On Art, on Life, on Death, on Immortality
I spent this past weekend on Nik Turner’s farm for his big sendoff into the next realm.
The last time I was there, it was to celebrate Nik’s 80th birthday, but I felt his presence just as much over the last few days. That place, and his family, were clearly his anchor to the physical universe.
(Now, I’m very much a creature of science, but science certainly doesn’t deny the existence of the unknown. On the contrary. The scientific method is an endless process of discovery, transforming the unknown into the better-known. We don’t understand the exact nature of subjective experiences like feeling presences and energies, but that doesn’t make them any less real and powerful experiences to the experiencer.)
One couldn’t possibly imagine a more lovely setting, overlooking a majestic misty valley in the Welsh countryside, surrounded by the raw and somewhat bleak and cruel-edged beauty of nature, gently rolling beneath the expansive winter sky.
This is going to be a bit of a stream of consciousness, I’m afraid, so please just try to flow with it. I’m writing because I needed to express all this in words. It’s the way I process intense emotions, and thus keep my head above the raging torrents. (In fact, I see that my last blog post was also made at a time of loss and grief. I didn’t plan it that way, but, here we are.)
First, we must go back in time a bit to set the stage.
A few years ago, I was at a little festival in Devon where I am a regular performer. At some point, Mark Robson (of Kangaroo Moon) came up to me with the news that Nik was en-route to play a surprise set, and asked if I would like to join in (the band was assembled on the spot). The dancer, Stacia, from the early days of Hawkwind, had come over from Ireland, and was there as well.
Of course I grabbed my synthesizer at once and headed over to the stage!
After the set (which was the first time Stacia had been on stage with Nik in many decades), I remember speaking to Nik, and to Chris May, who had driven Nik there, but I have no recollection of what we talked about. What did stick with me was this sense of having connected with old friends, but ones I hadn’t actually met yet.
Some time shortly after that, Gary Smart got in touch with me, and asked me on Nik’s behalf to join Nik’s band, Space Ritual, for some gigs that were coming up, which I did! Sadly, I only got to play with them twice before Nik had an accident, the upshot of which was a hip replacement operation and a long recovery period that made it necessary to clear his performance schedule for some time. Concurrent with all that was the emergence of the COVID pandemic, which essentially shut down live music for a couple of years anyway.
I’m not really a Hawkwind fan (sorry), though I do genuinely enjoy a few of the tracks they did. I am a Nik Turner fan, though, especially after spending some time with him. He was truly indescribable, so I won’t even try, but anyone who has met him will understand completely.
What I discovered on the long drives with Nik and Gary to and from the gigs we did was that Nik loved Miles Davis. He and I certainly shared common spaces musically, somewhere in the orbits of that vast but singular pivotal point that lies somewhere between Bitches Brew and an acid-fuelled early 1970s psychedelic freak-out.
I never saw him in person again after his operation, but we spoke on the phone several times. There were big plans to do some recording when he was able again, and when the dangers of COVID had dissipated enough.
Sadly, it was not to be.
But, I have so much gratitude for the few moments of his amazing life that I was able to share, and his passing has actually hit me very hard. Much harder than I could have predicted.
And that brings me back to recent events.
I wouldn’t have missed being there this past weekend for anything, but it is December, and would have been an utterly miserable and potentially perilous motorbike journey. Fortunately, a kind and generous soul gave me a lift there in his van.
I re-connected with old friends and newer friends I met through Nik, and made some brand new friends too.
The service was absolutely perfect. Nik’s body was laid lovingly in a wickerwork vessel that resembled a large Moses basket, surrounded by bunches of lavender and flowers, with his saxophone placed at his breast in the manner of an Egyptian Pharaoh, laid to rest with the symbols of his kingship.
I totally lost it with tears of appreciation, grief, joy, admiration, and an indecipherable tumble of disparate emotions when I looked upon his body, and the deluge didn’t really let up all day.
There were beautiful eulogies from his family and close friends. More precious moments than I have time to relate here, but the one that struck me most was when Chris May (a long-time resident on the farm and close friend of Nik’s) was talking about some of the last times they spent together. He was talking about listening to an interpretation of the Hermetica with Nik, and that one of the things that stood out for him was that we humans actually have one up on gods, because we get to experience both mortality and immortality. At that moment, half way through the word “immortality”, the grey clouds parted, and a tsunami of sunlight crested and broke over the gathering, turning the very air to gold.
Then a procession led by Craig McFarlane, piping his fucking lungs out with all his heart and soul in the frosty December air, and a truly beautiful and fitting burial for the earthly remains of a truly beautiful man.
Following that was a remembrance in musical form by members of some of his musical groups, in which I was greatly honoured to take part.
When all that was done, I was thinking of how many musicians and artists had come together there from all corners of the world, and I helped Chris and Glenda and several others to set up an impromptu jam space in the barn. Unfortunately some of the people I had most hoped would be involved had already left, but we still had an intimate little jam that I found very cathartic indeed, and a perfect way to close the day.
The two nights I spent there were the best I have slept in months, and I feel at once rejuvenated and drained, exhausted and refreshed. It’s a bit of a weird state to be in, but I’m sure I’ll recalibrate quickly enough.
As for Nik, he’s not gone.
As long as we all remember him, he lives on in the hearts of everyone his life and art touched, and that’s an unbelievably large chunk of humanity for one man to have influenced. May all of us strive to pass on to others even a fraction of the love and acceptance and creativity which he selflessly and graciously gave to us.
