Old Ways

Sean MacDiarmada was one of the signers of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence declaring Ireland's freedom from England. He, along with many others, were executed by the British for their part in the Easter Uprising.

He lived in a cottage in the hills of North Leitrim and I visited it during a slight lull in the terrific weather we have had this month.

When we arrive there was a great fire roaring in the old hearth and Tina set about tending it.
Soon two workers appeared - an older man and a man in his early twenties. The young man was proud to tell us he was learning the old ways of repairing the cottage thatch... the torch is being passed so that traditions can be continued. They were happy to show me a bit of how they worked the thatch and then we all came into the cottage and talked by the fire. The frost came that evening...

"Worst Flooding in Memory"

Nearly sunset after yet another day of heavy rain in Ireland. Worse in the Cork and Galway area but North Leitrim has had high winds and more rain than the saturated fields can hold. The lake beyond the main road is full but holding and I just saw my cows come out from their shelter under the trees. But the crows have not appeared so there must be more rain to come - and soon.

A thin crescent moon low in the sky...the wise woman told her daughter to look to the West for the weather. The clouds have lifted and the sun, with only moments left to share its magic with us, appears.

The West of Ireland - raw, rugged and struggling - yet it is here that I have found Home.

She is...by any name She Is.

"The Virgin Mother"
by Ella Young

Now Day's worn out and Dusk has claimed
a share
Of earth and sky and all the things that be,
I lay my tired head against your knee,
And feel your fingers smooth my tangled hair,
I loved you once, when I had heart to dare,
And sought you over many a land and sea;
Yet all the while you waited here for me
In a sweet stillness shut away from care,
I have no longing now, no dreams of bliss.
But drowned in peace through the soft gloom
I wait
Until the stars be kindled by God's breath;
For then you'll bend above me with the kiss
Earth's children long for when the hour grows
late,
Mother of Consolation, Sovereign Death.

Under Ben Bulben

W. B. Yeats.
I
Swear by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.

Swear by those horsemen, by those women
Complexion and form prove superhuman,
That pale, long-visaged company
That air in immortality
Completeness of their passions won;
Now they ride the wintry dawn
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.

Here's the gist of what they mean.

II
Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-digger's toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles strong,
They but thrust their buried men
Back in the human mind again.

III
You that Mitchel's prayer have heard,
"Send war in our time, O Lord!"
Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad,
Something drops from eyes long blind,
He completes his partial mind,
For an instant stands at ease,
Laughs aloud, his heart at peace.
Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.

IV
Poet and sculptor, do the work,
Nor let the modish painter shirk
What his great forefathers did,
Bring the soul of man to God,
Make him fill the cradles right.

Measurement began our might:
Forms a stark Egyptian thought,
Forms that gentler Phidias wrought,
Michael Angelo left a proof
On the Sistine Chapel roof,
Where but half-awakened Adam
Can disturb globe-trotting Madam
Till her bowels are in heat,
Proof that there's a purpose set
Before the secret working mind:
Profane perfection of mankind.

Quattrocento put in print
On backgrounds for a God or Saint
Gardens where a soul's at ease;
Where everything that meets the eye,
Flowers and grass and cloudless sky,
Resemble forms that are or seem
When sleepers wake and yet still dream,
And when it's vanished still declare,
With only bed and bedstead there,
That heavens had opened.

Gyres run on;
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude,
Prepared a rest for the people of God,
Palmer's phrase, but after that
Confusion fell upon our thought.

V
Irish poets, learn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.
Sing the peasantry, and then
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry.

VI
Under bare Ben Bulben's head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

Beauty is...

I find myself in the midst of an ancient debate over the definition of Beauty. Plato opened up the dialog in this way:

"And this is the true discipline of loving or being loved: that a man begin with the beauties of this world and use them as stepping-stones for an unceasing journey to that other beauty, going from one to two and from two to all, and from beautiful creatures to beautiful lives, and from beautiful lives to beautiful truths, and from beautiful truths attaining finally to nothing less than the true knowledge of Beauty itself, and so know at last what Beauty is."

Somewhat later Joseph Addison in the early 18th century said it this way:

"But there is nothing that makes its Way more directly to the soul than Beauty, which
immediately diffuses a secret Satisfaction and Complacency through the Imagination. . . ."

Yet I am quite sure Beauty is a reflection of Nature and of our Soul - Byron understands:

"Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them? "

And, of course, Shelley understands:

"Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world. . . ."

So, we have Love, Nature, and Soul...perhaps Beauty is the synthesis of these three. Or, not.

I continue the Search for Beauty. Perhaps I found it today in the miracle of a rainbow...