Magic places
Jul. 10th, 2005 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustBeside Kielder Water, there is a conical stone hut.
Don't follow the busy south shore, past the landing stages and the water skiers and the cafés; cross the dam and walk from the car park along the shoreline path.
If you can, go at the end of the afternoon, or on a sunny evening.
Skirt the lake (which is not exactly a lake) until you come to an island which is not exactly an island. This may seem further than the guides suggest (the guides, in any case, do not agree about the distance); be patient, persevere. Be watchful; the blueberries may be ripe for picking.
And eventually you will come to a beehive of stone perched above the water's edge. Open the wooden door, step across the flat stone floor to the wedge of stone bench: a single step, two at the most, close the door, you can find it in the dark. Sit down; watch and wait.
It's a camera obscura. You see the sunlight gleaming through pinhole gaps in the stone walls, and you see the spangles of light on the floor, like sunlight glinting on the water. You think "Oh, I see. That's the illusion." Watch, and wait.
Gradually your eyes become attuned. You still see the spangles of light on the floor, but now you think you see a faint mesh of shifting lines, as if the ripples of the water were illuminated. But at one edge, it's as if some unevenness in the stone interrupted the image; the movement stops at an edge.
Keep watching, and the water becomes deeper. The chamber, which at first was so dark that you could not find your way to the bench, is now pleasantly dim. The pool at your feet seems to flow, as the ripples make their way across the floor, to run up against that regrettable flaw in the stone, but the motion, and the sound of the lapping water, soothe you, until you force yourself to stand and leave.
When you open the door to leave the chamber, the light of day pours across a floor of completely flat concrete.
The form of this piece owes more than is strictly desirable to Neil Gaiman's splendid Instructions. But the Wave Chamber is real.
Don't follow the busy south shore, past the landing stages and the water skiers and the cafés; cross the dam and walk from the car park along the shoreline path.
If you can, go at the end of the afternoon, or on a sunny evening.
Skirt the lake (which is not exactly a lake) until you come to an island which is not exactly an island. This may seem further than the guides suggest (the guides, in any case, do not agree about the distance); be patient, persevere. Be watchful; the blueberries may be ripe for picking.
And eventually you will come to a beehive of stone perched above the water's edge. Open the wooden door, step across the flat stone floor to the wedge of stone bench: a single step, two at the most, close the door, you can find it in the dark. Sit down; watch and wait.
It's a camera obscura. You see the sunlight gleaming through pinhole gaps in the stone walls, and you see the spangles of light on the floor, like sunlight glinting on the water. You think "Oh, I see. That's the illusion." Watch, and wait.
Gradually your eyes become attuned. You still see the spangles of light on the floor, but now you think you see a faint mesh of shifting lines, as if the ripples of the water were illuminated. But at one edge, it's as if some unevenness in the stone interrupted the image; the movement stops at an edge.
Keep watching, and the water becomes deeper. The chamber, which at first was so dark that you could not find your way to the bench, is now pleasantly dim. The pool at your feet seems to flow, as the ripples make their way across the floor, to run up against that regrettable flaw in the stone, but the motion, and the sound of the lapping water, soothe you, until you force yourself to stand and leave.
When you open the door to leave the chamber, the light of day pours across a floor of completely flat concrete.
The form of this piece owes more than is strictly desirable to Neil Gaiman's splendid Instructions. But the Wave Chamber is real.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-22 03:47 pm (UTC)