Dorset AONB – Dorset

This place sprawls across time
Telling the tale of ground
Packed and bound by those who placed
Evergreen stories within reach
Stories in safe keep
Across rampart and mound
With bounty beneath
We dig
for old fragments
and assemble them until night
Dark sky maps starscape above
We follow the light
Of nature
They came holding tradition in their hands
Leaving showpiece of wonder
A people enhanced

As fair Maiden Castle climbs higher and higher
The pace of feet is the sound of centuries
In the place of this feat
myth and archaeology meet
the air at the peak, since green space begun
Joins us in breath with Celtic Durotrigans
Intrigue feeds and keeps the beat
of hearts long tethered to this beacon

for when the millennia are like chaff
thrashing away with sand
does Neolithic dust feel any different in your hand
when parched and crusted over
as much as a hundred scores ago
does Iron Age rock bring you closer to bone
Do grassy ditches hide what we now want to know
and is there more than museum in hidden barrow
Does the water spring where for centuries it flowed
As we skip across the stream of time like a river-stone

What if now our story is to love
Before our story is told in tales
What if the meaning of today is no more than being in love’s shade?
Go light the night and sing the same song!
Follow the moon to where it began
Find the path that keeps you together
Keep the fort when hearts are weathered
For before what will be left, there is beauty still
and struggle at intervals for peace
The land opens ahead as hiding place for
these living memories

I was interested in ritual and how a traditional Bharatanatyam Natyam dance movement could bring people together in a quiet, meditative, collective way that could take in the landscape, the earth and history under our feet, as well as the dark skies.  The shapes were informed by the archaeology of the space, teardrops, water and circles of community. It was important that people also had the time and space to look up at the dark skies and appreciate the stars.

The final movement involved all groups coming together to make a tear drop. Our group was right in the centre. At the end we all clapped to say thank you. We both felt privileged to be there, especially as we’d never done anything like this before, with so many people being part of something bigger and celebrating nature together, in particular our local magical hillfort. The whole experience was different, exciting and moving.