ABOVE: Marine Reflections – by Dougie Chowns

A CELTIC PHILOSOPHY

Once the first flush of making artwork passes, like other creative endeavours such as music, architecture, dance or fashion, the work hopefully develops its own special look, sound or technique and so is quickly associated with the artist. We recognise most painters because of this, their style perhaps.

My own development, for example, at age 65, was partly based on a Neolithic Celtic philosophy that interests me. I was and am intrigued with the origins of art, not as pretty or clever images but as ‘empowerment’ to survive in the cave. Images and designs were to protect or assure survival. So much we know, and I have talked about ‘when Art was Powerful’ in an article last year. The philosophy having been on my website since 1995, I read the philosophy again myself recently and discovered that it’s quite good and in need of direction. Myself, I am resolved to persue this connectic art form perhaps involving my painting and film/video background as well as up to the moment electronic technology. I also have discovered that viewers on a computer seldom read, digest and consider what is written as one automatically does when reading the printed page.

In the presence of the Great Goddess Anu and central to the art of Douglas Chowns

The essence of my painting is found in the graphic body spirals – they empower ritual imagery. It is the kinetic spiral playing on the body that breathes life.

Art origins of the paleolithic were seriously ritual magic. As a practicing professional artist, I do not subscribe to the possibility that adornment graphics, including carving, were merely decorative in-so-much that they were ‘pretty’ patterns. The graphic had meaning and was an integral part of an idea often involving time, place and ritual. The graphic would become impotent only when separated as would a church from its cross.

My belief is that marks on walls, standing stones, hillsides, tools, weapons, utensils and the body itself, were a means of working homeopathic or sympathetic magic. My art follows this same law of contagion that Sir James George Fraser laid down at the beginning of the last century, when he stated that: “Magic was always an art – never a science”. The spirals flowing over the figures in my works illustrate the existence of these supernatural forces believed to be sacred in terms of their contiguity. My work is also intended to be, if you will, Shamanistic and is conceived as part of a positive emotional experience to effect and activate the pituitary gland of persons involved, to help them reach an empowered state.

The source of this concept is that the spirals are reflections of sunlight off water. Actual reflections that were projected or cast onto the body flesh of our Paleolithic ancestors gathered in ritual. They were in fact experiencing a self-induced adrenal flow causing a psychotropic effect. Submerged within a mass of swirling light they believed they were taken over by the deity and so were guaranteed empowered strength and stature – dopamine, serotonin the natural amphetamine released via the hypothalamus, they truly became supernatural for a brief time, as at one with the life force herself – perhaps the great Aurignacian Goddess earth mother – Anu (also called Danu) if we apply the concept to the age of the later Neolithic megalithic passage grave builders. They were practicing positive magical sorcery, a hunting magic conceptual dating from at least 15,000 years ago, displayed in the caves of Lascaux and Altimira. Today we might call it neuropsychology.

In order to survive they evolved the art of ‘the doing’ that is an art which includes the need of a necessary ritual experience and performance, in this case bound up in the Magdalenian mythological beliefs of the hunter gatherer.

I propose that the magical rite was in fact very simple. Conjoined reflections of sunlight off water and its manifestation physically upon a recipient activated his or her body chemistry, which was believed to be sacred empowerment. Like holy coloured light from pierced windows in Chartres Cathedral these light projections swirling over the flesh and surrounding ceiling and walls put the recipient in a Holy or Spiritual space – timing was crucial to the process by concentrating anticipation to the focused annual ‘moment’. The ‘moment’ only possible on the passage alignment with the sun at mid-winter solstice – not at dawn but best at 9:58am on the 21st of December and lasting for 17 minutes.

The ritual at ‘Cashel Aenghus Og’ the house of young Angus is remembered by myth associated to the place where Aenghus Og son of the Dagda conjured the spirit of Diarmid O’ Dyna, mate of Grainne the sun deity after Diarmid or Diarmat slew the wild boar of Bengulben. My family of McDiarmids have mythological descent of this line of Grainne daughter of Cormac, High King of Ireland. Myth also speaks of Fenius Farsa a Sythian in Egypt, his son Niul and Scota, daughter of the Pharaoh, of her great grandson Goidel later in Spain and of Bregin whose grandson was Mile. Mile with Amergin sailed to Ireland to be remembered as the Milesians after the battle with the mythical Faery race Tuatha de Danann.

Scholars agree that towards the end of the fourth millennium BC a race of people migrated west by water following the setting sun from the eastern Mediterranean. Over time they sailed into the Atlantic then north following the coast of today’s Spain and Portugal where their presence is noted by the erection of Antas or portal stones.

From 3200 BC spirals and other engraved polished stone Neolithic graphics feature as an integral part of ritual constructions called chambered or passageway cairns. Always found close to the sea and on the western seaboard and islands of Europe. In particular, I note Gavarinis in Morbihan Brittany and 700 kms north in ‘Cashel Aenghus Og’ – Bru na Boinne in northeastern Ireland popularly known today as Newgrange. Lately also Crantit in Orkney. These two former sites are the basis of my conjecture.

Interestingly these constructions predate Stonehenge and the pyramids by 1000 years and as part of other local complexes are claimed to be the earliest and largest stones structures in the world.

My personal collective interests, as one descended from early Britons and identifying as a Celt, come together in my ‘Arte – the art of the doing’. I try to involve all the senses: touch, sight, taste, smell and sound, all acute to the early world of survivalists, which I reinstate and rebirth as the foundation to my work. All parts of the Arte have place, purpose and design.

Marks on paper, engraved stone, sacred colours, participation, ritual, sound, taste, sight, smell and the seasonal year in its eight-fold occasions are the vehicle of our existence as humans in a self-created world based around our own form and stature – the human body. Since ancient times Greeks referred to the body ergonomic as ‘The measure of all things’. On my part I have borrowed the title for an intensive week-long workshop I developed and tutored in 1996 at tertiary level in England, designed to prove and support my theory.

Located on the river Boyn in northeastern Ireland and celebrated at the time of annual mid-winter solstice 21st December, we understand Newgrange – Bru na Boinne the same Cashel Aenghus Og, the great ceremony and ritual that was performed for generations, starting from about 5200 years ago. With Christianity, Patrick replaced the old religions and Newgrange – Bru na Boinne became no more than a mythical earth mound associated with the Tuatha de Danann, a Sidh or Faery people, Diarmid O’ Dyna, Grainne, the great Kings of Tara and the Fenian Heroes.

Although pillaged from Viking times the mound was first opened officially in 1965 only fifty-three years ago. Two years later in 1967 it was discovered by Professor M.J. Kelly that a ray of sunlight penetrates through a parallel shaft above the 18.9-meter passage at the moment of the sun’s winter alignment to strike the floor and light the six meter circular end chamber. The alignment starts to illuminate from the 19th of December and daily increases duration to the solstice on 21^st of December when it lasts a full 17 minutes. From 9.58am it lasts until 10.14am. On the 22nd it is in wane and the last day, the 23rd, the alignment is lost for another year of darkness.

Explanations of possible ceremony and ritual have been forthcoming from scholars but in 53 years to date, no scenario has been forthcoming from anyone such as me, working a concept from an art background as a practicing artist. Although a senior tutor my qualification to extend this concept is not as an academic. I am little more than a romantic living with the elements conceiving fine art much in the fashion of the people who built and used passage graves. Indeed, with the accumulated folk history and today’s available knowledge, not being bound by logic may be an advantage. ‘Creatives’ were responsible for these conceptuals, not academic researchers. They, the creators, were dreamers – I am also a dreamer.

A few yards back from my beach in McKenzie Bay below Mt Manaia two small streams meet in my garden at a pool below massive flowering Pohutukawa trees and subtropical plants. In itself, a magical place.

When dredging gravel – which annually builds after winter rains flood from the hill – I had an almost hallucinatory experience. One might say psychedelic. Bright sunshine directly in line with one of the streams’ waterfalls cast a wide shaft of light through the open space to strike and reflect off the surface of the pool. Being hot and subtropical I was working in shorts and gumboots – on stepping into the pool my shovel rippled the water, and a burst of electric reflections phased everywhere, on me, the trees and plants all around. I had stepped into a living force of amazing swirling beams of light coursing all over my body. I became an electric current alive and dazzling, the hairs on the back of my neck lifted.

Since being required to teach from a textbook ‘Maori Decorative Art’ during a short spell of relief teaching at high school I questioned the word ‘decorative’ on the textbook title supplied – this contradicted my sense of design and the use of tattoo as I understand by the Picts and other early European peoples. Maori tattooed themselves, no doubt with much the same notion in mind. In myth Mataora introduced ‘Moko’ after he returned from Rarohenga, the underworld of Spirits.

‘Moko’ to the face and applied to other parts of the body is limited to areas of muscles. The lips where speech issues and possibly the words or sounds of the God, have special significance especially in women. These muscle areas may be flexed or animated and there I believe the true purpose of moko exists. The face contains our most concentrated and complex surface of muscles. The head is considered to be Tapu and the most sacred part of the body. Maori like Celts venerate the head as the seat of the life force. Uniquely interesting is that Maori unlike all other races never wear a mask, indeed masks have never been part of their culture although as Pacific Islanders they are from islands where masks are used frequently in tandem with body tattoo. Moko is their mask.

Tattoo is a birth rite with Chiefs and Tohunga wearing the most complicated and detailed which accounted their genealogy and skills. The skin was often carved or chiseled which created moving surfaces – I believe the design in motion was the essence of transformation. The difference between mere man or as one with the Gods.

Why should Maori be unique in this way? With need of few clothes the limbs, torso and head are constantly visible, and the muscles and facial expressions always in motion. I believe they were conjouring with the life force of vegetation and nature. Not occasionally – but continually.

Maori in their recent liberation less than 200 years ago from a stone age existence, make study a more positive issue as many long-time ceremonies and attitudes still exist in New Zealand society. This contributes a useful factor when assessing our own northern hemisphere ancestors who were more alike than unlike to Maori. The use of homeopathic sympathetic magic by contiguity and association is obvious. Maori neolithic ritual continues in day-to-day New Zealand. It is accepted and serious. If a drowning occurred here in Mc-Kenzie Bay a Tapu would immediately be placed and all fishing or the collection of shellfish would be banned. Within miles it would be prohibited until local Iwi elders lifted the Tapu. This is normal practice. Nobody would offend the Tapu, no matter who they were.

The Haka performed at a rugby match is by no means merely colourful apparently savage amusement. Haka is serious! More interesting is ‘Taki’ or ‘Wero’ a part of the ceremony ‘Te Powhiri Ki Te Manuhiri’ – a welcome and acceptance on to the Marae or land of a host tribe. The visiting party, usually bare footed, approach only when called. A warrior springs into view threatening further advance, his face contorted and eyes wild and rolling. His aggression is furious and his tongue threatening ugly insult. He snorts and prances through a rehearsed dance of exaggerated footwork while he whirls a ‘Taiaha Pouwhenua’ – a short hardwood spear – dangerously within inches of the face of the representative of the approaching party who is expected not to flinch.

One is reminded of Cu Chullain fighting Ferdia in the stream possessed by fury, rage and shape, changing in grotesque gestures.

The visitor is invited to recover a twig or leaf placed on the ground, I believe to acknowledge the vegetative life force deity of the Iwi, after which the party may move forward. Women sing using their hands and fluttering fingers in imitation of the living leaves on a tree.

As Master Artist and Gaihealtachd Seanair recognised by Maori, I, myself have been personally awarded the honour several times – the protocol is deadly serious. My interest has naturally been inquisitive towards the beliefs of the people I live and work with. My conjecture is that the warrior’s body tattoos and especially his head and face writhing as a kinetic living force is a parallel concept and likely similar to our own European neolithic. The wild eyes, thrusting tongue and offensive attitude leave no doubt that the empowered has ceased to be man. One is facing the living God of the tribe or Iwi. This meeting ceremony is a much more daunting prospect than facing a mere mortal warrior. One is facing the God force himself, a clear demonstration of sympathetic magic, to identify and imitate the animation of the living presence of the forces of growth in vegetation. These forces are taken on to empower his own potency and ultimately the Iwi’s survival. However, it must be said that Maori and their art are consumed often with violence and aggression, unlike the Avebury people. This same age-old ritualistic ceremony is perhaps retained in New Zealand today not with shallow amusement – as we Celts who touch wood for luck or throw silver into pools of water – but with serious intent, in my view. These ceremonies remain serious protocol, are part of every public civic occasion and may be observed locally and in government.

A good example is Maori protocol in health sector and our hospitals. Officially represented by ‘Tohunga’ (a teacher or craftsman/elder), he instructs students and is required to approve nurses’ training before they can qualify to nurse
Maori. Body parts and postmortem examination have strict conditions and parts must be returned to the body for burial. Maori have resolved their Christian and Pagan acknowledgments equally under the guise of Christianity much as did the early Celtic church in Ireland and the Inner Hebrides.

In my garden pool that summer afternoon my skin was the canvas for convulsions of brilliant and magical light forms. Electric is a reasonable word. An ancient superstitious Celt in the same circumstance may well have believed to be as one or in the power of the Gods. Certainly, a small rush thrilled through me in consequence of the hallucination. I am told, by authoritative geneticists, that we still retain the same hunter gatherer dopamine genes programmed to activate our bodies at times of fear, stress and excitement. Although I have not been privileged to visit Newgrange, from what I understand an alcove to the chamber contains a stone basin believed to have held charred remains or an offering. One account claims: “three basins and a wide shallow sort of bath called the womb of Mary”. Close by is an engraved triskelion (a Celtic symbol consisting of three legs or lines radiating from a centre) on the wall. I would like to suggest that one or all three receptacles were centrally placed holding water while those gathered present, stood in a semi-circle waiting for the shaft of light to illuminate the passage.

Nothing in our history or mind is so powerful as water. It gives growth, life and is stronger than fire, indeed a crucial need to man and no doubt in the minds of those gathered in the dark womb of the mother Goddess, perhaps the medium of benediction to activate growth. A pebble dropped, a ritual offering, the smallest disturbance of the water surface and the life force is released in a burst upon all present as the morning solstice penetrates the chamber. I suggest a mentally orgasmic experience of being as one with the deity.

Four hundred and fifty miles south of Newgrange is Gavarinis in Morbihan, Brittany, close to the standing stones of Carnac. Gavrinis is a similar passage tumulus but with unexplained carved graphics cut into the stones that line the passageway. Here the designs are internal whereas at Newgrange curvilinear carved stones feature outside at the entrance and as the kerb stones around the mound. In both cases they may represent water or light patterns, the life force within the stone, the abode of the spirit force or alternatively of venerated dead individuals. White quartz glitters the entire mound, making this a shining place. Quartz is a natural mineral known to have special electrical storage capacity and well known since early radio experiments with ‘cats whisker’ is still proving itself in computer technology – Graves ‘White Goddess’ no less?

I suggest this winter sun ritual in both sacred mounds, which have identical alignment on the same day as part of the eight-fold year, was in reality a well-used magical idea developed by our neolithic ancestors who annually used the occasion to be as one with their deity of light and regeneration. A trinity of earth mother, life, death, and rebirth graphically featured by the triskelion. To be afterwards demonstrated by superhuman acts of virility and strength.

We accept the existence of hormones in normal body chemistry named from the Greek ‘hormao’ – I excite. We acknowledge amphetamine and have recently developed many ways to action our own body chemistry by concentration or meditation. That is to trigger the adrenal flow to increase our capacity – ancient man was doing no more in a controlled situation. The result – superhuman capacity for a brief time, maybe only moments.

Sport in Celtic myth always rated highly with feats of endurance or strength including in women.

Highland Games survive as a reminder of more serious feats in battle or as Heroes. Weightlifters and athletes train to master increased strength as normal procedure. We accept that in an emergency we ourselves often have the capacity for example, to lift a vehicle off a trapped child when ordinarily we do not have the strength, but in that urgent moment our body chemical activates, and we can.

This Arte has generally become abused and forgotten as unnecessary to our existence and well-being. However, I suggest ignoring 40 million years of programming developed first as apes and then Hominids 14 or as little as four million years ago, is to consider our graphic imaging mentality as lacking as a church without a cross. I suggest the engraved stones at Newgrange and Gavrinis are our oldest logotypes. They are, I believe, the long lasting but static hormonal symbols of the life force but better represented in motion on the kinetic living flesh of the shaman’s body – the living God, present in the form of man. I wish my artwork to be an aid that activates and empowers the body or state of mind by using the same basic principle, especially to selfheal, cure or to bring a sense of well-being.

In 1981, at a one man show at the Molesworth Gallery Wellington, I featured spirals printed in unreal iridescent water blue and green colours on three-meter lengths of luxurious shimmering cloth.

At the opening a young woman lay naked beneath a shimmering cloth of gold stitched to the floor carpet featuring black printed DNA, she moved very, very slowly, first as a living form, sometimes humanoid sometimes as a chrysalis, while above her another length, also a DNA double helix, shimmered diagonally floor to ceiling, rippling up in waves blown by a wind fan as a set piece for the opening.

I offered lengths designed and printed specifically as an aid to self-healing. When feeling ill or simply off, one could simply wrap oneself up, retire to a quiet comfortable place, and heal.

This article is of my thoughts, perceptions and research. I hope you found it interesting.