"Soul- Shards"

 
    ~ I do not think a day of my life will go by, that I will not think of you.


    You are my best Friend.

    You will be leaving this morning, to go to a different place, for continued care.

    I will miss you, dear Friend. I will miss you.

   Even though somewhere in the deeper recesses of my mind, and heart, I know it is time. Yes, it is time.
 
   You leave behind, many Soul-Shards. Yet, you take many with you, too.


   Some will be painful, as they will bring forth memories of the years we shared, together. Years that can no longer be.

   Others will leave me with a smile. It will be so easy, as we  laughed, and sometimes cried, about so many of the same things.

   When I see someone Signing, I will think of you.  I will  always be grateful for the wonderful language, that you and I shared. Yet, I will be sad, because I can no longer share it with you. 

   I will look at your chair. I will no longer see you struggle, as you begin to stand.     

   But you have always been brave, and you will continue to stand, without me.

   I will be grateful, for you taught me so much about patience and courage, in the face of harsh struggle.

   I will do my best to remember, I was always at your side to encourage you.  I must have learned how to be brave, too. 


   I will miss your silence, and your Hands that spoke to me, about so many things.

  I will continue to speak with my Hands, because it is a part of me, and who I am, after all these years...


  I will wish you every happiness, because that is so very easy to do. I hope you will wish me the same.

   But, for now , dear Friend; I will be grateful for every Soul-Shard you leave behind.

   Carry mine with you, easy, as I do not want your memories of me, to become a burden.

   And always remember; I am your Friend.

   I will never forget that you are my Friend ~ Forever.

                                                 Alicia O'Hara c.
                                                                  Written 3 December, 2011
                                                                 Posted on 17 February, 2016 
                                               ~Beannaichte'
                                                                       
                                                                                                  A.O'.C.
~To Dean: Tomorrow, is your Birthday. I wish you every happiness, on your Special Day, and for each new day, that is yet to come. ~ May Our Lord continue to hold you in the Palm of His mighty Hand ~ Forever!  ~ Happy Birthday! ~ 3 December, 2011
                                                                     ~ Bhur Chara,
                                                                      Beannaichte'          

"Safe at Anchor"

Here  I  stand  Alone  again

Reaching  out  Across  the Room 

Quietly  the  Sun's  gone Down

The  Sailors  Seek  the  Harbour

Look  at  Us  Sailing  in

Decks  Awash  but  still  Afloat

And  now  the Winds  come Up

To  Rock  us  on the Water 

In  the  Calm  before  the Storm

Sunny  Days  and  Smoother Waters

When  we  Hit  the  Seventh  Wave

We  Found  a  Line  and Caught  Her

Look  into  my  Eyes 

Let  me See  Where you"ve  been Sailing

Like  you,  I  have  Felt  the Storm

And  Heard  the wild  Waves Wailing

Steer  Clear of  the  Shore

The Coast  is  Rough  and Rocky

It's  the  Deepest  Channel  that  Runs  Most  True

The  Brightest  Stars  that  Mark  Her

Steady  as  she  Goes

There's  No  Turning  Back  the  Sailor

With  the Ship  on Course  and  the  Sea  winds  Fair

There's  No  Need  to Fail  her

Riding  out  the  Storm

Like  a  Ship  Safe  At  Anchor

Waiting  out  the  Long  Voyage

Round  the Cape  of  Hope  will  take  her.


<<+>>

~Kate Wolf

U.S.A.

~Beannaichte'
11 February, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

"Beannacht/Blessing"

On the day when the weight

deadens on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes freeze

behind the gray window

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue,

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of the ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the Nourishment of the Earth be yours,

may the Clarity of Light be yours,

may the Fluency of the Ocean be yours,

may the Protection of the Ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow wind

wash these words around you,

an invisible cloak

to Mind your Life.

~ John O'Donohue

(1956-2008)

Ireland 

~ From; "Echoes of Memory"

~ Beannaichte'
4 February, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

"A Poet's Death is His Life"

              The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth, while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste to the gardens. There in the suburb stood an olde hut heavily laden with snow and on the verge of falling.  In a dark recess of that hovel was a poor bed in which a dying youth was lying, staring at the dim light of his oil lamp, made to flicker by the entering winds.  He was a man in the Spring of life who foresaw fully that the peaceful hour of freeing himself from the clutches of life was fast nearing.  He was awaiting Death's visit gratefully, and upon his pale face appeared the dawn of Hope; and on his lips a sorrowful smile; and in his eyes Forgiveness.

              He was  a Poet perishing from hunger in the city of the living rich.  He was placed in the earthy world to enliven the heart of man with his beautiful and profound sayings.  He was a noble Soul, sent by the Goddess of Understanding to soothe and make gentle the human Spirit.  He gladly bade the cold earth farewell without receiving a smile from its strange occupants.

              He was breathing his last and had no one at his bedside save the oil lamp, his only companion, and some parchments upon which he had inscribed his heart's feeling.  As he salvaged the remnants of his withering strength he lifted his arms Heavenward, he moved his eyes hopelessly, as if wanting to penetrate the ceiling in order to see the stars from behind the veil of the clouds.

              And he said, "Come,oh beautiful Death; my Soul is longing for you.  Come close to me and unfasten the irons of Life, for I am weary of dragging them.  Come, oh sweet Death; and deliver me from my neighbors who looked upon me as a stranger because I interpret  to them the language of the Angels.  Hurry, oh peaceful Death, and carry me from the multitudes who left me in the dark corner of oblivion because I do not bleed the weak as they do.  Come, oh gentle Death, and enfold me under your white wings, for my fellowmen are not in want of me.  Embrace me, oh Death, full of love and mercy, let your lips touch my lips which never tasted a mother's kiss, nor touched a sister's cheeks, nor caressed a sweetheart's fingertips. Come and take me, my beloved Death."

             Then, at the bedside of the dying Poet appeared an Angel who possessed a supernatural and divine beauty, holding in her hand a wreath of lilies.  She embraced him and closed his eyes so he could see no more, except with the eye of his Spirit. She impressed a deep and long and gently withdrawn kiss that left an Eternal smile of fulfillment upon his lips.  Then the hovel became empty and nothing was left save parchments and papers which the Poet had strewn about with bitter futility.

              Hundreds of years later, when the people of the city arose from the diseased slumber of ignorance and saw the Dawn of Knowledge, they erected a monument in the most beautiful garden of the city and celebrated  a feast every year in honour of that Poet, whose writings had freed them.  Oh, how cruel is man's ignorance.

~Kahlil Gibran

~Beannaichte'
2 February, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com

"Carrots, Eggs, and Coffee"

 A Carrot, an Egg, and a cup of Coffee... You will never look at a cup of Coffee the same, again.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about how things were so hard for her.  She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen.  She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a boil.

In the first she placed Carrots, in the second she placed Eggs, and in the last she placed ground Coffee beans.  She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners.  She fished the Carrots out and placed them in a bowl.  She pulled the Eggs out, and placed them in a bowl.  Then she ladled the Coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, `Tell me what you see?'

`Carrots, Eggs, and Coffee,' she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the Carrots.  She did and noted that they were soft.  The mother then asked the daughter to take an Egg and break it.  After pulling off the shell,

she observed the hard boiled Egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the Coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted the rich aroma.  The daughter then asked,`What does this mean, Mother?'

Her mother explained that each one of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water.  Each reacted differently.  The Carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting.  However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.  The Egg had been fragile.  Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior.  But after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.  The Coffee beans were unique, however.  After they were in the water, they changed the water.

`Which are you?', she asked her daughter. `When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a Carrot, an Egg, or a Coffee bean?'

Think of this: Which am I?  Am I the Carrot that seems Strong, but with pain and adversity, do I  wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the Egg that starts with a malleable Heart, but changes with the heat?  Did I have a fluid Spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship, or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?  Does my shell look the same, but on the Inside am I bitter and tough, with a stiff Spirit and a hardened Heart?

Or am I like the Coffee bean?  The Bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings you pain.  When the water gets hot it releases the fragrance and the flavor.  If you are like the Bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.  When the hour is the darkest and trials are the greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do You handle adversity?  Are you a Carrot, an Egg, or a Coffee Bean?

~Unknown

~Beannaichte'

20 January, 2016
 

~May you have enough Happiness to make you Kind and Compassionate~enough Trials to make you Strong~ enough Sorrow to keep you Sensitive to Others~and enough Hope to keep you Happy!

"The Realm Untenanted"

While starvation is the ultimate powerlessness and the 

antithesis of survival, hunger strike is a remarkable vehicle   

for gaining political clout. It is entirely disarming. The spectacle 

of a human being who is wasting away physically for the sake

of an ideal is one that approaches the godly. The hunger strike,

an ancient Irish form of protest, found a ritual expression in 1981, when ten men, in utter discipline, fasted to their deaths in a

Northern Ireland jail. The way in which the fasts began, staggered

as they were, felt like a silent procession up to a great door,

one man standing to the side as the next was presented.

This was the door of institutional justice, but became a door into the dark, a dark that the men seemed to illumine as they entered.

It was, for me, one of the most profoundly affecting periods

of the Northern Irish conflict, and one that, when remembered,

arouses feelings of admiration, annoyance, and guilt.

Starvation always possesses an accusatory quality, whether

it is in the face of a Kenyan woman who glares at the camera lens,

or in the emaciated appearance of Lavinia Kerwick, whose anorexia seemed to me to be a form of rage against a system that

 would send the man who raped her back onto the streets before

she had a chance to recover. In Katie Donovan's poem,

"Strike", the aggrieved hunger striker will feed the community

with the remains of her body. Her physical disintegration will

give life to her sense of justice, and give flesh to her ideal.

A fasting person may deepen my faith in human

 transcendence;the first images I saw of early nineteenth-century

Famine victims sent me into denial.  I still remember the moment.

It was in school, and I may have been around eight. I opened

a page of my History book and saw a drawing of a 

starving woman and her child. Until then, I had been under the impression that only black people died of hunger, and

the only black people I had ever seen were small faces on

the sides of charity boxes.  They were black babies, half-toy,

half-human,who lived in some land suspended between fantasy

 and the earth. Looking back, I amaze myself with the efficiency that I deployed in blocking all reaction to the picture.

But when I sat down to write a poem called "Easter-1995-

Hunger", it was the first image that returned.

...a woman and her daughter in a history book,

their bones pointing out from their flesh.

They weren't even black.

And I don't want to see my face,

I don't want to stroke the bones of my disgrace.

That I could be the one to die

that I'd have the power to destroy...

~ From "Irish Spirit";

Maighread Medbh

Ireland

~ Beannaichte'

13 January, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

"Sweet Love"

Sweet Love,
 don't deny me just a hand to hold
I may not always be the one who sees
I find myself blinded, from time to time
Reaching out for someone who can take the lead
And in my weariness I've tried to cry-
Though my eyes are dry,
I've cried inside.



Sweet Love,
let me Lay myself Beside you
And  Listen to your breathing til it slows
 Long enough to Dream a Vision of my Life
Wrapped up in the Gentle Winds that blow
A Vision of a Life lived long, ago-
I see it,
 though the Lights are low.
 


Sweet Love,
like the Leaves that fall
The Scenes go Drifting by my eyes
I remember Holding you
Telling you, it will be all right
You know the Road looks Straight, from far Away
But it Turned into a Blind curve-
And I've Lost my Way.
 


Sweet Love,
let me Lay Beside you~
Wrapped up in the Gentle Winds that blow...

 

~Kate Wolf
U.S.A.

~Beannaichte'
 5 January, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com