For ever and for ever when I move

It is so hard to give ourselves permission to rest. Even in the depths of winter, as the natural world around us slows to a slumber, we march on, relentless.

Well, not I, not this year. I have been in a state of hibernation this winter. I was so sick last summer, I feel it necessary to reserve my energy in these times of darkness. I empty, and prepare for the coming of the light. I take pleasure in my body being indoors. I listen to the voices around me and inside me. I listen to my kids race up and down the hallway as they scream and play, watch our emotions fire and fade, and settle in. I give thanks for the rain and the cold and the moments of rest by the hearth, as the storms beat over our cottage and out to sea. I soak my bones our old enamel tub and rely upon arnica, lavender, tulsi and nettle. I envision a hedge of rosemary to encircle us, with a wall of roses. In the beautiful bursts of sunshine between the storms, we stretch our legs, run and scream and breathe the fresh cold air deep into our lungs. I scrub, I chop, I sweep, I stretch, I sing, I dream, I cook with renewed vigor, I bake. I wait. I imagine ways to transform my surroundings and welcome my dreams to nestle in softly around me, as I truly nestle into the wildness of this landscape. I watch my little ones draw and climb and jump, listen to them laugh, and am amazed. I am in awe and in wonder at this, my life. I give thanks. I sit in the cold, my hunger beside me, and instead of resist, instead of succumbing to fear or rage or depression, I push myself to slow down, to give thanks. I meditate on the warmth. I listen carefully for the echo of music on the winds, and welcome my hungry heart to grow.

We run through the woods and they are empty, but for us; I can nearly hear the echo of the ancients around us. Slowing down opens doorways to the past, and with each decision to give myself permission to rest, to move back into my aching body, I can feel my resonance deepening. The fear is fading now into the shadows, traces remain but its stronghold over me is lost. The death of one self gives way to the birth of another, truer. I welcome and depend upon new allies, such as Cedar, and deeper still, as Redwood, whose red bark glows against the swollen winds of winter. And I give thanks.

Redwood in small grove, Courtown Woods

High Cross of Kildare, Courtown Woods

I was first welcomed into Bridgid McLoughlin’s charming Wexford country house, an old backpacker’s bed and breakfast—of which one wall is rumoured to be four hundred years old—following the tails of my children’s Halloween costumes. We had prearranged for a neighbourly trick or treat, and I happily followed my little ghost and lion into the sitting room to say a warm hello. I was immediately impressed by the carefully curated collection of artwork on the walls.

As we moved back into the conservatory, my heart swelled at greeting the expansive painting hanging on the wall. It is not just the size of the painting that is impressive, but the depth and beauty of the thick oil strokes that truly captured my heart. I was drawn into the scene and felt the room around me fade away, enchanted by the painted sky over the harbour at dawn. It is evident that Bridgid is no stranger to the sea, as she so skilfully captures the essence of the waves.

Inspired by her love for her family and the rich wildness of the landscape of her native Ireland, Bridgid’s paintings explore the rugged relationship between rock and water, life and death. Her studio and home are filled with breathtaking oil-painted scenes and it was truly an honour to meet with her in her beautiful home to see her expansive collection of decades of work, even while many of her paintings have been sold throughout the years in exhibits and galleries.

“Any colour I see, I can mix it,” Bridgid tells me proudly, a truth that resonates in her collection. “There is no need to buy a whole box of colours when you’re able to blend them.” Hers is an inherited skill, learned from growing up in a family of skilled craftsmen and wood carvers, and beside a brother with a reputation for mixing coveted colours. Her subject matter varies from the bright, cheerful hues of flowers— honest meditations of her own gorgeous garden— to the complex and layered tones that compose the colours of the coast and the sea, to the warm, charming palette of rustic country scenes depicting chickens and turnips and the labours of the farmhands of old.

“I don’t paint for money, and I don’t paint to teach,” she tells me as she gracefully directs me to the Gorey Community School for art classes, my eagerness at her expertise overflowing despite myself. Bridgid is the depiction of a true artist: humbling, inspiring, and one whose work speaks for itself.

Stored on a table in her studio are a pile of her daughter Clodagh’s sketches, which were left behind, no longer needed; page after page of beautiful bouquets of bright flowers whose confident brush strokes and dazzling colours show that the artistic apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the tree.

We close the door to the studio and resume our conversation in the kitchen, where Bridgid turns her skilful hands back to chopping blanched almonds. A bowl of whiskey-soaked currants wait on the table. One Christmas pudding sits complete and wrapped in foil, another fresh from the oven, resting on the table in its beautiful brown paper wrap, awaiting delivery to her children.

I made my way out of the house and past the roses, still in bloom, that line the gravel path back to the road. The morning’s bright sun has given way to wind and rain, as it so often does these days, and I pull my jacket collar up, comforted by the knowledge that just down the road the waves crash against the shore, and crash against the shore, and crash ever more.

In this time of grief
Let your family and friends
Like a boat that is out at sea
Being held by the waves
Carry you, carry you, carry you

As your father carried you
When you were young
Light of joy flashing in his eye
Oh gentle wonder
In loving amazement
At the gifts we are given
The time we have had
All the precious moments held
In the beauty of this life together
Which can never be taken from you.

Hold your memories close to your heart
Like a fresh bouquet of bright flowers
Dried and tucked into your favourite places
Admired in the light
Of the summer sun
In the fading day

Where that warm embrace
Of father and daughter
Holds you still

And holds you still
And wraps its tender love around your heart
and carries you, carries you, carries you
Even as he is carried
Gently on ahead of you

Hand in hand
With those you have loved

Hand in hand
As they go on before

Hand in hand
Gently on ahead.

Written for Bridget Kavanagh on the passing of her father Tom Stafford of Gorey, Co. Wexford. All who knew him were better for it. God bless.

I never before had reason to say
That you are a star
In the constellation of my life
And without you
This vast wasteland
Will be a much darker place.

Fight for your life
Fight for the ground you stand on
Fight for the air you breathe
As though the lives
of everyone and everything
You ever loved
and ever loved you
In the sweetest moment of loving
The gentle perfection of that moment
Suspended, twinkling in time
Depended on it.

Depended on your survival
Depended on your very existence
Depended on you
Depending on me
Depending on you.

That is, my friend:
I never before had reason to say
That I love you so, don’t go.

Fight, fight for your life
And if it is too late
Then find your feet
Hold your ground
Cradle your heart
Gently beneath your crown
Take a deep breath
Nourish your bones
And sink your war-worn body into the warmth

Of all the memories
The mad mixing mass
The vibrant frequency of all
the experiences you created
the people you touched
the music you channeled
the life you led.

And know that even after death
The light of a star shines on
Shines on, shine on
In the hearts of those you loved
Hated
and irritated.

In anticipation of Christmas
My darling child
Has become an insomniac
Staying up all hours to sticker
His books
And waking in the night;

Singing carols,
Arranging gifts around the tree,
Laughing like Santa, with a ho-ho-ho

Dreaming of footsteps on the roof

Dancing
In anticipation
Of the joy, the surprise

His first remembering
And this time shared
His memories of Christmas.

I wonder occasionally
If I will survive

Hearing his little voice in the night
As it breaks the silence
Like an electric shock to my system:

Mama, mama —

Just as I am drifting into the abyss
The sweet darkness of sleep
And there
A little voice
Calling me.

But I try to remember
The magic
Of the Christmas lights around the tree
The sacred stillness
After hours and avoiding sleep
Bridging the worlds between,
A child in the world of his parents’ making

The beauty of the world
Unfolding
And magic all around.

It occurred to me this morning as I was on my morning walk, crisp air biting at my nose and the crunch of brown and fading leaves beneath my feet, as I looked up in wonder at the blazing leaves on the trees, lit against the brightest blue sky: Autumn is the season of sensual pleasure.

It’s in the way the air greets you when you take a deep breath, catching you ever so slightly off guard and challenging you to breathe deeper. Hold on a minute; take another breath, wasn’t that cold? It’s so refreshing, it wakes up something deep inside. Some stirring of childhood that thrills at the change in the season, that marvels at the sudden difference in the world.

The smell of summer has faded and is crunching against your shoes, worn out and cast away and beginning to decay, becoming compost to rot between the roots of trees in the darkness of the winter months. And the sound it makes as it crunch – crunch – crunches is so delightful, so simple, so beautiful. It happens again and again. It is so satisfying that each time your foot takes a step that lands on bare earth, you look to correct yourself by stepping out of step, to step again on the leaves. Crunch. The sound makes you relax. Crunch, crunch… crunch. It’s rhythmic, it begins to create a musician of you, it tickles at your senses and makes you want to dance. Even when upset, the very action of the resoluteness of the crunch is so deeply satisfying.

And then, of course, a pleasure greater to Eve than hanging out nude with her lover in the garden for all of eternity: the first bite of that perfect flesh. There, on the gnarled lichened  branch, a blushing apple. The fruit of all temptation. For months now, each and every time we pass those twisted apple trees, the apples call to me. And every time we stop to search those gnarled arms, or lately just to root among the leaves on the ground in search of any remaining fallen, I am humbled. The first bite of apple fresh off a tree is so beautiful. The way the peel resists and then gives, the sound of the crunch, the splash of juice. That clear, cold taste that instantly nourishes. And then the second bite, and the third, and every bite that follows. It’s tart, it’s sweet. It’s complete. It compliments the breeze. It pays homage to the heat of the summer. It sparkles against the clear blue sky and it laughs in the sunshine. It makes me wonder how I could bother to eat apples at any other time of year. I fall in love and it is weightless. I breathe deeply and I am moved. I look up at the fire in the sky that dances on the branches of the trees and I lose myself in that blue, endless blue, and then I am pulled into the twisting spiral of the falling leaves that dance with the wind and it is such a pleasure, it is my pleasure, to be here now. To be incarnate. To have life. I breathe deeply and my soul gives thanks.

These days my evenings are spent with my little ones, hunting for the illusive doorway that guards their passage between wake and sleep. Time twists and turns, hours vanishing in our search. Elusive, evasive, how their little bodies scream and scramble from bed to bed, in and out and over and under, onto the floor and into the air they dance their song of resistance. Howls echo off the walls, screams and laughter crash and resonate through the air. Experimentations in sound, bouncing vibrations and curious faces. Giggles abound, mirroring between the two of them, and daring songs in tiny voices that warm my listening heart with wonder. Energy, boundless bouncing energy, bouncing, banging on the wall, banging, bouncing off the walls: Where does all this energy come from? And who summoned it so, at bedtime?

Where is the sweetness of the night that lures our softened eyes to sleep, gentle, love, that calls to us? Darkness has already drawn the light out of the room, and yet it’s in and out of bed and into bed once more. I call to their minds to soothe their small bodies as we recollect memories of our days and slowly welcome the night that surrounds us: moonlight and creatures of the night, we call to you to soothe us. We sing to you. We open to the night, and leave the glare of the light of day behind. Details begin to shift and blur, the energy dissipates as we drift into another frame of mind. Gentle now, for these little hearts that love so freely, how they hate to leave this world of the waking and drift away into sleep. Mother’s voice is singing now. Softly, softly, with kisses that shore’d us onto the bank of sleep, drifting into the mists that shroud the mind, heads drift gently onto the pillows one final time, little fingers that curl around small creature comforts and then gently, gently, eyes that close, how softly do they drift away.

It happens at the same moment, ere they go. I can tangibly feel the moment that sleep settles into the room. It is there with us. One moment we are calling and calling and it never seems to come, and then suddenly it is here, settled amidst us, and they are asleep and the day is over. A few whimpers of a dream, perhaps, else all is quiet. The warm, soft rise and fall of our breaths within our bodies. The gentle glow of the night light in the corner. The serenity of peaceful sleeping bodies and the warm hum that resonates between us. Other-worldly, within this world. There is beauty here. Something sacred, something still. Slumber that holds space for dreams, in the warm comfort of blankets. Good night, sleep tight, my darling ones, the moon is on the rise.

After a summer of blazing sun and scorched gardens, the rains slowly begin to settle in again over the land. Stormy clouds lay heavy and threatening in the skies, making our bodies languid. These days in these early years we are laying of the foundation of these selves we want to be. The pieces fall together like Tetris: odd chunks here and there, awkward and misused and unsure before suddenly the magical connection is made and everything fits. It slowly becomes easier. Understanding is made. Relationships are difficult, and staying in them is harder still. Boundaries aren’t just set in stone: The edges are painstakingly discovered through fault and error, lost in the mist until through some painful overstep they are definitively laid. Never again, we say, only to feel the ground beneath our feet change once again as the people we are, the people we once were, and the people we said we would be slowly shifts and changes. We catch our footing. We lose it again. We make compromise, and settle back into love. For self, and lover. Mother, and child. One to the other. Always in relationship.

After the second baby I could understand the parameters of my mind, the shrouding of the mists that descended upon my consciousness. Some clarity allowed me to follow each thread until there, just there: a cold stone wall lay silent, blocking any further thought. Here is the end of the road. Here my mind meets stone, cold to the touch and unmovable, solid beneath the mists. Something must give. A retreat must be made, back to the warmth of physical touch, back to the hearth of home. Back to the familiar and the loving, back to the self. What is unnecessary is no longer accessible. Perhaps by means of survival, a new physical code: a way of remembering how to live. Within.

I alone passed through that portal, in isolation at the edge of the world, screaming into the shoulder of my lover as the drawbridge, rickety iron, metal and stone, fire and mists, flesh and bone, was opened. When I looked for god I found only silence, bathed in light. One quiet moment to rest gently, panting, until the moment is over and the time has come, the body beckons and it is time to push. Push with all your being, with a groan that emanates from your deepest soul. Twist, and fall. Hear those miraculous newborn screams replace these mothered moans; we are here, we are here, we are here. Another baby placed in my arms. Another tiny soul.

And from this point, the blockages begin to free up. Energy begins to flow anew. The body is slow, there are still shadows and echos that reverberate and confuse and hold us back, but progress is being made. There is a warm vibration within that longs to strengthen its resonance, that slowly and surely is finding ground. Compromise, and love, and humour to save the day. One step forward. No longer stepping back, find a way to hold steady. The time has come to grow, let your roots spread deeper as you find your way back home, back to yourself.

The days grow shorter and it won’t be long before we’ll depend on the flicker of fire to carry us through the night. Bare feet in the grass and the summer is passing. The shimmering glint of sunshine sparkles on the waves and the sound of summer expands longingly over the beach before, with a splash, one more dive, one more laugh, one more shake of the head as the salt splashes off your body and you emerge from the water, body cool in the heat of the day and once again, one more time, hurry up please, please, it’s time to go.

Standing on the slip together
With you in my arms
Watching the waves thunder as they
Draw in from the sea, heavy rolling
To crash with exultation against shore
Before dissipating into bubbles,
Dancing on the surface of the deep.

The seagulls fly over the waves
Small heads craning side to side,
Wings planing gently against the wind,
Their cries echo distant to greet us.

Across the water the shadows
Of the land shrouded in mist.

I feel a tenderness
Melting softly like butter
Across freshly baked bread.
Not that shit margarine
Not a loaf from the shop
But something I kneaded myself
With a dash of pride
From my own two hands.

The mist turns to rain &
We walk home again.

We pull in, spot Mick standing beside his car, and are lucky enough to find parking nearby. The buzz of the arcade rings in the background as people bustle to and from the little shops on the harbor, takeaways and ice cream stands and souvenir shops beside the B&B’s, historic hotels and immutable pubs. The flow of holidayers is constant, bustling, bursting. Beneath it all is the clang of the harbor as the wind whips the sails and the boats rock back and forth, anchored in place. Our hair whips around our faces and we greet each other with hopeful expectation.

It seems comical that we are here, in a dried out, relentless sort of way. That we three be standing here, tossed so far out of rhythm [normalcy, standard] that we now meet here, in this parking lot: so stripped of our creature comforts as to be searching for a genuine spark in the midst of such inanity. It seems that what was once there is now so indescribably lost, lost with the chaotic disorder of Mick’s house, lost with the last notes of song that was our two souls rising together in the flames, striving to ascend, to aspire, to rise above and leave behind.

And now, one pang of loss which resonates all the more deeply: the slender beauty of the neck, the warm glow of the enchantingly thin rosewood body, the laughing magic of the moon. The aged scent that filled the room upon being taken out of the box, the spirit that danced at his fingertips whilst being played. The love that flickered between us, the vision that we shared. Now gone. The heart twists, the soul guts. The heart guts, the soul twists, the brain retracts in horror.

We weren’t immediately aware of what had been done, the meaning of the sacrifice that had been made. How one brash step made in a moment of weakness could cast us so far out. Realization happens suddenly, wrenching the mind out of rhythmic illusion and harshly into reality. A cold splash of water. The sudden feeling of falling. One guitar for another guitar. The wrong tool for the right tool, or so it seemed at the time. A mathematical calculation presenting an impulsive solution, fueled by the physics of desire. Interference from others creates conflict in the sphere of self, muddying the water, loosening the grip, leading back again to loss. History repeats itself, a different sequence but casting the same shadow, swallowing us whole.

So here we are, standing in the parking lot of the suicide resort. Searching for redemption. Holding off our despair. A family of five walks past us one by one and into the arcade. Then two teenage parents pushing a buggy pass by, where the small child holds an ice cream cone that’s dripping steadily down his arm. He doesn’t mind. He seems to enjoy it all the more for the mess. Mick shuffles through the pile of instrument cases in the back of his 90’s blue Volkswagon, a choice selection from his expansive trove of vintage instruments. We wait to see what will happen.

We are here to see a 1950’s Gretsch guitar, a black rimmed sunburst. The hope and expectation is tangible, a tight ball of anticipation that gathers and glimmers in the air around us as Mick slides the case onto the roof of the car and opens it up. At the first glance of the guitar I can feel the anticipation vanish, instantly, quiet as a corpse. I see it in his face: the dimming glow in his eyes as his heart falls through his chest and into his sinking stomach. There is no promise of music from this instrument. It has passed through too many hands, it has seen too many years. Too much has been altered. There is no enticing whisper, no call, no echo of magic at all. It is silent. Silent as a shoebox. Useless as they come.

So we look politely at his other novelties and then move on our way, back to the car. Our motions are brushed with sadness, surrounded by silence. The realization of loss in a life bound by time and circumstance. Physical objects have the power to carry within them the essence of the heart; they can act as catalysts for the manifestation of the soul. Yet all things that are held will eventually be lost. We can only determine that each loss may serve to draw us closer again to the realization of our purpose. Or is that just the hopeful musing of an overactive ego? Do all things come full circle, is it just a matter of time?

As we make the slow drive home, it’s apparent that these are the final days of summer. The bustling streets have in them the bittersweet feeling of ending. It is the last weekend before school starts; both the beginning and the end. The seasons continue their rotation, summer falling once again to autumn’s allure.

So once again it’s back home for us, back to the cold kettle to fill with water to make a cup of tea, back to the cold hearth to make a spark that we may sit again beside the fire. To warm our bodies in an effort to stave off the darkness of night.