Glimpses of the Sacred

I feel as if a cold is brewing so I decided on a day by the fire, rather than venturing out into the icy wind. So an indoor blip is required. This watercolour is by retired molecular microbiologist Babette Barthelmess. Orcadians may recognise it; it's one of a series of paintings inspired by the Tomb of the Eagles, based on a poem by Patrick Maguire:

Glimpses of the Sacred

We watched the sun arcing into evening
We watched the moon grow fat by night in the vast unknowable sky
We felt the earth cool and gather warmth again
We heard spring in the song of birds and smelled autumn in fallen fruits and cast leaves
There are many orders in the life of the world and these we honoured as we marked the passing ages of our own lives
For we were afraid of evil and needed luck
We chose sacred places to sing our awe and our art endured in rocky places
We spoke with gods and were humble
And we carved symbols on stones telling ancient tales of creatures and stars

There is one painting for each line, all using the shape of the tomb as the central motif. When we last visited Orkney in 2007, neither I nor my Ryanair baggage allowance could afford all nine, so I chose two of them, which now hang in our living room.

Barthelmess is fascinated by the Tomb of the Eagles and published a book discussing its relation to the sunrise. It's a magical place, and the story of its discovery is interesting. The farmer who owned the land, Ronnie Simison, found it in 1958 while looking for stones to wedge fence posts with; he peered into a hole and found a bunch of human skulls grinning back at him. He duly reported it and the then Department for the Environment said that they would get back to him. Fifteen years later they still hadn't, but a team of students came to excavate a Bronze Age house nearby (also on his land). Frustrated, Mr Simison mentioned the find to the man in charge (a former colleague of S's), who suggested "Tell them you are going to put a fence round it to keep the cows off -- then they'll have to do a rescue excavation in case you damage anything".

So he did, but still silence from the DoE. It turns out that via a loophole in Scottish law (now closed) once three months had passed, the DoE lost any rights to the site and he could do what he liked with it, and with anything he found. So he excavated it on his own, over a period of two months in the summer of 1976, with the help of unofficial advice from the students (who weren't allowed to help him dig), and stored the finds in his conservatory (appropriately enough). Then he started showing people round it, and was still doing so daily until 2006 (he died last year). His family have taken up the task and have created an excellent visitor centre in a converted bungalow. When you arrive you are greeted by one of Mr Simison's daughters, who gives you a highly personalised introduction to the site, giving you some of the artefacts to handle. They are happy to chat, for example about the vicissitudes of bronze age housework, and clearly feel a strong personal attachment to the site, with pet names for the skulls in the display cases! It's even billed as "Meet the Ancestors".

Anyway, back to the present. Mayra Andrade's concert last night was a bit of a disappointment. She's a good enough singer, and writes some of her own material, but we both agreed, this wasn't jazz, it was pop, and didn't really fit the normal repertoire of the festival or our taste, which is more adventurous. Still, it was sold out, and most people seemed to enjoy it more than we did.