‘Woe betide those who delve deep, for in the darkness they may come face to face with monsters.’ And yet it is in diving deep that we make real discoveries. The world is not some uniform, abstract layer of information, but rather an ever changing ocean. Who would spend their lives floating on the surface, daring not to look up or indeed dive into the depths below?
It is perhaps ironic that the one thing which enables anything from happening is an illusion. Its value does not arise intrinsically, but instead from a collective belief that it can be used to acquire real things. To create it, governments and banks use an extensive system of inter-exchangeable loans: they, too, accept a belief that more of it will be returned to them in the future, often decades ahead. When that belief comes under question, entire economies come crashing down.
As the nights are drawing in, and the winter months are finally taking their hold, a lot of minds have turned to Christmas. Whilst some may claim it still to be ‘too early’ to worry about such things, there is a definite festive feel in the air! For many of us Christmas brings a time of celebration, especially post-pandemic, it allows us to congregate and celebrate together.
Most of us remember 2015 as the year the European media adopted the term ‘Refugee Crisis’, when 1.3 million refugees arrived at the EU borders asking for protection. Now, at the turn of the decade, as we try to close the chapter on the global pandemic and let life return to normal, the word hits much closer to home with the War in Ukraine leading over five million people to flee their country in a matter of months.
After a long hiatus due to Covid, we have launched our first creative writing workshop project in Bristol. Partnering up with The Wild Goose, a branch of the charity Inhope, we have curated a set of eight workshops taking place at their drop-in centre on Stapleton Road.
We have developed a new crowdfunding platform that opens up publishing to a wider range of people, whilst being able to support projects by other organisations that need funding.
The website, Crowdbound, was launched on 21st June 2022 – in line with World Localisation Day – and it represents the only UK-based crowdfunding site with a focus on social inclusion and environmental sustainability.
The Power of the Pen project at Arkbound was dedicated to reaching out to individuals in Scotland who had found their mental health exacerbated by the social isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim of this project was to help individuals tackle these issues and create a new sense of community through a series of creative writing workshops. Some of the participants agreed to share some pieces of the works they produced during the program on our blog:
The Power of the Pen project at Arkbound was dedicated to reaching out to individuals in Scotland who had found their mental health exacerbated by the social isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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