Branching Out - Sacred Spaces of Milton Keynes - Guest Blog by Jo Dacombe

Part of  a series for  wellbeing walks through a park, garden, growing space, heritage site or an area of a history rooted in a particular industry or craft. It is always good to walk a new place with somebody who lives there. And so it was that I explored Milton Keynes with David Mason.

David took Project Coordinator Carole Miles and me on a walk from his house to some of the places he was interested in, and able to give us extensive insights into the history of the town’s construction. I have only ever driven through Milton Keynes, and we discovered that walking through the town is a completely different experience.

There were many themes that I could have taken from David’s tour, but I decided to develop a walk around the idea of Sacred Spaces.

I was intrigued by the different spaces that we encountered, which were both of faith and secular at the same time. The planners of Milton Keynes seemed to have recognised that the town didn’t just need infrastructure for navigation and green space for exercise, but that people also needed to connect with the place in a more spiritual way. Thus they have built in to the design spaces to inspire connections to belief and contemplation.

Carrying out my own research, I discovered more about how the geometry of the town was also a manifestation of certain spiritual geometries:  shapes and connecting lines that are thought to signify the energies of the earth and a relationship with the sun.

The result was the Sacred Spaces of Milton Keynes walk, where I attempted to convey these sacred geometries and spaces through walking them and interacting with them in creative ways.

The walk first passed the medicine wheel standing stone circle, which merges at least three faith ideas into one physical structure. We then climbed the steps to the Peace Pagoda, the first such Buddhist structure built in the Western world. We folded peace lotus flowers from rainbow paper, and played with their symmetry and the geometry of the pagoda’s white marble grid platform.  The geometry of the flowers lined up with the grids, and interacted with the cracks, promoting a discussion about the importance of imperfections and the Japanese idea of kintsugi, celebrating the cracks that tell a history.

Lotus Intervention

We stopped at a wishing tree on the way to the Tree Cathedral, a beautiful space planted with different varieties in the shape and orientation of a cathedral. 

Stained Glass Window Intervention

"Your measurements were spot on Jo!"

The hornbeams gently curved their branches towards each other to create the vaulted ceiling of the nave.  Here we created our own instant stained glass window which temporarily glowed with colour in the cool autumn sun, and breathed with the breeze.

The window now just a memory, we turned towards the town centre and climbed the hill to the pyramid.  Sudden strong wind hit us as we looked  back over the views and the connecting line that we had been walking.

Then down to the Milton Keynes Rose, as it is known. Here I explained that the image on the badges that the walkers had been given at the beginning of the walk was taken from an aerial view of the place we were now standing. The image is a known sacred geometry of the Torus, a representation of the movement of energy flow that occurs from the very largest things in the universe, planets and galaxies, down to the very smallest at the atomic level.  I demonstrated the toroidal energy flow with a continuous spring loop, which we all tried out on our arms, watching its movement like a bubble spinning, gently massaging us.

Torus Intervention

Finally we walked most of the length of the Midsummer Boulevard, built to align with the midsummer sun, although it is thought to have missed its mark by a few degrees. A new shopping complex now cuts the Boulevard in half, negating the idea of the sun shining along the Boulevard to strike the mirrored façade of the railway station, where we ended our walk with a much needed coffee and met the bus for our return.

Thank you to everybody who came on the walk and engaged with the ideas with such enthusiasm and generosity; to Back To Books for asking me to create the walk and to Carole for organising it all; and to Dr Dave Mason, for the beginning sparks of inspiration.

Photographs by Jo Dacombe and Andrew Rushton

Further images from the walk can be seen here

A curated creative wellbeing walk for Back To Books by artist Jo Dacombe exploring Parks and gardens, Woods and water, Sacred Spaces in Milton Keynes, the New Town celebrating it's 50th Anniversary. Walk informed by Dr David Mason.

Willen Lakes
Circle of Hearts Medicine Wheel
Peace Pagoda
Tree of Wishes
Tree Cathedral
Head' by Allen Jones 1990. Made of Corten Steel
Light Pyramid by Liliane Lijn in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes

The MK Rose by Gordon Young 

If you'd like to find out more about Milton Keynes 50 follow the link we hope this walk will inspire you to explore  the Parks and Gardens, Woods and Water to be found there.