Religion

FLINT STONE AND PILGRIMAGE

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To say that England has a lot to offer in terms of history, interest, and beauty surely is an understatement. We have been here in Norfolk now for several days, while it is mainly as a family visit, the family has generously shown us around the area, and we took a great, long walk along the salt marshes at Burnham Overy Staithe. How nice to get to see this and get acquainted with a variety of the birds and plants found in this habitat.  I did hear a curlew, nice to hear as in Ireland they are heard less and less.

One of the main noticeable find here though are the what the houses are all built with lots of flint stones on their facades, no even all over the walls of the houses, I had never seen anything like it before and am fascinated. Flint is a very hard stone and those walls much be so strong and well able to endure the winds and weather in those areas. It is great to see locally sourced rock used as a building material. More information about the use of flint in Norfolk can be found here: http://belongathoughton.com/introduction-norfolks-natural-heritage/gallery ids=”13797,13790,13784,13792″ type=”rectangular”]

We took Ian’s grandchild and daughters on a steam train ride from Wells to Walsingham, the ride took us along many different wild shrubs and the berries were plentiful, among them hawthorn and rosehips. The birds will have plenty of food this winter!  The train ride was quaint, lots of time to take in all we saw along the track.

The flowing fields along the railway track were beautiful to watch.  Skies were also very  interesting.

We had cream tea in a teashop at a place which is dedicated to the virgin Mary in memory of her visitation by the angel Gabriel.  A pilgrimage from London to this village goes back a very long way.  There is a well there with waters that are said to cure people.  Mostly the place is very peaceful and beautifully laid out with lovely trees and flower beds.  In mediaval time pilgrimage was very popular but people had to go a long way and the road was often not very safe.  Today many people will visit places like these to get in touch with themselves and meditate on the meaning of their life.

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The history of Pilgrimage

 

MY DISCOVERY OF GOZITAN ART

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I’ve had my eye on this exhibition for a few days already, I did not know anything about the artist or his work, but I thought that I had to start somewhere if I wanted to discover the art of the Gozotian people, and that I wanted.  So today I stepped inside the hall and immersed myself in the works of George Scicluna, an artist born right here in Victoria on Gozo.  His work did not immediately appeal to the eye, you had to look at it long to try and get what was going on in the artists mind, I struggled a bit with that, I did notice that all of the large paintings had a religious motive, but not in a devotional way, I thought that the artist was looking for answers in his mind, in a most torturous way, looking for answers about life, about belief, faith, fear, torture, redemption, humankind.  I could be totally wrong about all this.  But I strongly believe that true ‘Art’ is supposed to allow or encourage the observer to ‘feel’ something, or to ‘experience’ something, and that it did for me, this exhibition of paintings made me feel how mankind does run around with deep anguish about its existence, about the why and how.  I can relate to that very well.

That’s all, and that is good enough for me.

Later on I went to check out some more work of the same artist and found that he is also a sculptor, creating fine, sculptors in lime stone.  Nice.

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Some of the works in the exhibition, with the artist.