Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 56

Hildy Tails 12: Is ait an mac an saol ~ by John Valters Paintner

Hello, gentle readers! This series of 12 essays were composed during John & Christine’s Jubilee Year (which began pre-pandemic, but some of which was written during varying degrees of lockdown). They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized window into life on the wild edges of Ireland. Our Monk in the World Guest Posts will return next week.

Is ait an mac an saol.  

Hello and God’s peace be with you all. My name is Hildy and this is the last Jubilee year story from me, your online abbey mascot.

Today’s Irish expression translates to “Life is strange.” And life certainly has gotten stranger in this last year. (Not that it hasn’t always been a bit weird, am I right?) The idea for my stories was to be a playful look into life in Galway and a little behind-the-scenes look at Abbey of the Arts. But then a global pandemic broke out and the world all but stopped. Silly stood aside as Serious took centre stage. But as a hermit living with a couple of introverts who run an online monastery from their home, life didn’t change too drastically for me. However, I think things are clearer to me now.

I don’t want to down play the severity of the pandemic, the lives lost, the suffering and anxiety of so many . . . and like John and Christine, I’m not a big fan of the “everything happens for a reason” mentality. Yes, there have been some silver linings out there . . . but also a lot of dark clouds and fierce rain. So I’m not going to say that this has all been for the best, because it hasn’t. It has, however, highlighted some real cracks in society and in ourselves (or at least myself).

Don’t panic. I’m not about to go on a political rant. I’m just a wee monkey . . . not even old enough to vote. My main involvement in politics to date has been giving out about all the posters put up come election season here in Ireland. And for better or worse (worse I fear), I’m not a big-picture person. I’m more focused on the trees than knowing what’s going on in the rest of the forest.  So, I’d like my last story to be more a reflection on caring for the trees around us, in order to protect the forest . . . for there’d be no forest without any trees. (And trust me – a lack of forest is something we Irish know all too much about. Don’t get me started . . . )

I appreciate that the Jubilee helped prepare me, in an odd way, for the pandemic. What I mean is that I was already contemplating what was most meaningful to me, what were my priorities, what was I being called to focus on, how did I want my life to change. And then BAM . . . the question of what is and isn’t “essential” went from theoretical to very, very practical.

Again, I’m just a wee Irish monkey. I don’t have all the answers. But as John likes to point out, as a professional theologian or someone working in the field of spirituality, good questions are better than having all the right answers. So (with a grain of salt about the size of a 20 centimetre tall monkey) here are some things I’d like that I, and society in general, could use some work on . . . not that I necessarily have solutions (or even all the right questions), just the suggestion that we all spend more time thinking about how we (individually and collectively) can do better in some areas.

Now John and Christine will tell ya, for a monk, I pamper myself pretty well. Self-care has never been an issue for me, but I’m seeing more and more people dealing with anxiety and stress. I’m a contemplative introvert and so welcome the quiet and solitude. But I’ve got extroverted friends who are going stir-crazy. We all need a wide range of healthy coping methods, including ones that may not have been our first option but would come in handy as a solid Plan C or D when the world gets thrown off kilter. (As an aside, I’ve tried to reach out to people I know may not have my coping mechanism or support. People in need are often the last ones to reach out for help, so I’ve tried to be pro-active during the pandemic and hope to continue it long after it’s over.)

Of course, one good coping method is a good friend or close family member. But with self-isolation, we can find ourselves cut off and alone. The internet and modern communication offers a real blessing in our ability to reach out to those not physically with us. But that’s no substitute for human contact. I miss hugs and a good handshake, or just sitting in the same room with friends or the occasional crowded music venue. Those may not be healthy options at the moment. But once this pandemic is behind us, I may not turn down any invitations for quite a while. “Why, yes! I’d LOVE to come to your cat’s birthday party.” (I usually avoid cats . . . and many dogs . . . for obvious reasons; but going forward, I’ll take the risk.)

Of course staying healthy isn’t easy. We can’t do it alone and too many of us don’t have the same, adequate access to quality health care as others. This pandemic has made that clear to even a simple monkey like myself. I don’t know that the best solution to it is. We can’t just throw money at the problem and hope it goes away. Neither can we ignore it and pray “the free hand of the market” takes care of it. (I’m not even sure what that last phrase means, but whatever we’re doing now isn’t working.) What it comes down to for me, is that if we aren’t all taken care of . . . none of us are.

Now as I keep saying, I’m a wee monkey. “Crashing on someone’s couch” for me is the equivalent of one of you humans house sitting in a mansion. But so many of my friends are struggling to find adequate and affordable housing, even before the pandemic hit. It’s not just students and “starving artists,” but families. It’s particularly galling in a country that has more empty houses than homeless. I don’t want to demonize landlords, many of them independent homeowners renting out a spare room or second, inherited homes . . . but there has got to be a better way to get people off the street. I heard that conservative-leaning Utah (a beautiful looking spot of America I’d like to take a road-trip through one day) solved their homelessness problem by simply giving people homes to live in. Is it that easy? Maybe more practicality and less ideology is what’s needed.

But the pandemic has also got me thinking about other things, too. Like what is “essential” for living? Can even I, a humble monk-ey live a simpler life, so others can simply live? And what is an “essential worker?” What jobs really have to be done, both personally (do I *need* to make my bed every morning?) and professionally (which businesses and employees do I actually depend on for my survival?)? I’d like to think I was appreciative of the clerks at the local grocery store before all this . . . but I have a new found appreciation that I hope I never lose. I’d hate to find myself taking them for granted at some point down the line.

And speaking of essential – what about the arts!?! We know a lot of artists here in Bohemian Galway. And many of them are struggling, because of closed venues and cuts to funding and lack of audiences. And yet . . . how many of us have been relying on their gifts, their talents, their time, and their work to make self-isolation bearable? I’ve certainly been binging more programmes, whether they’re old shows on a streaming service or a play posted for free or musicians sharing their music to lift our spirits. How is their work not “essential” to our wellbeing and to our daily lives?

These last few months of the Jubilee, in lockdown because of the global pandemic, has made me really contemplate our interconnectedness. Just as the virus had no regard for artificial national borders, so does our shared personhood know no borders. We might live locally, but we need to think globally (if you’ll pardon the bumper sticker rhetoric).

The stranger things get, the clearer what is essential becomes. I knew it before Jubilee and before the pandemic. But I know it-know it now. I hope I appreciate it more. The world isn’t in a great place right now. But I feel like I’m in a good place right now, because I have John and Christine . . . and all of you.

Easter Blessings + An Elemental Journey ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A Glimpse of the Underglimmer by Christine Valters Paintner from Abbey of the Arts on Vimeo.

“A Glimpse of the Underglimmer”
(after Basho)

You can see it sometimes in October
when the sun’s low angle slides
gold over the field,
effervescence of light,

or you stand in a forest of cedars
and March rain pads
hundreds of tiny feet across
the emerald canopy,

or the fireflies of July form
new constellations, then vanish
into summer’s night leaving only
trails of light in your memory,

or you stand in a May meadow,
a fox crosses quietly, you hold
still as possible, the sliver of moon
above holds its breath with you.

—Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of Wild Grace

(Click here to see three new poems of mine published online)

Dearest monks and artists,

Happy Easter dear monks, pilgrims, and artists! I hope that this day finds you experiencing a hint of resurrection in your lives.

Lent is a powerful season of transformation. Forty days in the desert, stripped of our comforts, and buoyed by our commitment to daily practice so that we might arrive at the celebration of Easter deepened and renewed. In many ways this Lent was far more austere than any of us anticipated.

Often, we arrive at the glorious season of resurrection and celebrate for that one day, forgetting it is a span of 50 days, even longer than the Lenten season through which we just travelled. Easter is not just the day when the tomb was discovered empty, but a span of time when days grow longer in the northern hemisphere, blossoms burst forth, and we are called to consider how we might practice this resurrection in our daily lives.

The soul's journey through Lent is like a pilgrimage exploring inner desert places, landscapes, thresholds, and the experience of exile. Ultimately, pilgrimage always leads us back home again with renewed vision. Resurrection is about discovering the home within each one of us, remembering that we are called to be at home in the world, even as we experience ourselves exiled again and again.

The liturgical year, however, is not a linear passage of time. It is cyclical and spiral, returning to previous moments with new vision. It is the heart of kairos time, which is time outside of time.

And in this model of time moving in spirals, it means that even though we move into the radiant season of Easter, we do not leave behind the invitations of the desert or the call of grief. To be human means to hold all of these layers together.

As a poet, when I am asked what I write about most often, my response is that for me poetry helps me to be present to a world where terrible things happen and where amazing things happen, sometimes all at once. The grief, the loss, the unknowing, the fear of what is to come, they are all real. The gratitude, the kindness, the caring, the wonder at simple moments, they are all real as well.

The Gospel readings during the Easter season are about the resurrection appearances of Jesus: Thomas doubts and needs to touch Jesus' wounds; the nets that were empty are pulled ashore overflowing with fish; the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread; Jesus breathes on them the gift of the Spirit; and of course the celebration of breath and fire at Pentecost when everyone was most afraid of what was to come. In all of these stories, there is a sense of generosity and abundance, of caring for needs, and of finding solace and assurance in the wounds. Perhaps these are just the stories we need for these times.

During these dark days of uncertainty, I have been making room for grief. Music and movement become the container for my sorrow. But I have also been making room for laughter and connection with others (even if it needs to be by Zoom).

The truth of resurrection isn’t that we hold onto some false banner of hope, denying the reality around us. Resurrected life means we know our woundedness as a place where grace can also enter in.

The poem and video I share above are about finding these moments of grace – or sometimes more accurately, letting those moments find us. It takes time to open ourselves to the resurrection of the world at work all around us.

Where are you discovering your own glimpses of the underglimmer?

Please join me in practicing resurrection. . .

Tomorrow I start two different online programs. The first is Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life which is an 8-week companion journey through my book Sacred Time (Ave Maria Press). If you would like to explore a more spacious relationship to time and cultivate practices that help you touch the eternal moment more often, please join us for a journey from the breath to cosmic time (moving through Hours of the day, Sabbath, lunar cycles, seasonal rhythms, seasons of a lifetime, and ancestral time along the way). I will host a weekly live session (always recorded) and there will be invitations in reflection, meditation, creative expression, and connecting with kindred spirits.

The other program I am starting tomorrow is Sky, Sun, Sea, and Stone: Celtic Spirituality and Creative Writing which is hosted by the Rowe Center. Through four weekly live sessions (always recorded), I will offer some teaching about how the four elements of air, fire, water, and earth can inspire our creativity, and especially how these elements are at work in the Celtic imagination. Then I will take you on a creative pilgrimage through the gifts of poetry and invite you to write your own poems to respond. There is also an option for sharing in small breakout groups. If you participated in The Spiral Way in February, the format will be very similar but the content is all new.

With great and growing love,

Christine

PS – I have three poems published in the newest online issue of Impspired Magazine! Click the link to read "Where has the wild woman gone?", "Ludwig" (about being related to Ludwig Wittgenstein), and "A Letter to My Adolescent Self." All 3 poems will be included in a third collection titled Seventy-Two Names for Love being published next year by Paraclete Press.

Video credit: Poetry Video by Morgan Creative

Hildy Tails 11: Is fada an bóthar nach mbíonn casadh ann – by John Valters Paintner

Hello, gentle readers! This series of 12 essays were composed during John & Christine’s Jubilee Year (which began pre-pandemic, but some of which was written during varying degrees of lockdown). They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized window into life on the wild edges of Ireland. They will take the place of our Monk in the World guest posts until May when those will return.

This mosaic of JFK can be found in Galway Cathedral. Many in Ireland consider him to be one of the Irish saints!

Is fada an bóthar nach mbíonn casadh ann .

Hello, one and all! It’s Hildy, your online abbey mascot, again. I hope you and your family are safe, sane, and well sanitized.

We’re all doing well here. But then again, we’re a bunch of introverted hermits who work from home. But we have been implementing extra precautions to keep the virus at bay. We’ve also had to postpone some of our upcoming pilgrimages, but everyone has been very understanding about the need to reschedule and that is much appreciated. It’s just very ironic that one of the reasons that John and Christine took a sabbatical year was to re-evaluate the ratio of online to in-person programmes and then . . . “life happens while you’re busy making other plans.”

But that’s as good of a transition into the Irish phrase as any. It translates, roughly, to “It’s a long road that has no turning.” It basically has to do with life never going completely smoothly . . . or completely badly, for that matter. It’s doubly appropriate because what I had planned to write about this month was a mini-road trip to some of the local sacred sites that we take our Ireland pilgrims to visit. (It was going to double as a refresher/reconnoitring of places we hadn’t been back to in a while before the next pilgrimage.) Unfortunately, even though travel restrictions have been slightly relaxed, all of these sites are outside the five kilometre radius from our gaff (that’s apartment for you non-Irish) and it’s not an essential trip. So, sit back and relax as I do my best to walk you down my memory lane to some of my favourite local sacred sites.

I think I’ll start with one of my personal favourite sites, Kilmacduagh monastery, just outside Gort (also known as ‘Little Brazil’ . . . but that’s a whole other story). It’s a favourite of mine for a couple of reasons. It’s not too far from where I grew up and we’d visit there when I was a wee monkey. We visited a lot of places when I was younger, but this was the only one with an intact round tower. (Cromwell’s army destroyed most of them, either using them for cannon practice and/or reusing the stones for other building projects.) Visitors aren’t allowed inside, for health and safety reasons. The tower has a definite lean at this point, but is stable enough for a young monkey and her siblings to climb up. (Dad even joined us the first time, but Mom wouldn’t let him go up after that. She wasn’t real happy with us climbing the tower either, but . . . we were always on the rebellious side.) From the top of the tower you have a beautiful view of the entire country side. (Some believe the towers were meant as a stronghold to keep valuable relics from marauding Vikings. But if they could figure out how to build long boats and sail the oceans, getting into a locked round tower was totally in their wheel house.) The towers were bell towers for the monks, who would’ve been out working in the fields most of the day and needed to be able to hear the calls to pray from far away. They also worked as a sign for traveling pilgrims that sanctuary was close at hand. Kilmacduagh monastery is sprawling in comparison to many other Irish monasteries of the time. There are several churches (but more on that later). Today, there’s a car park and visitors can wander around fairly freely. But the fields do often have cattle in them. And even when they’re empty, the “signs” of recent cattle activity means you really have to watch your step. There is a building that you can get into, but you have to cross the boreen and knock on the neighbour’s door to borrow a large, ancient skeleton key. The woman who answers the door is a dote and has information pamphlets that she hands out. I love that there’s still people, not just government officials, looking after these sites!

One of John and Christine’s favourites is Temple Cronan. It’s situated in County Clare, in the Burren. When John and Christine were first thinking of doing pilgrimages, they arranged to meet a local guide there to learn more about the site, so they could lead people to there themselves. But when the guide started reciting poetry he was made part of the regular pilgrimage. To get to the site, one has to walk over both the barren limestone that the Burren is famous for and marshy wetlands that provides water for the local inhabitants. There’s not much left of the large circular wall that would have marked the transition between the ordinary world outside the monastery and the sacred land within, as local farmers have now divided up much of what had once been a larger holy site. The small stone church at the centre is beautiful (whether that’s despite of or because of the lack of roof is a matter of personal opinion). The stone structure was built over and in the same design of the original wooden structure the founding monks would have built. This church has some ornate decorative heads around the outside. Some of the more ornate bits and bobs, like the carving around the east-facing window, is a later addition. Those were put in at the same time that the original west-facing door was blocked up with stone and a new north-facing door was put in. It was something Rome insisted on, when the pope’s influence finally reached Ireland at the end of the Dark Ages . . . as if to say “you have to go through our way now to get into the Church.” But then again . . . it may have just been ceremonial, having to do with processions from the living quarters of the monks that are north of the church at Temple Cronan. (Most ‘newer’ doors are south-facing, maybe to let more light into the churches . . .) As our guide likes to say, “scholastic discussion on this subject has been limited” (AKA – even the experts don’t know and can’t agree on what they don’t know). But what’s really special about the site are the tomb shrines. There are two of them (again among the last in Ireland, “thanks” to Cromwell’s army . . . but I’ll stop bangin’ on about that). One of them is easily visible, just south of the church and the other is north-east of the church, but kind of hidden behind a modern (by monastic site time) wall. They likely contained the remains and holy relics of Cronan and other local saints, and would have been a major draw for pilgrims to come and pray or seek healing from. There’s also a holy well that was probably there BEFORE the Celtic monks moved in . . . and was possibly the reason they chose the site to begin with. (But I’ll let Christine or John explain all that history later.)

Now since I’m sharing favourites, I should  mention Sourney’s favourite site. It’s obviously St. Sourney’s well in Drumacoo, along the southern edge of Galway County . . . and just up the road from Kinvara, where John and Christine first lived when they moved to Ireland. The large mausoleum kinda dominates the site when you first drive up. It shares . . . or rather borrows . . . one wall of the church, which itself was expanded at least once. It’s a larger, more ornate version of the wee chapel mentioned above. If you stand inside it’s now a roofless structure, you can see the lines in the wall where the first stone building ended. There’s not only a graveyard around the church, but locals just got permission to expand the cemetery to a neighbouring field. You can find people here most days, visiting dead relatives and tending graves. The graves date back centuries and, like I said, new ones are still being added. There are several “Celtic Cross” headstones, as they became very popular (and standardized) in the mid- to late-1800s with the birth of Irish nationalism and the push for independence (but again . . . I digress). St. Sourney founded a monastery here (as well as out on Inis Mor) and there is a beautifully restored holy well. John says the first time he and Christine visited, you practically needed a machete to get to the well. But now, it’s been lovingly restored and there’s even a plaque with instruction on how to do the devotional associated with this holy well and cures for aliments of the head. (Sourney likes to visit with John and Christine. And I like to tease her that the signs are in English and Irish and the Irish version of her name is spelled two different ways . . . but maybe they’ve fixed that since our last visit.)

I should probably mention another one of John and Christine’s other favourite sacred sites. (Is it weird to have favourite sites? It’s a little weird, right? Just me? I didn’t think so, but it is what it is. Weird’s not always a bad thing, certainly not in this household.) There are several sites on the Aran Islands, situated at the mouth of Galway Bay. The three islands are limestone, like the Burren to the south in County Clare, but belong to County Galway. Some of the smaller islands around Ireland are no longer inhabited because the populations dropped below sustainability, but the Aran Islands have had thriving communities on them for centuries. It was inhabited long before the Christianization of Ireland, but Inis Mor (the largest of the three islands) became THE spot to go for those early Celtic monks. It was a place of learning and prayer. Monks would make the journey there just to receive a blessing from St. Enda or other saints before starting their own pilgrimage or new monastery. Today, one of the spots most tourists go to is “Seven Churches.” Sure there are seven (plus) ruined buildings there, but only two of them are definitely churches. The name’s more honorary, really. You see, the Irish monks liked to keep their monasteries simple: one abbot and twelve monks, after the example of Jesus and the Apostles. Only, successful places rarely stay small. So, if a community got too big, one monk would be chosen as a new abbot and they’d take some monks to go set up a new monastery. Sometimes this new monastery would be far away, in a new land across the sea. Other times, it’d be just over the hill in the next valley . . . or even just over the wall in the next field. That’s why there’s more than one “Seven Churches” all around Ireland. Some of them may have actually been seven small Irish monasteries with a church (and other buildings) each. Sometimes, the number of churches was . . . perhaps . . . a bit exaggerated as it happens. But what I really want to tell you about is St. Ciaran’s site. It’s on the south end of the island and is on the side of a little hill that overlooks Galway Bay and Connemara in Western Galway. It’s also where John and Christine renewed their wedding vows for their twentieth anniversary. They began with Christine walking the round of the holy well that’s shaped like a salmon and to this day is still visited by most of the islanders on the St. Ciaran’s feast day. Next, then John received a blessing at one of the small standing stones carved with a Celtic cross. The actual vows were recited inside the roofless church ruin, before going back ‘outside’ to bind their marriage at the contract stone. The contract stone is an old sundial the monks would have used to mark the times of prayer. The stick used to make the shadow is long gone and the hole repurposed. Two people would stand on either side and put one finger in the holes so they touched, thus making the contract (marriage or cattle sale) binding before God.

I could keep going with more sites (St. Enda’s hermitage and the beehive hut on Inismor, St. Enda’s holy well and St. Gobnaits church on Inisheer, St. Colman’s well and hermitage, Corcomroe Abbey, Maumeen Pass, the Ross Errilly Friary, and even Brigid’s Garden . . . to name a few). But I think this is a good spot to end a post that may have rambled longer than others. And I think ending it with a site that is so special to John and Christine, because it is a place they have performed sacred rituals, both with their groups and with their friends, is appropriate. These ancient buildings may have lost their roofs and the walls might be less than vertical now, but they never stopped being special to local people. And there’s renewed interest in restoring or at least maintaining them.

Sky, Sun, Sea, and Stone and Creative Inspiration ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

Thomas Merton, the 20th century Trappist monk, knew that the true mentor of the soul was nature itself. The fields, sun, mud, clay, wind, forests, sky, earth, and water are all companions for our own inner journeys. The elements of water, wind, earth, and fire offer us wisdom and guidance. They are the original soul friends. Air is the gift of breath we receive in each moment, the rhythm of life sustaining us. Fire is the gift of life force and energy and we might call to mind St. John of the Cross’ image of God as the living flame of love which burns in each of our hearts. Water is the gift of renewal and replenishment and we might call to mind the ritual of baptism as a call to claim our full gifts or the blood that flows through our veins. Earth is the gift of groundedness and nourishment.  The elements at the communion table emerge from the earth, the act of eating is sacred and holy, also sustaining our life and work.

15th century Zen Buddhist monk and poet Ikkyu wrote: “Every day, priests minutely examine the Law and endlessly chant complicated sutras. Before doing that, though, they should learn how to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon.” What a beautiful image to receive the gifts of creation as love letters written to us. I am reminded of how many of the great saints would write letters of spiritual direction to those who sought their guidance.

In the Celtic tradition, Irish monk St. Columbanus taught the precept: “if you want to know the Creator, understand created things.” He was known to “call the beasts and the birds to him as he walked, and they would come straight away, rejoicing and gambolling around him in great delight … He would summon a squirrel from the tree tops and let it climb all over him, and from time to time its head might be seen peeping through the folds of his robes.”

What would it mean to listen into the deep wisdom of these four elements of sky, sun, sea, and stone for our own guidance in life and creative inspiration?  Nature offers us this universal language with which to understand our own inner movements. What wisdom would be whispered in these challenging times?

The 20th century Jesuit theologian and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin writes that “By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us.” All created things await to serve the divine purpose in our lives. There is nothing in nature that falls outside these parameters. Every rock, every bird, every flower, every creature is how the sacred dimension of the world enters into intimacy and communion with us. This is how divine wisdom is revealed and we would do well to listen for their spiritual direction.

This kind of intimacy with nature means that when our hearts feel heavy or conflicted, we might find ourselves walking a trail in the woods, or along a river, or in a nearby park and experience a sense of kinship with creation. In these moments, the natural world often meets us as a guide and offers insight or peace to us. What wisdom do water, wind, earth, and fire have to offer you? How might they kindle a creative spark within your heart in new ways?

I am leading another program for the Rowe Center on Celtic Spirituality and Creative Writing through the four elements. We will be exploring some of the Celtic saints as well as stories like the Selkie or sealwoman. If you took the Advent retreat through Abbey of the Arts in 2020 there is some overlap in the writing explorations, but new content connecting it to Celtic spirituality. If you took my Spiral Way program through the Rowe Center in February 2021, this is all new content!

With great and growing love,

Christine

PS – We have two new dancing monk icons that have joined our series! Julian of Norwich and Clare of Assisi.

Two new dancing monk icons! Julian of Norwich & Clare of Assisi join the series

When John and I traveled to Assisi in 2019 to participate in a pilgrimage that started our sabbatical year, I went to encounter Francis more deeply. That did happen, but the holy surprise was encountering Clare, who I didn’t know as much about, and falling in love with her contemplative spirit. She was Francis’ treasured companion and she also struggled with poor health and has companioned me through my ongoing fatigue from chronic illness.

Then as the pandemic began, like many people I found tremendous wisdom, solace, and inspiration in Julian of Norwich, the patron saint of lockdowns and compassionate retreating during times of plague. I began to see my home as my own anchorhold and she was significant in helping me to fall even more in love with where I am right now. (I am leading an online mini-retreat for her feast day May 13th with Mary Sharratt!)

So I felt inspired to ask our wonderful Abbey artist Marcy Hall of to paint two new dancing monk icons, one for each of these powerful and wise women. You can see a preview here, the originals are on their way to me in Ireland. Marcy is making them available as prints for those interested. We will have to find a way to create some cards for those of you who want to add them to your dancing monk icon card sets. In the meantime, enjoy their vibrant, dancing presence!

Order an icon from Marcy Hall Order an icon from Marcy Hall

Hildy Tails 10: Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine – by John Valters Paintner

Hello, gentle readers! This series of 12 essays were composed during John & Christine’s Jubilee Year (which began pre-pandemic, but some of which was written during varying degrees of lockdown). They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized window into life on the wild edges of Ireland. They will take the place of our Monk in the World guest posts until May when those will return.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine .

Blessings to one and all! I hope this story finds you safe and well. We certainly live in strange and trying times. I know my little tales are usually on the whimsical side, but this one might be a bit different. John and I have started and deleted and restarted and re-deleted and re-restarted this one a couple of times now. You see, just last week the Taoiseach (basically, the Prime Minister) of Ireland declared an official national lockdown for the next two weeks (which we’re both pretty sure will be extended until at least the end of April). Scary stuff, but all very important and necessary.

Now on a personal level, I’m a monkey. But professionally, I’m a monk, an urban hermit, the Abbey’s quasi-anchorite, if you will. So, being asked to stay inside, where I spend most of my time . . . super easy, barely an inconvenience. Although my Irish core bristles at being TOLD to not go out, it is something that I can do standing on my head (something I literally do a couple of times a day, just for the craic). Like, I’ll gladly stay home to help with the pandemic. The way I’m trying to think of it is not being afraid to catch it (I’m young and healthy and would likely survive it); I’m assuming I already have it (just not symptomatic yet) and am bravely sacrificing to keep from spreading it.

But (you heard that one coming a mile away, did ya not?) if you’re like we Irish (Irish monkeys doubly so) you are not great with being made to do something. After centuries of oppression, we tend towards rebellion as a default. It’s not necessarily a bad trait. But fierce independence isn’t always the solution.

And that brings me to today’s Irish expression which translates to, “Under the shelter of each other, people survive.” I find it ironic that in this time of isolation that I’ve realized just how much I depend on other people. Sure, I knew it before . . . but I also kinda, sorta, a lot . . . took it (and people) for granted. I may live on an island, but I’m no island. My parents liked to say we were self-sufficient growing up, raising some of our own food and fending for ourselves. But, we had quite the extended family. (It’s always a point of contention at family gatherings exactly how many cousins we have.) And our village was always as supportive of us as we were of them. I’ve always been independent, but I also acknowledge that I am able to be independent because of the support of family and friends . . . and a relatively strong social safety net.

Now I may not like authority figures and am naturally suspicious of institutional structures, but I am a very sociable monkey. Family is very important to me. A common question I ask in greeting is, “how are your people?” or “who are your people?” if I’m getting to know someone new. And I love a nicely crowded gathering, whether it be the pub or church . . . whether it’s a baptism or wedding . . . oh, and I love me a good wake. John says that in the States people will “wedding crash” (try to sneak into a wedding they weren’t invited to in order to get free booze and to dance with strangers). In Ireland, people will scour the obituaries (which are still read on the local radio) and go to any nearby funeral, not only to ensure that more people will likely attend their own when the time comes, but for the free sandwiches and a bit of craic (fun).

And here in Galway, we have what John has started calling #GalwayProblems. That’s when there’s a number of shows or gigs on the same night (usually with people you know in each of them) that you want to attend, but unless you can bi-locate you’re going to have to miss out on something. And then there’s the Festival Season! All summer long, Galway City has overlapping festivals that bring in hundreds of thousands of people to an already packed little city. The place is usually hopping on an average Wednesday in winter, but come the end of May . . . There’s a reason Christine and John don’t do any live programmes during the summer months: just not enough space to breathe or move!

So to be in Galway, even as an introvert, during a shelter-in-place order . . . it’s bizarre. It’s not this quiet in some small villages. Besides the silent pubs and music venues and theatres, the actual theatre festival has already been cancelled. The literary and film and various art festivals will likely follow suit. Again, it’s one thing to willingly embrace silence and stillness as a way of life . . . it’s another altogether to have it thrust upon oneself. I never realized how much I depend on the background hum of the city to keep me company. Even if I don’t go out, it’s reassuring to know that life is being lived out there!

Some of my friends are trying to find opportunity in the new gift of time that the lockdown has given us. A friend is learning to dance from online tutorials. Others are taking online yoga classes. And we offered a special novena here at our little online monastery. But when I read people mentioning that Shakespeare wrote this while in quarantine and Newton discovered that during quarantine . . . I get a bit overwhelmed. Am I supposed to be doing something big and important right now? Is everyone supposed to be writing the next great novel or making the next huge scientific discovery? That seems like a lot of added pressure in an already very stressful time.

It’s great if you’re finding a new creative outlet during all this. But maybe, like myself, you just need to actually slow down and really stop for a bit. I don’t normally have deep thoughts, but John and I have been discussing how this pandemic is putting so much of what we, personally and collectively, valued into perspective. Or maybe you just need to take care of yourself during all this. You don’t have to come out of this thinner or smarter or with THE answer to all the world’s problems.

I’ve gotten back into some yoga and going for daily walks, along with some reading and even watching some silly shows friends have recommended. The physical activity is goal oriented towards getting in shape as much as it is to blow off some steam, to help ease the cabin fever. My daily prayer and writing routine has been helpful to pass the time as the lockdown goes on. Again, these are things I was already doing, but I’m trying to be more mindful about it. A daily schedule has really been helpful. I had a regular pattern or rhythm to my days before, but I felt it was important to double-down on the intentionality of it all.

What has been most helpful for me, is realizing how united we all truly are and how much our lives are interconnected. I’ve been reaching out to friends and family I haven’t spoken to in a while. I find it helpful to be helping, if only to chat. I find it lifts my own spirits.

A 12 Month Journey through "The Artists Rule" with Linda Courage

Join monk and artist Linda Courage at Living Spirituality Connections for a guided, 12 month long journey through The Artists Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom.

Linda previously led a community course on Earth, Our Original Monastery as part of a mentoring program with us and is a longtime dancing monk and member of this community.

Read some of her reflections and learn more about the online gathering here >>

Spring (or Autumn) Equinox and Sacred Time ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

As the wheel of the year turns to the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere (and autumn equinox in the southern hemisphere) I invite you to deepen your relationship to the sacred rhythms of nature and the cosmos with its blossoming, fruitfulness, release, and rest. To become fully present to these moments of turning is to give ourselves over to Kairos time rather than chronos time.

To help us understand this further, I want to share with you another excerpt from my new book Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life.

The Greek myths may help us understand this dual relationship we have to time. In the ancient story the Greek god Chronos was cursed, saying that he would one day be overthrown by one of his children. As a result each time a child of his was born, he would devour them to not allow the curse to take place. He was also depicted with a scythe and is known as the god of agriculture. Later he became associated with time and its devouring and destructive aspects. Chronos became the name for the kind of time which makes us keenly aware of its passing, always moving us inevitably toward our own ends.

In World Enough & Time, McEwen writes:

"When the Lilliputians first saw Gulliver’s watch, that 'wonderful kind of engine . . . a globe, half silver and half of some transparent metal [glass!],' they told themselves it had to be his god. After all, 'he very seldom did anything without consulting it: he called it his oracle, and said it pointed out the time for every action of his life.'”

We have clocks everywhere now. On our computer screens and phones, in our cars and on our microwaves. They hover above at airports and train stations, urging us to rush to keep up with the schedule. As the sociologist Juliet Schor points out in an article in Yes magazine, we “work too much, eat too quickly, socialize too little, drive and sit in traffic for too many hours, don’t get enough sleep, and feel harried too much of the time.”

Meanwhile, there is another kind of time. The Greeks also had a word for the more life-giving aspects of time. Kairos is known as the god of opportunity and is depicted with wings. Time may be the destroyer of things, but it is also the medium through which creativity happens. Time can be life-giving when we view it from an alternate perspective, from that of touching eternity.

Author Jay Griffiths writes, in A Sideways Look at Time, that Chronos “gives his name to absolute time, linear, chronological and quantifiable. But the Greeks had another, far more slippery colorful, god of time, Kairos. Kairos was the god of timing, of opportunity, of chance and mischance, of different aspects of time, the auspicious and not-so-auspicious. Time qualitative.” When we eat and sleep because we are hungry and tired, that is Kairos time, if we do so because the clock tells us it is the time to do so, that is Chronos time.

Kairos is the time we experience on retreat, when the pressures of the world recede and there is just this moment now beckoning for attention. We are in Kairos time when we are with a loved one, immersed in laughter and meaningful conversation, and we lose track of what time it is. Or when we are in the flow of creating and we forget to even look at our watches or phones for a spell.

How do we open ourselves to Kairos more often? How do we pause on the horizontal progression of time and touch the vertical moments of eternity? I believe part of the answer is opening ourselves to a connection to cyclical and spiral understandings of time as we have in nature. Much of monastic practice and tradition is rooted in this understanding and relationship.

Several years ago I went away for retreat by myself for a week.  I rented a cottage on Saltspring Island, which is one of the Gulf Islands in British Columbia.  I had been on many retreats before but they were usually a guided program at a retreat center with a facilitator and schedule to follow.

I was feeling a deeper call to solitude and found myself in this place by the sea long enough to really sink into my own internal rhythms.  I started listening more deeply to myself in those quiet days.  I began to experience this profound freedom to attend to my body’s needs as they arose – for food, for rest, for movement, for stillness.

What I discovered in those days away was that my spirituality thrives when I can allow it to be organic – when I create enough space to respond to what the day offers.  I am someone who loves to plan and make lists, and yet what is most life-giving for me in the overall arc of my life is to listen deeply to what my life is calling me toward and shape my life in response.

There is a beautiful rhythm of rise and fall found in every breath we take, in the rising and setting of the sun each day, in the balance between work and Sabbath time each week, in the waxing and waning of the moon each month, the flowering and releasing of the earth through her seasons, the seasons of our lifetimes, and then larger rhythms of ancestral and cosmic time.

In the Celtic tradition, time is depicted as a wheel, as in many other indigenous traditions, always turning and moving through the cycles of seasons. These seasons reflect inner movements as well where we are invited into ritual to mark the new moments. Rituals immerse us in liminal space and time, which is time outside of time. We touch the eternal moment. Ritual creates a holy pause and connects us to the very rhythm of the world that sustains us, reminding us of the slow unfolding and ripening of things. Ritual, whether religious or otherwise, connect us to a deep source, a well of refreshment.

We don’t have to go anywhere in particular to experience sacred time. We don’t have to give up our lives in the world and run off to a monastery to be immersed in the holiness of time’s unfolding. Really what we are invited to is a shift in perspective. Think of those optical illusions where you look at a drawing and see one thing, but when you shift your gaze, you see something else entirely.

To immerse yourself in experiencing time in a new way with a community of kindred spirits, please join us for our 8-week companion retreat to my book Sacred Time starting on April 5th.

(That same week I am also starting another 4-session program with the Rowe Center on Celtic spirituality and creativity, this time through the lens of the four elements).

With great and growing love,

Christine

PS – You can read a reflection on the spring equinox in our archives here and on the autumn equinox here.

PPS – A poem of mine appears in the online journal Vita Poetica (there is also an audio recording there available so you can hear me recite it.)

Hildy Tails 9: Bíonn adharca fada ar na ba thar lear ~ by John Valters Paintner

Hello, gentle readers! This series of 12 essays were composed during John & Christine’s Jubilee Year (which began pre-pandemic, but some of which was written during varying degrees of lockdown). They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized window into life on the wild edges of Ireland. They will take the place of our Monk in the World guest posts until May when those will return.

Bíonn adharca fada ar na ba thar lear.

Hello, again, everyone! It’s me, Hildy the Abbey of the Arts’ adorable mascot. (John added the “adorable” bit there. I don’t want ye thinking I’ve got Notions. But thank you, John. I’ll do my Irish best to accept the compliment.)

But speaking of Irish . . . today’s expression means “far away cows have long horns.” It’s another way of saying the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Only here in Ireland, the grass is always as green as it’s goin’ to get, wherever ya go and regardless of what side of the fence you’re on. So, cows it is. Besides, so much of Irish history/mythology has to do with cow envy and cattle theft . . . this just makes so much more sense here.

Now I don’t like to be the jealous type, as I try to be very grateful with my life (Thank you, Brother David Steindl-Rast) and do feel very blessed. However, I wish I had grown up in a thatched cottage.

It’s not that I long for ye olde tymes or anything. I know life was hard back when most people in the West of Ireland lived in them. I just love the look of them so much. I grew up down the lane from a woman (to protect her privacy, we’ll call her), Granny Privy who had a lovely thatched cottage that some of us would visit and play in . . . and on top of, in some cases. (That case would be me and my siblings.) But Granny Privy didn’t mind. We’d just sit up there and enjoy the view. We weren’t messing with the thatch or . . .

(Good point, John.) Maybe I should back up and explain a bit about thatched roofs and life in those traditional cottages.

Thatched roofs are made out of thatch. That is reeds or grass, depending on the local flora and what building materials were available at the time. Here on the mainland, thatch is traditionally made out of reeds, but out on the Aran Islands they are made of grasses. This means that out on the islands, where there’s more wind and rain, the roofs need to be replaced about twice as often. In the east of Ireland, where the weather is nicer (if not as dramatic and majestic) the roofs can last for well over a decade. This is one reason you don’t see a lot of thatched roofs anymore. It’s expensive and time consuming to keep replacing. Now the Irish government does provide a stipend to help people maintain their thatched roofs, but good luck finding a new one. (Actually, there is a new one near us here in Galway City; but more on that later.) Insurance companies won’t insure a building with one, because of the obvious fire hazard (I’ll get to the open fireplaces in a minute). Some people will built a tin roof and lay thatch on top of that, like a hotel in southern County Galway that likes to claim to have the largest thatched roof in Ireland. But it’s not a “real” thatched roof.  You see, real ones are just tightly wound bundles of reeds tied together and laid over a wooden frame. It keeps the rain out by funnelling all the run off down to drip off the ends of the thatch before it drips through to the inside of the cottage. If the building is too wide, the rain will leak into the house. But the real trick, the beauty hiding in plain sight of a thatched roof is along the ridge of the roof. How the thatched is laced together along the top is everything. And if you look closely (or are sitting on top of it), you’ll notice that each master thatcher has their own unique way of doing it. It’s a kind of signature that you can recognize, so those in the know would be able to tell who put the thatched roof on.

But the thatched roof is only one of the traditional aspects of thatched roof cottages. There’s also the half-door. You see, the English used to tax buildings based on the number of windows homes had. The more windows, the higher the property tax. So, the Irish started boarding up windows (seriously, there are some VERY nice Edwardian houses in Dublin that still have bricked over windows) or just not installing them. Most thatched cottages in the West had one window in the wall opposite the front door, and the door was cut in half. That way, you could open the top half and create a second window without being taxed for it. Granny Privy said there was a second, added benefit. She said it was a great way to keep the children inside and the animals out. Or, “if mom was having a rough day,” she’d say the bottom half of the door would keep the children out and the animals in. (Young and/or ill animals were often kept inside anyway for warmth and closer care.) An open half door was also a sign to neighbours that visitors were welcome.

On a side note, John says his Irish-American mom had his dad put in a half-door on the baby’s room in the house he and his sister grew up in. This was obviously long before the invention of baby-monitors . . . because John is OOOLD. ;-) (John laughed as I said that and he’s the one who typed it and left it in, so . . . we’re good.)

Now once you’ve stepped over the threshold (named after the little bit of wood that was put across the bottom of the door opening to keep the thresh inside the house, which was sometimes used if one couldn’t afford flooring and didn’t want to be walking around in mud inside one’s house) . . . in some instances, hopping through the open half-door . . . you were in the main living room / kitchen / dining room / spare bedroom. The main focus was the open fireplace that was kept lit throughout the year. Even at night the embers would’ve been covered over to smoulder and immediately be rekindled in the morning. There’d be a couple of metal arms that would swing back and forth to hold pots and pans over the fire or be pulled away. There is usually a stone or brick shelf next to the fire for baking bread. And a place to sit next to the fire to keep warm or tend the cooking food. That’s where Granny Privy would sit and tell us stories or sing us songs. We’d have to tell our own stories or play some music. That’s where I first learned to play the bodhrán, from the one hanging on Granny’s wall.

Oh, that’s another thing! There’s always things, just not pictures, hanging on the wall. Usually a crucifix (often a “Penal Cross” – a cross with short arms, so it could easily be hidden up a shirt sleeve or down a trouser leg if the British authorities popped in to see if you were practicing Catholicism back when the Penal Laws punished the Irish for doing so). In more recent years, you’d see a photo of the pope (not always the most current one, but the family’s favourite one), a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Mother Mary, and John F. Kennedy (treated almost saint-like by many Irish). But there’d be all sorts of tools and implements and instruments hanging on the wall or from the rafters. (Did I mention there wasn’t a ceiling inside the cottage? You could look up and see the underside of the thatching.)

Off to either side there’d be bedrooms, sometimes only one if the family was particular small and/or poor. In Granny Privy’s cottage her bedroom did have a ceiling and the space above was used for extra storage, accessed by a ladder in the living room. But the other bedroom didn’t have a ceiling, so the bed in there had a canopy (to keep creepy crawlies that might be living in the thatch from falling on ya while ya slept). Granny’s bedroom shared a wall with the fireplace, so it was warm . . . or so she told us. We weren’t allowed in and we didn’t try . . . not for want of wanting to. But she was good to us and like I said, she likes her privacy.

I know it’s weird to be nostalgic for an era I didn’t live through myself. And I know I’m being naïve about the difficulties of living in a thatched cottage, even with today’s modern conveniences . . . but there’s something about sitting around an open fire place with friends and family that just appeals to me.

Now before I go, I promised earlier to mention a new thatched cottage near me here in Galway. Christine & John’s place is just across the road from the Claddagh (which is the oldest part of Galway . . . having been a small Irish fishing village before the Normans set up a walled city across the river and called it Galway). In the Claddagh there’s an art and heritage centre, called Claddagh Designs. And this centre, a couple of years ago got building permission to expand and they expanded by building (according to the original tradition) a thatched roof cottage, called Katie’s Cottage! Nobody lives in it (which is why I think they got around building restrictions and insurance issues). Anybody can go visit it. They hold small theatre events there. It’s really cool. And if you’re into THAT and happen to be in the Galway area (with a large group), you can book a tour out at Cnoc Suain. It’s a restored Irish farm in the wilds of Connemara, with a few thatched cottages, that’s run by a retired school teacher and biologist who teach about Irish culture with a cooking demonstration, a mini-lesson about the bogs, and short Trad concert that ends with some dancing. It’s brilliant!

Hildy Tale: Bíonn adharca fada ar na ba thar lear ~ by John Valters Paintner

Hello, gentle readers! This series of 12 essays were composed during John & Christine’s Jubilee Year (which began pre-pandemic, but some of which was written during varying degrees of lockdown). They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized window into life on the wild edges of Ireland. They will take the place of our Monk in the World guest posts until May when those will return.

Bíonn adharca fada ar na ba thar lear.

Hello, again, everyone! It’s me, Hildy the Abbey of the Arts’ adorable mascot. (John added the “adorable” bit there. I don’t want ye thinking I’ve got Notions. But thank you, John. I’ll do my Irish best to accept the compliment.)

But speaking of Irish . . . today’s expression means “far away cows have long horns.” It’s another way of saying the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Only here in Ireland, the grass is always as green as it’s goin’ to get, wherever ya go and regardless of what side of the fence you’re on. So, cows it is. Besides, so much of Irish history/mythology has to do with cow envy and cattle theft . . . this just makes so much more sense here.

Now I don’t like to be the jealous type, as I try to be very grateful with my life (Thank you, Brother David Steindl-Rast) and do feel very blessed. However, I wish I had grown up in a thatched cottage.

It’s not that I long for ye olde tymes or anything. I know life was hard back when most people in the West of Ireland lived in them. I just love the look of them so much. I grew up down the lane from a woman (to protect her privacy, we’ll call her), Granny Privy who had a lovely thatched cottage that some of us would visit and play in . . . and on top of, in some cases. (That case would be me and my siblings.) But Granny Privy didn’t mind. We’d just sit up there and enjoy the view. We weren’t messing with the thatch or . . .

(Good point, John.) Maybe I should back up and explain a bit about thatched roofs and life in those traditional cottages.

Thatched roofs are made out of thatch. That is reeds or grass, depending on the local flora and what building materials were available at the time. Here on the mainland, thatch is traditionally made out of reeds, but out on the Aran Islands they are made of grasses. This means that out on the islands, where there’s more wind and rain, the roofs need to be replaced about twice as often. In the east of Ireland, where the weather is nicer (if not as dramatic and majestic) the roofs can last for well over a decade. This is one reason you don’t see a lot of thatched roofs anymore. It’s expensive and time consuming to keep replacing. Now the Irish government does provide a stipend to help people maintain their thatched roofs, but good luck finding a new one. (Actually, there is a new one near us here in Galway City; but more on that later.) Insurance companies won’t insure a building with one, because of the obvious fire hazard (I’ll get to the open fireplaces in a minute). Some people will built a tin roof and lay thatch on top of that, like a hotel in southern County Galway that likes to claim to have the largest thatched roof in Ireland. But it’s not a “real” thatched roof.  You see, real ones are just tightly wound bundles of reeds tied together and laid over a wooden frame. It keeps the rain out by funnelling all the run off down to drip off the ends of the thatch before it drips through to the inside of the cottage. If the building is too wide, the rain will leak into the house. But the real trick, the beauty hiding in plain sight of a thatched roof is along the ridge of the roof. How the thatched is laced together along the top is everything. And if you look closely (or are sitting on top of it), you’ll notice that each master thatcher has their own unique way of doing it. It’s a kind of signature that you can recognize, so those in the know would be able to tell who put the thatched roof on.

But the thatched roof is only one of the traditional aspects of thatched roof cottages. There’s also the half-door. You see, the English used to tax buildings based on the number of windows homes had. The more windows, the higher the property tax. So, the Irish started boarding up windows (seriously, there are some VERY nice Edwardian houses in Dublin that still have bricked over windows) or just not installing them. Most thatched cottages in the West had one window in the wall opposite the front door, and the door was cut in half. That way, you could open the top half and create a second window without being taxed for it. Granny Privy said there was a second, added benefit. She said it was a great way to keep the children inside and the animals out. Or, “if mom was having a rough day,” she’d say the bottom half of the door would keep the children out and the animals in. (Young and/or ill animals were often kept inside anyway for warmth and closer care.) An open half door was also a sign to neighbours that visitors were welcome.

On a side note, John says his Irish-American mom had his dad put in a half-door on the baby’s room in the house he and his sister grew up in. This was obviously long before the invention of baby-monitors . . . because John is OOOLD. ;-) (John laughed as I said that and he’s the one who typed it and left it in, so . . . we’re good.)

Now once you’ve stepped over the threshold (named after the little bit of wood that was put across the bottom of the door opening to keep the thresh inside the house, which was sometimes used if one couldn’t afford flooring and didn’t want to be walking around in mud inside one’s house) . . . in some instances, hopping through the open half-door . . . you were in the main living room / kitchen / dining room / spare bedroom. The main focus was the open fireplace that was kept lit throughout the year. Even at night the embers would’ve been covered over to smoulder and immediately be rekindled in the morning. There’d be a couple of metal arms that would swing back and forth to hold pots and pans over the fire or be pulled away. There is usually a stone or brick shelf next to the fire for baking bread. And a place to sit next to the fire to keep warm or tend the cooking food. That’s where Granny Privy would sit and tell us stories or sing us songs. We’d have to tell our own stories or play some music. That’s where I first learned to play the bodhrán, from the one hanging on Granny’s wall.

Oh, that’s another thing! There’s always things, just not pictures, hanging on the wall. Usually a crucifix (often a “Penal Cross” – a cross with short arms, so it could easily be hidden up a shirt sleeve or down a trouser leg if the British authorities popped in to see if you were practicing Catholicism back when the Penal Laws punished the Irish for doing so). In more recent years, you’d see a photo of the pope (not always the most current one, but the family’s favourite one), a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Mother Mary, and John F. Kennedy (treated almost saint-like by many Irish). But there’d be all sorts of tools and implements and instruments hanging on the wall or from the rafters. (Did I mention there wasn’t a ceiling inside the cottage? You could look up and see the underside of the thatching.)

Off to either side there’d be bedrooms, sometimes only one if the family was particular small and/or poor. In Granny Privy’s cottage her bedroom did have a ceiling and the space above was used for extra storage, accessed by a ladder in the living room. But the other bedroom didn’t have a ceiling, so the bed in there had a canopy (to keep creepy crawlies that might be living in the thatch from falling on ya while ya slept). Granny’s bedroom shared a wall with the fireplace, so it was warm . . . or so she told us. We weren’t allowed in and we didn’t try . . . not for want of wanting to. But she was good to us and like I said, she likes her privacy.

I know it’s weird to be nostalgic for an era I didn’t live through myself. And I know I’m being naïve about the difficulties of living in a thatched cottage, even with today’s modern conveniences . . . but there’s something about sitting around an open fire place with friends and family that just appeals to me.

Now before I go, I promised earlier to mention a new thatched cottage near me here in Galway. Christine & John’s place is just across the road from the Claddagh (which is the oldest part of Galway . . . having been a small Irish fishing village before the Normans set up a walled city across the river and called it Galway). In the Claddagh there’s an art and heritage centre, called Claddagh Designs. And this centre, a couple of years ago got building permission to expand and they expanded by building (according to the original tradition) a thatched roof cottage, called Katie’s Cottage! Nobody lives in it (which is why I think they got around building restrictions and insurance issues). Anybody can go visit it. They hold small theatre events there. It’s really cool. And if you’re into THAT and happen to be in the Galway area (with a large group), you can book a tour out at Cnoc Suain. It’s a restored Irish farm in the wilds of Connemara, with a few thatched cottages, that’s run by a retired school teacher and biologist who teach about Irish culture with a cooking demonstration, a mini-lesson about the bogs, and short Trad concert that ends with some dancing. It’s brilliant!