Three Forests

On Wednesday we visited two forests, and today I visited a third. The second forest is near St. Gobnait's shrine, so that was yet another Gobnait day, and I should just expect them now.  

I was properly introduced to Ireland's trees by John Willmott, The Woodland Bard, proprietor of Carrowcrory Cottage near Sligo. (Some of my Santa Cruz friends may have met him at a house concert in 2014.) It was John who first said to me the phrase "forest bathing," and what he names Boladh na Sióga. John hosts tour groups, giving to them his poems and stories, disseminating the constant theme that Ireland's trees are the heart and strength and history of this country, perhaps more so than the stones and ruins on postcards. When you visit Ireland, if you prioritize trees, you'll definitely find whatever it was you came for. 

Kenmare town is familiar to us, but we had never visited Reenagross Park, probably because I've avoided the 5-star hotel that overlooks it. 



(Those looked like California poppies to me.)

While it started as the private park of a landlord, we can all walk Reenagross now, and bring the dogs. Designed and planted by men more than 200 years ago, the park is an example of the resilient wildness of trees, regardless of who planted them. 

We had quite a time finding it, until we learned you can park at the private golf course, walk through the hotel's garden, and down to the riverside. 






Many of the trees are bat houses. 

And the boathouse is a bat house. 































Later that day we returned to Ballevourney to visit St. Gobnait's Wood. (listen: "Gobnait") We didn't know about this forest until we discovered the delightful woodland talks of Ted Cook published by The Woodland League. 

There are six parts in this series. We watched them over a few days because we needed to absorb and reflect. Ted teaches us about oaks, and oaks as political emblems. He teaches us about coppicing, he teaches us about the beeches and sycamores brought by the Cromwellians.  He has his advocacy for the ivy, and he knows how many insects can live on a dead oak. 
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part4 ,Part 5 ,Part 6. 

Don't miss twenty minutes of Ted Cook at the Muskerry Oak, where the conversation starts with the ecology of ancient oaks, meanders through the nature of consciousness, and finishes with Hope in the Divine Drama We're Living In. 

Keep looking if you like these because there are more. He is obviously a national treasure. 



Today I rambled over to the forestry that's on the property we live on. A forestry is a crop of trees, grown like corn in rows, for 30 years before harvest. It's nothing like a forest, it's a mono-crop with the well-known problems with this kind of agriculture. 

I've wandered around the inside of forestries before, and thought they were evil and dead. But as I get to know them, I can appreciate them. They are not a wild forest, they are servant trees, and they are doing the best they can. 

As I walked further into the forestry, I noticed there are open spaces where the sitka pines didn't make it. These trees—birch? Alder? grow together toward the sky, and oaks tear apart old stone walls. 

A Convivial Party

We can live in Ireland for summer because of the friends we've made over the years. In particular we have been welcomed by lesbian friends and their wider community. We've both noticed that the lesbian circles here are like the culture we saw fade away in California sometime in the 1990s. 

The other day we were invited to a birthday party hosted by E in her restored cabin near Midleton. The menu was "Indian Potluck" and the celebrants were mostly lesbians. 

We were about a dozen, most of our generation, one couple who are in their twenties. It was the usual mix of relationships in a lesbian community: lovers, friends, ex-lovers, three mothers, 35-year friends, new-lover-relationships, comrades-in-arms, ritual-circle sisters, actual sisters. 

After dinner, there were presents, and then fruit salad dessert and a little cake. Then JB, our woman-of-the-day, sat in the place of honor and called for a song. The first song was sung— after much cajoling and encouragement—by L, of the younger generation. Then more songs were given, after much cajoling and encouragement—and repeated apologies for the state of our voices. The mother of one of the young ones sang a song her mother used to sing, a song about how she understands young love, because she once had her own. Then C sang a silly version of "Enjoy Yourself" and how it is "lay-der 'dan you t'ink."  J sang  The Girl From County Clare. Later, J and E sang a duet they had worked up for JB's birthday last year. JB's sister didn't want to sing her own song, so she and JB sang a duet they had learned at school 50 years ago. M sang the blessing about the road rising up. Eventually it came around to us. "The Yanks!" "What about the Americans?" JB looked at me, and I naturally pointed at Artemis, who then sang Cole Porter's "I'm Glad There is You." Then JB was back at looking at me, and I said I know some songs, but my voice isn't what it was, and sang "Love Chooses You" anyway.  I know there was at least another song after that, and a few more in-between, but that's all I can remember, as I was in a state of well-fedness, and well-lovedness, surrounded by women-loving-women, all warm and on a pillow on the floor of a woman's own house, while a rain caressed her garden outside the open door. 

This is my favorite:  stories and songs by our friends and family and ex-lovers and friends-again. I know that this kind of entertainment isn't specific to lesbians, or specific to Irish people, but you can't do better than the two together. 

The land of the lesbian living room. My people, anywhere in the world. I can't define if a woman is a lesbian individually, but I can find us in aggregate, here in these private sanctuaries. We define ourselves by living ourselves. If you are a person who does not delight in these little lesbian parties, don't fret. We are disappearing from view. We will go underground, and become quite small, joined only those we choose or steal away.

Kissing the Ballyvourney Stone

The day after Summer Solstice, on our way home we passed though Ballyvourney and decided to stop at St. Gobnait's shrine. 

In previous posts, I wrote about the Sheela na Gig of Ballyvourney at St. Gobnait's shrine.  I have also written about Gobnait Ní Bruadair, a beloved woman of Sneem who named herself after St. Gobnait. If I were not an atheist pagan, I would be thinking that someone supernatural was trying to get my attention. 

If you want to learn more about St. Gobnait and this shrine, there are four detailed pages on Megalithic.Ireland. There's also a page on PilgrimageMedievalIreland that focuses on the practice of pilgrimages ancient and modern. 

I understand more now about the modern practices at shrines like this, and the descriptions in the sites linked above are informative. 



The white deer motif is a feature of her legend, as she was told to leave the Aran Islands and settle where she saw nine white deer. 

Artemis and I visited the well, and Her round stone "house," and the statue overlooking the burial ground. It was the construction of the statue in the 1950s that uncovered the well and house. The bees on the base of her statue recall the legends of her commanding her bees to attack those who harmed her. The large church is the Protestant church which was built after the local people tore the roof off their church to keep it from being burned by Cromwell's army. We peered through the windows and it looks like it's being used as the gardeners shed. 

We then spent some time with the sheela na gig on the side of the Catholic ruin. 






I'm not a scientist, but the stone that the Sheela lives in appears to be repurposed from something else, with the little arches carved into it later so it fits in the window. 



Inside the church, we noticed the same corbeling above the window that I have seen in Owen na gat, Bru na Boinne, Carrowkeel, and any number sacred places with a beehive shaped roof. 





The other windows in this church do not have this same stepped entrance. Pippin is there for scale, standing next to a stone that is there to help you hop into the window. As we got closer, we noticed something more. 










What is that?I'm sure one could conclude it's lingam-yoni symbolism, but I don't agree.  

Because when you stand in that window under its corbeling, you're not thinking about lingams in yonis. You're inside the sacred space of dark church, and you're standing at an opening into the outside world, and that little stone cylinder is a clitoris, not a lingam. That's how it seemed to us anyway. 

We continued west toward home. I should mention that a few minutes past Ballyvourney, there is a magnificent view of the Paps of Anu, welcoming travelers to Kerry. 

And a Very Melancholy Solstice to You Too

There's a reason why European Yuletide is merry. Outside is dark and cold and if you depend on farmers in your own neighborhood to provide you with food, not much fresh is on offer. Agrarians are uneasy. While the priests watch the heavens for saviors and migration from the stand-still, the regular people drink apples and grain, and burn large trees for a week to push the inevitable to the back of the cabin. When you're facing death, Winter Solstice is time to party. 

At the other end of the calendar stands Summer Solstice. For many years when I was a young pagan, I enacted the summer solstice rituals of various traditions, but none were memorable. I am left with the sense we were trying too hard. 

There isn't anything joyful about mid-June. June has been the sad month all my life. People graduating and leaving town. Retirements. Tourists again. Fog until 11 am. Too many reminders that we work all the time and get so few vacations for ourselves. 

So I started observing Summer Solstice as what it is: a time to commemorate that This, improbable that It Is At All, is going to End. We can take some solace in knowing that governments will fall, but the sting of our friends dying, households ending, hair greying, dogs dying, so much worse. 

Therefore, today we weren't going to let our Summer Solstice in Ireland pass us by without Carpe the FUCK out of the Diem.

Near to us, is the Bonane Heritage Center. While one can find stone circles, bullaun stones, fairy forts, famine ruins, standing stones, and fulacht fiadh, at the end of many a thin road in Ireland, I don't think there is anywhere else here where you can find all of them in one short walk at the end of a generous carpark for the low price of €4 (adults).

At summer solstice, the stone circle at Bonane gives us a sunrise Phenomenon, similar to the Yule sunset at Turtle Rock in the Santa Cruz mountains. As the sun rises at 6:40, a sliver of sunlight passes through two stones and illuminates a center stone. 

We started our Solstice Day at the circle, along with about 30 other local people and tourists. While this year clouds obscured The Phenomenon for the 4 minutes it materializes (Wait Till Next Year!), we all enjoyed ourselves, nobody taking it too seriously, drinking tea and eating scones. 



I love this stone circle and have visited it many times. That's a lovely little rowan tree you can see in the upper corner of the photo. 

Here's the circle from the other direction. Love that tree. 



Since we left our house at 5:30 am for this gathering, now it was time for refreshments. 

We continued east to Glengarriff, to the McCarthy's Bar and Bistro. We thought it would be ok for us to sit outside with Pippin, but after the tea came, the server mentioned that there was .... something? a cat? who wanted to get outside, but couldn't because it was afraid of The Dog. So we cheerfully took Pippin back to the car--don't want him to scare anyone. What wanted to come out of the restaurant was not a cat, but a pigeon. The pigeon proudly bopped around under our table and I noticed it had bands on each leg. A famous pigeon, that one, who deserves free range through the village of Glengarriff and we wouldn't get in its way for anything. At the end of yet another lovely poached egg, toast and tea breakfast, I went to the ladies. When I got back, Artemis said that someone had just run over the pigeon and killed it—see there are the feathers. 

A Very Melancholy Solstice to You too. 

We set off east toward a stone circle that I've long wanted to visit. Now that I have my own car, look out bucket list. 

Kealkill Circle, north of Bantry. Sacred Ireland calls this "A magical place," in a book about magical places. So you know it must be magical. Like many of the places in Sacred Ireland, the directions only make sense once you have found the thing. My addendum: keep going up the hill, don't try to walk there, there is only parking for one car.



If you're interested in Kealkil Circle, there are several descriptions on the net. The bush that was growing in the center of the cairn has been cut out, making the cairn's radial stones easier to see. 

I love this circle. Like many Irish places, it is of land, sea, and sky. Until I am there again, I will visit it in my dreams. I think Pippin may too. 



If you want to see more photos, you'll have to find them on the web.

 Most of my photos of stone circles look like this: 



And this:





and this:




....because frankly I'm more interested in what is growing on a stone than the stone itself. Yes, I like ancient stones, but fungi is more to my likin'. 

haha. 

On to Our Lady's Well. 


If you leave Kealkil and turn east on the highway, you'll see this sign, and if you are like us, you will stop. 




This is a lovely devotional spot. 




We wondered if all the Mary's were added at the same time, or if someone was offended if someone's newer grotto was added above their own, and does one add her own rosary to the BVM who she loves the most, as how is it that all the roadside wells seem to be painted in the same shade of blue and who coordinates that? Like most of the Irish families I know, there's always room for one more. 

Here is my favorite. 


She wore the wrong color dress to the party, but someone painted it on for her, and now she's perfect. 

At this point, we were hungry again. There must be beer in Bantry. 


If you google Bantry, you may find many photos St. Brandon, Wolfe Tone, and Bantry House, but who else has posted The Sea Mural?  

"Let's all paint a picture for a tile celebrating the sea, children. Do you want to paint a picture of a vampire sucking the blood? Yes, that's fine too, we will include it." 




I am not being sarcastic. I love every way that Irish people support their artists and I do not ever wish them ever to be restrictive. 

After a restorative Murphy's, we decided we had time to visit one more place from Sacred Ireland. 



Unlike many directions in Sacred Ireland, this one was accurate. I fear when that happens because I then trust the rest of them to much. More fool me. 

There is four-trunked rowan growing at the well. 



Surrounding the well are white quartz stones. Its water ripples quite delicately, then runs a short distance to the creek that you have been following as you approach. 

At one time, this must have been a magical place in a dappled wood, accessible to everyone, giving and pure. 



In our day,  someone is inspired to paint the word "Bridget" or "Creativity" on a stone and leave it most reverently at the well. Or a baggie containing an organic solid. An eye glasses case, with, ew, eye glasses inside. Countless women have generously left their hair tie/ribbon/barrette as a token of devotion. 



A broken biro. I'm leaving this neck tie to You as an offering, it is poor, but consider the sentiment. Dear Lady, please accept these mardi gras beads. I handmade this weaving of yarn on a hula hoop just for you, Great Goddess. I happened to have this 5 cent coin; thanks a million, BVM!






























And a very Melancholy Solstice to You, Too. 

After this we napped in the car for an hour, then drove east toward Cork, where we were received by our friend and taken to Skinny's for the Best Fish and Chips. The sun wouldn't set for hours yet, but we watched the sky fade over Ballycottin Bay. 



The sun has died. I heard on a television show that death exists so that we can appreciate life. I am happy right now, and would be able to appreciate life indefinitely. I don't need death to know how lucky and happy I am.

A Very Melancholy Solstice to You, and another Half A Year of Dying Light. Blessed Be. 

Reasons to be Cheerful

Yesterday was the second warm day in a row, and a bit muggy; a weather condition that makes a person crabby. We improved our mood by climbing around a Franciscan abbey. 

As Artemis says, nothing cheers her up like a ruined church. 




This would be Muckross Abbey, in Killarney National Park. Built by Franciscans, the no-nonsense monks of the 15th century. Come for the castles, stay for the trees. 

There are several yews at this friary. One of them grows just outside the walls, the other inside the cloister. 

(Not my photo)

I did not know how similar they are to redwoods. Not just in their needles, but how they are toxic, and prevent other trees from growing around them. 


(Yew: my photo)

(coast readwood, linked)

(remaining photos by Artemis)


Inside the cloister, another yew has made a little plot of land all its own for more than 600 years. 




























If I were to build a snug little community housing project, I'd put a yew tree right in the middle of it. In fact, this snug little community building is perfectly designed for group living and I would borrow its plan: public ritual room / performance space / art galleries on one side, private atrium for contemplative walks in the middle. Dorms, kitchen, storage, office, library....

The little stairs indicated on the plan are still there, and unlike in the States, you can explore up and downstairs, and enter dark rooms, bend under low ceilings, and never encounter a lawyer requiring signature of waiver. 

It would be a good idea for this proposed snug community housing project to include, as shown here, the windows overlooking a burial ground. Such design keeps perspective clear on issues of kitchen chores assignment.



The people who are buried here are from this immediate neighborhood, Muckross; the very street they lived on is carved in the headstone. Neighbors lying each other down together for 500 years. Pray for us. Remember us. Beloved. Mercy. 

In the end, it was the trees that lifted our spirits more than the ruined pile. There was this oak, and the black cattle below...




...and this one. What is its name? White bark, red crown, branches all bent up in the wind.... All alone in the middle of the field.... Looks like a....




Then, Pippin ate a horse candy, and we laughed and laughed. 

Everything I Learned about a Travel Blog I Learned from Mark Twain.

INYMI:

The Innocents Abroad, Chapter IV. Mark Twain, 1869. 

After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the semblance of a writing school. The like of that picture was never seen in a ship before. Behind the long dining tables on either side of the saloon, and scattered from one end to the other of the latter, some twenty or thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them down under the swaying lamps and for two or three hours wrote diligently in their journals. Alas! that journals so voluminously begun should come to so lame and impotent a conclusion as most of them did! I doubt if there is a single pilgrim of all that host but can show a hundred fair pages of journal concerning the first twenty days’ voyaging in the Quaker City, and I am morally certain that not ten of the party can show twenty pages of journal for the succeeding twenty thousand miles of voyaging! At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty’s sake, and invincible determination may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.

One of our favorite youths, Jack, a splendid young fellow with a head full of good sense, and a pair of legs that were a wonder to look upon in the way of length and straightness and slimness, used to report progress every morning in the most glowing and spirited way, and say:

“Oh, I’m coming along bully!” (he was a little given to slang in his happier moods.) “I wrote ten pages in my journal last night—and you know I wrote nine the night before and twelve the night before that. Why, it’s only fun!”

“What do you find to put in it, Jack?”

“Oh, everything. Latitude and longitude, noon every day; and how many miles we made last twenty-four hours; and all the domino games I beat and horse billiards; and whales and sharks and porpoises; and the text of the sermon Sundays (because that’ll tell at home, you know); and the ships we saluted and what nation they were; and which way the wind was, and whether there was a heavy sea, and what sail we carried, though we don’t ever carry any, principally, going against a head wind always—wonder what is the reason of that?—and how many lies Moult has told—Oh, every thing! I’ve got everything down. My father told me to keep that journal. Father wouldn’t take a thousand dollars for it when I get it done.”

“No, Jack; it will be worth more than a thousand dollars—when you get it done.”

“Do you?—no, but do you think it will, though?

“Yes, it will be worth at least as much as a thousand dollars—when you get it done. May be more.”

“Well, I about half think so, myself. It ain’t no slouch of a journal.”

But it shortly became a most lamentable “slouch of a journal.” One night in Paris, after a hard day’s toil in sightseeing, I said:

“Now I’ll go and stroll around the cafes awhile, Jack, and give you a chance to write up your journal, old fellow.”

His countenance lost its fire. He said:

“Well, no, you needn’t mind. I think I won’t run that journal anymore. It is awful tedious. Do you know—I reckon I’m as much as four thousand pages behind hand. I haven’t got any France in it at all. First I thought I’d leave France out and start fresh. But that wouldn’t do, would it? The governor would say, ‘Hello, here—didn’t see anything in France? That cat wouldn’t fight, you know. First I thought I’d copy France out of the guide-book, like old Badger in the for’rard cabin, who’s writing a book, but there’s more than three hundred pages of it. Oh, I don’t think a journal’s any use—do you? They’re only a bother, ain’t they?”

“Yes, a journal that is incomplete isn’t of much use, but a journal properly kept is worth a thousand dollars—when you’ve got it done.”

“A thousand!—well, I should think so. I wouldn’t finish it for a million.”

Most Spectacular Kerry Cliffs

Yesterday, after the tea, the scones, and the Staigue Fort, we continued around our peninsula. 




We started on the lower right near Sneem, then around to Staigue Fort, Derrynane and Caherdaniel, Waterville, Portmagee, "Skelligs Viewpoint," and then finished at Cahersiveen. We just wanted to get to know the neighborhood. 

As we neared Portmagee, and the turn off to Valentia island, we were taken in by the signs advertising The Most Spectacular Kerry Cliffs. We decided to give them a try, as they seem to be an unintentional satire of Co. Clare's Cliffs of Moher. As we entered Portmagee, as we negotiated through the village and its outdoor restaurants jammed with anxious Americans trying to get a boat to Skellig Michael, at every turn, another sign post: The Most Spectacular Kerry Cliffs.  

The road narrowed, silage tractors multiplied, excitement grew. The Most Spectacular Kerry Cliffs! We must be nearly there by now? 

The road is impassible to tour busses, so it may not become as beloved as the Cliffs of Moher. They are, as promised. 



Photographs do not convey the raw edge of the continent, the blue green of the waves, the birds falling and falling into the wind. In the misty distance, we could see the Skelligs, looking just like magical islands look. The view inland, yet another impossibly beautiful coastal valley. There's no sense in trying to write about it. I could compare this place perhaps with Big Sur, but her older and wilder sister. 

The overt attempts to attract the tours is a little cheesy, but it worked for us, and I am grateful. I am grateful for everything.