Ice and Fire...

Friday was manic -  starting at 4am it involved last minute preparations: collecting leaflets from the printer, taxi rides and dashing up step ladders.

But all went to plan, and once the event started I was held in a rather dream-like state while Ice and Fire evolved around me. Thanks to Helen Gilbert, the St Ethelburga’s Projects coordinator and Hazel Bradley who kept the programme on track and welcomed morning, afternoon and night. Thanks too to Jeff who kept the practicalities under control and cooked wonderful sustaining stews and all the St Ethelburga’s team who cooked, photographed and videoed the event.

Ice and Fire was a year in the making, and its actuality was an amazing experience. My most vivid memory is sleeping with melting ice…the constant, irregular drip and the line of bowls extending into the darkness was very special. I got up at 4am to place the sixth bowl – which was rather surreal…the building was unexpectedly warm at night and seven other cocooned bodies lay sleeping on Persian rugs. The bowl rang out as it was struck by the melt water, the ice was held infront of the dimly lit west window, with the rumble of the City outside – all watched by the small blue point of light of the Camcorder. Reminding me that I was not the only witness of the event in the night.

When the twelfth bowls was placed I was struck by the piece’s skeletal quality –a giant spine down the centre of the building, which people wandered up and down like a ladder.

So much richness. Philip Wells (Fire Poet) and Attab Haddad (Oud) played and proclaimed hallowed ground wonderfully on Friday evening. Hazel Bradley read a variety of readings: the story of the Chinese Rainmaker who created the space that allowed the longed for rain to fall, to the joyous and wonderful coming of ‘Spring’ to Narnia.

Night and Morning prayers with Taize chants at midnight marked the passing of the hours; the installation a participant in our liturgies.

We finished the event with a walk down to London Bridge to pour the melt water into the Thames. A most wondrous moment as the golden water was poured from one of the bowls over the parapet of the bridge - it caught the light, fell like a golden stream into the River and flowed with a distant sparkle out of sight into the dark. A lovely farewell...

I mentioned in my talks about the project being a transient community; an important part of which was the series of contemplatives who sat quietly and held the space for an hour at a time. And thanks to all those who came along and inhabited the space for a while, especially those who came back several times and sat or wandered for many hours.

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