Toni Dockter: Filosophy with a Fuchsia Flair

For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to write a letter to Candy, an old friend…we’d lost touch… (see yesterday’s blog). It was the hardest thing I have ever written. What to say that might help… What not to say in a public forum…

I stayed up until midnight to finally finish it. With no email or street address, I had to tell Candy through FaceBook where to find this letter, which meant I had to join FB, which is not my cup of tea…oh well…

Then this morning I got up and read my emails from the last several days. One was from Krista Tippet, who has the NPR show called “Being”— about “A conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas.” The title of this newsletter was “The Inner Landscape of Beauty.” There was a beautiful photo like this one, only with a man walking through the field.

The man in Krista’s photo was John O’Donohue.

OF COURSE! What hadn’t I thought of that before? No one does emotions (sadness, anger, reflection, passion, comfort, etc.)better than the IRISH.And especially an IRISH POET. And even more especially, the IRISH POET JOHN O’DONOHUE!

Here are the words that he wrote to his mother when his father passed away. The poem is entitled, “Bennacht,” which is Gaelic for “blessing.” Candy, this is for you:

On the day when the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green, and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of YELLOW moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth

be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors

be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

WHEW! Wish I had written those beautiful words…(although I have no idea what a “currach” is… have to look it up!)

Here is John O’Donohue reading his poem, “Bennacht,” with his gorgeous Irish voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvS2LYbZLQ

A sunrise for Candy.

A sunset for Leah.

To Missy Erica: You are missed, young lady!

Erica Jane Cowan: 1988 - 2009