As part of an ongoing collaboration and partnership with AwhiWorld, under the banner of Tasman Threads, Maggie Buxton and Tracey Benson share many synergies in their creative research, not least a commitment to transdisciplinary practice in its fullest expression as per Basarab Nicolescu’s 1994 Charter of Transdisciplinarity.
One of the core tenets of the Charter is that no form of knowledge is less than any other knowledge system, including the expression of the Sacred in all its forms. This notion of the Sacred is key to both Tracey’s and Maggie’s work and it is expressed through engaging with the more-than-human, the spirit of place and the realms of the ancestors.
What’s in a name
One of the interesting points of connection between Maggie and Tracey is a shared name – Buxton. This is Maggie’s patrilineal name and for Tracey, Buxton was her matrilineal great grandmother’s maiden name. Although these ancestors came from different regions in England, there are some commonalities which lead to the possibility of Maggie and Tracey being distantly related. Maggie’s father was a merchant seaman born in Liverpool and Tracey’s ancestors came from a village near Sheffield. In the middle of these ancestral places is the spa town of Buxton in Derbyshire.
Ancestral waters
Upon discussing this creative research with one of Tracey’s PhD researchers, it was noted that Buxton was famous as a spa town in Derbyshire and located nearly halfway between Liverpool and Sheffield.
It seemed very resonant that Buxton was famous for its spring water, given the theme of the Tasman sea as both connector and water body is part of Treecreate’s and Awhiworld’s ongoing collaborative research.
Liverpool dowsing
As part of Tracey’s time in Liverpool, Maggie and Tracey decided to explore ways of communication to place through ancestors which explored telepathic communication and the use of dowsing with copper rods. They decided on a time when both go into a state of meditation and Tracey would walk down to the Albert Docks in Liverpool using the dowsing rods to detect any energies.
What was interesting was the very strong response to the area of Sailortown. The dowsing rods kept crossing, seemingly indicating this was a place of significance. When Tracey and Maggie shared their experience of the experiment, it was noteworthy that Maggie’s father was a merchant seaman and would have spent a lot of time around this part of Liverpool. Another area where there was a strong response from the rods was under a sign for a restaurant – Maggie Fu’s noodle house…
What happens next
Exploring ways of connection that do not rely upon zoom or other technological enabling platform is not a new idea. In fact, telepathy and similar means of communication are embedded in many different ancient knowledge systems, as this paper exploring Theories of Cognition and Consciousness in Ancient Indian Thought Systems Relate to Current Western Theorizing and Research discusses in detail. It is definitely an area of interest to Tracey’s creative research, in particular interspecies communications and the role of distance healing, an area she has explored as part of her Reiki practice.
Treecreate 