Page 2 - The 17th Percy French Festival: The Quest for Authenticity

Front cover

!
The front cover embodies the themes of the last two festivals, Does the Soul have
a future? and Our Great Disconnect. Here we see a lonely "gure etched into the
landscape of a typical rural Irish setting, drawn by the blue light on the horizon,
representing the world of smart technology and pcs. The man is on an existential
journey in pursuit of the authentic or real, his back turned (or he’s walking away)
from the only life-giving source available–water. His agitated state encounters
only a desolate landscape.

Head bowed in determination to plough on, the desolate landscape represent ing
his state of mind, it seems serenity and tranquillity has and is eluding him. Brow -
beaten steadfastly over time where the language, expressions, utterances and
images of a society he grew up in, have ‘changed utterly’ and has now become
vacuous, empty, impolite and meaningless. A once carefree land of time, friendli -
ness, welcomes, jocularity and prayer, and even though it has enriched itself
beyond measure, has become fraught with unease and anxiety resulting in
discord and short-tempered ness almost everywhere.

Language and utterances that in themselves have very low vibrational levels, as dis-
tinct from the sensitive, imaginative, poetic and musical language of the thoughtful,
attentive and re#ective person, where consideration and prayer has resonance. We are
human, of both matter and energy where our emotions and thoughts exist on differ -
ent vibrational levels, fear and anger being linked to a much lower vibrational level
than positivity and higher states of consciousness and where like attracts like, the man
goes down to the river. So which way does he turn: to the world of AI that looms; the
desolate landscape; or to what is only left to him–the still ness of his own mind through
meditation and prayer?

Summoning, he remembers Psalm $%, ’Even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul, surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the
Lord forever’.

$
Maybe all we need to restore order amidst chaos is a simple prayer and if prayer levels
were to increase then the vibrational level across society would likewise increase expo -
%
nentially, and Time would return to and for us all’.

Kevin Finnerty

! The image was used in the poster for the Abbey Theatre’s !"#" production of Eugene Mc Cabe’s King of the Castle.

$ Prayer here not only in the religious sense but as one of the social tools to help boost energy levels and or address
loneliness by making one feel part of a bigger picture.
% The sense of Time with a capital T is understood as our purposeful journey.