The Dark Mountain Blog
Drumming in the stories
posted by Paul Kingsnorth
24th August, 2012
Everyone will have their own feelings on what the high, and low, points were of last weekend’s Dark Mountain festival – our third annual Uncivilisation event and in my view our best yet. For me, one of the greatest pleasures was the opportunity to actually enjoy the thing; to wander the site, meet and talk to people, sit back and listen to music with a beer in the woods. This project has reached a stage now where its work rests on many shoulders, rather than on just two or three, and the improvement is plain to see. Speaking purely selfishly, I’m grateful to have the time now to actually experience things, rather than simply (attempt to) run them.
But there was a clear high point of the festival too, for me, and it was Martin Shaw‘s storytelling and mythmaking session on the Saturday afternoon. Martin is someone I met only a few months ago, in a Devon pub, but I already feel that the connections between his work and ours are going to prove fruitful. Martin is director of the Westcountry School of Myth and Story, a storyteller and a man with a fascinating history. He and I will be collaborating this winter on a writing and mythmaking workshop on the wilds of Dartmoor. More on that here soon.
One of the necessary – the vital – aspects of Dark Mountain’s work, and one which we need to explore further, is the gulf in this culture between mythos and logos; between a way of seeing the world that expresses itself in stories and a way of seeing that expresses itself in measurements. In our culture, the balance between the two has got badly out of kilter. This gulf was discussed again and again, independently, over the weekend, in many sessions and discussions, by, for example, Andy Letcher, Martin Palmer and Jay Griffiths and doubtless many others I missed, and was alluded to and touched on much more widely. I see at least part of what we do as an attempt to restore some dignity and some authority to mythos; to take it seriously as a way of seeing that goes beyond whimsy or ‘romance.’ To understand that without it we are lost; as we may already be.
Martin Shaw’s session was simple in one way. He talked about the importance of myth and story, then he told three stories. But that doesn’t do any kind of justice to what happened when he told them. There are a lot of storytellers around, as there are a lot of writers, but you know when you have come across one who touches on something in the depths. I took something away from Martin’s session; something which I took away, in fact, from the whole festival. I don’t know what it was, quite, but it’s not an intellectual impression; it’s a physical feeling. Right now, I don’t feel like the same person I was before the weekend began. I feel like I haven’t touched down again, and I feel like I don’t want to.
And this is what it was always supposed to be about.
For the first time since we wrote our manifesto, I feel that Dark Mountain has done, and done well, what we intended to do: summon the stories. It’s a beginning, not an end, and it’s nothing I can prove. This is only my experience. But I feel that our third festival has sent trails out into the world which will lead … who knows where? It doesn’t matter. Martin Shaw began his stories by playing a large drum, balanced on his lap. We had to ‘drum in the stories’ together, he said; ‘this isn’t theatre, this is real.’ I feel, oddly, as if the weekend itself has drummed in a strange tribe of stories, and they haven’t yet left. They haven’t left me, anyway.
Other reports are beginning to come in on the weekend, and if we’re alerted to more we will feature them here. For now, here is a nice piece of reflection from Bridget McKenzie on the weekend; and here is Robert Alcock offering his take (nice use of the provocative headline!) Here are Jody Boehnert’s thoughts on the relationship (or not) between stories and activism. Here is an excellent piece on the wider aims of the project, by Charlotte DuCann, which sums Dark Mountain up better than I have ever managed to do. Here is Charlotte’s take on the festival. And here is a wonderful pallete of photographs from Bridget McKenzie, which give a great visual impression of the weekend.
We’re keen to hear the thoughts of those who attended, so please leave a comment here if you have any perspectives, suggestions or views of your own. They don’t have to be complimentary! We’d like to hear as many views as possible about what worked and what didn’t. What should there be more or less of next year, and what was missing? Because there will be a next year. I’ve already filled a sheet of paper with ideas. I’d like to hear yours too.
Thank you again to everyone who made it happen.
Posted by Paul Kingsnorth on 24 August, 12
Posted in: Blog, Featured, Uncivilisation
Comments: 11 comments - Read them and respond
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I should add that if anyone has any film or audio recordings of any parts of the festival that they are willing to share, we’d be very pleased to see them, and will happily post them on the site.
Gutted to miss it Paul! Will keep trying and hope for more success in 2013.
Meanwhile, I’ll watch for details of the Dartmoor winter event with great interest. I have a strong feeling that there will be a Cornish posse landing there, myself included.
Eating up DM3 meanwhile, a great successor to the other two and carrying things forward just as you discuss here. Congratulations to all of you who worked hard for that.
All the best,
Mat
I also feel somewhat changed by the weekend. It’s not something I can put into words now – perhaps I don’t even want to. I haven’t quite landed yet either, and the experiences of this year’s festival will take time to find their places in my thoughts and feelings. I just want to say that Martin Shaw’s storytelling effected me on a very deep level – I feel that a new depth has opened up in the conversation we’re collectively having.
This year’s festival was very different to last year’s. I came back from last year’s absolutely buzzing with energy, excitement and ideas, which put me on a high for weeks. This didn’t happen in the same way this year – in truth, I thought I was disappointed at times over the weekend, because I didn’t feel like life-changing ideas were being poured into me at the exhilarating rate they were last year. But on Sunday, somehow, the whole thing began to coalesce, without me really realising it. Having had a week to reflect on what happened, it seems that this year’s festival began to draw things together for the first time, gather the diverse strands of Dark Mountain into something approaching… not a unity, but a shared feeling. This all sounds very amorphous and vague, but I suspect other people felt the same thing. It feels like things are gathering now, drawing close to one another. Perhaps this is what is meant by ‘coming home.’
If I had to give a definition to this sensation (and we should still be wary of doing that), it would go something like this: for the last two years, I’ve known what Dark Mountain means intellectually and imaginatively. At this festival, for the first time, I understood it emotionally, on a level far deeper and stranger than before.
Did anyone else feel this? That the whole damn thing is MAKING SENSE for the first time?
Yes, I felt this. It was a very different festival and a very different emergence from it. I’m not so sure how to talk about it yet either, which probably makes sense.
It seems to me that this year really wasn’t about ideas. Maybe right now we didn’t need so many more ideas. I feel it was about the way we have ideas, and how we share them. How we communicate with each other, in what language, who speaks, how we listen. How we perceive, how we relate. How we each decide what to do. It was not perfect in any of these things, but a willingness to start doing this honestly was woven through the whole festival.
I have probably had a quite specific experience through being part of Mearcstapa and staying at the Sus Centre with the motley crew for nearly a week. We are a group of people who were strangers not so long ago and drifted together to do something that our instincts and our hearts told us to do, more than anything else. Interacting with the site and with each other in a playful and at the same time thoughtful way. That time and the festival itself left me with a kind of calm clarity. Glimpses of how we can communicate even across our different opinions, how I can go away and act with fresh nourishment in my being rather than more ideas competing for attention in my head.
I could describe it maybe like stopping to busily run around and instead fall into a much slower but more purposeful, more grounded walk, with much opened eyes. Something like that. A good thing.
And yes, Martin Shaw’s session was a revelation.
Here are some beautiful thoughts from Jeppe on all of this: http://patternwhichconnects.com/Site/Blog/Entries/2012/8/25_The_reality_of_collapse_-_reflections_on_Uncivilisation_2012.html
Some thoughts from Em over on the DM ning: http://uncivilisation.ning.com/profiles/blogs/reflections-on-unciv-2012?xg_source=activity
Thanks Nick and Daniela. Funny how a lot of similar responses seem to be emerging. Or perhaps not funny; perhaps a sign that something meaningful did indeed happen. This year’s festival did have a different feel to last year’s – that was deliberate. I wanted to take us away a bit from some of the intellectual stuff about collapse, and from some of the economic and political discussions around that. Not because they aren’t valuable, but because i wanted to see if we could get back to the spirit of the manifesto, which is that search for different ways of seeing and telling – the ways of seeing and telling that come once you take that intellectual framework for granted. It was a focus more on the mythos than the logos, if you like. And it did feel to me too that the impact was different, and at a different level. I’m glad others felt the same.
Next year, we’ll have to work on a different approach again. I hope we can all work together on that.
I came to last year’s festival not really knowing what it was all about, and though I enjoyed it- especially the conversations around the edges- I felt like I didn’t really ‘get’ it. I spent the year reading blog posts and DM 2, and although the blog posts and book entries were often enlightening I couldn’t see how they were all linked. I couldn’t see how and why some of this writing could be defined as ‘uncivilised’ when it was so intellectual (I write this as a science student rather than an artist or writer).
Coming to this year’s festival it all suddenly clicked. I feel different. The workshops linked up, somehow. The storytelling session with Martin in particular was somehow a changing experience. There was something magical, if I can use the word.
After hearing about the twin faces of mythos and logos (and finding out what logos actually meant) I realised I’d been feeling almost embarrassed about engaging with the mythos in my life. As a science student, I’m constantly being rewarded for rational thinking and dry language. Coming to this year’s festival I think I found something akin to a ‘personal mythos’.
Mostly, this year’s festival helped me to feel more peaceful about an uncertain future. Dark Mountain as a concept now makes sense to me, and I feel somehow part of a community. I thank all the contributors this festival for the collective experience and for helping me to understand myself and the world better.
All of which is to say, I think I agree with the above comment.
@beanybadger
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Paul, your link to Charlotte’s piece summing up Dark Mountain is not working. Would someone be kind enough to post the correct one? Thanks.
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