Martin Steuck at his exhibition

Today I had my first meeting of the day at Lansdown Hall and Gallery at 10am where I had to meet two trustees of a regional environmental trust. The council has applied to the trust for up to £30,000 of grant funds and today we had a site visit from the trustees prior to their imminent decision making meeting. Camilla was also able to join us as she had prepared the application and knew most about the details which are critical to the funders.

I showed them the building and the works that have already been achieved, partly funded by a previous grant from the same trust. They were very thorough and quizzed us in detail and now we need to respond to a couple of outstanding queries and hope for the best.

The weather was awful and got worse whilst we were talking, and we managed to look at the exterior before the heavens fully opened. They were impressed with the hall and gallery and I was glad that several of the volunteers who are essential to the building's function were milling about as we spoke. We had to look specifically at the Gallery as that was where their earlier funding had been spent and introduced myself to the artist, who has rented the gallery space for the week, to explain our presence.

When the meeting finished Camilla and I discussed another important council meeting which I must go to at 3pm today, but that will be about a completely different issue. Before finally leaving at nearly midday, I went back into the Gallery to thank the artist for his patience with us and had a quick look at his paintings on the walls. I started to notice some symbols I recognised in a few of the pictures and asked im a bit about his background.

It soon turned out that we have similar interests, one of which was the acknowledgment of the dreams that we have and their importance to our lives. I mentioned the courses I have participated in locally and Maggie P. who runs the dreamwork workshops that I attend every two months. I also told him about Patrick Harpur's writings, particularly about alchemy and psychology, which Martin immediately was interested by.

I suggested a couple of books which I thought would interest him and we swapped contact details. I also then asked if I could take a picture for my blip journal and he kindly agreed. I wish i had spent more time arranging the setting for the picture as the light wasn't too good, but I was rushing.

Martin is standing in front of a picture he calls 'Fake Bin Laden'. A bit above the picture he has also put some words on a piece of paper, which says:

'3rd March 2013
Painswick Beacon - I am younger, walking through course, long grass - I see Donal Rumsfeld standing on the track up the hill, silhouetted against the sun - suddenly he is right beside me, whispering into my ear - I can feel the warmth of his breath - he is threatening me, holding a credit card to my neck - he tells me that he can move extremely fast, like a vampire from True Blood.

This is part of a dream Martin has had, although I don't think it is necessarily related to the picture below it. I told Martin, who now lives in Brighton, but who grew up near here, that I had blipped Painswick Beacon relatively recently (you can see it here).