StormThoughts

This is Paddy Colgan from California with whom I have enjoyed many hikes all over Ireland

Many years ago I was hiking with some American friends from the Sierra Club, we were discussing Ireland in the context of it’s religious dispositions. After a while I stopped talking about the Irish and their religious perspectives and asked what of my American friends. We went around the group and various people explained their views, their religious positions, it was enlightening, open, not the fundamentalism I had gleaned from American TV. The last person to speak and I suspect that he deliberately waited till the end, simply said, “Oh me, I subscribe to the same view as you,” this left me wondering what did I subscribe to?

Later on I got the chance to ask him, in a round about way, what did he think I subscribed to. His answer was simple; “you are a Unitarian, everything you say, in debate or discussion leads me to believe that.”

So off I went to find out what was a Unitarian, seeing that I was viewed as one. The undertaking led me to eventually join the Dublin Unitarian church, [web site http://www.unitarianchurchdublin.org/  ] and to a philosophical position that has left me immensely content.

One of the first things you learn as a Unitarian is that truth is not set in stone, that it can evolve, that there is no one universal theology, that there is no one true church. You learn three valuable rules to live by:

Freedom
Reason
Tolerance

There is a fourth that we do not speak of

No two Unitarians agree for longer than it takes to have a debate.

More on this anon

One of my favourite poems is, ” The Four Quartets” by TS Eliot

“In my beginning is my end, in succession
houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended
are removed, destroyed restored, or in their place
is an open field or a factory or a bypass.
Old stone to new Building,…..”
East  Coker.

One of my own poems from a hike along the Old Kenmare Road in Kerry in the company of others

The Old Kenmare Road

In the strange noon time of travel
Ghosts of old coaches groan
Shadows of Finn and Fianna
Drift by the windy gap
Reminders of old hostilities
Streams gurgle trip and fall
Over rock and under sod
Frothy yellowed by bog

The high peaks in cloud
The soft rain reigning
Over all – slush and slosh
Time quivers with memory
Heroes thunder on
The coachman lingers
Axles creak and moan

For a moment
The breath of passing people
Is felt from times first second here
On and on the road reaches
By fern and birch
Holly hazel purple heather
Foxglove and fuschia

Wild and wetting the wind
Delivering spores of water
Drifting across the vision
Old shapes shift
Rocks lift here
Bend into obstinate form

Here is oak king of the forest
Aged rich timber
Where thought invades
Space closes to a private moment

I thrive in the pure
Sensual fine rain of day

I am currently engaged with a project to create a 35 mile hiking trail in county Mayo. It will start in Balla a small town in mid Mayo and finish at Murrisk at the foot of the Reek, or Croagh Patrick, as the holy mountain is known outside of Mayo. It will be called the Croagh Patrick Heritage Trail.

Some months ago, in late March 2008, during that lovely period of cold clear sunny weather, I walked the last section of the trail. Across the face of Croagh Patrick from Boheh of the Rolling Sun toward Murrisk I trekked.

A lot of thoughts jumbled through my mind as I hiked along…… ideas about sacred place and the naming of place, ideas about the time of year that I was journeying here.

For instance Croagh Patrick has a much older history than the Christian one more recently ascribed to it. Formerly it was Cruachain Aigle – Eagle Mountain – most likely a Druidic ritual centre. Indeed there are some who believe that there was once an older pre Christian pilgrim path that reached from Rath Cruachain, near Tulsk in County Roscommon, home to Queen Medbh, [she of the Tain Bo Cuailgne] all the way to Cruachain Aigle. All around me as I walked were the archaeological remains of Bronze Age, Stone Age and Early Christian times. I experienced a deep sense of age old calmness, a serenity that recharged my spirit.

Along the way I met a hill farmer, and we talked of the impending lambing season. This led me to reflect on February – what an interesting month. Beginning with La Feile Bride, or St. Brigid, that most pagan of Celtic Priestesses, [now beatified by Christian tradition] linked to this feast is the festival of Imboilc – a term which refers to the lactation of ewes – the flowing of milk – the return of life giving spring.

Incidentally Februum was also a Roman festival/ritual meaning purification. Last Samhain I related how the Celts used Fire for purification at Samhain, here again the idea recurs. The Christian churches have designated February 2nd as Candlemass day, the day when all candles to be used in liturgical celebrations, during the coming year would be blessed. Again and older tradition overlaid with a newer dispensation.

As I meandered along I mulled over these ideas, the interconnectedness of all things, unfortunately I did not have anybody to share these thoughts with – till now.