, poplar trees, mountains, old stupa, graveyard and spirit-like figures of the sardaks who are watching over the landscape (Watercolour on Canson paper, 2021) Continue reading > “Reflecting on the Sardaks”
