Spiritual Journeys

[kleines c]

'The British Museum' is almost half way through a trilogy of exhibitions exploring 'Spiritual Journeys':

a. Journey through the afterlife: ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/book_of_the_dead.aspx

b.Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/treasures_of_heaven.aspx

c. The Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/hajj.aspx

Due to unprecedented demand from around the world, everyone reading R3OK is cordially invited along.

[kleines c]

'The Times' leads today on Pilgrims’ Progress. 'The British Museum' is approaching the end of its trilogy of exhibitions exploring 'Spiritual Journeys' this coming Thursday, 26 January 2012, by bringing Islamic culture to London.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk

I commend 'Hajj' to everyone reading R3OK.  If you cannot make the journey to the heart of Islam in person, here it is online:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/hajj.aspx

This exhibition will enable a global audience to deepen their understanding of the significance and history of the Hajj.   Neil MacGregor, who helped secure it, has called the organisation of the Hajj “one of the great administrative achievements in the world”.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6586db26-2ca8-11e1-aaf5-00144feabdc0.html

It will allow non-Muslims to explore the one aspect of Islamic practice and faith which they are not able to witness, but which plays such a major part in forming a worldwide Islamic consciousness.  Matthew Sweet goes to the new Hajj exhibition on 'Night Waves', if only for the final fourteen minutes of the programme.  He examines the significance of the Hajj as one of the Five Pillars of Islam, exploring its importance for Muslims and looking at how this spiritual journey has evolved throughout history.   The exhibition's co-curator Venetia Porter is joined by Navid Akhtar, a Muslim affairs commentator, to discuss the challenge of bringing to life the spirituality and significance of the world's largest religious phenomenon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019m5yf

PS  Reviewing it in 'The Guardian', Jonathan Jones calls 'Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam' one of the most brilliant exhibitions the British Museum has put on – and certainly the most confrontational, in its enthusiasm for a religion regularly represented in the British media as violent and extreme.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jan/25/hajj-journey-islam-review-british-museum

[Don Basilio]

Haven't made it to the BM. but Croydon Museum had a nice little exhibition on the development of Croydon Mosque.

They had a screen with one of those control things to point and click and move have a virtual visit.  There were some twelve information points at significant items where you were meant to point to the point and click.

I've never played with one of those controls before and I had great difficulty getting the cursor to hover exactly over the information points.  No doubt if I was twelve I'd have no problem.

Where Croydon leads, the BM might follow.

(PS I'm doing my own sacred jouney later this week: I'm visiting Cornwall, and if I don't bump into some holy wells, Celtic saints and medieval churches I will be very disappointed.)

[marbleflugel]

I had a couple of hours in Glastonbury and, while dispirited by the tat and new age mogul power lunching in earshot (all about shifting units wannit ) clearly the real deal is an alternative map of Albion and links into the wider ancient world of course.  Have a heartening time Don.

McGregor is a great guy imho. Unackowledged legislator. A friend who hails from Egypt raved about the 1st in this cycle.

[Selva Oscura]

(PS I'm doing my own sacred jouney later this week: I'm visiting Cornwall, and if I don't bump into some holy wells, Celtic saints and medieval churches I will be very disappointed.)

I had a couple of hours in Glastonbury and, while dispirited by the tat and new age mogul power lunching in earshot (all about shifting units wannit ) clearly the real deal is an alternative map of Albion and links into the wider ancient world of course.  Have a heartening time Don.

Glastonbury's in Somerset, not Cornwall, isn't it?

To my shame I've never been further west than Dartmoor. Looking forward to hearing your impressions, Don B.

[Don Basilio]

Growing up in Devon and my father running a shop (not all businesses are big businesses) he could only get away in the spring holidays, and my parents didn't like travel (my mother never flew in her life) we would usually go down to Cornwall.

In adulthood, going down the West Country meant stopping off to see my parents in Exmouth, so we rarely went further.  Towards the end of her life, and after a life-threatening spell in hospital, my mother suddenly became adventurous and Sancho drove us all the way down to Bodmin Moor and back in a day, stopping off at St Endellion (noted for Richard Hickcox and, you will be sorry to learn, David Cameron's daughter.)

Glastonbury is indeed in Somerset.  I can't take Noo Age speculation very seriously (I'm reading Geoffrey of Monmouth at the moment and finding him a  bit of a bore) but I'm fascinated by the Celtic saints.  (And I loathe the so called "Celtic spirituality".)

I always find Devon depressing and I can remember feeling my spirits lift as I travelled over the border to Cornwall once.

[Don Basilio]

Nudged by marbs, I have booked into a B & B at Glastonbury to break the journey from Land's End to Croydon on the last day.

I read Malory in the last year.  Frankly, I found it depressing.  I could imagine Arthur, Guenivere and Launcelot all together on the Jeremy Kyle Show.

[JSC]

Nudged by marbs

Is that like 'Surprised by joy'?

[Selva Oscura]

Nudged by marbs

Is that like 'Surprised by joy'?

... or maybe "Summoned by Bells"?

[kleines c]

If I may address your suggestion directly, Don Basilio:

"Where Croydon leads, the BM might follow."

I can confirm that the BM has indeed followed Croydon to its mosque:

http://www.museumofcroydon.com/ixbin/indexplus?record=ART7613

Moreover, 'Hajj stories' have now gone well beyond Land's End, too:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/hajj/hajj_stories.aspx

Whether surprised by joy, summoned by bells or even called by the muezzin to prayer, 'adhan', everyone reading R3OK is cordially invited on such spiritual journeys.  Based on the incredible true story of Ibn Battuta, who set out from Morocco in 1325 on an epic journey to the sacred city of Mecca, here is his 'Journey to Mecca'.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/february_2012/film_journey_to_mecca.aspx

[marbleflugel]

Nudged by marbs

Is that like 'Surprised by joy'?

... or maybe "Summoned by Bells"?

JSC,awww, Thanks , that's very cool of you    . But I think Selva may correctly cite  the general reach  for alcoholic panoply when I hove into view 

[JSC]

Erm, I was sardonically quoting CS Lewis ... Selva was responding with Betjeman, as far as I can tell.

[Selva Oscura]

Erm, I was sardonically quoting CS Lewis ... Selva was responding with Betjeman, as far as I can tell.

I was, unlikely as that might seem.

[kleines c]

Writing in 'FT Weekend', Peter Aspden addresses pilgrims' progress directly.  As the 'Hajj' show reminds us, all of humanity’s most pressing questions, religious, intellectual or otherwise, involve a journey that can be painful and apparently never ending.

" ... And the journey’s end, as history teaches us, is a whole new starting-point in itself."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/06f7a040-467f-11e1-85e2-00144feabdc0.html

PS  In 'The Hidden Art of Islam' (BBC Four television), Rageh Omaar sets out to find out that if human depiction is the source of such controversy, how is it that the art displayed here shows a tradition of figurative art at the heart of Islam for century after century? He explores what forms of art are acceptable for a Muslim - and why this artistic tradition has thrived - in the hidden art of the Muslim world.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dczjj