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Tonight, it's the Bronte Club in Rathfriland - about an hour south of Belfast. Beautiful, isn't it?
The famous Bronte sisters (Charlotte & Emily) are the namesakes - though neither of the girls ever had the fortune to set foot in beautiful Ireland, the venue is an old church, and the place where their father preached his very first sermon before heading to England for the remainder of his life.
Oh, and the churchyard is haunted! I can't find any information on line, but Andy tells us a practitioner of black magic was buried in the churchyard, when no other yard would have him. The horses wouldn't pull the funeral carriage carrying his body - they were, quite literally, spooked. Shortly after, a lightening bolt split his tombstone in the eerie shape of a cross.
His ghost roams the passages now...
Are they real? Ghosts, I mean?
Mike, the bass playing organic chemist thinks not. Dave, the engineer, thinks anything's possible. Krista, the dramatist with a slightly analytical bent wants to believe they're real.. even it's just a tightly woven conglomerate of particles existing in hyperspace. I want to believe the human soul/collective consciousness is real, is viable, and outlasts this mortal coil. So maybe, when the body dies, the soul jumps into hyperspace..?
Hence, my fascination with the Higgs boson or 'God' particle. It's not been observed, but is thought to exist in that place between matter an anti-matter. So.. assuming the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland doesn't actually destroy the known universe in the process, it'll be interesting to see what comes of smashing the tiniest bits known into tinier bits.
Don't even ask me to do the mathematics involved in this idea. I glaze over 10 seconds in. But that's not the point.
The point is, yes, ghosts are real. And the Swiss will prove it.
Meanwhile, I'm heading into town to the Crown Bar, just to look, not to drink - and then, south through the Mourne Mountains
and to the haunted churchyard! I'll most likely bring a talisman or two, you know, just to ward off anything menacing...Boo!
Posts
Krista,
ReplyDeleteI have waited on many tides until your ship brought treasures to Rathfriland last night!
The long trick over, you carefully unpacked a series of delights for us all, leaving cargoes in the hold for future visits.
It was an unmitigated delight of a concert. Thank you sincerely and to Dave and Mike, your more than competent shipmates too. X
Krista
ReplyDeleteThanks for evening in Belfast. Loved the new album.Played Clock of the world to Maebh and she loved it and is already thinking it might work with her choir in school.
Made you a friend on myspace - hope you don't mind. Go under the name of "Buoyed" there just in case it was confusing
I have to own up to coming from a physics background though I haven't fed that particular gorgan's head for a long time.
I'm afraid I'm a bit less convinced that the hadron collider will sort anything out about anything that might mean something to anybody in the real world. Physics kind of works within the little world of physics and talks about an extremely limited world view of mathematical equations.
I have just qualified as a yoga teacher and sometimes teachers make reference to quantum mechanics or relativity - maybe I'm just a bit too world weary but it always presses a button in me that I don't like - kind of saps me.
Poets and mystics will interpret what is happening in physics in interesting and imaginative ways but I don't think the physics can actually prove anything in our world. It can give us though exciting mental images of what reality could be.
Much more relevant is the stuff happening with epigenetics in biology. I know you will be interested as you have a connection with Darwin. At the time of Origin of Species there was another theory by a guy called Lamarck which has been kind of rubbished up to now who suggested that an organisms behaviour can effect their genetics and so their behaviour/ physicality. He thought giraffes had long necks because they needed to graze high up so by pracising stretching their necks they somehow effected their genetics.This was superceded by Darwins natural selection model which on the face of it is more rational. Anyway it turns out that there is a lot of genetic material surrounding the actual genes that nobody knew what it did.The theory is now that this material can modulate the genes in the cell nucleus - ie turn on or off or turn up or down certain genes and so change the physical and behavioural nature of organisms.The key fact is that behaviour seems to impact on this "epigenetic" material. So now there is a rational basis for the "Lamarckian" model.This is huge news and may really impact on our world view. The idea that, say, our diet now could impact on the health of our grandchildren is a realy big idea!
Thing is as soon as you suggest Darwin may be even a bit wrong (or may not have got it completely right)you get hammered by the fundamentalists with their intelligent design propoganda.
Interesting times
Will keep up with your blog when I can
Enjoy the continent.They really won't hold the fact that you are American against you - honest!
Michael