When first we heard the Giant story, it came to us in a dream. And the funny thing was, it was hard to really remember that much after the dream slipped away. All that we could recall was this:
There are twelve ancient Giants sleeping throughout the world. One of them is in Liverpool and it’s dreaming as it sleeps. It’s dreaming a dream of waking up, and all the people of Liverpool and everyone coming to visit there are part of the Giant’s dreaming. The Giant is calling to all of us to help it awake, and the very fact that you’re dreaming this now and I’m part of your dreaming just goes to show that the time of the Giant’s awakening is drawing near.
That little bit was all we remembered - clearly just the very beginning of something much larger in shape and size. Hard for us to realize what the whole Giant story might be and what it might lead to eventually. But even this very smallest bit was very exciting, at least to us - we knew we had to find out more. So in October 2006 we made our way to Liverpool to enter into the story ourselves.
When we arrived it was hard to know the best way to find where the Giant was sleeping. The Giant clearly existed in more than the usual three dimensions. How could we ever hope to see the Giant’s shape in our everyday world if our everyday world made up the shape of the Giant itself?
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It seemed a completely impossible task, but the more we thought and the more we dreamed, a way to proceed emerged: The Sleeping Giant is surely a part of our human lineage - its sentience is aligned to ours, though bigger of course in level and size. Now humans like you and humans like me, we have seven chakras from root to crown and if we continue this logically the Giant is bound to have chakras as well. With this in mind we opened our hearts and walked all around up and down Liverpool until we found where the Giant’s seven chakras occurred. Little by little, bit by bit, the shape of the Sleeping Giant emerged. The Root included a sacred spring, the Crown was up on Everton Brow overlooking the whole of Liverpool. And lots of very amazing things were interspersed in between.
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Click here to see the chakra maps of the Liverpool Giant
~~~~ The First Journey Through The Sleeping Giant (October 22, 2006) ~~~~
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On the Sunday before we returned to Toronto we took a bowl of the Root’s spring water and carried it up to the top of the Crown. It took all day and various people came and went as we made our way through the Giant. A number of planned and unplanned events occurred along the path. Tarot cards were drawn for each of the chakras. It rained quite a bit in the Throat chakra and cleared up as we reached the Third Eye. We wrapped some trees there with yellow fabric to make a room to commune with the Giant.
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A wonderful sunset, fireworks even, as we walked along. Sounds of a choir singing their song in the Iron Church when we reached the Crown. We stood a while in the afterglow, looking back through the stained glass window and saw the whole shape of the sleeping Giant we’d been traveling through all day long - then night arrived and the trek was over, so we headed away along darkening streets, sure to return again someday soon to resume the work with the Liverpool Giant.
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We also made a movie of the path we took that day. If you e-mail us at: giant@territory.org we'll send you a (free) copy. Or if you want to look at it on-line right now, there's a web version up on Google video. You can find that by clicking here: Traveling Through The Liverpool Giant (22 minute movie)
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~~~~ The Second Journey Through The Sleeping Giant (June 02, 2007) ~~~~
We returned again to Liverpool in May 2007. We walked and talked and renewed connections with the Giant and all the people we’d met the first time around. On the first trek we brought water up through the Giant from the Root. This time we carried fire down from the Crown to the Root. We had a container to hold some coals and a large clay lantern for a candle flame. The fire was kindled initially with a magnifying glass, and we kept it alive all day long until we reached the spring in the Root. The journey lasted over ten hours and various people came and went as we made our way through the Giant.
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Our main focus during this second trek was on and in the Giant’s dreaming. As we made our way along the path carrying fire down through the chakras, we were able to see lots of dreams alright: all the people and places and things were eagerly manifesting the Giant’s dream unconsciously, each in their own certain way. And if we had not been carrying the fire we might have joined in with all that too. But more and more as we went along we tried to open ourselves to let a more conscious dreaming arise.
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And when we arrived at each chakra we closed our eyes to see what shape the conscious dream of the Giant might take if we let it come through. We wrote down what we received and burned the writings on the coals. The Tarot cards we drew along the way were part of the process as well. Looking back now we’re beginning to see what shape the Giant’s story might take if conscious dreaming began to arise and conscious dreamers pursued it.
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Click here for photos and descriptions of the second trek (June 02, 2007)
Click here to read about the Rock Game
Click here to see the Tarot cards drawn at each chakra on the 2nd and 1st journey
When we returned to Liverpool again in Sept 2007 we brought along seven bamboo chakra spikes. We also had a set of bamboo wind chimes which we hung in the Heart Chakra as soon as we arrived. Once we placed the spikes in the seven chakras, the ringing of the wind chimes would resonate through all the spikes and help them connect with each other and the Heart Chakra.
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Over the following week we visited a different chakra each day, dug a hole and buried one of the spikes in the ground there. A tarot card was drawn at the place where we buried the spike.
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After the spike was in place we looked for a path that would lead us back to the wind chimes in the Heart. We paid close attention to everything that happened along the path, stopping from time to time in various locations as we made our way back to Sweetheart Park. We drew a second tarot card along the path and a third one when we arrived.
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On October 7, just before the end of our stay we met with six others in Big Heart Park. Working as a group we separated six sentient emotions from the herd that is indigenous there, gathered them into a bowl one by one and then carried them all over to the wind chimes in Sweetheart Park. We rang the chimes while releasing the contents of the bowl. Surely the bamboo spikes buried in the Giant's chakras vibrated in tune with our conscious actions and the paths from each spike to the Giant's Heart will be clearer and more easily traveled.
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Click here to read more about the chakra spikes and the final Heart Chakra event
Click here to see the ongoing tarot spread being generated in each of the chakras.
Before we left Toronto we also developed outlines for seven chakra plays. It is hoped that this new line of work will take the story of the awakening Giant and structure it so that the plays could take place simultaneously over many days in many ways in various parts of the Giant’s body. (As the Giant awakens it becomes a theatre!) Much of the story of the Giant's awakening will only be discovered as the plays themselves are enacted. Numerous opportunities will occur to encourage the audience to join the play and be part of the enactment of the Giant’s story (if you like the play you can join the company).
Some general notes to the seven Chakra Plays
The Play In The Heart Chakra
The Play In The Crown Chakra
The Play In The Third Eye Chakra
The Play In The Throat Chakra
The Play In The Will Chakra
The Play In The Hara Chakra
The Play In The Root Chakra
~~~~ Fourth visit with the Liverpool Giant (March 6 - 19, 2008) ~~~~
We're planning to return to Liverpool to continue this work from March 06-19 (2008). This time we'll be focusing on the paths we've discovered that connect the chakras and show the flow of energy between them. Many practices (such as shiatsu and acupuncture) are concerned with energy paths (known as chi lines) in humans. As our work continues we're beginning to develop a practice that has to do with the G-chi energy lines in the Liverpool Giant. Stimulating these G-chi paths through conscious attention and action will make it easier for the Giant to awake. During our visit in March we'll certainly be paying attention to the paths we followed last visit when we traveled from each chakra spike to the wind chimes in Sweetheart Park. Click here to see maps of these paths.
It takes a lot of people to wake a sleeping Giant, and there's no one way to do it. Every idea is a good one so long as it's sincerely concerned with helping the Giant awake. Have an idea? A deep longing to do something? Had a glimpse of what the Giant is dreaming about? Maybe you'd like to do some work with us when we're in Liverpool. Or talk with us about the work before or after. You can contact us at: giant@territory.org
Read about our beginning glimpses of the Liverpool Giant: This used to be the site's index page before we arrived for our first visit to Liverpool. There are some links to some of the original ideas for Waking The Sleeping Giant. Tickets, bracelets, receptor dishes, the Giant Room, Giantwater, dream-flags too, lots of things we wanted to do and many we actually did.
See a picture of the Giant's signature: We found this on the ground one day on our way to the Giant's Heart
Read the Giant pamphlet: This is a pdf version of the first (and still current) pamphlet we printed in July 2006. It’s a short, general presentation of the basic story, but you’ll need to have Adobe Acrobat to view this pamphlet.
Read the Rock Game rules: We hold Rock Games in Liverpool from time to time. Here are the nine rules of play
Read a bit about who we are: We call ourselves The Territory Orphans (A North American Buddhist Theatreart Company). Here’s a few words about our name and what it might imply.
Visit our other website and see pictures of our ongoing Territory Landscape installations: www.territory.org
We've been staying at the Living Gallery while working in Liverpool. We made a short movie about the house and the people in it during our stay in October /06. If you e-mail us and we'll send you a (free) copy. Or if you want to look at it on-line right now, there's a web version up on Google video. You can find that by clicking here: I Wanna Go Back (4 minute movie)
The Living Gallery space is curated by The Art Organization. They have a number of art oriented spaces around and about Liverpool. You can find out more about them at the TAO website: The Art Organization
Any questions (or answers)? You can e-mail us at: giant@territory.org
return to new index page (2010)
