To Serve Beauty

"What  wish do I keep now after seventy years of struggle, success, and failure?" asks Ella Young in her autobiography Flowering Dusk. I read this line long ago but now I feel Ella in those words for the first time. And now, my own thoughts and reflections are mirrored in her thoughts. Not surprising, as Ella Young and I have been on a journey together for quite some time.

Ella asks this question while "sitting here with sunlight glinting among the ruby-hearted lilies...with sunlight filtering through the boughs above me." I picture this scene in her quirky wooden cottage in Oceano, California surrounded by eucalyptus trees and the sound of the sea weaving through the air like a spell.

Image by Denise Sallee. All Rights Reserved, 2020.

She goes on to answer her question. "I think that I keep my first conscious wish: to see beauty always with keener perception and subtler understanding. I have wished to serve beauty as writer, gardener and citizen—though I have fallen far short of the wish."

The first time I read the poem by John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn,  I was in my early twenties and hungry for a world I knew must exist but had yet to discover. He spoke of "wild ecstasy" and those words certainly spoke to me. And then that final stanza that haunts so many:

 O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
         When old age shall this generation waste,
                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Ella Young was a romantic and she was a warrior. Do her astral planets struggle within her as my own do within me?

And she continues her musings: "Beauty is like flame—it lives by escaping: but where it touches one, like flame it leaves a mark. Burnt into my mind is the image of the first rose that as a child I really saw. At that moment, that epoch of consciousness, rose bush, garden—the whole cosmos—disappeared : only the rose remained effulgent and heart-filling—only the rose remains in my memory."

Image by Denise Sallee. All Rights Reserved, 2020

"Every lover of beauty becomes oversoon aware of that tragic shadow, the destruction of beauty: the destruction of joy which is in itself a kind of beauty...I understood that Beauty is outside of and independent of all form. It is imperishable."

She gives examples of what she calls "the poor image of Beauty" transient objects and moments. But, she announces "the sun remains! Reaching out toward this beauty—conceived at once as formless and having every form, understanding it to be approached as much through sorrow as though joy one apprehends the fringe of it as an ecstasy, lifting mind, body and soul beyond the trammeled existence we mistakenly call life."

Do I hear in Ella Young's words echoes from an earlier time and an earlier poet?

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Ella Young in the Brugh of Angus ~ commonly known as Newgrange

Irish poet, mystic and folklorist, Ella Young (1867 – 1956) wrote in her memoirs Flowering Dusk... (1945) about an experience she had, on her own, inside what she names as "the Brugh of Angus" and what is commonly called Newgrange in County Meath.  The date of this visit is not given but Ella left Ireland, never to return, in 1925.

Image by Denise Sallee, ©2009

In her chapter entitled "Cave of the Red Steeds" she recounts her lengthy stay in a farmhouse near Cong, County Mayo, and entering a natural cave with many chambers where she remained for some time. 

"My thoughts went back to another silence—silence and darkness in the Brugh of Angus, the artificial chambered mound at Newgrange by the Boyne. I sat alone in the Central Chamber of the Brugh (having bribed the custodian to absent herself and her candles). The roof arched above me in blackness and there was great silence about me, penetrated by the chill joyousness of the Brugh. Suddenly, I became aware that the Chamber was filling with pale light that surged like water through the narrow tortuous entrance passage. Like water, it seemed to have weight and substance. Washed by this pale liquid slow-moving light the pillar-stone of the Brugh suddenly flamed silver, shot up like a column of moon-fire. The Sun, journeying westward, had touched it with an out-stretched finger.

Ella Young goes on to compare the cave in Cong and the Brugh in Meath—noting that "the Brugh of Angus had been carefully fashioned. The Ultonian* kings paid honour to it, and at the Samhain Festival processions wound among the standing stones that still, in broken formation, circle the mound. Fire leaped on the summit. Five great roads converged on it."
* A native or inhabitant of Ulster

My Lady of Dreams

A moment's pause in an ever darkening world...

Lughnassa ~ The Marriage Feast of Lugh

Detail Setanta Wall (Dublin, 1974) by Desmond Kinney: Photo by  Bob Phillips

The Marriage Feast of Lugh celebrated each August in Ireland is mentioned several times by Ella Young in her memoir Flowering Dusk: Things Remembered Accurately and Inaccurately (1945).

She begins by recalling events involving the nationalist political group in which she was active -  The Daughters of Ireland (Inghinidhe na hÉireann) 

"That night the little room in a back street of Dublin city - where the Daughters of Ireland were celebrating the Lughnassa, the Marriage Feast of Lugh the Sun God to the Royal Sovereignty of Ireland..."  Earlier that day, Ella was climbing Slieve Gullion with her friend Phyllis MacMurdo who Ella greatly admired. They discussed the old tales and the old gods and Phyllis declared "Let us gather heather, white and red, and go tonight to the play that the Daughters of Ireland are putting on  (Red Hugh's Captivity by Alice Mulligan...)."

Another reference to the Marriage Feast of Lugh in Ella Young's memoir is also when she writes about the activities of the Daughters of Ireland:  "Since we are reviving everything at once, we pay attention to the ancient Festivals. There are four which divide the year into periods of three months: the Festival of Brigit, the Pure Perpetual Ashless Flalme, in February; the Festival of Beltane, the coming of the young Gods who succor the Earth, in May; the Marriage-Feastival of Lugh, the Sun, who weds the Sovereignty of Erin in August; the Festival of Samhain, that opens the Inner World, in November."

In a section Ella titles "The Royal Sovereignty of Ireland, 1922"

From: Irish Civil War – essential facts

she writes about the beginning of the civil war. It is June 28 and she is in Dublin where the "guns boomed day and night" and she looked toward the Four Courts and spoke about the men there as the smoke rose and the "ground muttered and shook... a hundred good fighting men...were prisoners in Mountjoy [prison]...They held out for five days, and surrendered only when the walls fell in and flame licked about their feet...Like fire the civil war spurts and rages from town to town, from countryside to countryside. The Feast of the Lughnassa draws on. Fires were lit on the sacred hills of Ireland at this Festival in token that Lugh the Sun-God was wedded to the Royal Sovereignty of Ireland. Those were joy-fires: our fires hiss and flicker with blood."

Lugh was associated with sovereignty because he represented sacred kingship. The marriage feast  - or Great Rite - is the act of the named king asking of the land he is to reign, permission to rule. The land is represented by the goddess, who through sexual union with the king, gifts him with this sovereignty. This is such a powerful act and such a powerful image. Ella Young and her many comrades fought for this sovereignty - for the land, for ancient and sacred Ireland to regain what had been lost. There is no doubt that the English crown was never given sovereignty by the land - by the goddess who embodies all of Ireland and her people.

National Print Museum of Ireland

An unexpected discovery near my hotel is the National Print Museum of Ireland. It is located in the renovated Beggars Bush Barracks which "In 1827...was established as a British Army military barracks" and the museum is in the Garrison Chapel building. The Irish "Free State forces were based here during the Civil War" which was in reaction to the Anglo-Irish Treaty with the United Kingdom that resulted in the division of  Ireland and established what we now know of as Northern Ireland.  It was this treaty in the early 1920's that forced Ella Young to leave her beloved Ireland and relocate to California.

The museum has many treasures of early printing in Ireland and it also is home to the original of the Proclamation of the Republic that was read by Patrick Pearse at the General Post Office and kicked off the 1916 Easter Rising and yet another war for Irish independence. It was very moving for me to read the proclamation again knowing that this time I was reading the original.

I also viewed an exhibit of print work on the moon landing of 1969 that "explores Ireland’s response to the man landing of the moon through print. Given the historical significance of the events of July 20th, 1969, a range of coverage was evident across the island." Here is the front page of The Irish Times:

Since I'm always willing to subvert the modern paradigm I really enjoyed this artist's work on the potential reality that the landing was just a hoax - but then I've been questioning the US government since 1967:

I ended my day's journey back in the Dock area shooting with my film camera. Met another serious photographer there who was quite taken by my unusual camera. He and I had a lovely chat together. The film photos will have to wait until my return and the film is processed. Here are two iPhone snaps from the Dock - it was a sunny late afternoon and everyone around me was enjoying the moment at day's end.

Invocation

GREETING by Ella Young

Over the wave-patterned sea floor,
Over the long sun-burnt ridge of the world,
I bid the winds seek you
I bid them cry to you
Night and morning
A name you loved once;
I bid them bring to you
Reed songs, and songs of the small birds -
and sleep.

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.

Blessings to the Earth ~ from Ella Young

"Ogma brought the Sword of Light from Findrias the cloud-fair city that is in the east of the De Danaan world; Nuada brought the Spear of Victory from Gorias the flame-bright city that is in the south of the De Danaan world; the Dagda brought the Cauldron of Plenty from Murias the city that is builded in the west of the De Danaan world and has the stillness of deep waters; Midyir brought the Stone of Destiny from Falias the city that is builded in the north of the De Danaan world and has the steadfastness of adamant. Then Brigit and her companions set forth.
They fell like a rain of stars till they came to the blackness that surrounded the Earth, and looking down saw below them, as at the bottom of an abyss, the writhing, contorted, hideous life that swarmed and groped and devoured itself ceaselessly.
From the seething turmoil of that abyss all the Shining Ones drew back save Midyir. He grasped the Fiery Spear and descended like a flame.
His comrades looked down and saw him treading out the monstrous life as men tread grapes in a wine-press; they saw the blood and foam of that destruction rise about Midyir till he was crimson with it even to the crown of his head; they saw him whirl the Spear till it became a wheel of fire and shot out sparks and tongues of flame; they saw the flame lick the darkness and turn back on itself and spread and blossom ¬murk-red — blood-red —rose-red at last!
Midyir drew himself out of the abyss, a Ruby Splendour, and said: "I have made a place for Brigit's mantle. Throw down your mantle, Brigit, and bless the Earth! "
Brigit threw down her mantle and when it touched the Earth it spread itself, unrolling like silver flame. It took possession of the place Midyir had made as the sea takes possession, and it continued to spread itself because everything that was foul drew back from the little silver flame at the edge of it.
It is likely it would have spread itself over all the earth, only Angus, the youngest of the gods, had not patience to wait: he leaped down and stood with his two feet on the mantle. It ceased to be fire and became a silver mist about him. He ran through the mist laughing and calling on the others to follow. His laughter drew them and they followed. The drifting silver mist closed over them and round them, and through it they saw each other like images in a dream—changed and fantastic. They laughed when they saw each other. The Dagda thrust both his hands into the Cauldron of Plenty.
"0 Cauldron," he said, "you give to every one the gift that is meetest, give me now a gift meet for the Earth."
He drew forth his hands full of green fire and he scattered the greenness everywhere as a sower scatters seed. Angus stooped and lifted the greenness of the earth: he scooped hollows in it; he piled it in heaps; he played with it as a child plays with sand, and when it slipped through his fingers it changed colour and shone like star-dust-blue and purple and yellow and white and red." "The Earth Shapers" by Ella Young. In Celtic Wonder Tales, 1923.

Seamus Heaney and the Gifts of Nature

RTÉ Television this week presents a tribute in honor of poet Seamus Heaney's 70th birthday:

"Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous explores the key personal relationship in Heaney's life, that with his wife Marie, through a fascinating interview with both of them. It also follows Heaney to Harvard, New York and London, to readings, signings and public interviews, encountering friends and colleagues such as writer and fellow Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Pulitzer prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, American critic Helen Vendler and Stephen Page, Chief Executive of Faber and Faber. These encounters reveal not only Heaney's gift for friendship and collegiality but also give many compelling insights into the working life of a major writer... digs deep into the rich store of Heaney's poetry to reveal key periods in his life: the raw pastoral of his childhood in Mossbawn, County Derry..."

This is one of my favorite poems by Heaney:

Personal Helicon

for Michael Longley

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

There is a small grassroots movement afoot called "No Child Left Inside" that sprang from the thought provoking book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. Ella Young, an Irish poet from a time before Seamus Heaney, knew the value of Nature in all our lives. She worried that children of her day were too caught up in their "mechanical toys" and needed time to sit in the garden - to be still and to listen and to let their eyes see the smallest creature crawling beneath a leaf and the wonder of tree tops swaying against the clouds.

Oh, Ella, if you saw the toys of today and the children with ears iPod-ed against the real music of the winds and the birds and eyes that only know the illsuion of the pixelated screen how you would weep. I weep now, Ella, for the disconnected children who have never known the pure joy of wonder and the grown-ups who do not understand that our imaginations need nurturing and that comes from the stillness - from the quiet moments when our souls begin to whisper to us. How can we hear when we are so distracted...take a child into the woods or into a garden where the lady bugs build their homes...do it soon and do it often.