A hidden gem in Co Galway

It's a small Celtic Garden in the back of beyond,
down an unmarked country lane, 
definitely off the beaten path.

A treasure to be discovered, 
not passed by or ‘happened upon’ 
in the normal course of travel.

The garden is dedicated to St Brigit,
the female patron saint of Ireland; 
offering a counter balance to St Patrick.

 The garden celebrates in plantings - and spirit - 

the 4 seasons of a garden 
and of a life well lived – 
or squandered for that matter.

We all get the same four 'seasons', 
 whether we grow into the length of each one or not.

It was enchanting – 
even in the rain.

 This sculpture stayed with me through my entire Ireland trip 

and has returned home in my memory as one of the highlights.

The moment I saw it, 

all I could hear were the words of Macrina Wiederkehr

My bare feet walk the earth reverently
For everything keeps crying, 
Take off your shoes
The ground you stand on is holy
The ground of your being is holy.

When the wind sings through the pines 
Like a breath of God
awakening you to the sacred present
calling your soul to new insights
Take off your shoes!

Take off your shoes of distraction
Take off your shoes of ignorance and blindness
Take off your shoes of hurry and worry 
Take off anything that prevents you
from being a child of wonder.

Take off your shoes;
The ground you stand on is holy.
The ground you are is holy.

Take off your shoes. The ground you are standing on is holy.

I love the brokenness of it; 
the whole, apparently shattered into pieces, 
yet still held together by some mysterious unifying source.

 It's only since I've been home that I've realized 
it's the 'gaps',
the emptiness,
that holds the whole together;
the 'space in between' that allows for
the inhalation and exhalation of spirit,
a spirit that allows us to "live and move and have our being".

I'm so glad we found this treasure.

These words I know will ring true for many of my female friends.

In Brigit's Garden

Earthwoman listens to herself
She knows her own voice
She curves into the year
like a green shawl
She waits for her own

The blackbird hops between seasons
A snail moves at its own pace
through woven willow,
chimes spill out their own sound.

Earthwoman bends to the dark,
listens
and the earth tells her what
 she needs to know.

 

#68

Some birthdays you feel like you got hit by a bus; 
other birthdays you actually DO get hit by a bus.
 

Well, OK; 
I hit the bus if you’re going to be sticklers about it!

In my defense, 
I was driving on the wrong damn side of the road; 
it was my third day driving in Ireland;
 it was raining and, when the police responded to my 9:15 AM accident, 
my “wee incident” report # was 319 -

for that day!

I clearly was NOT the only one having a bad morning.

For the record, I’ve never had an accident before 
(either outside the USA or inside).

Also for the record, it was clearly MY fault.

I was impatient and tried to go around a stopped bus – 
apparently without leaving enough clearance on the passenger side.

 The mirror got clipped and, even though I corrected,

 it didn’t do much good when the bus then decided to pull back over into the same lane 
and proceed on, 
leaving a ‘racing stripe’ of bus blue down the entire left side of the car …

 my very own Scarlet letter 

 marking my car for the rest of the trip as 
“crazy OLD American driver, watch out!”

Oh, the shame. 

Thank goodness for Officer Officer (yes, that really was his name.)

He made me feel like I was in a Monty Python skit – 
and not a dumpster fire of my own creation.

My navigator forgave me, told me to ‘shake it off’ 
and Officer Officer told me to have a cuppa and proceed on to the coast 
where there was a better chance the sun was shining.

So I did - and it was.

And it was glorious.

We visited – and crossed – the Carrick a Reed Rope bridge – 
my personal birthday challenge more daunting than driving in Ireland.

I got through it in much the same manner as I get through most things I’m afraid of –

by muttering to myself “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this; 
I’m almost done, I’m almost done.”

That land mass on the horizon to the right?
That's the Isle of Mull, Scotland -
17 miles away! 

After we recovered from the climb and the rope bridge,
 we stopped at Bushmill's Distillery – the ‘Protestant Distillery’- in Northern Ireland.

 (Until this trip, I didn't even realize distilleries HAD religious affiliations.

I treated my Viking and his friends to samples of his heritage.

 The Giants Causeway was our last site for the day -

 a spectacular geological formation of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns 
 caused by ancient volcanic eruptions – 
complete with a rainbow.  

the day redeemed by the promise of a better year.

We stayed in Portrush that night where I captured 
a fierce combination of haze, wind, surf and charming houses -
 one of my favorite images from the whole trip.

(BTW, if anyone wants to get me a belated birthday present, 
I'll take either a pale pink or yellow house!)

 Even less than stellar beginnings can surprise you with their endings!
 ~~~~~~~~
ps: my apologies that the font changed part way through the post. 
I have NO clue why, don't speak 'programming, can't fix it
and don't want to take the time to fiddle with it anymore!

As they say in Shakespeare in Love -
"It's a mystery".
 ~~~~~~~~
pps: 4 important words for driving in Ireland -
Zero dollar deductible insurance!

I wanted to love Belfast

I remember hearing about  “The Troubles” 
during college as a young adult;
but honestly my attention span, interests, 
and, let’s face it, hormone levels 
were directed elsewhere.

Coming from a high school that was evenly split between 
Italian mafia Catholics, 
Jewish princesses 
and WASP’s (White Anglo-Saxon protestants), 
it was impossible to imagine not getting along with someone 
because of the religious background of their family.

I remember moments of vividly not liking the Catholics kids in elementary school 
but that was only because they got to leave (public) school early on Wednesday afternoons 
so they could go to ‘parochial class’ 
at the church down the street.

Yes, I would have sold my denominational soul for early dismissal!

I expected to be moved by the murals and the walls demarcating the ‘sides’ of the conflict
 if for no other reason than because I love street art!

And yet, I wasn’t.

I was surprised by the commentary on the hop on/hop off bus 
and how peppered it was with references to ‘them’ and ‘us’.

I was surprised to hear that the schools are STILL segregated 
 and that the sectarian issues they fought over for 30 years 
have merely been glossed over by a thin veneer.

And I was surprised that I was surprised. 
It’s not as if OUR issues with segregation have been adequately addressed, 
let alone resolved.

I was terribly dismayed 
by thoughts about how deeply ingrained ‘tribalism’ is 
all over the world 
and what a waste of energy and effort it takes to maintain our divisions.

I was moved and confused 
by all I don’t know 
about what motivates people and societies 
to identify ‘the other’ as threatening.

Belfast is a city the size of Toledo, Ohio or Newark, NJ; 

a modern, urban, commercial, moderate size city.

It’s main attraction is the ‘Titanic Quarter’, 
a 97 million Pounds, waterfront redevelopment attraction, 
capitalizing on the fact that the ill-fated Titanic was built and launched from their docks.

 An 8 storied building filled with interactive material, 

 interesting ‘facts’ about Irish society at the time 

and pictures that, by now, are familiar to anyone 
who has ever watched “Titanic” or heard Celine Dionne belt out 
“My heart will go on”.

 For anyone who knows me, 

it won’t come as a surprise that the ‘city’ part of our trip to Ireland 
was dragging out too long.

Highlights were "the best burger in Belfast"

 and the oldest bar in Belfast.

 But overall, this country mouse needed to be moving on to open acres!

I was glad we had decided to stay in Bangor – 

 a ‘suburb’ of Belfast about 10 miles east of the city - 
and that we decided to take the train into Belfast for our day of sightseeing.

The transportation was seamless, 
SO much easier than worrying about ‘car parks’, traffic etc. 
and made me wish public transportation was more available in the US.

I wanted to love Belfast; but I didn’t. 

I’m glad I saw it; 
but I was gladder still that our visit was over.

 We were headed ‘up North’ to the sea and the Antrim coast.

The Atlantic Ocean has always  been my North Star – 
and I was finally headed ‘home’.

Moving on

As much as I loved it, 
Dublin isn’t Ireland 
any more than New York City is the US and, 
after a few days, 
I was eager to kick the dust of the city from my shoes 
and start exploring the rest of the country.

Our first stop wasn’t that far out of the city actually

 – only about 40K north – 
 and I was totally taken aback by what we stopped for.

 How is it I’ve never heard of this place before?

Bru na Boinne (in County Meath) – 
one of the world’s most important prehistoric landscapes 
dating from the Neolithic period.

A series of mounds, standing stones, henges and prehistoric enclosures
from as early as the 35^thcentury BC.

It has been designated as a World Heritage Site since 1993.

The area (which covers slightly less than 2,000 acres) 
is almost completely surrounded by water; 
surrounded on the southern, western and eastern sides by the various twists and bends 
in the River Boyne 

 and on the northern side by the Mattock, 
one of the Boyne’s largest tributaries.

 The structures at Newgrange (where we visited)  are older than the Egyptian pyramids!!  

I mean, seriously? 
How are we NOT as familiar with this image as we are with the pyramids??

This whole area has been a center of human settlement for at least 6,000 years – 
with the major structures dating back to 5,000 years ago.

It’s estimated that the passage tombs took almost 300 years to build 
(best guess from 3,300 BC – 2,900 BC) 
which points to a sustained unifying importance of belief 
in whatever the structures represented, 
not to mention the ongoing dedication of a society of people 
committed to continue the work.

The stones were quarried hundreds of miles away, 
transported by river and assembled on site 
in a design which is incredibly sophisticated 
and demonstrates more advanced knowledge of construction principles 
than anything I can even begin to imagine. 

 (Like part of the roof, 
perfectly overlapping layers of slopping stone,
carrying rain off the roof while keeping the insides dry!)

There are three main megalith sites 
(Newgrange, Dowth and Knowth);
 and all have significant archeo-astronomical significance.

Newgrange and Dowth have Winter solstice solar alignments 
 Knowth is oriented toward the spring and autumn Equinox.

The entry at the passage tomb at Newgrange takes you slightly upward 
through a small tunnel to a center room 
with 4 antechambers off the main enclosure.

 The ‘window’ at the top of image is just above foot level 

when you’re inside the enclosure.

During the Winter Solistice, 
at noon,
rays from the sun come directly through the window 
and focuses light on the ‘altar’, 
a hollow bowl (a scooped out boulder) in the center of the room.

(No pictures have been allowed inside the tomb since the 1990's;
the picture below is courtesy of a postcard.
The actual engraving is far more impressive and has a green cast to it.)

Between the petroglyphs on many of the boulders used in the construction 
(both inside and outside) of the main tomb 

 and the other structures on the grounds 
(the meaning and use of which are not fully known), 

it was literally mind blowing.

If you’re ever in Dublin, don’t miss this! 
Even if you don’t rent a car, it’s an easy bus ride away.

Next time I go back, I’ll definitely spend more time at the other two sites.

A group of people 
(seemingly smart, creative and knowledgeable - 
about weather, the solar system, design, transportation etc.) 
labored long and hard 
(or had designated laborers labor long and hard for them)
to erect these massive, culturally significant structures – 
and absolutely nothing about these people -
their belief systems or their culture - 
is known today 
beyond conjecture.

The beauty and reality of the area is only surpassed by the mystery of it.

And as a bonus, 
on my way there,
I got to see my first thatched roof house!

Our first excursion out of Dublin was a total win/win!