A spark in a long flat year
Rocking the rock, feeling held
It was a spark in a long flat year, a spear in a grey, grey sky….
Dear friends,
I am grateful for this day and you, I do not want to let you down. Have you ever felt the weight of it all on your shoulders? I am sure of it. I am sure of you. Sure that you have been experiencing enough of this life to know what grief and love feels like, and how it grows in you, on you.
It’s the tail end of June, and last week was sparkle, every thorn and quiver in every hedgerow heightened by its own display. After the precipice of solstice and an evening of cacao, sharing, kindness, openings and sadness in the company of gentle women in the homeland of East Clare, I went back to my twig house to bask in a blacked out sky.
Feeling like all was well for just that one eternal circle. Sitting on cushions and listening.
Circles have this impeccable ability to connect us when we sit in them. Perhaps because we match the energy of continents and oceans within them.
I didn’t know these kind creatures before this year. And when I reflect on the toil, isolation stress of living in a cluttered, dusty building site in March and April, barely knowing a soul and seeping in an emotional drain pool with the fresh grass and freedom of the now (a garden-full of growth, little sleep, no electricity but more life and a fresh pile of dry firewood) — I know that it is true, and not just some old ancient rite — the solstice brings clarity, light, and with that a certain comfort.
The day before the solstice I woke up 2am to sore thunder and rain, flashes of lightening from the bog flashing through the uncurtained cabin. It was like a spontaneous tropical rainstorm of Mexico or Indonesia. I walked outside 7am to 24 degree C heat almost forgetting I was in Ireland. There was a density in the air as the day wore on..
On the day of the solstice, I managed finally string some curtains up on the large window facing the day. Sometimes it takes a solstice to finally do these things.
To sit in ceremony on this old rock of ours and try not to let it spin too fast. Solstice pairs the exhaustion and burnout of the springing, shifting, sprouting months of March, April, and May with a need to be useful, stay awake and ‘on track’. And then there is lack. The summer, in its bright tired wonder, brings its own form of restless sleep.
Solstice — a spark in a flat grey year. The world turns again, and everything is at its peak. My garden is in its subtle beginnings and despite their meek stature the nasturtiums have released ruby red blooms. Nature has brought the abundance this year of anything, and all along the hedgerows we have been blessed by dog daisies, dog roses, wild roses, foxgloves, and now, as June slips into July — fireweed has arrived, and it foresees.
Fireweed foresees the unfolding. And we are already half-way through!
New Moon came Wednesday and all was well until it wasn’t. I lost a bunch of artworks and a pouch of precious shells, had an experience of shrinking, and allowed myself to feel small in someone’s presence. Not in a good way, a flat way. A way I have known before. A very subtle, significant way. And I know I so not alone in this. I also recognise my part to play in these situations, that we humans are fundamentally just energies engaging.
Aggression is a breed of thing that spears our edges, interrupts and jars and confuses, especially when it is directed, and especially when it comes from someone we once trusted, or have shared a deeper piece of ourselves with. Then it takes time to swim up to the surface again. A kind of why. And an ache somewhere very human. I know better than to let words and judgements inside me. But sometimes, in the moment, it’s much harder to let go.
Letting go, shedding. Let them be tears of peace.
Of course the soul lets go before the mind does. It takes the heart much longer. The reality is that these pains will keep coming back until we step inside a new world. The world of circles and shadows.
In my ‘right’ mind I may know not to crack under control, stares, shouts and condescension, and yet in my heart it hurts a little bit.
Another aspect of this process is circular.
A great mystic Sufi poet Rumi once said
/Return to the root
Of the root/
Well what root is below the root of the root? When I stuck bare roots into the soil I didn’t know their roots would grab the soil below the cardboard I had set down to stop weeds. I didn’t know they’d keep on chasing the underground, like spears into the sand. Where are they going, and how can they know they will find a better resource underneath?
I often return to Rumi when at a stuckness or precipice on life, or when I quite frankly haven’t anywhere else to turn.
/You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens/
Reading this is remembering.
The heart takes time, however. And it cannot be fixed, it can only be repaired and slowly.
What is your root? What is your spark?
Do they talk to each other, and grow?
This month was also the beautiful Moving Earth festival by Linda Schirmer, and I got to witness some incredible dance performances in the beautiful wild and rugged majesty of Connemara at Interface Inagh. Very grateful to be a part of it with my film Em-BOG-iment.
I also met so many incredible artists from around the lands and though it took 8 hours buses and lifts to get there and back from the hills of East Clare, it was worth it to see that Connemara Sun and feel that Earthy connection with everyone.
So midsummer it is, and will not always be.
I hope you are well this day and enjoying whatever it is that moves you on the earth.
For me I am trying to remember Rumi, to
return to the root
as it were,
And trying to remember that even when we have nothing we are home. There is so much infinity to be thankful for, and so little to be done about worry.
Have a beautiful day
Ailbhe
Xxxx