There is a deep beauty

There is a deep beauty
hidden in the
luminosity at the heart
of the soul ...
behind the dull facade of our daily lives.
Only in your solitude
will you actually
find it, find the
neglected beauty of your life!

John O’Donohue

A piece from Ann Henning Jocelyn

...."A member of my extended family was killed in an accident aged twenty.
Who can you come to terms with that? How can his parents be expected ever to come to terms with that? All those years of caring and nurturing, seeing him grow and learn what were they for?

The only comfort I could find was the thought hat perhaps he wasn’t meant to live longer. His life span, we now know, measured twenty years. We shouldn’t look upon it against the possibility that it might have been longer, but accept the gift of those
years and value them accordingly.

„How do I know that I will survive?“ asked my young son after learning about his
cousin’s death. „You probably will“, I assured him. „These days in Ireland, most children do survive. But no one can be completely certain, and that is how it has to be. Because if we take for granted that everyone lives to a ripe of age, we wouldn’t treasure each day and each other quite as much as we do.

As I said it, my heart went out to those parents who have to pay the price for that precious uncertainty.

Let us never forget their pain, the cross they carry on behalf of those more fortunate...."

A piece from Ann Henning Jocelyn who was born in Sweden and now lives in a small village in the West of Ireland...

Foto: Geburtstag in Irland, 2007

Blessing

...."As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings, may your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills. When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance, may your imagination continue to evoke horizons.”

Foto: Donegal, 2007

Memory Stone

...Somewhere on the beach in Connemara.. If anyone found it?

Turning Darkness into Light

I and Pangur Bán my cat

'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will
He too plies his simple skill.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

Author Unknown

Dublin, 2006

An African Elegy

We are the miracles that God made
To taste the bitter fruit of Time.
We are precious.
And one day our sufferingt
Will turn into the wonders of the earth.

There are things that burn me now
Which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear poverty
And are able to sing and dream sweet things

And that we never curse the air when it is warm
Or the fruit when it tastes so goodOr the lights that bounce gently on the waters?
We bless things even in our pain.
We bless the silence.

That is why our music is so sweet.
It makes the air remember.
There are secret miracles at work
That only Time will bring forth.
I too have heard the dead singing.

And they tell me that
This life is good
They tell me to live it gently
With fire, and always with hope.
There is wonder here

And there is surprise
In everything the unseen moves.
The ocean is full of songs.
The sky is not an enemy.
Destiny is our friend.

Ben Okri

Nothing Personal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNxINUR-R0

Es ist die Geschichte einer Wanderschaft, einer Wanderschaft, die weit wegführt von aller Zivilisation, und dort, am Ende der Welt, den Inbegriff der Zivilisation wiederfindet, und den Glauben an die Menschheit dazu.
Mehr braucht es nicht als zwei Menschen und eine unendlich weite Landschaft, um diese Geschichte zu erzählen, die wie die Ursprungsgeschichte aller Beziehungen und allen Lebens erscheint, archaisch und elementar.

Ein Kleinod - sinnlich, berührend, verstörend - wundervoll!

Benedictus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0SxKrGNyIE

"You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.”

(Benedictus)