homing

farewell, Holy Hill, home of my heart these past 8 months...thank you for all your love and care and stretching and soul-nurturing and adventuring and faith-exploring and laughter and the growing of gifts and gardens...(and thanks to the sun for shining bright on my last day here!)
who would have guessed when i arrived here in October how things would unfold?  certainly not i.  it was a time of deep personal and spiritual growth, and i'm certain that it has impacted me in ways that i probably don't even know yet, and won't be aware of until i get home.  

yes, home.  after one year and five months (almost to the day!) i am finally returning to the USA.  there are things i'm going to miss incredibly: the simple rhythm of daily life and communal prayer; my role as liturgical musician - and my performance buddy and partner-in-creativity; Saturday night Sabbath vigils and sung compline; the constantly shifting skies; walks on Dunmoran strand; the stunning view of Sligo/Ballisodare Bay, Knoncknarae, Ben Bulben, and the Slieve League; my window seat; pottery lessons with Paddy; spiritual direction sessions with Margaret; music sessions in Tubbercurry with Liam; cooking with Sioga; talking and singing with Travis; eating Barbara's custard w/apple tart; Rev. Allen's booming voice; being addressed as Lady Autumn and "my fair dame" by the estimable and eccentric Brother Thomas; having a whole beautiful library of meaningful books at my disposal; nobody thinking it odd if all you want to do is hole up in your hermitage and be quiet for hours on end; being surrounded by loving and encouraging people who are concerned more about the state of your soul & spirit and inner integrity than anything else...and being offered endless cups of tea.

it's like i've been enfolded in a nurturing womb, and it's been beautiful, but it also feels like the right time to leave.  i needed it, but i've been there long enough and it's time to figure out how to move forward with my life and the other aspects of my calling - it's helped me find my feet and now it's time to use them.  i feel strong enough and eager enough to press "play" and see what happens...i'm exhausted with all of this traveling and dibbling and dabbling of the last 5 years and i'm feeling ready to stop and be settled and create a life for myself.  i don't really know what that means yet, only that hopefully i'll feel less like a "wondering and wandering wind-blown leaf" and more like a little tree sapling...

Swimming the Deeps

sorry for my silence over the past 2 months, but...

I’ve been swimming the deeps

        of soul
with all the mysteries that await
        in the pressing green darkness
Enclosed and caressed
        by the surging current
Drawn down into the swirling murkiness
Reaching out-reaching in-searching
        for  -  the unnameable
                          unknowable
                          who am i how am i why am i
                          who are you
                          what is love what is God what is good
                          ?
 
Shafts of sunlight illumine the life around me
The waters churn-contract-expand
                        and me with them
        insistent in a slow soft-edged way
        demanding something more of me…
 
Yes I’ve been swimming the deeps
        captivating deeps of soul
But I must learn to use my feet again
        come up for air
And breathe into my humanness.


PS - today i took my leave of Holy Hill.  i will write a reflection on this one of these days.

an easter poem

(this poem has been gestating since it was originally conceived in February, and i think today would be an appropriate day to share it!  despite any imperfections that may remain.  critiques are welcome via email...)

lilting through an afternoon sunspell

tripping over myself with joy

i press my hands

against my breast

in fear that my heart

may else come tumbling out

if I let go...

no longer could i call my heart

"mine"...

-is that what it means

 to die of love?

-it would be annihilated

by that ultimate

ever-living

Holy Fire.

-it would disintegrate

into innumerable shining flecks

burrowing into the earth

rising on the song of a sparrow

whirling in the wind

sprinkling stardust wherever it passed

enlivening all it touched

  

and I would be

-resurrected!

but hasn't this happened 

already?

these feeble human hands

in their pathetic embrace of this

fractured human heart

            -which is even now seeping out through every pore in my body!

haven’t a self-preserving chance 

in the presence of this

infinite

ever-loving God.

my anniversary

One year ago, on just such a misty day as this, I stepped off the plane onto Irish soil for the first time and my eyes first encountered the elegant Scots pine, the graceful snowdrop, the fierce gorse bush.

I was filled with such ambition, adventure, expectation...I was approaching my upcoming experiences almost like a research project - I was going to learn darn-dungit!  Learn communication and conflict resolution skills, learn more about my own gifts, interests, spirituality, gathering information to help me with my vocational discernment.

Never would I have imagined that I would still be here a year later - and at a monastery no less!  I did not expect to end up living at Holy Hill for 3 months (much less 7!).  I did not expect to end  up doing such huge spiritual discernment.  I was interested in practical discernment!

And yet, here I am.  Still not knowing where life will take me next, but so much more sure of who I want to be, both apprehensive and excited to see how this journey will unfold...

God is impossible to predict.

risking winter

After what has been (apparently) an unseasonably warm winter in Ireland (especially compared with the previous two years!), and all sorts of exclamations and excited over the first noticeable signs of spring (lambs!, noisy birds!1 blooming snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils!), we have just experienced the three coldest days of the season - the coldest since I left 2 newly fallen feet of snow in Boston a year ago!  It was below freezing in the mornings, and the hard frost left the grass white and crunchy all day long in most places.  The rocks in the courtyard fountain are coated with a thick layer of clear ice.  The skies have been sunny and cloudless.  And the sunrises have been incredible.  Here's the second draft of a poem inspired by the weather:

Risking winter
Our winters do not want
to let us go. 

If the spring comes
before its time
it opens itself,
boldly vulnerable,
to winter's clinging
claws. 

but that is the risk we take
when we let our passionate God
love us into life.