Originally from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, self-taught painter and photographer Michelle Cohen has made Glasgow her home and for more than a decade, spiced up the city's cultural life with an array of activities typical of her dynamism. The dazzling hues of her paintbrush and pensive gaze of her camera lens have dressed up Scotland to the nines for spectators from all over the world. She was my effortless first choice of artist to inaugurate the residency programme of The Glasgow Effect. Along with her unassuming personality and popular oeuvre, she embodies the values of this project to a startling degree: her passage through the world hasn't been short of difficult trials that would quash others, but her tenacity and authentic creative streak led to victories for not just herself, but the elevation of many others. It's no surprise, then, that the energy of Glasgow seeps through her veins.

Apart from her achievements in the arts, Michelle also plays pool professionally for the Scottish national team and started off her visit competing in the European Blackball Championships, held in the Maltese Islands for the very first time this year. After a couple of exciting days of competitive games, she headed with me to Gozo – but not before relishing the two gems of the main island: Valletta, the capital city of the modern era, and Mdina, that of olden times.

‍

‍

Roaming Valletta on a late November afternoon peels away the hidden layers of the city erected by the Knights of the Order of St John like a chrysalis on the verge of being split open by the mature butterfly. The iridescent setting of the sun bathes the limestone walls of the city in a golden splendour reinforced by its immaculate construction, still standing strong in its harmonious, grid-like configuration 500 years later. The turbulence of this half-millennium of clashes between conquerors of the islands and the eventual emergence of the independent republic can still be felt in the air and observed in the density of historically significant and decaying buildings, now flanked by the swanky, cosmopolitan outlets and refurbished spaces responsible for the facelift Valletta has experienced in recent years. Michelle admired the Baroque palazzo housing the official seat of the EU in Malta, its sprawling rooftop terrace commanding an unrivalled panoramic view of the majestic Grand Harbour. Like Glasgow, a substantial portion of Valletta lies in utter ruin, sporting wistful glimpses of a loftier past. As we trailed the peninsula I've encircled on foot more times than I can count, finally making a stop at the Siege Bell War Memorial as though returning to the helm of a ship, I could sense the effect of Michelle's virgin appraisal of these surroundings lift the cloak of habituation that inevitably dulls one's perception when one is very accustomed to a location. Suddenly, my belonging to this place of a wild and bloody history was torn from its nucleus of familiarity and thrust into deeper enquiry: why do I feel as though I've been here many times before, even preceding this lifetime?

Modernity is characterised by the notion that humanity has been evolving in physical and intellectual prowess along a linear trajectory for hundreds of thousands of years – these are the underpinnings of Darwinism. Every day as we go about the well-worn routines of our lives, we take it for granted that the widely accepted foundations of today's science, politics and culture are the cumulative result of centuries of human progress from a primitive starting point – and despite periodic blips in the process which we term "dark ages", where human development seems to lapse into regression, everything has always, overall, been advancing forward. Alternative theories have always been the subject of romanticism, whether in the media or literature, but have never really enjoyed widespread credence from the scientific establishment. This unshakable certainty is, however, swiftly changing. Different interpretations of the aeons of recorded human history as well as prehistory are sprouting and gaining ground, even among the more conventional-minded. The assuredness of human development having followed a mostly straight arrow pointing forward is cracking under new pressure, but what lies underneath the spoils of time like ancient sepulchres, seems much more interesting than the present.

Without much ado, the resident painter and photographer was marvelling at these buried clues all over Valletta and Mdina, swirling in thought with the rosettes, lions and other emblems recurring with an amazing frequency in the old cities' architecture. As we pondered the symbols' meaning, the exquisite artistry with which the builders of yesteryear adorned their houses, palaces and gardens, it's impossible not to derive the conclusion that the ideals of these long-gone societies aspired to – if not epitomised – a grandness of spirit that has been practically eradicated from modern mainstream culture. In Jonathan Black's book, aptly titled "The Sacred History: How Angels, Mystics and Higher Intelligence Made Our World", a riveting thesis is presented: that the history of mankind, including all the big, world-altering events that changed its course through time, were the manifestation of the gradual fall of spirit into matter. But what does this philosophically loaded statement mean in today's world – a world that encourages scientific rationality separate from, or devoid of, spirituality? What even is spirituality in the first place, and is it anathema to the age of materialism and science, as it's often presented to us in popular culture and political discourse and debate these days?

‍

‍

At its core, spirituality can be understood as the belief in spirit – a substance that transcends the material dimensions we perceive with our five senses in our three-dimensional plane of existence. It's the ineffable essence animating the cold, hard building blocks of the universe with a universal consciousness that follows the eternal dance of evolution. It's the first law of thermodynamics, stating that energy can neither be created nor destroyed – only transferred from one form to another. It's that nagging feeling that there's something beyond our skin, blood and bones and shared human foibles tying us all together, which was there before our birth and will persist after our death, regardless of our birthplace, race, creed, appearance, and other outward characteristics. It's the remembrance, woven into our DNA, of a venerable truth that there's a source of all there is which we all come from, and to which we'll eventually return. It's the mystical interpretation of what goes on inside of us and around us, despite the burden of materialistic viewpoints pressing in on all corners and blunting the euphoria inherent within higher consciousness with the familiar chatter of our reptilian brain, constituting the lowest level of human consciousness.

We arrived in Gozo late at night, lost in quiet contemplation that set the tone of our sightseeing in the next few days. The island's topography is the stuff of legend – a conglomeration of plateaued hills, subterranean caves and megalithic temples coalesce into a landscape that stirs the soul and recalls the giants and gods of mythology.

‍