LIVE AT THE LODGE
CHARLIE GORRIE
I’ve been writing since I was 16 years old. I remember the moment but not what was written. I see things; situations, as wholes and until I can express the whole I can be quite discomfited. Tarot and Poetry help me understand and express these wholes. I suppose it's a bit like life as an unmade, but yet to be imprinted, jigsaw...
Along the way I’ve found people who have helped greatly. From the late 70’s though to around 2010 my free time was spent providing words and voices for a friend's musical ideas. A sample of this work can be found on SoundCloud ... 'Jade Finger'.
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I am a Martial Artist: my specialist field being the Fist of the Way, otherwise known as Tai Chi Chuan. I’ve been training in the Art since 1988. My dear teacher; Dan Docherty, knowing my interest in meditative arts and Eastern Philosophy, fed me deep background material. Through this interest I ended up writing a column on 'Mind and Meditation' for the Tai Chi Union's magazine. One of the pieces I wrote was picked up by Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. They asked me to write something along similar lines for inclusion in a book they were putting together on the subject of managing depression. The book was titled 'What I do to get through'.
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Tai chi started with one class a week and a small group in Glasgow. We now have have practicing groups from Orkney to the borders. I head up this organisation and teach workshops across the land.
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I write poetry, draw and occasionally paint. I’m currently singing a lot and looking to improve the guitar playing. I suppose I use art to resolve issues, express feeling, and become more me.
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I am inspired and enthused by Life and People. My professional background was and in someways still is in rehabilitation. I now teach Tai Chi Hand Form very much from that stand point.
The Tai Chi group grew into wider creative ways of expressing the art of the symbolic animals involved in our weapons system. We made one video:
Myself and Irene Mollesti produced an illustrated collection of poems called 'Tales the 'Moon told to the Star'. The first time I ever read one of my poems was at a poetry night at the Lodge. In this small collection of illustrated poems, the experience of discovery is investigated...
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I have worked on a project with my friend Laura that consists of 8 songs woven together by natural sounds. It is called 'Behind the Eight Gates'. The Eight Gates is a Tai Chi term relating to the four cardinal points and the four corners.
Involvement with the group...? ... to be invited... to join the Arts Community as an Associate Artist .... what a Buzz...! I haven’t come down from that. To people like me this is a place of belonging. I don’t tend to be a joiner. The people I do join with are generally also outsiders; like my sorely missed, dear friend and Tai Chi teacher, Dan Docherty or my guitar playing friend, Robert who - lacking words and a singer for his work, was a door ajar that only had to be walked through.
Involvement means exiting new territory and opportunities and creative friends to play with. I also enjoy seeing the Lodge becoming a greater focal point for the local area with a diverse range of events. I could go on forever about the joy I get from having met the group!
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Going forward... Forward is a mystery. The current project has me interested in more audiovisual creativity in the fullest sense and building on what has gone before. Maybe videos of some of the songs...? I do know things happen that offer opportunity if one holds ideas in one’s mind... I do know that i enjoy working with others...
