Just to get started

Here I am, at the kitchen table drinking my morning coffee and having a go at this reflective journal. An experiment. To test myself and see if keeping a reflective diary can really benefit my work and give a positive input to my practice.

Keeping a reflective blog is what I ask my students to do when developing their research projects. So, why not do it myself at the beginning of a new project?

I will ask myself the three main questions that I ask my students to ask themselves to become reflective practitioners:

Why do I work in the way I do?

How do I develop solutions to creative problems?

How does my work relate to other, current activity in my field?

Now that the first post is written, it's just a matter of keeping going...

Scottish Water Mythical Presences 2

...following to the previous post... Kelpies These are shape shaping aquatic spirits haunting rivers and streams. They usually appear in the form of a horse but can also take a human form. " These water horses can also appear in human form. They may materialize as a beautiful young woman, hoping to lure young men to their death. Or they might take on the form of a hairy human lurking by the river, ready to jump out at unsuspecting travellers and crush them to death in a vice-like grip. Kelpies can also use their magical powers to summon up a flood in order to sweep a traveller away to a watery grave." The sound of a kelpie’s tail entering the water is said to resemble that of thunder. Keywords horse woman flood watery grave thunder Reference https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Kelpie/ Bean Nighe Her name means washer woman. She is a ghost haunting desolated rivers or lonely pools. Detailed infomration can be found on Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedi

The Forest: A potential theme

In my PhD research, I marginally investigated the topic of the forest as a place of loss. Enchanted, haunted, feared and attractive, the forest has always embodied a wide range of human emotions and feelings. This is what I wrote in my PhD dissertation and that I might use as a starting point for a new project: "...These places [in the forest] are clearly and intentionally connoted as sacred areas which, before you leave behind the realm of the civilization, introduce and warn you that you are entering the archaic realm that preceded the human world, which was in the darkness before the light (Harrison, 1992, p. 17). And it is still there in the common imagination. The forest is the place of initiations, of the moment that irreversibly changes human destiny; it is the site of obscure rites, whose mystery lies concealed thanks to the complicity of the darkness that reigns there; it is, moreover, the space that surrounds the other world, through which passes the path to tha

Scottish water mythical presences 1

Here the preliminary results of a web search about Scottish water mythology: Ashrays (or Water Lovers) These are translucent nocturnal water creatures, both males and females. They live under water and are often mistaken for sea ghosts. The legend says that if they are captured and exposed to sunlight ashrays melt and only a puddle of water remains. Keywords: nocturnal translucent melting puddle Blue men of the Minch They supernatural sea creatures that are believed were to live in underwater caves in the Minch straight. They are represented as humans with blue skins and are believed to be related to mermen. Legends say that they used to swim alongside passing ships, and attempting to wreck them by conjuring storms and by luring sailors into the water. "If a captain wanted to save his ship he had to finish their rhymes and solve their riddles, and always make sure he got the last word." Keywords: blue skin rhymes Statue of the Selkie. By Siegfried Rabanser -

Thinking, Breathing, Exploring, Creating

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