I hadn’t expected it and maybe it was the change from the slate blue lake to the closeness of the green of the island, but once I set foot upon Innisfallen, I knew it was a special place. I wonder if, as I suspect,  it is inherently spiritual or if the centuries of learning, contemplative practice and service make it a place more spiritual than most.

I wonder if that is possible, that any one place can be more alive than others. I doubt it.

I suspect very strongly that Innisfallen is inherently spiritual, but I also suspect very strongly that the years of work that happened there make that spirituality more available to the dull senses of the all-too-common and limited human.

At any rate, as soon as I set foot upon the island, I knew. It was like seeing a lovers face after a long absence, but it was also the thrill of new love; the excitement of seeing new life and knowing that that life is surfacing from somewhere deep within the cosmos, emerging here for whatever reason. I knew it, and I was thankful for knowing it.

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I stood facing west once and watched a mountain dance, watched it change slowly, from the first timid breaking of light to the final remoteness and inevitable return of darkness – absorption and radiation… green slopes upwards to the grey summit, spotted here and there with green. During the long dance of the mountains day, the clouds came and went, changing the intensity of light, the intensity of green or grey or white.

By midday the colors, vibrant in the absorption of light, delighted in their creativity and re-imagined the mountain into being. All too soon though, the intensity of light waned and the mountain and I passed from vibrancy into hushed waiting. The early mountain evening came and when the shadow of the mountain at last overtook me, I found myself still waiting, longing to recede with the green into the dark where there are no colors, only a darker shade of black to remind me of their presence.

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Low flight Wingtips touching Water of a mountain lake
Lovers below the surface at last embrace
no-need for air and stars and moon reflecting the pattern
from the cave stone floor of what can never be seen
Naked eyes are here Seeing clouds dancing to songs of crickets and shamans show Flowing mountains
of eagle wings

Serpents float to the surface and become lovers
gasping in the sacred scream and an arm around me
Smoke filled room and chanting tongues of safety
and of space and of falling through the womb
and falling through may the gods be with us in the center
I searched

I searched
the universe for You welcome

welcome

to the otherworld

my friend.

Clouds Coming Down

And counting days forgotten,

I dedicate this place

with gifts from far away -

gifts I don’t want to give.

Is that why at night

when old fog betrays

steps of darkness in the meadow,

the swaying of young birch,

and the rushing of the stream

conflict the motionless,

meaningless hand of time?

Moving differently if at all,

I see curves of the beloved,

along hills and contours of trees -

the sighing of clouds coming down.

I’ll be leaving again soon,

in the silence of uncertainty,

but now, on the edge of fear,

an innocent star accompanies me,

across the high horizon -

I watch it every night,

knowing I will leave.

So counting nights forgotten,

I dedicate this place

with gifts from far away -

places I will never see.

It was a grey and windy day, and only the first memory is a memory.

The sound of layers of jackets smacking in the wind, the moisture of wind-torn eyes on my cheek – or was it sideways rain? No, the sideways rain was with the Cailleach. She and the red haired kid in shorts looking sideways at the fekkin toorists were a day still far away, yet to come.

Another time, maybe. Here it was only me and the wind. And the tears that were not tears.

A grey and windy day, and I’d already waited five minutes.

Will this be the last time for me at the Hill of Tara? The last time I will stand upon the Mound of Hostages?

Only the first memory is a memory, all subsequent memories are memories of the memory, and now I am not standing upon the mound, I am cowering within it.

Cowering within it, with only the shaft of the sunrise once a year to tease me with thoughts of freedom and of me.

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Her Name

The desert accepted me, a traveler from far away
and after seven days,
forgave me, as she knew my thirst
in her heart, and with her thoughts, she spoke
and sent a breeze without pride
of the ability to cool man and beast.

I, knower of so many winds, was taken aback
by that new breeze,
as along the sheer cliffs of my mind
it found its way, strange but known,
and while it seeped into the cold hard shell,
I began to weep.

Briefly but deeply
we hold those winds that change
the fabric of our being, but only
if we hold them for others loved,
and those as yet unloved.

It is on new winds that beauty rides,
new life and new ways
of passing from soul to soul, so
even though I am not sure
of the scent it carries or of the rain,
I welcome this new wind into my heart.
On its way to her, I release it at once.
It chases the sand from my eyes,
paints the hills in green, and

at the oasis of her love that night
I saw her form and knew at last
her name – compassion.