Dear friend,
I hope you are feeling lifted by the lengthening of the days, the currency of air and the rounding of May into spontaneous June.
It feels like only eternity since I have written on this here newsletter and every time away feels like a circle or a dream: one in which nothing and a thousand things happen, things I could never squish into a newsletter or form any sort of coherent written ‘sense’ from.
All I know is I’ve found routes, this month — escapes one might say. I’ve also taken bare roots and planted them directly into the earth — rudbeckia and rose. Both routes and roots were a means of escape. And hey, escape always helps.
Getting my phone drenched on a rain wrecked journey to the Red Tent women’s circle at my neighbours house, only to be welcomed by fires and chocolate, kind ears and sisters. Hitching in to town last minute on a Sunday and getting phone fixed when all the shops were closed except one who only opened for an hour by chance and meeting a new neighbour and friend in the process.
Collecting a poorly crow off the side of the road (a fellow hitch hiker) and taking him under our wings with a girl I’d met a few weeks ago, a friend and hermit like myself and wrapping him in swaddling clothes. A highly intelligent creature. We took him to the festival and he received much curiosity — the bird that cannot fly (yet).
Camping in a stable near Kilkee on the land of a childhood friends mother and her two ponies. Finding a field. Feeling grounded for a moment in a long time. Jumping off Doolin pier in the blazing sun.
Red doors. Some of them wide open.
Saving up every penny for a new scooter battery and planting bare root flowers into raw earth. Happy kale frolicking outside the cabin window.
Meeting the same fox everyday. Meeting a shiny blue dragonfly and sitting with him a while. Meeting May as a fly.
Harvesting the first ever peas. Breaking my favourite mug when the rains came back, melodiously on my metal roof.
Late nights and early morns by the eternal summer light. Circadian rhythm realigning.
Everyday a new story. Everyday a walking miracle. Everyday an outstretched arm.
But it’s so easy to forget how high we can get on life and earth when there are too many tasks and thoughts and existential concerns and quandaries. When everything keeps breaking or needs fixing and the dust is everywhere.
The bounty and beauty of the mountain in May. Have you met her?
High summer, a precipice. A time to be alive in the cheesiest way possible!
I hope you’ve been well and basking in whatever it is that speaks to you in the quieter times.
Escape is not always bad. Not if what it really does is lead us back home.
To disengage from certain situations even when we are still in them is not to avoid life but set boundaries with what we are able to contain, and to receive more life in the long run.
I’ve realised that there is little room for worry when we trust, even if that trust has been broken one too many times. Maybe it’s wrong to keep believing. Believing in a kinder world.
As the precipice of May burst into June came the Mountshannon Arts Festival and the stringing together of a collection of my paintings old and new for exhibition in the Snug, Mountshannon. An honour to be part of the festival in such a collective personal way.
I remember in the olden, golden days the festival was spent losing ourselves in the many hedged mazes and getting my face painted in butterflies till I was too tall to get tangled and forgotten in hedges yet still too small to drink cans by the canals. A liminal, safe, communal space where there were eyes everywhere— kind ones to protect us, but let us be free.
Coming back to the festival this year as a participant, a particle, and meeting the new crowd of shifting faces was magical. Two days of socialising, music and laughs and talking about art and I’m exhausted but my soul is high.
Time will bring our strength back again. I remember when the horizon looked so dead, so dark, so hollow and endless. Summer is like this beautiful incubation where though time constrains and tasks, admin and worry still very much exist, we can always escape in the flowers, and all good things growing up without us.
It’s so easy to want to give up when life gets so heavy in the cooler, quieter months. But when the earth is abundant things can seem so effortless. We may have no money or mental space, we may struggle to feel love, respect or understanding by those in our midst, but there is light on the open road and there is a door open somewhere, somehow.
All it takes is another step. To tread out a little, let it tickle. Imagine yourself as a tiny, frolicking elf. Imagine yourself so small and see the grass grow up and shade you, shield you.
On June 14th I will be collaborating with Linda Schirmer on her Moving Earth film screening in Interface Inagh with ‘Em-BOG-iment’ - a film I did last year with filmmaker Tony Whelan.
So keep your eyes open to that if you’re around Galway!
May month I also received news from Clare Arts that I will get some support for a collaborative book project which I’m excited to share soon. .
Overall I’m wishing you a blessed time as we return to the fullest and longest day of the year, the solstice round the corner and all eyes on the golden globe.
You deserve it. You deserve all of it.
Every single droplet.
Grá
Ailbhe