Following on from this post, below the jump are words and images from Saturday’s space…

Let it go
[We used flash paper for the first time in this space - it's the stuff that magicians use, which disappears in a puff when put to flame. It was simply gorgeous.]

secrets and dreams from cheryl lawrie on Vimeo.

And then there are secrets that bind us too tightly
twisting our lives into a shape of their making

If there is a secret that holds you
in its grasp,
write it onto the paper.
hold it to the flame
and let it go.

Keep it close
[in the secret passage in the back corner... a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare placed on a desk]

Not all secrets should be told
some need to be kept close.

If you have a secret that
you’ve been given

- a dream, a nightmare, a longing, a fear -

mark it out here.

Find the words that tell the secret
and cross them out.

Spilling your secrets

[photo by Mike]

And then there are the secrets we keep
because we don’t know what will happen
when we find the words to give them voice
and trust them to the world.

Here is a place for spilling our secrets
- those that are ours to hold and ours to tell -

If you come here needing to tell a secret,
write or draw it on the table.

If you come here needing courage and wisdom
to know how to share a secret,
write your prayer or longing instead.

Preserved dreams

[Photo by Mike]

They say -
the people who know these things
- that when you die to a dream
you wake up to your life.

Is there a dream,
which has brought you to this point
in your life,
but which you now need to put aside
for your life to be lived?

Find it here
if you can,
and put it in a jar.

It will keep.

Archived dreams

[photo by Blythe]

There’s a cost to dreaming
and it can be too much to pay.

If you have a dream that’s begun to do you damage,
- a good dream, that was worth having -
that’s now hurting you
and holding you back,

if you have a dream you need to let go
for good,
to let another be born

find it here
or – if it’s not here -
write it on the paper.

When you’re ready,
put it in the archive box.
and begin to let it go.

Reclaimed dreams

[Photo by Mike]

They say
that without a dream
the people perish.

Is there a dream you need to remember having?

something that brought you to life,
or challenged,
or scared you,
just by its possibility,
but which you’ve let go
out of tiredness
or cynicism
or reality?

If you can find something here
that speaks of the dream you need to reclaim,
write your name on it.

It’s yours now.

Abandoned and recovered

When the dreams die
and turn to dust

all the protestations
about how it’s not fair
and how it should be different
don’t change a thing

all the best caring clichés
it was never meant to be
you don’t deserve it
don’t make their aftermath less desolate.

With all our best intentions and wishes
and even our prayers

shattered dreams
sometimes stay
as dust.

Take the dust of the world’s dreams with you as you go.

Remember them.

The secret life of you

We’ll hold it safe with you.

[photo by Mike]

We haven’t done a basement space for over a year. The last one was beautiful but calamitous, and I think it’s taken this long for us to have the energy to do it again. It’s been worth the wait. Saturday night in the basement was lovely – I think one of the easiest spaces we’ve created, and one of the easiest for people to be in.

It’s not just about numbers, of course – we’d do the spaces even if just for us – but it is lovely to have people enter into a space and transform it by being there. We publicised Saturday really badly [i mean, really badly], and in the last minute Blythe found some chalk and wrote ‘Secrets and Dreams’ on the footpath, and we had lots of walk-ins from off the street. I think we ended up with more people than we’ve had at any other space, and there’s no rhyme or reason as to why.

I’ve always wondered whether what we do holds its own; whether it’s good by all standards, not just the church’s. There were two conversations from Saturday night that I need to remember: One was with a freelance writer who does reviews on contemporary art for various publications, including the Age. She thought the space was wonderful, really thoughtful and lovely. Another was with an woman who organises forums for networks of artists in Melbourne. She thought it was the best conceived and realised installation she’d seen around Melbourne.

I’ve said on this website numerous times that while Christianity might be a by-product of what we do, it is no longer the primary intention. I simply want to be more human. I think this installation was about that, and, as Bindy and I were talking on Saturday night, we decided this space was far less angsty as a result. We weren’t trying to be clever, or to ask the questions no-one else has thought of – we were just giving people space to be human. And it seemed to work.

So thanks if you came along… and can I say again what a delight it is to work with the basement space collective. They are, without exception, generous, committed, hardworking, imaginative and fun.

I’ll put up some more images and words from the space in the next post.

‘an op-shop of wedding dresses’
[the collective noun for the ghosts of dreams failed]

raw silk
hand-sewn with promises
and embroidered with unrealistic expectations

vows that came dressed in virginal white,
now indelibly stained with wine and sweat
betrayal and disappointment
failure and pain.

floor length hems and six-foot trains,
held up to protect against the world’s unwashed floor,
until they got too heavy to carry,
and now marked with grime and dirt.

the safety pin that holds the sleeve in place;
after all, it only has to make it through one night.

Secrets and Dreams

August 7, 2010
open 5-8pm

The basement, 130 Little Collins Street Melbourne
[enter off Coromandel Lane]

At the limits of our capacity to make sense of the world
at the edges of our grace, energy and love
lie this:

bread and wine.

Take and eat.

If nothing else, it will keep you alive.

the pdf of the stations can be downloaded here: rpf_nz

Some words from the space:

It takes courage to step into the space
to take a journey that we know is precarious.

And the steps unbalance us,
throw us sideways,
into a space where we know we just might fall.

The edges of the stones dig into us.
We know they’re coming
but they always find the raw spaces
where we thought we were already calloused:

a memory
a word
a push into a space we can no longer control…

Take hold of a piece of gravel.
Feel its sharp edges dig into your skin.
Let it remind you of your human-ness
and fragility,
of the bitter sweet
harshly beautiful
path we walk.

I’ll put up a description of the Adelaide space in the days to come. Until then though, Jonny’s put a set of photos onto flickr… this is one of them, with another taster:

We knew it would be hard.

We knew that this is ground that only fools would walk.

We knew that the landscape of desire
is also shaped by the dried salt from tears long cried,
and denuded by the relentless glare
into our naked vulnerability.

If this is all you know:
walking, falling
battling a world where all elements would destroy
if only through disregard and disinterest,

if you would not be here
by choice
and if you could not be anywhere else,

taste some salt.

It will keep you alive.
it will let you live.

Later this week I’ll put up a full set of words and some images from the Landscape of Desire installation we curated in Adelaide last week – this is just a taster…

We stand as strangers in the landscape
among the rocks and the dirt
and the salt from a long forgotten sea.

Holding tight to the edges of our lives
for fear of losing them to the horizon,
for fear we will no longer know where we end
and the vast unknown begins.

Holding close to what we used to be sure of
for fear that if we let go
there will be nothing
no-one
and nowhere.

And we search ourselves for a heartbeat
prodding our souls with memory and dream
in the hope to awaken desire
and in the absence of that,
pain;

Just to know we are alive,
Just to know that we are here.

I thought I should check in and remind people of what’s coming up in the next few months. Firstly, I’m in Adelaide in the second week of March, joining Jonny Baker, Steve Taylor, Craig Mitchell and a host of others at a series of workshops and public installations entitled ‘Spirit of Wonder’, coinciding with the Adelaide Fringe Festival. More information can be found here. The title of the installation that Jonny and I are curating, with the help of people from SA, is The Landscape of Desire. It’s the loveliest theme to work with…

And applications for the 2010 UK Greenbelt and beyond trip close at the end of February. More information and a registration form are available here. This is shaping up to be better than ever… I really can’t wait.

I was in Adelaide on Tuesday, just for the day, doing some planning for the February event that Jonny Baker and I are curating. Craig Mitchell flashed a book in front of me, and the page I read included this quote that’s been reverberating in my thinking since:

‘Faith isn’t faith unless it involves a significant risk of failure…’

Which may mean that if we aren’t failing, we aren’t acting enough in faith… after all, success isn’t the primary result we look for; acting faithfully is.

And from Monday’s trip to Marysville and Kinglake, in the fog and hail: