Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The Meaning of Cynefin

I'm posting here something I wrote for the programme of the last Cynefin performance - Heuldro Gaeaf. It has within it some ideas I've been having about interspecies communication brought about by reading a book called - "A Language Older than Words" by Derrek Jensen. It reminded me of my own experience of nature as a child and less so (saddly) as an adult.

Like the white waves that lap at lonely beaches
Like the windsong where there is no ear to hear,
I know they call in vain to us -
The old forgotten things of man.
From Cofio, Waldo Williams

Since it is the name of the company Mike Hotson and I started in 2000, I’ve been trying for some time to explain the meaning of the word ‘cynefin’ to non-Welsh speakers. It has, of course, an agricultural origin involving sheep and their territory. But in and on the magical hands and tongue of our poets the word has been enriched to signify something that can not easily be translated to other languages. In particular languages associated with a modern concept which is quite alien to native cultures – the concept that man owns nature.

I went through a period of explaining that we had this thing called ‘hiraeth’, which was a physical pain from being distant from our homeland, because we had a physical connection to the place of our birth - a collection of sensory memories of the time and place of our childhood which pleats a rope like an umbilical cord which connects us to mother earth.

By now, having evolved my explanation to extremes, I give the impression of being a little crazy to innocent inquirers. ‘Cynefin’ is not only a place in which deep personal memories reside, but places which bring about a feeling on the fringes of awareness, that the rock, the tree, the water, the earth and the sky around you remember you and are joyful at your return.

I felt this a little on returning to Caerdroia for the third time to prepare Heuldro Gaeaf: but since then our relationship has been unsettled. There was unremitting rain and wind which, were it not for a group of incredible actors and volunteers, would have inevitably led to the demise of this foolhardy project. The idea of creating a mid-winter performance on the top of a hill deep in the Gwydir Forest was appealing in the June sun, when we were last here performing Heuldro Haf: at least the midges would be gone. I had romantic images of silent nights, the snow like a blanket over the trees, the starry sky without a cloud to hide Santa and his reindeer!

But as it was we worked every day in rain and wind, flood and slippery mud and as I write the forecast is the same for the rest of December. So I would like to pay tribute to you because if you are reading this you dared go on the uncomfortable adventure that is Heuldro Gaeaf. I dearly hope that the adventure led to the discovery of a treasure for you. It is always by a thread that the successes of our performances hang, and that is the unique thread which each audience member must discover which connects the sensory moments they encounter along the path of the Caerdroia. These moment in Heuldro Gaeaf attempt to bring us closer to what we mean by the spirit of Christmas.

I have the now old fashioned impression that Christmas has indeed within it a treasure to discover. This is a time of year when the feeling of ‘cynefin’ is stretched beyond our little corner to include the old forgotten things of man. And in returning again to this wider ‘cynefin’ the world remembers us and feels joy, and we feel joy to know that the essential nature of the world is beneficent. That, I’m guessing,, is the source of these stories of kindness associated with the season, or perhaps the stories are the source of the feeling.

Iwan Brioc, Artistic Director, Cynefin

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1 Comments:

Blogger Rayna said...

My comment can be found on www.tzvetkova.wordpress.com - The Man behind the Magic. Thank YOU, Iwan and best, Rayn@

9:08 am  

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