Paradise Road

I started a new job recently, and on my first day walking to work I noticed the sign to a little street turning off from the main road. It read "Paradise Road", which seemed to promise an awful lot for something that was essentially an alley backing onto a school fence. The houses were compact two storey affairs that were fairly normal for East London, and all in all not what you'd expect to find on the road to anywhere you wanted to go.

But then, I thought, what if Paradise really was at the end of that road?

I got caught up in the idea about using a real life street as a game board where at the end you reach a sort of heaven, and that's produced this little zine. I've drawn influence from mindfulness practices and psychological techniques, and generally how to feel connected to a wider world when very little in our lives is built to support that.

You will need something to write with and in, and preferably a pocket. Once you have located a good candidate for your very own Road to Paradise, you will explore it over the course of five days, letting go of mental burdens and nurturing your spiritual self as you go. At the end you will arrive at the Gates of Paradise (wherever that is for you).

I like the idea that Paradise could end up being anything, like a highstreet or a roundabout.

I also like the idea that you'd never go in, and there'd forever be this end of a road somewhere that only you knew could take you straight to Paradise, and that feeling would bring you comfort.

"The Guide and I into that hidden road now entered, to return to the bright world...Thence we came forth to behold the stars" (Dante's Divine Comedy)