Saint Brigid of Kildare

Saint Brigid of Kildare

"Holy Ground"

              I sit now looking down a valley to Liscannor Bay, and the sweep of the stone walls, the patchwork green, is calming and wonderful.  This is what I do when I have work to concentrate on, and I know why I chose this landscape.  When I was a child in the Mississippi Delta area of Arkansas, I sat for hours looking across the flat sweep of cotton fields-looking to the horizon.  To me this was a place where everything was possible-a magic world based on thoughts and wishes.  I've always felt the landscape dictated this; that everything was possible because the world was big enough.  Growing up I began to place a fervent emphasis on Freedom (which I equated with physical freedom), and I developed a need to move freely and a deep need for wide landscapes. I equated them with that moment of timeless potential.  The mind resting on emptiness-all things possible-the landscape of Creation (creative readiness).  This is an issue now in modern Ireland, the life of the imagination and Freedom of place, set against economic needs and economic identity. For the artist, the visionary, a new way of seeing must acknowledge the first and transcend 

the latter.

              As a child, I had a recurring mental image of a woman standing on a cliff-top dressed in nineteen- century clothes, the wind blowing her hair and lifting the ends of her long dress.  She was searching, and I knew that she was searching for would never be in sight.  This image fixed in my mind as  a symbol of Ireland, although as third-generation Irish I had no close ties and knew little about the country at that time. The melancholy figure, recognisable to me even as a child so symbolic of the loss of home and land, was a marker for me of my own loss of my mother and of suffering-a solitary figure in a landscape-the pain of loss that struck so deeply and formed so markedly much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century of Ireland. This is not to say that I believe anyone in Ireland now wishes to return to loss and struggle, but it is crucial that the Spirit of a Nation, its History and Wisdom that has sustained it, blend with and enhance a society's evolving consciousness.

              We are born to a land in a way totally other than our received history.  Our place on this earth is the same for us as it was for countless others-we, as they, must make our own understanding. We are, in fact, connected not to the past, but to Life.  Our inherited rituals of the land are now self-discovery-involving looking to the earth for Wisdom and finding a core response within ourselves.

Jessie Lendennie

Ireland

~Beannaichte'
25 January, 2015

@beannaichte.twitter.com

" The Key of Lonely"

~ She changes everything she touches,

and everything she touches Changes.

~ Carol P. Christ

 

The mercury continues to drop

It seems that Nature suddenly changed Her mind

As the temperature continues to plummet

The wind cries as if mourning and olde friend

It is an Ancient Lament; crossing all ages

It calls me to a place of muted patterns and colours-

Tonight, in the Key of Lonely.

The wind has quieted

 Reserving its energy for the colder days, yet to follow

 Inside  me, something resonates with this transitioning

Perhaps it is the memories of the years lived on the Plains

 A place that can be brutal , then kind, in the turning of an hour

Yet, it is forthright in its duplicity-

Played in the Key of Lonely.

The world is such a big and complex place

Here, Life is more straight-forward 

The moon and stars are seen clearly on a cold night

I never become tired of touching them with my gaze

The Constellations still hold the same Marvel for me

As when my Mother Gave me their names-

 While Preparing me, for the Key of Lonely.

She gave me so many treasures to store in my mind

 Teaching me, what can never be Lost; or Taken

She reassured me of the Goodness of Life, and Equanimity in Death

Her words Continue to warm me, on cold nights

Her infectious laugh, Fixed in memory

Reminding me, I am not alone on nights-

Played in the Key of Lonely.

In my Dreams she still Sustains me

 Oftentimes, pointing a Direction to follow

 Her Strength came from Facing the Harsh winters

 Struggle became Mapped on the terrain of her Heart

My Mother Knew the Harshness, and Beauty, of the Plains in winter

She understood, Grace and Dignity are often achieved in the Inner Landscapes-

In the Key of Lonely.

~ Alicia O'Hara c.

 Written;12 November, 2013
Posted; 22 January, 2015

@beannaichte.twitter.com

"Lines"

I   want to be Free  from the Noise of the Grind

So  I  Live on  the Outskirts  of  the back of my Mind

With  a Stong  hand a Song man and God on my side

I'm Writing  my  Freedom  one Line  at a Time. 

On  the Highway  to Heaven  that Runs  through  my Mind

A yellow Line Stretches  out  into  the Night

Broken  in Places  it's  my Guiding Light

So  I'm Writing  my  Freedom  a Line at  a Time.

I'm  Walking  a  fine  Line between Wrong  and  Right

I   can Live with  the  Problems of  this Day and Time

Consider me Lucky, because  I'll  be all Right 

In  my Mind  I'm  Having  a beautiful  Life.

I'm  Lost  in the Feelings of  this Heart  of  Mine

In  Search  for the Border of  InfiniteTime

I  find  Peace of  mind  in the Songs and  their Rhymes

I'm Writing  my Freedom  one Line  at a Time.

~Waylon Jennings

U.S.A. 

~Beannaichte'
21 January, 2015 

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

"Merry-Go-Round Child"

Now your love is but a legend,

I would have liked to live on;

You came and left, like Wind-Blown Sand,

Just a legend, everything else is gone.

You sowed in fields of pleasure, 

While I reaped the fields of Pain;

You were happy, when the sun was shining,

I was Sad, when I walked in the rain.

I may never know your harvest,

Smiling with someone else in the sun;

I wonder if she's also gleaning the fields,

A Barren legend;
 where the harvest is none.

It's taken a lot time to realise,

I'm tired of reaping these same olde fields;

Where the harvest is nothing
 but Wind-Blown Sand,

And a Wounded legend;
 only time can heal.

You see, you are like Wind-Blown Sand,

And I didn't want to admit the sting;

It all seems sort of crazy now,

A Merry-Go -Round Child,
 with a tarnished ring.

If ever you come my way, again,

It's just a Legend that you've left behind;

I'm no longer that Child, of the Merry-Go-Round,

 I don't need tarnished rings

or Wind -Blown Sand.

~ Alicia O'Hara c.
 

~ Beannaichte'
20 January, 2015

@beannaichte.twitter.com

Sunday of week 2 of Ordinary Time – Readings

Sunday of week 2 of Ordinary Time – Readings

Masterless Men - Nancy Spain