I’ve been involved in coracle building for some time. A coracle is a primitive, prehistoric craft traditionally made from animal skins stretched over a wooden frame. I wanted to actually travel in it, and from the farm where I worked in Oxfordshire I could tell by the river swell that the raft could carry me all the way to the sea.
Then two things happened which influenced me to undertake the journey. Firstly, the 200th anniversary of my ancestor Mungo Park was approaching. In 1805 Mungo navigated the African river Niger in an attempt to establish a trade route. He was a very peaceful and generous Scotsman, who was later killed in ambush by the Moors. His travels were one of the first moments of an attempt to build a bridge between Africa and the west, and I wanted to mark his anniversary by doing something vaguely similar, and by doing so attempt to heal the ancestral karma.
Then the suicide bombings happened in London. It was an appalling time. Terrorists were using and abusing the media to spread messages of hopelessness and division and fear. I saw that I could use it to spread hope and unity and peace. I wanted to undertake some sort of pilgrimage which would make people smile when they heard about it. I wanted whatever I did to exert a strong message about tolerance and inclusion of all people in our society.
So I set about making a coracle which encompassed these ideas, which would act as a symbol for unity. I made it from horse hide (from the animal kingdom), salt (from the mineral kingdom) and willow (from the plant kingdom). I then set about plotting a journey through the human kingdom where I wanted to interact with as many people, from as many backgrounds, faiths, belief systems and cultures as possible.
I felt I needed another symbol – something physical which all these people I’d meet could touch and connect with. I came up with the idea of the magic egg, which was actually an ostrich egg. Along my travels on the river I handed it to people who used it to meditate, pray and in some cases even paint it! The egg was supposed to be for everyone; I didn’t want to exclude less spiritual individuals by calling it a spiritual egg, or non-religious people by calling it a religious egg. Someone with no faith or belief in another power could simply hold the egg and merely contemplate a peaceful world.
So my journey set off on August 17 2005 from an Oxfordshire spring and lasted until 21 September when I arrived at the sea. I had a brilliant time and met so many people – crews on passing ships, children swimming, teenagers hanging out on the banks of the Thames. The vast majority of people I approached and spoke to about my mission were delighted. I stopped off at the Reading Festival, various churches and places of worship and chatted with policemen. Everyone just seemed to get what I was trying to do when I talked about unifying divided faiths and cultures.
At nights I slept in churches, once in an iron roundhouse, in tents, in friend’s houses, even underneath the coracle by fireside. I told stories in schools, played music at multi-faith gatherings and chatted to people in pubs.
At the end of the adventure – which fell on World Peace Day – I dropped the magic egg into the sea. I like to think that all the prayer and hope and goodness trapped inside it from everyone who’d touched it will weave a little bit of magic on the world.
To read more about Chris, including his diary of the coracle adventure visit www.acorneducation.com.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites. Images courtesy of Chris Park.
