 We are delighted to introduce our regular contribution from William, one of the UK’s most experienced teachers, healers and authors in the field of holistic development.
Dear Friends,
It was with pleasure that I saw the name of my old friend, Marko Pogacnik, in a book announcement right next to my column in last month's issue of this magazine. He is one of Slovenia's leading artists and sculptors, and designed the Slovenian flag after Yugoslavia collapsed and Slovenia became an independent state. Marko is also psychic and an earth-healer. His major sculptural work is the careful positioning of beautifully engraved stones so as to heal damaged landscape, an approach that he calls lithopuncture.
We first met thirty years ago and immediately became good friends, taking family holidays together. For my birthday this year – February 8 (I'm an Aquarian with moon in Aquarius and Cancer rising, which by some interpretations means that I'm a clever-dick redeemed by collective awareness) – I treated myself to a 2-day walkabout in Venice with Marko who has exhibited his art in Venice and also written books about the art, architecture and landscape of this extraordinary city.
This was my fourth visit to Venice and every time that I look across the main water at the centre of the city, I go into a deeply enjoyable trance and sensation. There is, for me and for many others, a haunting and wonderful atmosphere here which enhances the whole beauty of the canals and architecture. Turner's extraordinary paintings, for example, hint at this.
As is easiest we bought day tickets for the bus-boats and tootled around the canals and the lagoon visiting Marko's special places. One of these tootles took us on an hour's journey north of Venice to the island of Torcello, which was the first heavily populated island in the Venetian lagoon. On this abandoned island, now with a population of only 60, stands the magnificent Byzantine Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, its foundations laid in 639.
We walked towards it across the flat marshland of the island and, as we reached the entrance, I had an instinct to walk around the cathedral before entering. Marko smiled and we strolled around to the east of the building and paused.
It was cloudy and as I looked up I perceived the sky as a huge dome over the whole of the Venetian lagoon, which is several miles across in all directions. It felt as if Torcello and its cathedral were at the very centre of this domed space. I then went into an altered state of consciousness and caught a flow of clear impressions, which I will share here. But I write all this with some hesitation, which I will explain further down.
The first impression I perceived was that, in fact, the whole Venetian lagoon is a large landscape temple of which Venice is its jewel. For readers not familiar with the concept of landscape temples, these are stretches of land often extending many miles, usually ringed by hills or rises in the land, which have a distinct magic and atmosphere, and an unusual and suggestive landscape. The most well known of these in Britain is Glastonbury, which many people see to be at the centre of a landscape temple that extends 20 miles in diameter, perhaps further.
In this impression, therefore, the city of Venice is only part of a much larger magical area.
Then, to my surprise, because I was neither expecting it nor looking for it, I began to perceive an older history to this place. In my poetic imagination I saw the whole lagoon not just as a landscape temple, but as a great city and community in the past, perhaps in the civilisation that Plato called Atlantis. This was a thriving and successful city that specialized in art and ceremony. In particular, I perceived a group of expert artist-magicians who created and sculpted with energy. They worked over decades and centuries with the energies, elementals and angels that come up from the star-fire at the centre of the Earth, blending them with the other star energies that descend from the Sun and beyond.
Working with these energies, the artist-magicians plaited and created great events and performances that blended colour, sound, myth and atmosphere, enacted and channeled by great beings, some of them one hundred feet tall in magnificent costumes – gods and goddesses indeed. Great muses.
I then perceived a flood and storm that carried vast amounts of earth and clay down from the Alps, destroying this city, whilst simultaneously the land sank and the waters of the Mediterranean rose. Perhaps Plato's fall of Atlantis and the biblical flood. But despite the destruction of the city, the landscape temple, the energies, the imprints, and the diva gods and goddesses remained. Their existence, it seemed to me, and their magnetism attracted and was the inspiration for everything that became the Venice we know today – for many the most beautiful city in the world.
Well – that was quite a download of information for me. What was I to do with it? Normally I keep quiet about these kinds of perceptions. I like to sit with them for a long while, sometimes decades, and feel into whether they have value or truth. Even then I often keep them to myself. They may not be accurate and many people are skeptical about psychic ability. Only recently a colleague said that he had trouble believing me when I spoke about Atlantis. But Marko is an old and close friend, and I could tell him what I saw, with no attachment as to whether it was true or not. At the very least, I could share it as if it were an interesting dream. So I told him. And he smiled.
‘Years ago,' he said, ‘I had exactly the same perception. I too have kept quiet. Recently my daughter, Anna, also had the same perception. This now makes three of us.' We talked about it and decided that as we corroborated each other's perception, we would share it with other people. Hence I'm writing about it here and now in this column.
* * * * *
Does it matter whether all this is true or not?
Years ago I realized I had little appreciation of paintings and sculpture beyond a sense of what I instinctively liked. I asked Marko how I might better be able to understand and value art. He replied that, in his opinion, the best method was to look for God in art. By ‘God' he meant the mystery, depth and beauty of existence. Good art, then, is a gateway to this experience. It expands consciousness and deepens our sense of meaning. Good psychism surely does the same.
The idea, then, that Venice sits in a natural landscape temple and that its art is inspired by ancient metaphysical realities may or may not be true. But if it opens up a new understanding and a more intimate connection with the wonder and beauty of creation, it may be useful.
With love, William
www.williambloom.com
Text & photographs © Cygnus Books 31-Jul-2007
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