Silence
of Light – under High Bridge over the High Street
Go
below the noise of the High Street to the watery quiet. Take the
stairs between the buildings down to the river, your back to Brayford
Pool. Focus on the arched stone tunnel under the building. The River
Witham slips through silently throwing dancing light about, and the
purest white of gliding swans.
The
silence here is suggested by the visual. At particular times of
mirror quiet water and bright morning light, a halo appears – a
circle of light formed by the joining of the arch and its
reflection, a tunnelled space that silence leaks through. Boatmen in
quiet concentration navigated heavily-laden coal barges through this
bright narrow, magical space.
The
collaboration of our senses allows interplay between us and our
world, our perceptions. Hearing and seeing are our 'out there'
senses, delivering to us the interior bulk and outward surface of
what's not us. With our looking comes expectant listening and with
this we enter into relationship with the expression of things - at
least that's what we used to do. Most of us today don't bother
noticing. A particular event of, say, sun on water rarely speaks to
us anymore.
The
bridge tunnel viewed from the other end is very different -
suggesting, as dark tunnels do, mysterious echoes, amplification and
unidentified sounds.
High
Bridge was first built in 1160AD and is the oldest bridge of its kind
in the UK.