Das ist für mich...

„Das ist für mich die schönste und traurigste
Landschaft von der Welt.
Schaut diese Landschaft genau an, damit ihr sie
sicher wiedererkennt, wenn ihr eines Tages
durch Irland reist. Und wenn ihr zufällig da
vorbeikommt, eilt nicht weiter,
ich flehe euch an – wartet ein bißchen –
gerade unter dem Stern!
Wenn dann ein junger Mann auf euch zukommt
wenn er lacht, wenn er goldenes Haar hat,
wenn er nicht antwortet, so man ihn fragt,
dann werdet ihr wohl erraten, wer es ist.
Dann seid so gut und laßt mich nicht
weiter so traurig sein: schreibt mir schnell
wenn er wieder da ist.....“

(Nach: A. Saint-Exupéry: Der kleine Prinz)

On the death of the beloved

Florian on our last trip with him
Connemara 1999

Go raibh maith agaibh go léir agus beannacht.

On the death of the Beloved

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:

To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

– John O’Donohue

From:
TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US
(entitled BENEDICTUS in Europe, Ireland and the UK)

Spirit

Spirit
is Life.
It flows thru
the death of me
endlessly
like a river
unafraid
of becoming
the sea

von Gregory Corso
Foto: eigenes - Connemara 2003

TEARS, IDLE TEARS

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892

On the death of Beloved

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:

To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

-- John O’Donohue

From:
TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US
(entitled BENEDICTUS in Europe, Ireland and the UK)

Souls Day

"Are Space and Time Different in the Eternal World?"
from ANAM CARA
John O'Donohue

* * *
When the soul leaves the body, it is no longer under the burden and control of space and time. The soul is free; distance and separation hinder it no more. The dead are our nearest neighbors; they are all around us. Meister Eckhart was once asked, Where does the soul of a person go when the person dies? He said, no place. Where else would the soul be going? Where else is the eternal world? It can be nowhere other than here. We have falsely spatialized the eternal world. We have driven the eternal out into some kind of distant galaxy. Yet the eternal world does not seem to be a place but rather a different state of being. The soul of the person goes no place because there is no place else to go. This suggests that the dead are here with us, in the air that we are moving through all the time. The only difference between us and the dead is that they are now in an invisible form. You cannot see them with the human eye. But you can sense the presence of those you love who have died. With the refinement of your soul, you can sense them. You feel that they are near.


* * *

Echo der Seele

Irgendwo, außen am Rand, geht die Nacht
Zurück, und die Wellen der Dunkelheit
Beginnen die Küste des Morgens sacht zu erhellen.

Das schwere Dunkel fällt auf die Erde herab,
Und befreit tobt die Luft von besinnungslosem Licht,
Das Herz füllt sich mit frischem, hellem Atem,
Und der Sinn schickt sich an, Farbigkeit zu gebären.

John O` Donohue „Echo der Seele

There have been a large number of enquiries about the location of John's funeral service and about his gravesite. The church where John's funeral took place is in Fanore, about 12 miles from Ballyvaughan on the coast road south. During winter months it is likely only to be open at weekends for Mass.
John is buried in Creggagh graveyard, about two miles further south along the coast road, just beyond O'Donoghue's pub on the left hand side of the road.
All of John's friends hope that respect will be shown to the grave site and to the environment that John loved so well.