Consciousness, memory, spirit of place and the Youness of being You

Back briefly in Ealing, I'm strolling again through those familiar streets of my childhood, passing my old nursery school on the corner of The Avenue and Arlington Road, West Ealing. A drear December day, none too cold, generic enough to put me in mind of many such days between late autumn and early spring from yesteryear. Grey skies, wet pavements, damp and leafless London-plane trees. The memories of childhood evoked by sights that had seeped into my subconsciousness many decades ago - not things I'd consciously observed and memorised as a child - more the klimat, the atmosphere of what I saw and felt. Memories of place that had seeped into my subconsciousness many decades ago [intentional repetition].

This is extremely important in understanding who you are. Freudians may look back at incidents involving you and your mother in your childhood, incidents that you may, or may not, recall. For me, it's spirit of place, where you are really from, that anchors your soul, if you will. For what is soul, spirit, if not the immaterial essence of your existence?

As I have written may a time before, science - for all its glories, for all the progress it has granted us - has yet to discover the seat of human consciousness. Crucial to consciousness is memory, and again, science has yet to explain how or where or by what process these deepest memories - memories of qualia - are formed or stored. Memory to do with movement, reaction, speech - instinctive memory, muscle memory - yes, this has been thoroughly researched and mapped. It's used all the time in daily life; you don't 'remember' to breathe, nor to command your heart to beat; it just happens. Movement is a constant occurrence. But in terms of memory, within a body in which molecules are shed and replaced continually, where are those oldest recollections stored? They are at the heart of the youness of you.

The subjective experience of you being you and no one else remains, in scientific terms, a mystery.

It is down to the artist, then, to capture those fleeting moments of consciousness and those subconscious memories, evocations of qualia; in watercolours, in words, in music. In the search for what it means to be human, creating a work that will resonate with audiences across geographies and ages is proof that the artist possesses a consciousness. And proof that the artist has that rare ability to project from it, to extract from it from the depths of memory, and mood with which the audience can associate. And build on it, as we as a species, rise from the bestial towards the angelic.

This time last year:
Polish Perivale

This time two years ago:
Power in the vertical

This time six years ago:
And still they come [anomalous flashbacks that is]

This time seven years ago:
Classic glass

This time eight years ago:
What's the Polish for 'pattern'?

This time ten years ago:
"Rorate caeli de super nubes pluant justum..."