For the St Johns Christmas tree festival we have created an installation which focuses on our experiences of the green and living things.
We are blessed to be learn how to read and understand texts in school – but where do you learn to read the wind, sunrise and sunset, or the language of growing things?
We have five physical senses, and these can be a gateway to sensing all the things which make being human more than just our physical elements.
We can Sense challenge, meaningfulness, Values, Mystery, otherness, sometimes a changed sense of awareness and many more things which can be difficult to describe to ourselves – let alone explain to others!
The books on the tree contain “Translations from the Book of Creation”. Quartz members have used words to describe their encounters with God in the natural world, and translate these experiences into text. We hope they will encourage you to look for experiences of God in your daily lives – and find the words to describe it!
For our tree we wanted to draw peoples attention to the tree itself, and the beauty of growing things. There are googly eyed explorers using faerie lights as torches to explore the tree – if you visit the tree how many can you count?
The tree is also “Off the grid” the lights can be powered by wind and human effort. Energy is stored in rechargeable batteries. It would take around three hours of turning the handle on the dynamo to fully charge a phone battery
– I wonder how much light that will provide?
What effort are your lights worth?
Opening Times
Wednesday 6 December, 7pm – 9pm
Thursday 7, Friday 8 and Saturday 9 December, 10am to 9pm
Sunday 10 December, 1.30pm to 4.00pm