As I began the last page in this journal volume, I was walking down the Lisburn Road in Belfast.  I passed a glass & steel 1980s BT telephone box near the City Hospital and like being sucked through a vacuum tube, surged abruptly into surreality. Images, visions, dreams of the past swirled together with the present on this misty Belfast street. I took out my phone and dialled it's number 028 9023 2471, holding my breath waiting for the green amber screen to illuminate and for it to ring

These pages in my notebook are all from early to mid January. It's been a really busy few weeks, between designing & producing the next stage of prototypes for my shawls; preparing for and exhibiting at Showcase 2015; and filming our segment on RTÉ Nationwide, as well as continuing to produce my [award-winning :-)] silk scarves & bow-ties, one each of which were presented to President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins as he opened Showcase, which is Ireland's largest trade-only event.

As we prepare for new years - new beginnings and a reflection on the past - there's lots to give thanks for, and yet alongside this, are also the things we cling so tightly to that have already slipped away, leaving husks of hurt, the hope having withered away.  All this - the good and the bad mixed together - sits uncomfortably in our minds' gut. Nonetheless we get put on our party clothes, make-up and a smile, hoping as the clock strikes midnight our sullied pages will be bleached blank. After all the revelry we head to bed, and eight hours later wake up mulling those same thoughts, hopes, joys & fears, realising that once again, a new year does not mean a new you, and we find ourselves at a loss as to how to move past the past.

Today I went to church, and instead of there being a sermon, there were readings by two of the children, contemporary worship songs, and the wrapping of gift hampers for one of the organisations that we support, a womens' shelter in Rathmines. While everyone sang, I sat, sometimes joining in, all the while drawing outlines and swirls, grateful for the space to ask a question I'm not sure of the answer to: Why did creation emerge from the great swirl, why was it formed, if not for love?

Language has limits, which I was reminded of yesterday when I said something along the lines of, "I hate when you do that". When I used the form "you", I meant "one", or more accurately "I/me", as in, "I hate when you stub your toe", meaning, "I hate when I stub my toe", and as I realised I'd caused insult, I suddenly realised I had accidentally been criticising everyone around me when I was trying to show empathy.

Moving further into the question of how we remember the dead, this week's journal has begun to expand on and explore the concept of monuments to our lost loved ones. When a friend, who was a graffiti artist and a tagger passed away, a whole world of people memorialised him on walls. His name is a secret, and although these walls are there for all to see, only those who knew him can truly see the stories they tell and the parts of him they celebrate.

It's been more than two years since 'Drowning in Enough', a vision of the overwhelming sufficiency of grace in the midst of surrender, but it wasn't until after I wove 'Dark Hedges', when I went with some friends to go 'bouldering' in the sea, just a few miles north of that broken tunnel of yew in north County Antrim, that I tasted foamy saltwater, got caught in a current, pulled under, and couldn't catch my breath, that I realised what it really meant to drown.

The Walk: It was my third time there, four miles past the edge of the world...

My First Time
Although I'd visited many times, even taking DART journeys solely for the sensory pleasure of those moments when to one side of the train, the sea opens up to a horizonless sky, I'd never ventured past the shoreline.

rom July to August 2013, I wove 'Dark Hedges'. 

One year later we arrive 'At The Edge of The World', a new body of work, of which 'Silver Shore' is my first piece. In the past few journal posts, you'll have learnt that the basic form of that work actually borrows its essential constructs from this new one, arriving later, but beginning before.This journal post too began before the others, and I'm posting it now, accepting that only the piece itself can tell you all of its story, and the best I can do is introduce it.