THE BLACK HILL
a ghostland book
To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. Elliott Erwit
I am interested in the nature of things. The nature of something is quite different from the way it looks. Duane Michals
Everyone said
‘you can only find the Black Hill if it reveals its secret doorway to you.’
Everyone was right.
I approached hesitantly‌
…What should I do? How would I know if this was truly it? I did the only thing I could think of:
“Knock,
Knock.”
‘Come in,’
said a voice
that was not a voice, in a language that was not a language.
As I stood on the threshold I realised that a door is both entrance and exit. I knew a had to be made.
choice
The door clicked shut behind me.
And disappeared.
I was quickly swallowed by the huge evergreen mouth that stretched into eternity. There were strange sounds.
And even stranger sights.
But I kept moving, at first driven by anxiety and later by a need for the most basic requirements: food, water and shelter.
In the forest all roads look the same, and after what seemed like hours of walking, I considered myself well and truly lost. I stood at a convergence of tracks for awhile, catching my breath after an uphill climb, and let all roads lead to me. She appeared from the track on my left, moving at some speed. She seemed indistinct, like a ghostly imprint on the trees behind her. Was I hallucinating? Was she a figment of fatigue, malnourishment and thirst? The young woman came right up to me and, without saying a word, took both my hands in hers and stared straight into my eyes.
‘Sometimes,’ lost
she said,
‘we must become
in order to find ourselves.’
She suddenly pointed into the distance.
‘Find the hollow circle, and beyond you will find Him. But hurry, it is getting dark.’ Then she was gone.
I lo ok ed
h ug ro th
entre and saw its c
a d we l l i ng
in
e th
e gathering dusk h t In
ta dis
Once more I made a choice to step towards the unknown.
nce.
It w
a
w. e i v m
sa n c ien t
nd almost ered a hid h t a e de w n d fro n a
This must be the place.
There was a light shining from inside.
‘Knock knock KNOCK!’
‘Come in,’ said a voice that was not a voice, in a language that was not a language.
He was a tall, imposing man with a long grey beard flecked with random strands of red. His eyes were piercing, the pupils black, and I knew they were eyes that could see the end of the world.
‘I am Elder Rainbird,’ he said, his voice as deep and soft as a master hypnotist. ‘I am a cabinet maker, upholsterer and undertaker.’ These things I had seen written on the sign outside his door. But he told me other things, some which I did not understand, that were not on his sign.
‘Alchemist. Scryer. The Gateway. Doctor of Chronomancy. Fire Tamer. Ghost Collector. Soul Compass Guardian.’ ‘And one more thing,’ he said. ‘I’m a good cook. I’ve been expecting you, so food is ready and the kettle’s on the stove.’ After our meal, which was eaten in silence, my host guided me to my room for the night. His house appeared as trapped in time as did Elder Rainbird himself, styled in a manner that was a long way from the twenty-first century.
‘You’ve travelled far, but not yet far enough,’ he said, as we walked together through corridors of dust and archaic memories towards my room at the back of his house.
Sleep came slowly. There was a humming undercurrent lurking at the limit of human hearing. It infiltrated everything, and soon I imagined that it became rhythmic, that it pulsed with a mysterious energy. And into this voodoo state of mind came Elder Rainbird. He arrived almost as soon as I thought about him, gliding over to me as I lay under my crisply starched sheets. He laid a cool hand on my forehead, which unexpectedly pushed on through in a warm, fluid rush. I became a vessel for autobiography.
In the light of morning I didn’t know which had been substance and which shadow. Perhaps the two states had fused. ‘I saw so much, and yet know so little,’ I said, between sips of a brackish breakfast tea. ‘From answers come more questions,’ Elder replied. He suddenly leaned forward, fixing me with those deep black pupils.
‘Did you really think it would be that easy?’
he whispered. ‘To come here and, in a heartbeat, find everything you seek?’ ‘I was you once, many lifetimes ago. Young, impatient, certain that if I looked in the right place I would find everything. But I didn’t allow for the possibility of being wrong. I thought I already knew enough. But I knew so little.’ ‘And now,’ I asked him, ‘do you know enough now?’ He stood up sharply, scraping his chair back from the kitchen table. I thought he was angry with me, that he’d thought my question somewhat disrespectful. ‘Come,’ he said softly,
‘let me show you.’
And he took me to the Room of Ghosts.
‘I don’t underst and,’ I said. ‘W hat doe s it all mean?’
rd, i b n i Ra d e i l p ,’ re s y a alw s s.’ u u h t h i c re w ch to tea a d a u de ‘The ey have m th ‘and
‘What did you learn?’ He led me from the room and steered me down a narrow corridor of cobwebs and peeling paint. In front of us was a stairway leading up. Elder Rainbird seemed to pause for a second, as though a cloak of reverence had been wrapped around him.
‘This is the Room of the Great Work.
It is divided into nineteen rituals, or processes, which when complete enable a pure dialogue with the Great Work itself.’
‘I feel so small in here,’ I said. ‘I know less than nothing about any of this, and to be honest it terrifies me.’ ‘Science and Magick certainly make strange bedfellows,’ Rainbird said, ‘but only through knowledge can we rid ourselves of fear.’ ‘All this,’ I said, indicating the chaos around us, ‘do you know what it all means?’ ‘I’ve deciphered parts of it,’ said Elder Rainbird, sadly, ‘but it’s a complex puzzle, whose combination must be determined exactly. It’s still a work in progress.’ As we made our way to the door I caught sight of two objects I hadn’t noticed before. I asked Rainbird to explain them. He said simply,
‘What we were.’
‘What we must become.’
Across the hallway was another door. Rainbird’s house was like a maze, and I imagined myself a laboratory rat following a predetermined route. It also occurred to me that the interior of Rainbird’s house was bigger than the exterior, and I felt decidedly uneasy about being somewhere that might exist outside of the laws of physics. Elder Rainbird pushed down on the antique handle, pushed open the door and stepped inside. He was immediately swallowed by darkness.
‘Where are we going?’ I called out, suddenly afraid.
His voice came back to me out of the darkness…
‘The Resurrection Room.’
I let my eyes adjust to the half-light. This was a room that felt dangerous, as though something terrible was only a few feet away,
ticking like a bomb.
‘What happens here?’ I asked. It was an effort to make my voice carry. The air seemed thick, almost tactile, coiled and buzzing with immense energy.
‘Being,’
said Elder Rainbird. ‘No longer Becoming, but Being.’
‘Great,’ I said, utterly perplexed. ‘Being what?’
‘Thus far,
only ghosts. Failures, I‘m afraid. You’ve already seen some of my previous attempts. But today might be different.’
He directed me towards an alcove between machines covered with dials and guages, where he gave me a protective overall and a set of well-worn goggles. When I looked through them the world was a darker place, inhabited by geometric scratches.
‘I must ask you not to move from here,’ Rainbird said, gripping my shoulders. ‘For your own safety.’
I watched him mix things together. Liquids of different colours and degrees of viscosity all precisely measured into one infernal cocktail. When he was finished he took it somewhere out of my sight, where he must have poured the contents into something else, because when he brought the vial back it was empty.
Then, suddenly,
the waiting was over.
[click]
The An inferno. Buzzing. place Crackling. Snarling. lit A screeching iron firework up. cascade of
arcing sparks. An explosion of noise, whirring, screaming, pitching higher and higher.
Then the boom, like something breaking under pressure. Then the sound of the universe exhaling.
Afterwards, he was subdued, sullen almost. His whispered words splintered the silence: ‘I am the
Ghost Collector.’
After the terrifying events in The Resurrection Room I was resolved to leave Rainbird’s house of madness. I found him in a small room off the kitchen, hunched over, scribbling furiously in an old notebook. He looked up at me. ‘You have to leave,’ he said, taking me by surprise. ‘Now. There’s nothing for you here. You must continue your search as I must continue mine.’ ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ I said. ‘It was not of my choosing, but I could not prevent it,’ said Rainbird. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. He sighed. ‘Choice is an illusion. We walk the line already prescribed for us.’
I looked at Elder Rainbird sitting there. The darkness in his eyes seemed to leak out, devouring the light in the room. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘you found the Black Hill because it revealed its secret doorway to you, didn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You didn’t find the Black Hill,’ he whispered. The Black Hill found you.’ Elder Rainbird stood up, stretched out his arms, tipped his head back and bellowed.
‘The Black Hill found you!’ And he laughed so deep and loud I thought the ground beneath our feet would shatter.
I ran. Beyond escape, I had no idea what I wanted any more. I had set out to find better. To find more. To find other than. I thought I’d find all these things when I found the Black Hill. But the Black Hill found me!
I stopped. Dead.
Out of nowhere a door had appeared in front of me, on a track which had previously been empty.
I laughed. Rainbird was wrong, there were still choices to be made. In that moment I made mine. I was leaving the Black Hill. I was going home. Next time I would be more careful in what I wished for. With a renewed sense of purpose I put all my weight against the heavy iron doors and pushed through.
euphoria
d i s m ay
disbelief
anxiety
pa n i c
r e a l i sat i o n
r e s i g n at i o n
With heavy limbs and a heavier heart I dragged myself through the hole. I fell onto stone and was momentarily disoriented. When everything came back into focus I saw only more stone. One part of the stone was carved with an unknown symbol, but it was the inscription beneath it that caught my eye. And then I knew where I was.
B
THE BLACK HILL
You are here
[ Comments invited ] email ghostland@talktalk.net blog http://gh0stland.tumblr.com
This book was produced for the SoFoBoMo project 2011.
The Black Hill Š ghostland 2011
Thanks to Martin, who served as tour guide, taxi and financier on two key photography trips, without which this book would be a collection of
For the curious…
mostly blank pages. The photographs came before the story. to Jane, who didn’t stop loving me throughout the whole experience,
All photographs were taken on the 1st, 4th, 5th and
even though the laptop got most of
13th August 2011.
my attention. Except for the four small square format pictures which were taken with the Instagram app on my iPod, I used a Canon 400D with standard 18–55mm kit lens, together with a Canon Speedlite 430EXII flashgun for those darker moments. RAW images were processed using Canon’s Digital Photo Professional. Jpegs were tweaked in Photoshop. Locations Rural Life Museum, Farnham, Surrey Pride of the Valley Sculpture Park, Farnham, Surrey Swinley Forest, Bracknell, Berkshire Highgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, London Lloyd’s Building, London The Book Set in Sabon and Sonderfistad Constructed in QuarkXPress
F
2011
GHOST
LAND