Expedition Along The Up-Right Path - Oct 15, 2011 Throat to crown and then back down to Sweetheart Park |
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We followed the midline channel up through the locks taking the large satellite dish on much the same route that Strephano and I had followed a few months ago in August when we installed the first version. Just before we entered the large, many stepped audience space we passed by a group of young boys who had hung a climbing rope down from a railing on the level above. Two of the boys were above and seemed to be preparing to climb down the rope. The third boy was below and was ready to film the action with his cell phone. |
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The three were discussing how the scene should play, but they stop for a moment to look at us before returning to the serious business of planning out their play.The climb down the rope was by no means dangerous, but it definitely promised some excitement for them. They were still setting up the various intricacies of the shot as we passed around the corner and out of sight.
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It’s not quite clear to me even now why we didn’t stop and watch them - we did discuss whether or not they were an energy imprint pick up or not when we sat on the steps around the corner. We were unsure whether we should go back, but in the end we decided not. In retrospect now I think that this was an energy symbol pick up and that we actually did collect the imprint despite our uncertainty. I think the reason we passed by without stopping was because there was a private quality to their play which we didn’t want to interrupt. It’s interesting to think that they were doing pretty much what we were doing, but at a different (though age appropriate) level. Kind of encouraging to think that our walking the Giant’s Gi-chi path is age appropriate adult play and is probably important to adult consciousness development in the same way that play is for kids.
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After a talk and a rest we moved up through the remainder of the locks and turned north along Everton Terrace to the winding path that heads east up to where we planned to install the large satellite dish. We formed a line as we walked along up the limestone gully with Vanessa holding the satellite dish and leading the procession. A man in his late thirties was sitting with his teenaged daughter on a large flat rock that the path passes by. He doesn’t seem at all happy with our sudden appearance, by the look of his face he is even quite displeased with the large satellite dish itself which is a good two clicks too strange for his disposition. |
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Our odd-looking procession wasn’t noisy. But it was still an affront to what he clearly thought was his personal space in the park. I greeted him with a pleasant enough hello as we passed below him and he grunted back in a neutral enough way, although he wasn’t any happier about us. When we finally stopped about fifty yards away up the hill to investigate the tree where we were planning to install the satellite dish, he got up from the rock and walked away with his daughter following. When we had passed him on the way up the winding path he had been holding a long black strap, somewhat like a lead rope or a leash for a dog - there was no dog so it must have been for some other entirely different purpose. He had a harsh and over-strict energy generally and a seeming need to command and be obeyed. The girl was careful around him and showed little interest in us or anything else in the park. There was a certain dark quality to his presence and I for one was glad that he left.
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The satellite dish installed itself with much ease of action and joy. Sam leapt up into the tree and we handed up the satellite dish. It quickly settled into a good location as the rest of us helped sight the teasel tip to point down through the Giant’s body to the spring in the root chakra where we'd begun our day. Lots of energy and happy emotions as the satellite found its focus, much in contrast to the feeling that the dissatisfied man had taken away with him when he left. It felt very much like we were shifting some difficult energies and opening up new developmental possibilities. |
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As we sat down on the blanket for a snack and a rest we became aware of a group of three kids playing on their own in the park. There were two girls about 10 or so and a boy a couple of years younger who could easily have been the brother of one of the girls. Initially they stayed out in the formal playground area a good 100 yards away. But soon Rachel (the oldest and leader of the three) came bounding out from that over-organized space to run all around the grassy treed area that was down the hill a bit from where the other two were still hanging out. She called to them to come join her, even returned once to the playground to entreat them personally. She soon resumed her freewheeling run through the park. She had a wild energy that kept her constantly on the move to the next place as the other two finally moved down from the playground to join her. When they arrived she told lots of instructions about what to do, though she wasn’t exactly bossy, just over-the-top strong in all that she did. When she walked she walked with large, exaggerated strides; when she talked she announced.
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From time to time she got a bit out of hand. She throttled small trees, shaking them to their roots; she grabbed branches on the larger trees and bent them all the way down to the ground before letting them go. Sometimes she was positively ruthless and not to be denied. Strangely enough though, despite her almost feral intensity there was a certain measure of innocence about her too - perhaps because her age but also because she was more like a force of natural energy that no moral sense could effect, like a local weather front moving through.
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Interestingly, when the other two kids moved after her from place to place and copied her actions, they did so in their own, somewhat more gentle style. The younger boy often stayed longer than the others in each new place finding his own game to play. The other girl was clearly the main target of Rachel’s insistent call to motion though and followed her directions more closely, though she never got anywhere near as wild as Rachel. In a way it didn’t really matter to Rachel just how the other two actually did what she did, so long as they followed along after her. As soon as they arrived at each new place she had found Rachel would bound off to the next calling to them insistently to follow. She finally led them off and away and around some trees and they were gone from sight.
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We moved up through the park, out the northwest gate and then along Northumberland Terrace to the entrance to the Iron Church. We went up the steps, through the grounds and exited out the front gate. After crossing Heyworth we walked along the sidewalk to the west of the old Everton Library building and entered the park behind. We stood for a moment by the fire pit, but there didn’t seem much to do or say here. Vanessa needed to get back down to the city centre so we all walked back to the bus stop on Heyworth just north of the Iron Church.
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It turned out to be a long wait for the bus. As we stood there we saw some indistinct motion across the street and heard some muffled talking sounds in the bushes there behind the Albion Youth Centre. An object suddenly came lofting up into the air from the undergrowth, arcing over the heavy metal fence that separated this neglected overgrown lot from the sidewalk and street. The wham! There was a smash of exploding glass as a bottle landed in the middle of the street. The pieces spread out across the pavement, heading our way like an ocean wave breaking onto the beach.
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The broken glass stopped before it reached the sidewalk where we were standing, but the tossed bottle was clearly directed towards us. The sound hit us like a fist and we were all shaken by the smashing violence of this event, almost as if the glass shards had passed through our bodies. We looked across the road and saw four boys looking out at us from behind the safety of the heavy metal bars of the fence. They were not all that old, maybe 14 or so and looking quite smug in a dangerous sort of way that was above their actual age and maturity level.
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A man in his thirties was just coming along the sidewalk on our side from the north. He shouted at them, and the aspiring gang of young toughs quickly backed away from the fence and ducked behind the bushes again. It’s hard to recall now the words that he shouted - it might have just been an “Oy-Oy!”. But the man’s point was clear - the boys had gone too far over the line. Not only was the level of violence far too high, but the fact that it was aimed at visitors was unacceptable. Also that there was now broken glass all over the road - not good for the people who lived there - this was where everybody had to drive their cars. The man never paused, he just kept walking. He spoke to us as he passed, something like: “Those kids are asking for it - you should throw a bottle back”. He probably knew the kids personally, or at least who they were and who their parents were. His message to them was that if they went any further he’d be onto them. It was an interesting thing for him to do - standing up to them without interacting with them - just his presence and knowledge of the situation was enough to diffuse any escalation of violence. |
Things became a good bit quieter after that. The gang of kids didn’t leave or disband - they stayed where they were in the overgrown lot, but they altered their activities quite a lot. Suddenly they were playing at being violent in a way that was more within the normal scope of their actual age. They were still involved with a rough sort of play but within a more stylized, fantasy way. They were soon pretending to be army guys of some sort and the self-appointed ring leader was saying things like: “Let’s get lots of weapons, big weapons, weapons of mass destruction and then we’ll go on a raid into enemy territory”. |
The violence of the sound of the smashing glass still remained around us though. We had all been wounded in some way and we each stayed separate from each other as we waited another ten minutes or so for a bus to arrive. It wasn’t that were afraid of being attacked - it’s just that the event had given us all a good hit of trauma. |
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We walked south on Heyworth and into the third-eye, everything now focused on finishing our trek and returning to the heart again. We crossed Heyworth to the other side at Breck Road. After walking a further block south we turned east onto Lloyd Close - a curiously twisted little street that eventually turns into Hudson Place as it comes to the old water tower at the corner with Margaret Street. |
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We followed Margaret South, past Spencer Street and crossed into the throat. We soon arrived at the north end of Grant Gardens and went in the entrance at Mill Road. Quite a curious place Grant Gardens, quite empty and isolated, yet still retaining its strength despite its complete disuse. |
This used to be one of the largest cemeteries for Liverpool, but was “discontinued” at some point and the gravestones removed (but not the buried bodies evidently as bones have turned up from time to time when road work is done nearby ). It was sodded over and became a park, though it doesn’t seem to be much used except by dog walkers and people passing through on their way to somewhere else. Bad girls paint their names on the large walkway from time to time and their writing is black-painted over. There is a very strong tree about halfway down on the western side where we planted a bamboo heart spike in 2008. |
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We left Grant Gardens at the south end and crossed across Everton Road to Low Hill which we followed on the eastern side going south toward the hospital. We passed the “miners” building (Gregsons Well) where En and I picked up an imprint three years before. Nothing much left but a crumbling facade, though the energy lingers inside there still. We soon came to the small parkette just past Winter Street, This place has remained quite interesting over the years; it performs some important though as yet unknown function in the energy landscape of the Giant. |
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We crossed the busy corner of Low Hill and Prescott and turned in to the hospital grounds at the finger-shaped power plant smoke stack. The old house in the parking lot has been taken down and more parking spaces added. The whole flow of the parking and walking area behind the Cancer centre has been majorly altered and can be a hard place to find a way through if you don’t already know the way to go. |
We came to the end of the hospital pathways and crossed West Derby Street. We walked through a small overgrown empty lot and emerged onto Crown Street. We followed this south to Brownlow, and after a short jog east along Brownlow we continued south again along Crown. We are moving quite quickly now, tired from our six hour trek and eager to get back into the Giant’s heart. We turned west off Grove Street and onto Oxford. As we walked along Oxford we realized that we were very hungry and decided to stop for some dinner. We turned off Oxford onto Arrad Street and went into the Sahara for a bite. There we went over the days events and the symbolic energy pick-ups we’d made. Refreshed we then headed off to Sweetheart park, down Mount Pleasant in front of the cathedral, north onto Great Orford Street, then west on to Cathedral Walk. Sweetheart Park is at the corner with Pomona Street. |
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The boarded fence and site offices for John Moores university still block this important location and make it inaccessible. Hopefully they will be removed and the park rebuilt as promised.We stood outside the fence in the dark and sent the recently collected symbolic energy imprints up into the branches of the waiting walnut tree. As we croaked and spoke each energy symbol out load the sound alerted a security guard for the site and he arrived to check us out. We must have seemed harmless enough - he disappeared soon after he arrived without interacting with us
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contact us at giant@wearewakingthesleepinggiant.org |