He watched them as they made their way up the trail through the foothills of the Flatirons. Like most who hike the trails they were unaware of his silent presence. Yet he watches them all. Some with dogs, some with children. Walking and talking. Playing spelling games, sharing life dramas. There but not really there. Not really present, just passing through. Not hearing the bird songs or noticing the herd of white tail deer grazing on a nearby hill. Yet to every one of them he whispers on the wind to be still. To feel the Earth beneath their feet. To breathe deeply and be present in this place, in this moment. For he is the Guardian Spirit of the mountains.

Very few hear the whispers. But this day it would be different. Different for two young hikers who stopped to collect the last remnants of snow, gather sticks and pine cone needles, and huddle under the shade of a nearby tree to sculpt their creation. They heard the wind whispers. And, although they may not have realized what they were doing, they gave shape to the Guardian Spirit.

This story is from a recent visit with my sister, nephew and nieces in Boulder, Colorado where one sunny day we hiked the Flatirons near their home. Although this story isn’t set in Ireland it echoes the wisdom of the Irish spiritual ancestors. The call to be in right relationship with the Earth. A relationship that does not come from passing through the landscape but attending closely the beauty and spirit of the land.

A deep relationship with all things as sacred survives for the Irish in many forms. There is the realm of knowing passed down through generations, as in the stories from Inishmurray islanders. There is the realm of farey folklore, present throughout Ireland and especially potent in the Benbulben landscape. Before we wander through more stories I want to consider why any of this is important. Of what relevance for us today?

These, and other, realms are legacies of ancient wisdom. The wisdom of being in right relationship with the Earth. And we are not. Squandering and cannibalizing the Earth’s treasures we now face devastating impacts including climate change and species extinction. For the Irish global warming is not hypothetical, it’s happening to their island now and is of huge concern as the shifts in weather patterns take their toll on farming.

In her book Walking the Maze Loren Cruden wrote, what is powerful and good is still present in the land and our potentials of relationship with it, and in the capacity of consciousness to retrieve or to know what needs to be known. This, then, is the relevance. To retrieve what needs to be known through our legacy and heritage of ancestral wisdom –  understanding, embracing and manifesting the power of right relationship with the Earth.

A short post today. But I want to share one more story from Joe McGowan’s book, Island Voices. This one from Dan Brady about his experiences with the holy well water. Enjoy!

We had two boats, one was the St. Mary, we did a lot of herring fishing in her, and the other was the St. Anne. My father always had a bottle of holy water in the bow, the water came from Tobar na Corach. Every one on the island believed in the well. Everyone! It calmed the sea. Although the water mightn’t calm the seas right away they would be calm later, or the next day. There’s one thing the islanders would never do is make fun of anything of a religious nature. Never, ever! They were very sincere when it came to those things.

Wells have always been sacred places to the Irish and Catholic attempts to change that didn’t work, as evidenced by the numerous wells still visited for health and healing. They just became holy wells, associated with St. Brigit rather than the Goddess Brigit. Here’s an Inishmurray Island story about the Well of Assistance, also from Joe McGowan’s book.

When the islanders were in distress, a doctor or priest urgently required or food supplies exhausted, the waters of the well (Tobar na Cabhrach, the Well of Assistance) calmed the sea. The procedure was to teem the well dry and throw three cupfuls of the water against the wind … Continue reading →

Islanders knew how to read the landscape and work with the elements and Earth energies. Some of the best documentation for this comes from Joe McGowan’s book Inishmurray: Island Voices, based on interviews with those who had once lived on tiny Inishmurray island off the coast just north of Sligo. The old ways were alive on this and other islands in western Ireland until just over sixty years ago when it was the time of the great leaving. With populations dwindling, the young people called to war or attracted to a romanticized urban existence, it was no longer possible to sustain island life and whole communities left their heritage and homes in one communal exodus.

McGowan’s interviews and stories breathe life into those old ways as you will see in the next few posts. Let’s begin here… Continue reading →