"Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness, of which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence here. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We, who have no such optical powers, are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them."

— Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers (1837)

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It's in the spirit of the quotation above by one of the most enduring authors in the English literary canon that this project came to be. Dickens was referring to the yin-yang concept underlying all of reality when he juxtaposed the triad of metaphysics, vision and ephemerality characterising our human life. Condensed to its empirical essence, yin and yang signifies cosmic duality – the inevitable interplay between the polarities of sun and moon, male and female, dark and light – that spins from all matter, and thus, energy.

We come into consciousness on planet Earth as naked, raw, vulnerable organisms wailing from the depths of our soul at first contact with this contrast through our senses, as they detach themselves from the protective plasma of the motherly womb and instinctively savour the seismic effect of these forces. Leonard Cohen crooned about it being the crack where the light gets in, Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio bathed his most gruesome, saintly scenes and figures in pathos-laden chiaroscuro, and Plato metastasised it into an eternal allegory demonstrating that the three-dimensional surroundings of our everyday existence are merely a cheap imitation of the true substance of the universe.

The Big Bang theory of the origins of the cosmos depicts a singularity of light bursting forth from an infinite void of darkness, but quantum mechanics has shown that this way of explaining how everything (that's currently observable to human eyes and instruments of measurement) arose is far too simplistic. In poetic more than scientific terms, no shadow can ever materialise without the presence of light, and darkness is solely the absence of it, rather than a form with intrinsic qualities. Similarly, the Big Bang postulated that the expansive strength of light broke through its point of zero volume and created the fabric of spacetime itself as it grew from nothingness to unfathomable vastness in fractions of a second. The critical point is that the energy didn't explode in all directions to fill what could be imagined as an empty container, but actually bounced outwards from a dense totality and willed into being billions of years of chaotic, ever-evolving disparateness, as it spread from the original furnace and settled into wispy, rarefied matter. Such is the dramatic see-saw at the heart of fundamental particles and astronomical bodies, and yin-yang philosophically encapsulates the ideal and perpetual balance of these creative and destructive pulls that constantly shape our environment.

I first landed in the Scottish city of Glasgow in 2014, knowing next to nothing about the country yet intent on furthering my academic study of literature and leaving the cloistered confines of my home island of Malta, in the Mediterranean. At 23, I was full of enthusiasm and zest for life but still a solitary, inexperienced student finding her bearings against a backdrop that had been catapulted to the opposite end of the spectrum of experience overnight. The severing of the geographical tether to my place of birth – a tiny, insular rock sporting all the psycho-social trappings of a recently emancipated nation from British colonial power – precipitated a life-altering process of self-discovery that would never have had the same flavour or weight had I remained ensconced in the claustrophobic comforts and limitations of home.

As soon as I set foot in the city, I felt its different air creep up on me and infuse my perception with the misty, overhanging, atmospheric clouds branding Glasgow the wettest metropolis in the UK. The first days and weeks were like entering the dream I had always fashioned for myself – that of living someplace where it was persistently winter (I loathed the long, arduously hot Maltese summers), embarking on a master's degree in a subject I loved at a top university (with proudly non-utilitarian personal motivations), and finally leading an independent life in the proverbial "real world" (at a considerable distance from the nest of my upbringing, and completely by myself).

I was initially stationed in one of the least glamorous, dodgiest suburbs in Glasgow – Ibrox, where regular football matches in the famed stadium oozed a bevy of drunken supporters on a routine basis, sometimes accompanied by the odd brawl as well as tons of trash after each round of revelry subsided. It took me a couple of weeks to adjust to the thick Glaswegian accent that obfuscated my good working knowledge of the English language, which enhanced the general intrigue and sense of being a stranger wandering in a curious land. Whenever locals asked me the ice-breaking question of which part of Glasgow I lived in and I answered earnestly, their reactions ranged from mild surprise to visible aversion. The areas immediately south and westwards of the River Clyde are still considered a no-go by many Scots, especially the non-Glaswegians unfavourably termed "teuchters" by hardened Weegies. Many a time I was warned to watch out for knife- and Buckfast-wielding "neds" (Scottish slang for "chavs") who might potentially hang around my neighbourhood, and I recall nervously passing by what I coined the "Lynchian corner" every day as I made my way to the city centre for seminars, errands or outings. This street corner looked so utterly dejected and sinister, especially in the gloom of night-time, that one would think a monster of the subconscious of the kind only the celebrated filmmaker could bring to life in his movies would spring out from behind the tenements any moment to traumatise you forever.

Glasgow has many feathers in its cap and was the second most prosperous city of the British Empire at certain points in the nineteenth century, but it also has a well-known, pervasive reputation for being a rough urban centre to cut your teeth on. The University of Glasgow is a world-class research centre and one of the oldest universities across the globe – the institution was founded in 1415 and maintains a standard of excellence in the arts and humanities, among other subjects. The pinnacle of the city's wealth coincided with the golden age of the Victorian era, when shipbuilding and other heavy industries provided decent jobs for the working class and produced as much as 20% of the world's ships, from the late 1800s until the First World War. The sun-baked, late summer days on the isle, full of last-minute preparations for this epic life change, morphed into the gentle, grey pattering and hustle-bustle of my gradual settlement into the cityscape in autumn.

As I assimilated myself into my adoptive city, meeting my landlord, course mates, and other random, interesting characters on my first few nights out, the culture of this indescribable place began to rear its fascinating head. Now that its heyday is in the past, following the de-industrialisation that accelerated after the Second World War and subsequent Westminster policies that drained Glasgow of its opulence, the largest Scottish city is often considered the aesthetically inferior counterpart to the capital of Edinburgh, situated just an hour's train ride away. Edinburgh, while boasting an enviable repertoire of attractions and cultural delights to rival any modern city, feels decidedly English compared to the character that seeps from every nook and cranny of Glasgow – Scottish through and through.

Simmering underneath its coarse surface, Glasgow emanates a soft approachability and irresistible attraction to adventure that makes all its newly transferred residents dizzy with excitement. Frontline academia, an enticing, high-quality nightlife and music scene, experimental art in an assortment of manifestations, buzzing intellectual pursuits, multiculturalism, diverse ethnicities, decadent vices, crime, and abject poverty all co-exist amid a sprawling, post-industrial medley of distinctive, red sandstone tenement buildings and high-rise tower blocks. Glaswegians are generally witty, no-nonsense folk with exteriors as tough as cast iron, sharp minds, a wicked sense of humour, and hearts of molten gold. Most of the people I crossed paths with were born into extremely humble – if not downright deprived – conditions, and bore the brunt of lack of opportunity and systemic socio-economic disadvantage throughout their whole life. By the time the ink had dried on the formalities of my arrival, I had already fallen head over heels in love.

I can't pinpoint the exact instant when I stumbled across what's called the "Glasgow effect", but I remember both the impact of hearing about the mind-boggling statistic from the horse's mouth – that is, a Glaswegian – and also seeking out information online about this strange abnormality. The "Glasgow effect" is the name given to the abysmally low, as yet unexplainable life expectancy of people who live in Glasgow, in comparison to the rest of the UK, Europe and the developed world. This doesn't just mean that the residents of Glasgow die younger than the average in these other similar demographic areas. It means that even when taking into account lower income levels and other factors contributing to privation and early death with the appropriate statistical models applied by epidemiologists, people in Glasgow still have shorter lives than their peers in other cities across all income brackets. This is a puzzling fact that merits deeper investigation.

Excess mortality is a measure of the increase of the number of deaths during a particular time period or in a certain group, which stands out from the expected value or statistical trend during this same reference period or for that same population. In epidemiology, excess mortality is observed and its rate determined so as to understand what's causing the larger-than-expected deaths in the population. Glasgow's excess mortality rate is the highest in the UK and Europe, and epidemiologists remain baffled as to its unequivocal causes. The shocking "Glasgow effect" statistic became apparent in the 1950s and has continued to balloon since the 1970s. Although a direct, accurate causation link has so far never been drawn by historians, sociologists and epidemiologists, Glasgow's social and economic decline triggered by the loss of its crucial industries seems to have fuelled this negative trend for generations.

I spent almost three years studying, working, living and breathing Glasgow with unbridled intensity. The richness of my path through the "Dear Green Place" cannot be overstated, and will be the subject of this blog for plenty of entries to come. The genesis of this project commenced when I learned that and saw how the "Glasgow effect" was unfairly and prematurely claiming the lives of Glaswegians with so much promise and bright internal light due to the dark powers, contours and entrails gnawing at this creative, rebellious stronghold from within. Since I left Glasgow in 2017, a great deal of global events have sent shockwaves through society, with one of the consequences now being that the entire Western world is facing a steep uptick in excess mortality. This sobering, silent crisis can't be tackled with the same thinking that gave rise to it in the first place. This is one of the core tenets of this project. Modern science and its related institutions purport to have all the rationales and treatments for our inadequate health, especially given the present levels of technological advancement, but at the root of the majority of the lack of wellness and illnesses we endure these days are trauma and stress.

In recent years, trauma has been benefiting from unprecedented attention by figures in the psychotherapeutic establishment and other thought leaders. It's now recognised that the psychological, physical and spiritual effects of traumatic episodes can have a lifelong, adverse influence on individuals, and more focused research is being conducted into the ramifications of trauma at the collective level. One of the most basic definitions of trauma is the disconnection from or fragmentation of one's spirit. This usually takes place unconsciously as part of a mental defence mechanism to shield the self from unbearable suffering coming from stressors in the person's life, but the symptoms of the detachment and coping mechanisms that commonly stem from it can wreak more havoc on someone's wellbeing than the source of the trauma itself in the long run. Trauma is a highly complex phenomenon that's very difficult to go through life untouched by, and is one of the challenging aspects of human existence we have in common. Our healthcare and medical systems as they stand today, don't effectively address the plethora of physical and psychological issues left in the wake of trauma.

The human race cannot afford to keep ignoring the trauma in its collective unconscious. This festering darkness acts like a black hole, devouring light with no mercy, gurgling away the potential of countless souls whose flame is blown out. This metaphorical representation of the statistical "Glasgow effect" indicates the circumstances we're starting off in. This eponymous project has the ambitious goal of proposing and putting to practice alternative and novel methods for personal and collective healing, which we believe are the way forward to positively shifting the mortality rates and poor quality of life in Glasgow and elsewhere. Genuine healing doesn't constitute the dulling of the senses with more numbing agents, but the courageous acknowledgement, processing and acceptance of the traumatic event to promote its eventual resolution for good through wholesome, non-toxic means.

This is why this project will be operating across the fields of art, culture, the environment, literature, mental health, music, politics, and science, as we know that these important realms of activity are all indispensable to the holistic healing of humanity, which we hope will, in the future, reverse the excess mortality rate and birth improved creation out of destruction from north to south, east to west, and from the inside to the outside. The delicate, nuanced relationships between all these realms of human endeavour will also be further elaborated in this blog.

The image adorning this introduction to the project is of a mural painting I recently completed in the art studio of the residency and retreats space in Gozo, which is another essential facet of this enterprise. The mural portrays the marriage of Glasgow and Gozo as the conceptual and geographical loci of the project, and is the culmination of my intention to immortalise Scott Hutchison – the lyrical powerhouse and primary musical prowess behind Frightened Rabbit – who tragically ended his life in 2018 in his native Scotland. I watched Scott perform live in concert at Barrowland Ballroom in 2016, not long before I moved back to Malta. The news of his passing knocked the air out of my lungs and felt thus, in his own words:

"And vital parts fall from his system

And dissolve in Scottish rain"

— Frightened Rabbit, The Modern Leper (2008)

The trinity of white rabbits are his spirit animal permanently gracing the wheel of ecstatic creation of this project, that will rise like a phoenix out of the ashes of destruction. From a slightly threadbare version clinging fearfully to the cheerful, iconoclastic Duke of Wellington statue in front of the Gallery of Modern Art, the rabbit reappears demurely on top of a comforting mushroom in the central foreground, and again in the most pristine, pure illustration as it lies with flowers at its feet, resting safely and peacefully in the colourful nature of Gozo.

This is for you, Scott, and all those who through the painstaking perspiration of their sensitive souls, have gifted this ailing planet with devastating beauty, and departed the Earth too soon.