Filed under: Amazon, Artificial Intelligence, Brave New World, Connections, Emergency, Expert systems, Feedback, Google, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: A.I., Alexa, Amazon, Andi, Communion of Dreams, coronavirus, Covid 19, epidemic, Google, News, pandemic, predictions, reviews, Seth, Siri, St. Cybi's Well, technology, Travis M. Andrews, Washington Post, writing
In Communion of Dreams, I have “experts” who are A.I. assistants. As I describe them in that book when I introduce one as the character ‘Seth’:
His expert was one of the best, one of only a few hundred based on the new semifluid CPU technology that surpassed the best thin-film computers made by the Israelis. But it was a quirky technology, just a few years old, subject to problems that conventional computers didn’t have, and still not entirely understood. Even less settled was whether experts based on this technology could finally be considered to be true AI. The superconducting gel that was the basis of the semifluid CPU was more alive than not, and the computer was largely self-determining once the projected energy matrix surrounding the gel was initiated by another computer. Building on the initial subsistence program, the computer would learn how to refine and control the matrix to improve its own ‘thinking’. The thin-film computers had long since passed the Turing test, and these semifluid systems seemed to be almost human. But did that constitute sentience? Jon considered it to be a moot point, of interest only to philosophers and ethicists.
In the world of 2052, when Communion is set, these “experts” are ubiquitous and extremely helpful. Seth is an “S-series”, the latest tech, and all S-series models have names which start with S. I figured that naming convention would be a nice way to track the development of such expert-systems technology, and in the course of the book you see earlier models which have appropriate names.
So when the time came to write St Cybi’s Well, I figured that I would introduce the first such model, named Andi. Here’s the first bit of dialog with Andi:
“Hi, I’m Andi, your assistant application. How can I help you?”
“Andi, check local restaurant reviews for Conwy and find the best ranked Fish & Chips place.”
“You’re not in Conwy. You’re in Holywell. Would you rather that I check restaurants where you are?”
“No, I’m not hungry yet. But I will be when I get to Conwy.”
“Very good. Shall I read off the names?”
“Not now. It can wait until I am closer.”
“Very good. Shall I track your movement and alert you?”
“No.”
“Very good. May I help you with something else?”
“Not right now.” Darnell shut off the app, then the phone, and dropped it back into his pocket. The walk back to his car was uneventful.
Now, I wrote this bit almost eight years ago, long before “Siri” or “Alexa” were announced. But it was predictable that such technology would soon be introduced, and I was amused as all get-out when Amazon decided to name their first assistant as “Alexa”.
Anyway, I also figured that since the technology would be new, and unsophisticated, that Andi would be slightly annoying to use. Because it would default to repetitions of scripts, be easy to confuse, et cetera, similar to encountering a ‘bot on a phone call. And you can judge for yourself, but I think I succeeded in the book — the readers of early chapters thought so, and commented on it.
So this article in the morning Washington Post made me chuckle:
Heh. Nailed another prediction.
* * *
It’s the first of the month. That means that both novels and our care-giving memoir are available for free download, as they are the first of each month. If you haven’t already, please help yourself and tell your friends.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Emergency, Faith healing, Feedback, Flu, Government, Health, Kindle, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: coronavirus, Covid 19, cytokine storm, emergency, epidemic, fire-flu, flu, influenza, Llandudno, News, pandemic, reviews, Spanish flu, St Melangell Centre, St. Cybi's Well, Wales, writing
I mentioned the other day that many of the early reviews of St Cybi’s Well talk about how eerily prescient the book seems now.
Well, judge for yourself. This is an excerpt from the book (Chapter 14: Llangelynnin) when news of the pandemic is just really getting started. The main characters are discussing it, and their plans to collect medical supplies since the St Melangell Centre is a designated rural care center. I first wrote this portion of the book about two years ago, did major revisions last fall.
“The government here is asking people to just stay home if they have any indications of illness. They’ve implemented a week-long ‘bank holiday’, so people don’t go in to work or school, and declared that only essential government employees and emergency workers are to report in. All the bus and train lines have been shut down. They’re even talking about closing all the restaurants and pubs. We’ll probably hear more about that later today. And there have been more anti-immigrant riots in London and some other places. And not just the so-called ‘Tommys’.”
“People are frightened.”
“Yeah, no surprise.” Darnell nodded at the stereo again. “There was also some science reporting about VCS itself. Looks like it is caused by a flu strain which is similar to the 1918 virus, the Spanish Flu, but one which is even more virulent.”
Megan paused, her hands lowered. The towel hung limply by her side. “Didn’t that kill millions, world-wide?”
“Yeah, something like fifty million.”
“And this looks to be worse?”
“Yeah,” Darnell repeated. “This seems to spread just as easily, but kills faster. Well, kills healthy adults faster – that cytokine storm thing, which is basically the immune system going crazy, creating high fever and complete exhaustion, leading to the inability to get enough oxygen and general system collapse. Victims often develop cyanosis – a blueish tint to the skin, particularly on the face and hands. Anyone who is very young, or old, or otherwise has a compromised immune system, can still get the flu, but don’t generally have the VCS reaction. But there’s a good chance that they’ll develop pneumonia which can kill them in a week or so without proper treatment.”
“But there are treatments for pneumonia.”
“There are. And even some things that can be done for someone with Cytokine Syndrome, if you get to them soon enough. Or anti-virals, like Theraflu.” He sighed. “But there’s not nearly enough of those stockpiled. And how well do you think the health system here or anywhere will be able to handle such a fast-moving epidemic, particularly if health workers are among the most vulnerable group because of massive exposure? Do you remember how devastating hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola have been in isolated areas, because health workers are often among the first victims of the disease? And those require direct contact with bodily fluids . . . this flu is airborne.”
There was a wild look in her eyes, and for a moment Darnell thought he even saw fear. Then Megan closed her eyes, clasped the small crucifix necklace she wore, and muttered what he assumed to be a prayer. When she opened her eyes again, the wildness was gone, replaced with a cold determination. “We already have basic personal protection gear – surgical masks, gloves, even disposable gowns – and it sounds like we should wear them when we go to Llandudno. I’ll get them and meet you downstairs when you’re done with your shower.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Emergency, Faith healing, Feedback, Flu, Health, Kindle, Marketing, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Preparedness, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Uncategorized, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: coronavirus, Covid 19, News, reviews, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, almost two months ago I ‘officially’ launched the publication of St Cybi’s Well.
No, I didn’t forget to mention it here. Since I have allowed this blog to go quiet, I didn’t see it as an important venue to announce it, and figured that it would make a little more sense to just let the book exist in the wild for a little while, then write about the reactions to it.
Currently, there are 14 reviews on Amazon, with an overall rating of 4.9 stars. Some are from friends. Some are from acquaintances. Some are from complete strangers. Among the reviews I have my favorites, and not necessarily ones which say good things. At this point, after struggling with the book for so long, I have very mixed feelings about it.
But my strongest emotion about the book, and something that keeps coming up in the reviews of it, is just how surreal it is to have finished the book during the middle of a real pandemic, and having our reality seeming to follow the path I had laid out in the book. Here are some excerpts as examples of what I mean.
The first review, by someone who backed my Kickstarter and had an advance copy of St Cybi’s:
With some recent political developments and COVID-19, I found this unsettlingly realistic.
That he wrote this well before our current pandemic was even a thing is a testament to his spooky prescience …
And:
The images are vivid and remain. No one took epidemic plagues too seriously anymore, Polio was long ago. But since Covid and Ebola, there is a realization that the 4 Horsemen of the Apocolypse are alive and kicking.
And:
What I found most compelling is the almost prescient storyline of the Fire Flu and its attendant effects on society. I can’t imagine a more difficult proposition than trying to finish your novel about an apocalyptic disease while having to do so with one currently taking over the news. There are some eerie moments in the book where it feels as though it’s a ‘ripped from the headlines’ story.
And:
Set in 2012, the overlap with current events in 2020 is uncanny.
And:
… the story is kind of terrifying considering its striking similarity to current events …
Of course, I’m not prescient. I had no real idea that the coronavirus pandemic was coming, though I had long known that we were about due for another pandemic and were likely unprepared for it. And what I put into the book about how the FireFlu virus spread, and how people reacted to it, was just based on history. What we’re seeing now … all the good and bad of it … was entirely predictable, because it is the sort of reaction that human societies have always had to pandemics.
Which, of course, doesn’t give me any comfort. As is said in one of the reviews:
… I ended up feeling that the story is part of what science fiction does best – telling you a tale that just *might* be real.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Download my book, or order a paper copy. If money is a little tight, wait until the first of the month, and download it for free. And please, if you do read it, leave a review.
Thanks.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Connections, Predictions, Psychic abilities, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Stephen Hawking, Writing stuff | Tags: Apparent Gravity, augmented reality, blogging, Communion of Dreams, cosmology, jim downey, physics, predictions, science, Science Fiction, space, Stephen Hawking, The Telegraph, writing
From Chapter 3 (page 50 of the paperback edition) of Communion of Dreams:
Apparent Gravity was the third major application of the theories set forth in Hawking’s Conundrum, the great opus of Stephen Hawking which was not published until after his death in the earlier part of the century. He hadn’t released the work because evidently even he couldn’t really believe that it made any sense. It was, essentially, both too simple and too complex. And since he had died just shortly before the Fire-Flu, with all the chaos that brought, there had been a lag in his theory being fully understood and starting to be applied.
But it did account for all the established data, including much of the stuff that seemed valid but didn’t fit inside the previous paradigms. Using his theories, scientists and engineers learned that the structure of space itself could be manipulated.
In the news today:
Stephen Hawking’s ‘breathtaking’ final multiverse theory completed two weeks before he died
A final theory explaining how mankind might detect parallel universes was completed by Stephen Hawking shortly before he died, it has emerged.
Colleagues have revealed the renowned theoretical physicist’s final academic work was to set out the groundbreaking mathematics needed for a spacecraft to find traces of multiple big bangs.
Currently being reviewed by a leading scientific journal, the paper, named A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation, may turn out to be Hawking’s most important scientific legacy.
I frighten myself sometimes.
Farewell, Professor Hawking. Challenged in body, you challenged us with your mind.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Anglesey, art, Ash Farm Country House, Barclodiad y Gawres, blogging, Bodowyr Burial Chamber, CADW, Caer Lêb, Christian, Dinas Dinlle, donjon, Ewloe Castle, false memory, Flint Castle, jim downey, Megalithic Portal, neolithic, religion, Rhuddlan Castle, Science Fiction, Shakespeare, St. Cybi's Well, travel, video, Wales, Wikipedia, writing, www youtube, Ynys Môn
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10.
The next day we were in a neolithic kinda frame of mind. This was by design, actually, since one of the sites we wanted to see is only open on weekends, if you want to see the inside of it. That’s the Barclodiad y Gawres burial chamber on Anglesey, and I love this aerial image of it from CADW’s site:
I actually mentioned this site in a blog post three years ago about St Cybi’s Well, and I’ve been wanting to see it since I did the research about the site. And this was another case where I had a false memory of having previously visited it, thanks to that research. But this time I knew full well that I hadn’t been there … even as the false memory played out as having been there when we went looking for it. A very strange feeling.
Anyway. We stopped at the little shop in the nearby town, as instructed on the CADW site, and collected the key for the chamber. The site was only about a mile away, and we parked there in the lot for a small beach, and walked out to the mound.
The mound was excavated in the 1950s, and when that research was done they capped it with a concrete dome and turf to protect it and to return it to something like what it may have looked like when constructed 4,000 – 5,000 years ago. The entryway you can see in the image above allows anyone to partially enter the mound:
Where you see this:
The original entry path of the cruciform passage grave.*
The gate is locked, and the key allows you entrance. We wanted to get inside because I wanted to personally see the neolithic art:
There are better images (and more of other carved stones at the site) at the site linked above and elsewhere online.
After exploring inside the chamber we locked it back up, then explored the exterior. There on the headlands the wind was brisk, but it was a wonderful location with excellent views:
We returned the key to the shop, and went off in quest of other neolithic sites there on Ynys Môn. First was Caer Lêb, a Bronze Age settlement which is little more than mounds now.
Then we stopped at another passage grave: the Bodowyr Burial Chamber.
From there we headed back to the mainland, stopping for some lunch before visiting friends of Martha’s for a couple of hours. When we headed back to our beachside hotel it was still a bit early, so we decided to to explore the substantial Iron Age hillfort overlooking our portion of the beach:
From the hotel parking lot.
That’s Dinas Dinlle, and there’s not a lot of information available about it, though the Megalithic Portal has a number of images of the site. Here are some more of mine:
At the top. I’d guesstimate the hill to be about 100 meters high.
Along one of the defensive earthen walls.
Path across the village ‘floor’ to the other defensive wall. To the right the sea has claimed approximately a third of the original hillfort.
During WWII there was a military airport just up the coast, so at the base of the hillfort it wasn’t surprising to see a small defensive pillbox of that era:
I thought that it was an interesting juxtaposition.
The next day was our final one in Wales. After a nice breakfast we packed up and headed east. We were driving back to Manchester (where we would fly out the next day), but we thought to hit several castles along the way. The first of these was Rhuddlan Castle. We had visited Rhuddlan some years previously, but at that time it was undergoing some restoration work. CADW has a nice overview of the castle … in the form of an aerial fly-by:
It was nice to have a chance to really walk around the place and enjoy it.
From Rhuddlan we went to the first castle King Edward built to subdue Wales: Flint. Both Wikipedia and Castle Wales have good entries on Flint Castle, but I prefer my own images:
There were a number of these shadow-sculptures, which I really thought were striking. the images were drawn from history/Shakespeare.
Entry into the unusual large circular detached tower, called a donjon keep, which overlooks the main castle entrance.
The donjon had your typical central rooms, but it also had wide (7-8′) corridors in the walls, with defensive windows and arrow slits looking out.
Inner room of the donjon.
The lower inner corridor in the donjon keep.
Top of the donjon.
Inner ward of the castle.
Across the inner ward.
Our last castle of the trip was to be Ewloe. This small Welsh castle was one I’d never even heard of, as its history is both brief and unremarkable. But it is a surprisingly charming little place. I’ll add a couple of pics, but I like the ones at Castle Wales better, so would recommend that you check those out.
From there, it didn’t take us long to drive the rest of the way to Manchester, where once again we had reserved a room at Ash Farm:
It was a good trip. Thanks for sharing it with us here.
Jim Downey
* I’ve always been struck by the fact that the shape of these passage graves is a cross. Obviously, that was the shape which came to symbolize Christianity, and which was used to construct churches and cathedrals for hundreds of years. But I don’t recall having ever read anything where someone has drawn the obvious connection between the two. Evidently that’s a gap in my knowledge.
Filed under: Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: art, Black Lion pub, blogging, CADW, Capel Soar y Mynydd, Cenlisinus stone, Church of Saint David, Cilgerran Castle, Dallas Dumelus stone, Elenydd, jim downey, Ogham stone, Pontrhydfendigaid, Say Something In Welsh, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Strata Florida, travel, Wikipedia, writing
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8.
We were going to head north, to meet up with another of Martha’s friends from the online Welsh language community. But we decided to explore a bit along the way. Exploring, we discovered a castle we hadn’t visited previously: Cilgerran.
Here’s the nice image/intro discription from CADW:
This beautifully located castle has a romantic air. The coracle, a one-person boat native to these parts, has a history dating back thousands of years. Cilgerran Castle, which overlooks the Teifi, a river favoured by the peculiar vessel, isn’t doing too badly either. Almost 800 years young and counting.Take the wall-walk to truly appreciate why it was built here. Stunning location. Perfect for stunning attackers. The Normans first saw the potential and established an early ‘ringwork’ castle here, but the imposing masonry castle we see today was probably the work of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke.
It really is an impressive structure, and we enjoyed poking around it for a good while.
Main gate.
Inner ward.
Not a strawman I’d care to fight.
The walls were surprisingly thick — about 10′. Which is about half again what you normally see in castles of this age.
Definitely glad that we stopped to check it out.
Martha’s friend Huw lives outside Aberystwyth, and we took a room at the Black Lion pub in nearby Pontrhydfendigaid. He met us there, and we went over to Strata Florida, another Cistercian abbey which played a very important role in Welsh history, and was a major center of learning. It also plays an important role in St Cybi’s Well, with one of the chapters titled with the name. Here’s a bit of that:
He led Darnell through the gateway, onto the smooth green lawn which once had been the floor of the abbey church. To the left and right were the foundations of the original walls, less than a half meter tall, and somewhat wider than that. Beyond those were the remains of the exterior walls of the north and south aisles. Looking down the long nave, and across to the far wall of the north transept, Darnell saw a small group of people before a large slate sign. From his previous visits, he knew that this was a marker dedicated to a famous Welsh medieval poet who was buried on the grounds.
This was familiar ground, ground he had walked before. And yet, for the first time he felt something different. It was an echo of that resonance he had felt at St David’s Cathedral, of the shimmering energy of Stonehenge. Something deep. Powerful. Old.
Whether the ground was so imbued with this strange … energy … before the monks had chosen this spot for their abbey, or whether the energy was the effect of hundreds of years of worship on the location, he didn’t know. But there was something there which touched him, which opened a door he had only recently come to realize even existed.
It really does have a special feel. See for yourself (first image is from Wikipedia):
Graves of princes and poets.
From Strata Florida, Huw took us up into Elenydd, the so-called ‘green desert of Wales’. It’s an upland plateau, a wild and largely empty place. And it is beautiful in its starkness, particularly with the clouds hanging less than 100′ above us:
Lovely.
Huw had one more treat in store for us that afternoon: the Church of Saint David at Llanddewi Brefi. While most of the current structure dates to the 19th century, the central tower is clearly 12th century:
The interior of the church:
But what is most impressive are the Ogham stones, probably dating back to the 6th century:
The next day the low-hanging clouds which had been threatening rain delivered on their threat. It was a good day for driving again in the Green Desert, with a visit to “the most remote chapel in all Wales”, Capel Soar y mynydd:
And while the chapel may be remote, they’re up with the times:
Jim Downey
Filed under: Book Conservation, Reproduction, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Travel, Wales | Tags: blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Castell Henllys, Craig Rhosyfelin, Gors Fawr, Hywel Dda, jim downey, Legacy Bookbindery, Llandysul, neolithic, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, technology, travel, Wales, Wikipedia
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7.
We spent the bulk of Sunday driving to Llandysul in SW Wales. There we’d made arrangements to stay with an online friend of Martha’s.
Monday we spent mostly in prehistoric Britain, starting with Castell Henllys. This is an iron age hillfort which has been partially reconstructed, using solid archeological research done on the site. Since the roundhouses have been rebuilt right on the original foundations, you get a real sense of what life in the village must have been like. You can see it, feel it, smell it. They’ve done a remarkable job in building the structures and constructing the everyday items which would have been inside them.
Typical traps between the defensive berms: sharp rocks, pot holes, mires.
Inside defensive berm.
What you see as you come through the defensive perimeter.
Nice to see how the thatch around the vent hole was replaced recently.
Common house and animal pen.
Entrance to the chieftain’s hut.
Interior roof support structure.
Simple loom.
Grindstone.
Firepit.
Cooking gear.
Decorative end of log seat.
Interior wall.
‘Bedroom.’
Interior decoration.
Pole lathe.
Storage/work shed.
Fish basket.
Roof detail.
Granary.
We decided to have lunch at a local pub, then I wanted to make another stop at Craig Rhosyfelin (from Part 3), to take some additional images for my own reference in working on St Cybi’s Well:
Approaching the point.
And from there we went exploring — driving off into an area we hadn’t been before, just looking to see what we might find on the map. And we wound up at Gors Fawr, a wonderful remote neolithic stone circle. With the clouds hanging low and covering the nearby mountain tops, you couldn’t ask for a more atmospheric scene:
The whole circle.
The ‘avenue stones.’
Lastly, on our way back to Llandysul, we stopped by the Hywel Dda Centre in Whitland. We had been to the Centre previously, but only when it wasn’t open. This time we had a chance to chat with a charming docent, who shared his enthusiasm for Welsh history. And of professional interest, we got to see the excellent facsimile copy of ‘Boston Manuscript of the Laws of Hywel Dda‘:
It was a delightful day.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Faith healing, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: architecture, blogging, CADW, Caernarfon, Communion of Dreams, jim downey, Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, lych gate, movies, Pennant Melangell, photography, Pistyll Rhaeadr, rood screen, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Tanat, travel, video, Wales, Wikipedia, writing
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.
“Water and old stone” pretty much sums up Wales, for me, I think. But I have an admittedly biased perspective.
We started the next morning with a trip to Pennant Melangell, a small pilgrimage church in the Tanat valley in north Wales. Here’s the preamble I use in the first chapter of St Cybi’s Well, which is titled ‘Pennant Melangell’:
Melangell was a female saint of the 7th century. According to tradition she came here from Ireland and lived as a hermit in the valley. One day Brochwel, Prince of Powys, was hunting and pursued a hare which took refuge under Melangell’s cloak. The Prince’s hounds fled, and he was moved by her courage and sanctity. He gave her the valley as a place of sanctuary, and Melangell became Abbess of a small religious community. After her death her memory continued to be honoured, and Pennant Melangell has been a place of pilgrimage for many centuries. Melangell remains the patron saint of hares.
– St Melangell’s Church website
It’s a wonderful little place.
Here’s the entrance to the churchyard, with the classic lych gate:
Interior of the church:
The 15th century rood screen.
Chancel, with the (reconstructed) 12th century shrine of St Melangell.
Detail under the shrine.
Inside the Apse.
Back of the tympanum, containing a plaster panel with The Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments, all in Welsh.
In the churchyard:
I love this place. Maybe it shows:
We got some lunch in the charming little town of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant (where parts of this favorite movie was shot), then went to visit Pistyll Rhaeadr, one of the “seven natural wonders of Wales.” The waterfall is mentioned in Communion of Dreams, and one of the major chapters of St Cybi’s Well is titled ‘Pistyll Rhaeadr’. Here it is:
That’s almost 250′ tall.
My sister and her family before we climbed to the top.
Up on top.
Steve, getting some images of the falls, looking down.
I did the same:
Here’s a description of the top of the falls, taken from St Cybi’s Well:
As he came around past the rock outcrop, the sound from the falls increased. There was the distant rumble from the bottom of the first long drop, but closer now were the sounds of water scrambling over rock and root, gathering in the small pools at the top before the plunge. Darnell made his way to the last of these pools, near the edge of the cliff, and stood there, listening.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and relaxed, opening himself as he had tried to do at St Cybi’s and St Seiriol’s, allowing rather than reaching, feeling rather than thinking.
And he felt something. A whisper in his mind. A whisper as though someone were speaking his name. A whisper of invitation, to step through the wind and over the edge of the cliff, to come to freedom. It was a beckoning, a subtle and supple call to pass through to the other side.
This was the thinness Megan spoke of. He understood it now, at least a little.
Releasing the breath, he slowly opened his eyes, then knelt down to the pool in front of him. The silver-grey sky reflected in the pool had a new shimmer to it, an intensity he had not seen before. He reached out, as he had done before, and placed the palm of his hand against the surface of the water.
There was no slight electric thrill, but neither was there just the crisp coldness of a mountain stream. Rather, there was a vibrancy, almost a … depth … there, more than the few inches of water in the pool would suggest. And while the roar of the falls to his left called loudly, it was the trickle of water coming from his right which whispered to him. He stood, and followed it further up the mountain.
After hiking back down to the base of the falls, we enjoyed a snack in the little tea shop, then headed back to our cottage. The magic of the day continued, as we watched clouds form midway down the mountain:
The next day we decided to visit Caernarfon castle, the massive fortress in the north Wales town of the same name. This one:
Some of my images:
And from displays inside one of the main towers:
Time enjoying the castle was followed up with lunch on the castle square:
That afternoon, we went to St Cybi’s Well, itself:
The main bathing pool.
The well source, itself, behind the bathing pool.
“Author’s selfie.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: augmented reality, Brecon Beacons, Cader Idris, CADW, Carreg Cennen, Craig Rhosyfelin, false memory, jim downey, Kidwelly, memory, National Botanic Garden of Wales, Pentre Ifan, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Stonehenge, travel, Wales, Wikipedia, writing
After a very nice breakfast at our B&B in Kidwelly, we decided to hit a couple of our favorite places as we worked our way north to Dolgellau, where we had a cottage for the next week.
First was the National Botanic Garden of Wales, home of the Great Glasshouse, where you can find the most amazing collection of Mediterranean plants from around the world:
We also checked out the butterfly house, the walled gardens, and the broadwalk water feature. We even visited with the guardian dragon:
From the Garden, we decided to backtrack a bit east, to one of my favorite Welsh castles, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons: Carreg Cennen.
I love the views of the surrounding countryside from the castle:
And of course, the interior of the castle ruins is also about as atmospheric as you could ask for:
From there we headed to Pembrokeshire, and one of the most iconic neolithic sites in Wales: Pentre Ifan. Here’s a brief passage from St Cybi’s Well describing the roads leading to this amazing site:
This was widely considered the most important megalithic site in the entire country, yet all it got was this simple sign on a country road smaller than just about any subdivision road in the US. It was frustrating, yet somehow also endearing, because it showed just how much the Welsh assumed that locals would know about the area … and how little interest outsiders would take.
And here’s the passage describing what the protagonist sees when he arrives there:
Darnell came to the ‘parking area’: an extra strip of asphalt, with room to park perhaps half a dozen cars along the road. There was a simple gravel path, a wooden gate, and a very small metal sign from CADW that said “Pentre Ifan.” Darnell pulled over and parked. His was the only vehicle there.
He got out of the car, slung his bag over his shoulder, plopped his hat on his head. The slight mist wasn’t heavy enough to require digging out either umbrella or rain gear.
Stepping onto the path at the gate, he realized that it wasn’t a gravel path, but was instead made of crushed stone. Crushed … bluestone, from the looks of it, when he squatted down to get a better look.
He continued on. Alongside the path was a tumble-down wall separating fields, partially overgrown with hedge and briar. He went past cattle in the field, grazing and occasionally lowing to one another, who took little interest in him as he walked along. Through another kissing gate, and almost suddenly he was standing there before the structure, bare to the sky. One great slab of stone several meters long and a couple wide, supported by three menhir, high enough that he would have to stretch a bit to touch the underside of the capstone. There were a couple of additional uprights at the south end, and several largish stones which had tumbled over. He just stood there for a moment, taking it all in.
Standing there, it is easy to imagine yourself looking over the landscape at any point in the last thousand … two thousand … five thousand years. Because Pentre Ifan is estimated to date back to approximately 3,500 — 3,000 B.C.
Which is the same time period for the initial construction of Stonehenge.
And speaking of Stonehenge … another brief excerpt from SCW, between the protagonist Darnell and Eleazar, a somewhat mysterious old wanderer he has crossed paths with several times, and who he meets at Pentre Ifan:
Eleazar considered Darnell, then stepped around to the side of the dolmen, gesturing for Darnell to follow him. He pointed off to the southwest. “About a mile that way.”
“That’s where the portal leads?”
“No, that’s not where the portal leads. But it is where it came from. It’s where the first circle of stones at Stonehenge came from, as well.” He nodded at the phone still in Darnell’s hand, which was now by his side. “Does that have a map on it? Of this area?”
“Yes.” Darnell raised the phone, tapped the screen a couple of times, then cursed. “Damn. Sorry, no signal.”Eleazar smiled slightly. “Not to worry. When you get away from here, just look up Craig Rhosyfelin, right in the bend of the Afon Brynberian. It’s easy enough to find.”
“Huw at Pistyll Rhaeadr mentioned that place. What is it?”
“In some ways, it is the source. Just as there is a source for a stream which becomes a great river. The source cannot do the things that the river can do, and it cannot be used for good or ill in the same way that a river may be used for good or ill. But it is worthwhile – critical, in fact – to know the source, to know where to begin.”
Craig Rhosyfelin is indeed now known to be the actual source of at least some of the inner bluestones at Stonehenge, something which has only recently been scientifically established. Here’s the description of Darnell driving to the site, and then examining it:
The small back roads from Pentre Ifan to Craig Rhosyfelin were, though it was difficult to believe, even worse than what had brought him to the dolmen. They were little more than cart paths in a slight depression between hedge rows. But it was a pleasant, pretty area, and as he came out of the trees from the west, heading down the long gentle hillside, everything seemed to open up. He was just to the north of the main Preseli Hills. The light mist which had been coming down earlier threatened to turn into real rain, and the local radar had shown heavier storms moving in.
Eleazar had been correct; Craig Rhosyfelin was easy to find on the map, and wasn’t at all far. Furthermore, the site had recently been in the news as having been identified as a source of the inner Stonehenge stones, the oldest part of the structure. He followed the directions Andi gave, and after making a sharp right bend he saw it there in front of him: a lump of rock poking up above the narrow little valley floor. Thirty meters ahead there was a hairpin turn of a switchback, and just at the point of the turn was a small area where he could pull off and park the car. He did so. There was no signage, no formal public access path down to the exposed crag. But he pulled off the road, and got out of the car. He walked over to the fence. It was simple cattle mesh with a strand of barbed wire on top, supported by rough wooden posts. Allowing access over the fence was a small, new-ish ladder that went up one side and then down the other. The sort of thing you’d see countless examples of in the Welsh countryside.
He went back to the car, grabbed his shoulder bag. Then glancing up at the sky, decided that taking an umbrella would suffice for the current amount of rain. Opening it, he went to the fence, then over the ladder to the other side. The way down to the little valley floor was clear. He descended.
Standing there, before the lump of rock, it was easy to see why others might have picked this as a possible source for the Stonehenge bluestones. The whole base of the outcrop was exposed stone, in fractured slabs two to three meters in height. Above that was more such rock partially obscured by gorse and other vegetation. Here and there were suitable stones already about the size and shape of the bluestones of the inner circle of Stonehenge, ready to be split off and carted away.
Though there was still evidence of recent archeological digs, there was nothing fresh, and no one in sight. Darnell went down the length of the outcrop to the left, figuring that he would just walk around the whole 60 or 70 meters of the crag to take the entire thing in. He got down to the point of the outcrop and turned back up the valley on the other side.
Compare that to the images we took on this trip:
I think I did a pretty good job describing the site. Especially considering that I’d never actually been there previously.
OK, this is a weird thing. Prior to this trip, I would have sworn that I had actually been to the site before. When we got there, I knew where to park, where to go, what to expect. There were some changes from my memory, with a new gate entrance, etc, but you might expect that with a few years between visits.
But my wife swears that we’ve never been there before. And had I gone, I would have done so with her. In checking back over my previous travelogs, there’s no mention of Craig Rhosyfelin. My memories are nonetheless vivid of seeing the place.
The only conclusion I can draw is that I spent so much time going over the site on Google Streetview and Google Earth, in looking at images of it online, that I manufactured false memories of having visited it in person. It is a very strange feeling to have both the memories and the knowledge that they are not real. Very strange.
After visiting this magical place, we went north, to the cottage where we’d stay for the next week, in the hills above Dolgellau, just behind Cader Idris. Here it is:
More later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Avebury, blogging, Bruce Nauman, jim downey, Kingly Vale, London, Magna Carta, Millennium Bridge, Salisbury Cathedral, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Stonehenge, Susumu Koshimizu, Sutton Hoo, Tate Modern, technology, UK, Wales, Wikipedia, writing
From May 13th through June 5th, my wife and I enjoyed a great vacation in the UK, mostly spent in Wales. For the first couple of weeks of the trip my sister and her family joined us.
It was a good chance to get away from things a bit. Spending time enjoying Wales always seems to help me clear my head and get some perspective, even when I don’t necessarily feel like I have pressing matters to ponder. In the coming couple of weeks I’m going to share some of my thoughts and experiences, and probably a fair number of images, from that trip. It’s not going to be like previous travelogues I’ve done, but I hope it will nonetheless be enjoyable. And for those who have been patiently waiting for me to finish St Cybi’s Well, there will be some particular treats in visiting locations in that book.
So, take a little trip with me …
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London is one of the world’s great cities. And even though as a general rule I don’t like cities, I can usually spend up to a week at a time in London without starting to go stir-crazy.
Here are some quick random images to explain why:
From a recent mosaic near the Millennium Bridge. Not exactly a celebration of peasant revolts, but also not really a criticism of them, either.
Take a walk on the wild side.
Dr Hoo?
The Tate Modern also had a completely magical audio sculpture in the Turbine Hall by Bruce Nauman which I and my brother-in-law Steven thoroughly enjoyed.
And of course, to have a full London experience, you have to have at least one good evening in a traditional pub …
Steven, my sister Celeste, and their daughter Haley.
The next morning we drove to the south coast to Kingly Vale, where we enjoyed the 400 acres of ancient uncut forest in the rain:
Yew know what I mean?
That evening we made it to Salisbury, and did some sight-seeing in the area the next day:
Yeah, one of the four copies known to exist. I was happy to see that they had upgraded both their security and their presentation from the last time I saw this copy.
And of course, a bit north of there is this old place:
Yeah, Stonehenge.
Crows don’t care about the rules.
Slip inside …
That last image is the same one I envisioned as the approach Darnell takes in this excerpt from St Cybi’s Well:
As he crossed the earthen ditch which surrounded the stones some 20 meters out, following the usual paved walking path, he noticed that the shaping of the sound somehow changed. Perhaps it was the mass of bodies crowding in around the stones. But it seemed less to be coming from one particular place, and more like it was just coming up from the ground all around him. Then he stepped off the path, and onto the grass, and he could feel the sound more than hear it. It strummed through his heels, up his legs, vibrations caressing his entire body. It was the springiness, the resonance, which he had felt at St David’s, but infinitely stronger.
Stronger, and shared. Shared, he knew, by every person who walked this ground. By every person who had ever walked this ground. It was as though the earth itself were a drum, and this the taut, shimmering skin which they skittered across.
Slowly he made his way into the circle, almost in a daze. Others moved past and around him, making contact, sharing a smile, a laugh, tears. He had never before been this close to the stones, had never come on those rare occasions when the site was open this way. They seemed impossibly tall, impossibly old. He stepped past the first great upright before him, then paused, and gingerly reached out to touch it. Cold stone, rough weathered, aged lichens. A woman standing next to him had her eyes closed, the palms of her hands also on the stone, and for a moment he felt her mind there, the contact of lovers sharing a glimpse of the eternal. It caught his breath, he stepped back, turned in slight embarrassment and stepped further into the circle. Further into the crowd.
Now the press of people was greater. There were people everywhere, holding hands, praying, chanting, caressing. They were on the fallen stones, pressed up against the standing sarsens, moving. He felt himself drawn further in, pulled in by the sound vibrations filling the space, which became deeper and stronger with every step. He passed the inner sarsen, stood there in the inner circle, the sanctum sanctorum, the Garbha griha, the sacred center of everything.
Around one of the fallen stones there in the center was a space, an opening in the crowd. Everyone peered in, watching a woman in white robes. She was kneeling beside the stone, but not in prayer. Kneeling so that she was at the proper height to reach out and strike the great stone. To strike it with stone-headed mallets. And with each strike, the stone gave a deep, resounding gonging which echoed from the earth, then spread out from the center to touch everything and everyone in a growing, encompassing spiral.
For the third time that day he felt himself grow woozy, felt the world spin. He reached out a hand to steady himself, looking for another person, or another stone, for stability. And he touched one of the blue stones, one of the much smaller uprights which had come from Wales. From Craig Rhosyfelin. It was warm to the touch. Warm, and welcoming.
As if that experience wasn’t enough for one day, we also went to Avebury, *another* World Heritage Site:
Yeah, they really are that big.
Yeah, really.
I’m not kidding.
Seriously.
And in addition to the old stones, they have a somewhat newer church there:
Though it’s still old by our standards:
And while that wasn’t yet the end of the day, it was the end of our trip outside of Wales.
Next: the third World Heritage Site in one day. Can you guess what it will be?
Jim Downey
