"A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A route has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A road is a tribute to space. Every stretch of road has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A route is the triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.”

                                                                            -- Milan Kundera

In the night a metal truck with jagged teeth crawled through the streets and bit out the foundations of the houses. It smashed in the windows and small wiry creatures dressed in black ran in to steal out the furniture and the photographs.
In the morning men in uniforms came and gagged the homeowners for disturbing the silence and they cordoned off the area with red and white tape. When a small boy ran over to ask what they were doing, they tied him up to a tree and blew up his house with dynamite.

An old lady wrapped in a shawl sat their in her rocking chair watching them all as she pushed herself back and forth with her foot. ‘I see them, I see us, I see what we are doing,’ she said, bleeding softly onto the ground. ‘I see our fear, our deep black panic; I see the fight we make to protect ourselves, but what I do not see is hope. Trust does not grow out from under the pavement in the same way as the dandelions.’
The graffiti came in the night, it crept over the broken walls and tiles and tunnels, it read, Where is the place that we can stand to build up and not break down? How can we be a part of the change when we’re still a part of the cause?

Candlemas, or ‘imbolc’ as it was called in the bronze age and the time of the celts and in the pagan traditions… is the festival of fire, inspiration and poetry. This day, this second day of february marks the midway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, and like generations before us we choose to celebrate the slow return of light, the pregnancy of the barren earth and of the animals in their stalls, a promise of spring…

It is a time to rekindle hope in the desertplace, to stand at a point of liminality between the deeply earthy and the most ethereal, and here to remember the entwining of the divine into one human story... a small child is recognised in the templeplace.

On this night, twelve friends old and new gather and under the stars and full moon we speak old words, we read poetry aloud with the candleflame and the starglow, and hold the hot vanillamilk in our hands as we look up: we look up.
And she pours out seeds for each of us full to overflowing in our palms, dreamseeds for the year ahead. Some people let them sift through their hands into the grass in the stillness, some drop them down one by one saving just a few to eat, one girl hurls them into the deepblack at the bottom of the garden.
And the gentle wind is whipping now in the dancing flames, the people place their candles in the soil with the little lights still all around and leave them out there as they step into the lightwarm; some are still watching the silent fireflies there.

The earth turns on, and here we are again, anew.

Some things some wise people have been teaching me:

fear can be a powerful kind of optical illusion which at times prevents us from seeing one another at all
you can only be loved to the degree that you are known
our judgements and fear-laden expectations of people limit us even more than they limit them

and

if you desire to see more life; invitation, welcome, rumour-whispering, tour-guiding and gardening are better practice than any effort to bring about change - not least because you will unquestionably find more than you were able to seek
(although whether we alter how we seek according to what we do find is another question altogether).

In consequence, summarily, and by the way, the winds here have wrenched so many spider-rooted gnarled oaks out of the ground they have broken up the old earth and there are rooves smashed in, cables snapped and fences strewn along the wayside - if the weather was a woman she would of course be arrested but as it is I feel that she expresses almost on our behalf something we cannot.

‘Towards the end of 2003 a ferris wheel from Paris was re-erected in the centre of Birmingham but the French audio commentary had not been removed, and for several weeks the public viewed the English cityscape whilst being told to look out for Parisian landmarks.

What happens if you overlap a map of Moscow on your own city? What do you find where the Kremlin should be? Look for references to Russia. Stop in bars and drink vodka.

What about Baghdad?…

Or fictional spaces? (Narnia, streets in soap operas, etc.)

Take guidebooks from one place and use them in another. Exchange maps with friends from other cities.’

*** 

‘Mis-Guides’ are a devon-ish art meets tour guide meets philosophy meets urban geography project… using ‘walking (and, more generally, touring) as a critical tool to investigate and destabilize essentialized notions of place and landscape.’
A bit different from the surrealist flâneur who wanders about dreaming in the city and thinking about perception, this kind of book (which i haven't read yet) is more grappling with the question, 'how can we creatively inhabit the spaces we live in, in our time'...? which leads to a kind of shared non-linear mapping/navigational tool 'guided by the practice of mytho-geography, which places the fictional, fanciful, fragile and personal on equal terms with 'factual', municipal history. Author and walker become partners in ascribing significance to place.’

I like it.
The book includes suggestions/results of exploring a city with children, pretending the city is underwater/a mountain… ideas for disrupting a mindless commuter route, making the most of opportunities furnished by roadworks… Think there's lots of scope here, for our own wandering, dreaming in our own spaces/places...

Read more on the book's site , or there are a whole array of other interesting projects/experiments here ...