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CELTIC

BORDER-LANDS

interlude | compilation | short film
Polhawn Fort Beach Detail

THE FILM

As the shadows lengthened towards the end of day two of the Centenary Celebration conference, activities took a social turn. This juncture brought together the unique location at the threshold of land and sea and the Wreckers Border Morris side, drawing out lively, impromptu audience participation as dancing spilled into the evening.

A (very) short interlude and space in-between the on-demand programme sessions, we have layered footage to offer a sense of these elements of place, time, community, dance and music as they start to intertwine.

While the film can be viewed as entertainment or documentation, it also points to areas of (physical and embodied) thematic exploration. Read on for more on the Border Morris tradition and its lively evolution through the Wreckers side. Cornwall’s coastal border-land is discussed below in relation to both Jung’s seminars here 100 years ago, and the location for the Centenary Celebration conference, explored in the film through drone footage.

 

Links to Further Reading are outlined to discover more.

JUNG BY THE SEA
ON CORNWALL’S COAST

The drone footage of this short film captures scenes of the Centenary Celebration conference within its setting on the Rame peninsula, part of the southern coast of Cornwall. With its uninterrupted views of the sea, Polhawn Fort, a venue originally built as a coastal defence in the 19th century, formed location, backdrop and ‘actor’ across the programme of theoretical, physical and collective experiences.

 

The film and images shown here offer glimpses of the numinous, shifting qualities of this landscape.

 

The Celtic Border-Lands of the film title reference the original locations for Jung’s seminars in Cornwall 100 years earlier.

Jung’s first seminar took place in Sennen Cove, England’s most westerly coast, in the summer of 1920, followed by a larger gathering in Polzeath on Cornwall’s north coast, over the course of a fortnight in the summer of 1923.

 

The impact of this place can be traced for these seminars in their contrast with ‘formal medical occasions’ (Prince, 1963, p. 44), and in the experiences of Jung and the attendees. The Philemon Foundation (2024) writes that Cary Baynes referred to 
"the vigor and color of his speech all the directness and simplicity that come when as at Cornwall the fire burns in him.”

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WRECKERS BORDER MORRIS

Part of the Morris dance tradition, the Wreckers draw from the more boisterous, disruptive Border Morris style, originating in villages on the Welsh-English border, first recorded in the 16th century.

A Morris ‘troupe’ is referred to as a ‘side’, and the Wreckers Border Morris side, from the Tamar Valley in South East Cornwall, define their ‘true’ border as “the water-filled bit between Cornwall and England.” 

 

Born in October 2000 (in a pub), the side has picked-up members along the way. The Border style was chosen for its liveliness and noise, with the drumming, concertinas, percussion, stick clashing and whooping of music and dance together forming their “wall of sound” (the more raucous the better) as they beat out time.

The Wreckers Border style extends to their kit, in the black and gold of the ancient Cornish Kings, with rag jackets, known as ‘tatters’ and hats decorated with feathers, symbols and other embellishments forming a distinctive disguise.


The active social and creative mix of dance and music, interpreting and evolving tradition, has seen the side expand its repertoire to incorporate new ideas, steps and styles by members (past and present). Dance sets depend on numbers, place and space.


At its core, the side brings high spirits. They aim to  “never miss a chance to lift the dancers and audience to a new level of fun – We dance like it matters.”

FURTHER READING

Celtic Border-Lands spans several themes that raise a variety of directions for potential further reading, though some areas have very limited availability in either published or informal works.


We have outlined a range of accessible sources—as starting points—to explore a diverse range of interests that might be sparked by the work.

In compiling this small selection, we have focused on accessible materials (available at no cost).


Drawing from the discussion above, the subjects span the Cornish coastal locations of Jung’s seminars in Cornwall and the Centenary Celebration conference; Wreckers Border Morris and the Morris Dancing tradition.

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unpublished work

by M. Esther Harding

Alongside H.G. Baynes, Esther Harding organised the Polzeath gathering, and her ‘unauthorized notes’ provide a rare documentation of the subject, titled Human relationships in relation to the process of individuation as it was addressed here. As Kristine Mann highlights in her preface, 
“these notes are of particular historical value, inadequate as they are, because they establish the stage of development of Dr. Jung's thought in 1923, when few of his books were as yet written. The ideas they contain will be found in fuller development as they appear in the pages of the Collected Works”.
The Philemon Foundation (2024) writes from Barbara Hannah’s notes that, “All of Jung’s pupils who attended it were still constantly talking about it, most especially Esther Harding, on whom it had made a deep impression.”
This document has been digitised as part of the M. Esther Harding collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (Purchased from the C. G. Jung Institute of New York on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund, 2012.). It can be accessed here: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/10076043

jung's seminar in polzeath, 1923

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web page

Bill Bartlett

As part of his own practice, Bill Bartlett has been tracing links between Polzeath on Cornwall’s north coast and Jung’s seminars there in 1923. He has outlined some of his findings, notes and images, alongside his sand mandala work, on this web page.

The archive image (detail) shown here marks the site of the large rented house ‘Tristram’ where Jung and the group stayed.  Here, Bartlett notes, they would have enjoyed “views of the beach and across Padstow Bay to Stepper Point, Trevose lighthouse and beyond into the Atlantic”.

You can find the page here:  
www.northcornwallcoastpathwalks.co.uk

jung's seminar in polzeath, 1923

CBL-PUB-POLHAWN-01-TT.jpg

web site

In a letter to Emma Jung (September, 1909) from his steamer returning from America, “worn out from the ‘torment of these last days’”, Jung wrote of the ocean: “The sea is like music; it has all the dreams of the soul within itself and sounds them over.”  (Jung, 1963, p. 440).
The Centenary Celebration sought to create an interval for reflection and recharging of mind and practice by the sea. The Celtic Border-Lands film captures facets of this place and its presence for the 2023 gathering.
Set in a Napoleonic Fort, with its own history, Polhawn provided a range of spaces facing and touching the sea, including a roof terrace, landscapes and winding steps down to the beach, providing a thread to Jung’s Cornwall seminars 100 years ago.
You can find out a little more about Polhawn here:
www.polhawnfort.com/the-forts-history

jbs 'centenary celebration'

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publication

Peter Q Treloar

If you feel inspired both by the views of Cornwall’s coastline, and thoughts of Jung’s seminars here in the early part of the twentieth century, this publication provides a ‘picture-story’ exploration of the area from old postcards.
Covering the period from around 1890 to 1960, the ‘tour’ mixes scenery and history, offering a little insight as the Cornish coast evolved from a period of distinctive local character in the fishing industry, towards tourism through the early twentieth century, with the rise of the railway network. 
This shift was taking place around the time of Jung’s conferences at Sennen Cove and Polzeath (with historical views of each location featured in the publication).
You can borrow the publication here:
https://archive.org/details/aroundcornishcoa0000trel

cornish coastline

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website

Wreckers is a living and evolving Border Morris side. Having been ‘born’ in a pub in 2000, they have grown and performed at home and abroad—leaving a digital trail of information and images across an assortment of web sites.
If you are interested in finding out more about the Wreckers, including their origins, links to the world of Morris, to follow them on social media or to join them at their weekly practice at St Dominick's Village Hall (they “always welcome new members—or just those who think they might like to ‘have a go’”), you can find their current web page here: 
https://stevetetlow2.wixsite.com/wreckersmorris

cornish border morris

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e-book

Cecil J. Sharp & Herbert C. MacIlwaine

For the few that may still be following down the Morris rabbit hole, we have included a short historical practical guide with some tales and traditions.
At the time of publication, the Morris tradition was in serious decline. The authors were “chiefly concerned with the Morris as a lapsed yet living art, calling, as we hold, for revival”
Should you be interested in trying your hand at Morris, this work sets out instructions and notations for a set of dances including Constant Billy (Stick Dance), How D’Ye Do? (Corner Dance) and Bluff King Hal (Handkerchief Dance).
This publication is reproduced as an eBook through Project Gutenberg, available at no cost here: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12926
(If you prefer some links to video guides - get in touch)

​Image: Ring formation for Bean-Setting (Stick Dance)..

morris dancing

REFERENCES

Jung, C. G. (1963) Memories, Dreams, Reflections (trans. R. Winston & C. Winston), Jaffé, A. (ed), English Reissue edition (1989) OpenSource., New York, Vintage Books [Online]. Available at https://archive.org/details/MemoriesDreamsReflectionsCarlJung_201811 (Accessed 23 September 2024).

Philemon Foundation (2024) Current Project: Jung’s Unpublished Lectures at Polzeath on the Technique of Analysis and the Historical and Psychological Effects of Christianity (1923). Edited by Christopher Wagner [Online]. Available at https://philemonfoundation.org/current-projects/polzeath/ (Accessed 23 September 2024).

Prince, G. S. (1963) ‘Jung’s Psychology in Britain’, in Fordham, M. S. M. (ed), Contact with Jung: Essays on the Influence of His Work and Personality, London, Tavistock Publications, pp. 41–61.

IN-TEXT SOURCES

IMAGES

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footage (stills) details

Coastal Landscape, Polhawn Fort, Cornwall, Jung by the Sea Centenary Celebration of Jung’s Seminars in Cornwall.  Patrick Sturrock and Bill Bartlett. (2023)  Stills (details) from drone footage (images are sharpened with AI technology).

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film clip (detail)

‘Wreckers Border Morris’ performing at the Jung by the Sea Centenary Celebration of Jung’s Seminars in Cornwall, Polhawn Fort, Cornwall. Denise Reeves (Saturday 3rd June 2023) Video clip.

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digital photographs

‘Wreckers Border Morris’ performance & impromptu audience participation, Sunset. Jung by the Sea Centenary Celebration of Jung’s Seminars in Cornwall, Polhawn Fort, Cornwall. Richard Jenkins (Saturday 3rd June 2023) Digital Photographs (edited, sharpened).

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