Old Gods and Second Chances.

In which a second dose of medicine leads to the unearthing of secrets.

For many years I’ve mourned the fact I missed the first run of Jerusalem, so when the new London run was announced last year I booked tickets for Lucy and myself as a gift for her birthday.

We headed into London on Saturday 6th August with plenty of time before the play started; we’re both always looking for opportunities to drift together, this is how we do things when out and alone. We found ourselves on the South Bank, I’ve always loved the Hayward Gallery. Twelve years ago, I got to swim on the roof of the Hayward with my eldest son Finn, in one of the Ernest Nesto sculptures. I felt called to see what their current exhibition was.

'In the Black Fantastic' An exhibition of 11 contemporary artists from the African diaspora, who draw on science fiction, myth and Afrofuturism to question our knowledge of the world.

I saw the title and knew this would be wildly and infinitely valuable. We managed to get tickets and explored the exhibition. It felt resonant that the exhibition was curated by Ekow Eshun. I'd worked with Ekow before, back when he was the executive director of the ICA. He's commented kindly on my own work and in particular ‘Dead Language’ which I’ve discussed in earlier essays in the story.

"Dead Language imagines a future in which the work of art stars like Banksy is so popular that fans trade in the DNA of the artists themselves, creating clone gangs of Emins and Warhols that roam the city. In part, Dead Language is an investigation of the limits of intellectual property rights, but it is also a smart and spirited examination of the way that the value of art shifts with time and context."

Ekow Eshun

Dead Language has risen about the parapet a great deal over the last few months.

Two days prior to our London trip, I went out for a second attempt at my pre-vigil Medicine Walk. I didn’t feel I’d followed the ritual adequately in the first walk, and strong signals were touching down that I needed to find time to go out again.

This is one of the prime gifts of the path, a bird-like navigation system for the mysteries, when you’ve engaged in as many rituals and ceremonies as I have, you get what I would describe as sea legs for the deep waters of wonder, an innate internal compass, that points to your own behaviour and actions within the work. How do we keep making the right choices when ritual as a methodology is designed to challenge our choices, assumptions and the systems we have built for our existence? How do we know if we are acting with the appropriate decorum in our interactions with the sacred?

We need to trust the marriage and union of our intuition and the signals we receive.

The first Medicine Walk felt as if it had strayed too far for a number of reasons. I should never have tried to place it in the middle of a family holiday and the landscape and path were too restrictive in terms of where I wandered. This countered the strong pull to be with my family. I missed them, which felt ridiculous as they were in the same town as I was. The first six hours offered me one big piece of data and I cherished that, but I knew something was requesting that I go out again. So I listened and I went out for a second walk. The second Medicine Walk was astonishing in its wonder and the complexities of what it offered access to.

Inside In the Black Fantastic I picked up the threads from my second walk. Communication was ongoing and active. Many of these felt like direct messages from the mysteries.

I viewed the art as a witness from the perspective of the second Medicine Walk.

Overall it was astonishing.

And the message it carried was amplified and valuable and I carry this into my vigil.

After the show, we followed the show out across the South Bank where it spread its tendrils out from the Hayward and other linked events were being staged.

Events that were joyous, filled exuberance that felt alive and exciting

These were the outer echo locations of what was waiting for us inside Jerusalem.

What follows is not a review, it’s something different, it’s my attempt to explore how Jerusalem impacted me. I walked into the Apollo Theatre and came out as someone else.

For those who don’t know the background of the play, it explores the notion of Albion, landscape, land ownership, magic, myth, storytelling and the storyteller.

The story is delivered primarily through Sir Mark Rylance’s central performance as Rooster Byron. It is a superb feat of craft and intelligence. I wonder if the play would have ever had enjoyed such success, without this beating heart of physical wisdom that Mark Rylance offers to the story.

I think the key to how well it crosses into human perception is that the core message is wrapped within layers of narrative, that are slowly unwrapped, each are funny, interesting and easy to engage with, until we arrive at the final act, this is where we witness the truth of Rooster Byron and how this relates to Mary Rylance, how character and archetype can connect and manifest the sublime.

The play is generous and wonderful, Rylance is a master and I think that we locate the myth of the trickster in his performance. Always at the edge of our perception, hard to pin down, impossible to break.

Calling the old Gods in to save us…