A Cloud of Witnesses

Upon discovering that the hyena caves of Kirkdale were not too far from my flat, my partner and I set out amidst the fading sun to seek out this hidden cavern, and to attempt to create a bridge between our imaginations and this resting place of African animal bones via a reading of Kenneth Grant's Hyena poem. Despite our hope to catch the sunset, we were engulfed by the night long before we reached our destination. His sat nav denied the existence of Kirkdale, but we perservered and came to a halt nearby in the car park of St Gregory's Minster, an Anglo-Saxon church dating back to the 11th century. Neither of us were familiar with this place, which rested patiently at the end of a rural, tree bracketed road made all the more uncanny beneath a canopy of bulbous nocturnal shadows. St Gregory's has a large graveyard that weaves around the building, punctured with thick headstones bunched tightly together. A few lights emitted from the windows of the church, and from the doorway which met our movement with a beacon of warm invitation. It was almost enough to see by, but did little to penetrate the solumn cloak of darkness that coveted the graveyard. The place was deserted, save for us and the dead. The silence was heavy, but free from malevolence.

 

 

It was so dark, and the tentacles of civilisation's denial of darkness were far behind us. When we looked up, the sky was illuminated by stars and the milky way. These ancient pinpoints of dead stars seemed poignant, serving as a reminder that even in death there may be a lingering essence bright enough to plot the course of one's life by. I remembered holidays in Greece, on a boat at sea by starlight, free from the competition of man made light, the night sky unveiled by this drift into the wilderness of the natural night, naked and luminous. Such a sight was a great source of comfort and wonder; a vision of something so often lost to city dwellers, thoughts accompanied by satellites.

 

My brother's favourite story as a child was The Owl Who Was Afraid of The Dark. It chronicles the quest of dark fearing Plop, a barn owl, who searches for placation amidst a sequence of conversations with those who have found a joy in darkness. One story in particular involves an old woman, who tells Plop that darkness is kind, that it covers the body's evidence of old age. In the darkness, she can be quiet and sit and rememder fondly what it was to be young.

 

 

 

 

A sign on the church noticeboard mentioned a 'cloud of witnesses'; the impressions of all those who had come to this site for over a century, to praise and rejoice and find sanctuary via a place designed to remind us of God's eternal presence. Whether you believe in the Christian God or not, there is something deeply moving about the memories of churches, these gathering places for those who sought meaning in a sacred context. If there were ghosts here, they were content. I couldn't help but hope that witnesses do indeed come in a cloud, united in the afterlife, conjoined by their memories of living and loving and wishing and dying in a community's nest.

 

The concept of a 'cloud of witnesses' reminded me of some of the images incorporated in John Harvey's excellent tome on spirit photography. One line of enquiry taken by Harvey has noted the incorporation of several spirits in certain photographs, comparing it to similar religious iconography and art.

 

 

 

 

The Spiritualist concept of the spirit world seems kindly orientated to a premise for clouds of witnesses. In the spirit world, we exist collective: we may merge into spirit, the boundaries of flesh no longer a barrier to intimate connectivity. From that we may then emerge individiual, temporarily reaching out from the vistages of our past living self, lining up in queues for a medium ready to speak of our witness to our beloved kith and kin who we hope will find comfort in the clouds we will continue to resonante, with which we would fill the painful absences of severed connections. Even in darkness, they whisper, we are with you.