THE FOOD OF IMPRESSIONS

by Hereward of the Graigian Society

Nowadays most people know the difference between organic and wholefood and artificial, refined stuff. Whole organic (organic meaning natural and untampered) foodstuff is life-giving to our body, our health and our well being, while the other is not: It is like a slow poison, which although it tastes good is not beneficial to our body and causes accumulative problems in later life.

Now, there is another food which is not mentioned other than by ourselves and followers of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky; that is the food of impressions; what we see, hear, smell and sense. This is not just about looking at something, or hearing something, it is about the effect that this has on our psyche. It is the difference between being uplifted by walking around a beautiful town and walking around an industrial suburb. They both have a real effect on you which you can't just shake off. The reasons for this can be measured quite simply. The buildings that make up a town have all been made to a greater or lesser degree of feeling and care. Tudor buildings have a particular robustness which gives them this terrific character. Their unevenness contributes to this and is most appealing. They give us a sense of stability, security and simplicity.

Georgian houses are very elegant, which reflect the period in which they were built. If you walk around a Georgian, or Regency, square you feel very special, very important. They have an atmosphere of unhurried graciousness. Ever since this period there has been a slow decline of feeling and care, which come from goods craftsmanship. Early Victorian houses have a certain stature which in the late Victorian period was replaced with heaviness. By Edwardian times houses were squat and depressing. Then, after the war, came the 20's and 30's ribbon development. These houses were made well enough, but rooms are pokey and mean. They were built with economy in mind, they had to be at the rate they were clapped out, but the overall effect amounts to dreariness, boredom and apathy.

All these various building styles are still with us, each radiating an atmosphere of the period in which they were built. But now, since there is so much bad building and bad architecture, it is difficult for many of us to discriminate between buildings which are well made, with care and feeling and those badly made, which show nothing but insensitivity and carelessness. Now, instead of most places being beautiful and uplifting with the odd depressing patch here and there, it is the other way round. Most of the places we visit are awful, have a terrible atmosphere and have a very negative effect upon us. Very rarely do we come across a place that is genuinely, really beautiful. There are very few places to turn to for solace and anybody who still is sensitive to it and recognise it, strives to go there. This is a very dangerous state of affairs and what makes it worse, it is not recognised as a problem. In fact the reverse is happening. There are traitors amongst the green movement who, presumably, because of their ignorance and insensitivity, proclaim that 'Taste is a matter of opinion' and 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. These dull and lifeless 'Brick-brains' are undermining this vital and necessary food, that of good impressions. Just as it is necessary for our body to have wholesome food, it is necessary for our psyche to have lovely, life-giving impressions.

The argument for giant wind generators is a good example: the green point of view is that we have to have them because they produce 'clean' electricity. They say that future generations would look upon them with nostalgia as our present generation do towards traditional windmills. What tosh! Do these machines evoke love? Do they inspire poetry? The muddled argument says take your pick: Grimy coal, unstable nuclear or clean wind power. We don't need the national grid; let's have local electricity made by small generators housed in buildings made with care and feeling, like the old watermills. To fit in and get on in the world you have to harden yourself. You are actively discouraged from being sensitive. Yet sensitivity is the future, whether we like it or not! Like the slow turn from intensive back to organic farming, from white pap to whole-food, the slower turn from an insensitive and shallow existence, to sensitive and meaningful life, will gently roll. Tower blocks, motorways, pylons, ugly estates, Sainsbury's superstores, industrial warehouses, sprawling suburbs AND giant wind generators, will all be flattened and we will all heave a sigh of relief.

The Graigian Society - 10 Lady Somerset Road, London NW5 1UP.

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