It’s coming! At last! It’s here! The moment that no one has been waiting for!
SPG presents SELECTED TRASH FROM THE RUINS OF SOCIETY, Volume 7.
Printed in Dystopia.
The perfect Summer Solstice gift for people you don’t like!
Praise for previous volumes of SELECTED TRASH:
“Sneery, self-important, pompous and nasty – well done! Unfortunately, also long winded and mind numbingly boring.“
I have previously referred to my tendency to see religious and occult symbols in everyday elements of the landscape. It obviously comes as no surprise to see religious symbols in cemeteries. I thought this particular gravestone had called to me on account of the extraordinary severity of those bolt-like circles and the rough sturdiness of the stone itself. But there is something else at play.
Firstly, the circular emanations can be interpreted as a reference to the five wounds of Christ; this is quite straightforward and orthodox and easy to grasp. Secondly, and more pertinently, the five circles relate to the stations of light opened through the performance of the Cross of Light six-part rite, which correspond to what is called the Third Eye, the Navel, the Left Breast (nipple), the Right Breast (nipple) and what is called the Heart Chakra on the body of light.
During the six-part rite, light – greater light – light beyond light is generated in each of these stations, and at the conclusion of the six-part rite, the stations are joined by making the sign of the Hanged Man. The rite concludes by focusing on the station of light in the so-called Heart Chakra, which corresponds with the central circle on this cross.
Who would have thought it?
Once a Cross of Light Templar, always a Cross of Light Templar.
Once a temple is opened, it remains open until it is closed.
And it never closes.
When I was a young man, or a child approaching adulthood, I encountered a strange individual as I walked down the A34 from Bradwell to Newcastle, a route that I did not follow very often, as other routes were available, and they were shorter, or more picturesque. Upon seeing me, this curious person was moved to exclaim, “The sun shines on the righteous!”
I didn’t really know what he meant at the time, and even after I came to understand the reference, I still didn’t know what he meant. But often when I see the sun shining like this, I think about this encounter, and it invariably seems somehow important.
18 years ago, I published a work called ‘Balm of Gilead’. It was a collection of stories and articles about mystical and visionary experience, fringe religious movements, occult groups and practices, and art and music that relates to these themes. It was very good, if I say so myself.
Once the work had been published, I was faced with the task of distributing it. I offered the collection for sale through a variety of niche websites, including the website that I operated at the time, which led to me being visited at my place of work by an eccentric character who I went on to form a stormy relationship with thereafter (it’s calmed down now, and we get along well, but it was in the balance for a few years).
Having exhausted these channels, I was forced to transcend my shyness and timidity in order to request that specialist bookshops might offer it for sale. This enterprise proved broadly successful, and the work appeared on the shelves of the Atlantis Bookshop in London and Rare and Racy in Sheffield, amongst other places.
But copies of ‘Balm of Gilead’ remained, so I took to hawking them around less immediately fitting outlets, including what I termed ‘a psychic junkshop’ on South Road, Walkley.
This ‘psychic junkshop’ accepted one copy, closed down, and later emerged in expanded form as the purveyors of the extraordinary plate that is here paraded before your eyes.
I think that this picture of Longfield Road was taken towards the end of my snowbound journey.
If this is so, I must have made a particular effort to walk past the first house on the Northfield Road end of the street to frame this particular view.
Unsurprisingly, there is less evidence of snow on the ground, given the passage of traffic along the road and home dwellers and other pedestrians upon the pavement.
Once again, the working of fog on the landscape results in the phenomenon of the way (here the street, formerly the grassy path to the grove of outlying trees) seeming far longer than it does when fog is absent.
It’s possible that the photograph was taken towards the beginning of my journey, and that I chose to enter the Bole Hills through the Longfield Road entrance, rather than going by way of Northfield Avenue.
The local Yggdrasil, which sprang into existence when Crookes was formed, its roots and branches weaving the fabric of the settlement.
Where’s Ratatoskr?
Askr Yggdrasils
drýgir erfiði
meira en menn viti:
hjörtr bítr ofan,
en á hliðu fúnar,
skerðir Niðhöggr neðan.
The Ash of Yggdrasil sustains
The beasts that range a thousand plains:
Boughs, to the Stag; its bark affords
Protection to the insect hoards;
While at its root with ceaseless bite,
Nidhogger hides his theft in night.
The Mound ov Krekja looks particularly alluring by virtue of the fog and snow.
I didn’t visit the interior of the grove on this occasion because I was more tired than usual from the effort of walking and reaching the Mound from this point involves travelling slightly downhill, which might have proved quite difficult.
If I didn’t know the Mound so well, I might have acted otherwise.
Great changes have been visited on this place recently; one of the trees that we see nearest to us has been split halfway up, perhaps as a result of a lightning strike, and the top half of this tree now leans against its neighbours.
As you can see from this image, snowfall was succeeded by fog, which also makes familiar places look and seem new. That altered no golfing sign does not seem as prominent when the view to the far distant hills is not obscured by what is commonly called inclement weather. And the fog shrouded trees on the far horizon seem further away than they do when the sun is shining.
The combination of fog and trees can work wonders in producing commonplace mysteries that continue to work within the person who perceives them many years later. The fact that fog often occurs during magic mushroom season might play a part in this, not that this consideration has any bearing on what was witnessed here.
Seeing a bit of snow on the ground encouraged me to take some pictures after a period of inactivity because it makes familiar places look and seem new.
Not only does the snow make familiar places look and seem new but it also helps to make them feel new because it takes more effort to walk on snowy ground, which impacts on the speed of the journey, and this difference in speed impacts on the overall perception of detail.
There’s a rarely seen video which was made to accompany a track from a rarely heard album called ‘Planetary Mess’, which consists of the film maker walking slowly up and down this little passage in darkness.
You wouldn’t recognise it as the same place, even if you did manage to access what is a generally inaccessible film.
Sheffield Patrol Group 