Η Air θα σας πει τα πάντα ... .. σταγόνες της βροχής & Νιφάδες χιονιού

I posted a blog the other day about the rain falling on me as I drove through County Cork in Ireland.  I was told it was very much like the place of my birth, and I am beginning to believe it.  The terrain is rough and rugged and the land generally looks harsh and unwelcoming.  I wonder how anyone could make a living; anyone who wasn’t working in one of the shops in the wee towns and villages or the larger cities like Cork where I am based.

The rain is refreshing and cleansing and even though I wear little make-up it managed to wash away what was there such that all that you could see were my rosy red cheeks and freckles.  My hair style wasn’t a style.  It was flattened to my scalp by the rain that become wet snowflakes and then pellets of hail.  It was tied back in a serviceable pony tail that whipped in the breezes as my car climbed higher into the mountains.  At one point the wisps of hair flashed into my mouth and it was like getting my teeth flossed without any effort.  I had to laugh.  It gave reverse meaning to my mother’s night time reminder when I was a child to “comb my hair and brush my teeth” before going to bed.  It now became, “comb your teeth….” and I laughed out loud!

I reached the crest of the mountain I’d been climbing, unaware I’d “arrived” because my eyes kept roving the scenic landscape and trying ever so hard to pay attention to the highway for oncoming traffic on these narrow roadways they call highways, but to a Canadian girl from Toronto…seemed like her childhood “cow path” roadways of Cape Breton.  There’s no way they’d be labelled a major highway in Canada and we citizens would be in a bloody uproar ‘cause the road wasn’t as smooth as a baby’s behind!  There were potholes that took up the whole side of the road and many were filled with water from the torrential downpour that had preceded my arrival.  It didn’t seem to matter to the motorists who whipped by in the other direction, and the line up behind me waiting impatiently for me to step on the gas.  On several occasions when I could I pulled off to the side of the road so the “locals” could get on to where they were going.

I brought my car off the road at the top so I could get out and stretch my legs and drink in the magnificent scenery spread out before me.  I tried to see, to imagine the sea that was on the other side of the mountain peak across the way. I so wanted to cross over, to go to the sea, but at this point had been driving for about 6 hours and would need to turn around and head back the way I’d come.  I just stood there staring, camera in hand.  My mouth was likely agape; can’t say for certain but would bet money on it.

Standing there, alone with no other sign of life, memories of my favourite childhood book came to mind – Heidi; Heidi who lived with her grandfather at the top of the mountain; who used to fall asleep at night with the song of the wind whispering to her through the old branches of the ancient fir trees that tapped, tapped on her window as she drifted off into dreamland.  Now as I write this note, I can see that I didn’t just read that story; it’s more like I was Heidi.  It was my soul, my spirit that was soaring up there in the mountains with Heidi.  It was my soul, my spirit that was whispering with the winds through the trees; that touched the wrinkled and weather worn cheek of Heidi’s grandfather.  It was my soul, my spirit that was rocked to sleep at night by the whispering winds of the mountains….that rolled down the rough and cragged mountain slope to the village below.

Τώρα, as I write this, I know I was brought back in time; that time as Heidi living in the mountains; yesterday became today and is tomorrow.  All those moments are always and are always available for access whenever we choose to call upon them. Thejourney within is enlightening and needed; needed to be taken more often than I take it.  Sadly there are many who never have taken the journey and never shall, for they are caught up in the lies and glitter of the external.  Oh what treasures we deprive ourselves of by not taking that journey; what glories wait our uncovering; tools to provide us with a joyful life as human flesh, strangers sojourning but for a while upon mother earth.  We are given wings to fly, to soar…and musical heart beats to share with others; through the golden connecting thread of love that is woven into the fabric of all flesh and blood.  Discovering that golden thread we will find that we are…but one with many reflections of differing colours, forms, σκέψεις, ideas.  But, we are one.

Rain drops and snowflakes; wasn’t there a song somewhat like that in theSound of Music?  If I listen intently enough, can I hear the music of the rain and the soft tune of the snowflake as they dance their way down, to come to rest upon me; to kiss my skin?  I think I could, if I but desire and believe.  The music and songs calling unto me; are they what is found in this blessed rain and snow that the Lord has bestowed upon me.  Have I ever before really felt the rain or the snow as it kissed my flesh?  I can answer that with an unequivocal no; I was always annoyed because the rain and the snow were messing up my hair or ruining my new suit or shoes!  They were annoyances, not something to be experienced and delighted in!

They are the music and the song that call to me from afar, beckoning with their billowed clouds, calling…come home, come home to where you belong.  Even as I write this note, I am not saying it is to come home to a particular physical location, like the city of Toronto where I live, or Cork or anywhere in Ireland or Canada.  It is a beckoning to come home to yourself; be true to yourself, to what you long for.  It is saying to me, “Child you know what your heart yearns for, longs for; come home.”  Has my journey to self begun?  You answer, as for me, yes is the answer; just this tiny miracle of rain and snow and seeing them as alive, caressing and feeling…Yes, I hear, I know the door is opening and the light awaits.

In reflecting on me of less than a week ago, I see someone who spoke words that were not life but death.  What I see now and know to be true is that rather than use the ever available words of late such as, “I hate big cities, I hate Toronto,” I shall instead attempt to carve out, right here, right now….what it is my soul is calling to me to remember, to come home to – in a positive light for the essence of who I am knows not the negative and detestable; does not have a vocabulary that speaks anger and dislike and hate and the such.  My soul, my spirit knows only good, φως, true, pure and wholly holy – for it is a part of Him who created me, who is indescribable but who has qualities that this weak and feeble human tries to capture in words….but fails miserably.

My memories of the sea and the Cape Breton “mist” go back to my childhood.  I was born in a house my father built through the CanadianVeteran Land Act grant after returning from the 2^nd WW to his father’s home in Cape Breton.  With the money he got, he built a home for his family next to my grandparents’ house.  He also rejoined the Canadian Air Force in order to support his family and we moved to Prince Edward Island where I lived until I turned 13 when we moved to Ottawa.

While living in PEI we spent our summers at our house on Cape Breton Island.  It was a 5 minute walk to the sea and I cannot remember a day going by when I didn’t make that trip to the sea if not once but two and three times a day.  Sometimes I would venture into the water, but mostly I liked walking along the shore, skipping stones, checking for treasures….and just looking out to sea, across and endless sea…to the other side of the world.

I am wondering if my grandmother stood there, gazing across the sea as she waited for my grandfather’s fishing boat to return with its catch of the day in the early morning hours.  I wonder if she looked with longing across that vast, wide open space, hoping to catch a glimpse of his Ireland, her  pappy and mammy whom she’d left behind?  How lonely she must have been; despite being married and having several grown married children, I am certain she missed her home Ireland; her family.  It’s funny, I’d only known her as Grandma Dot; Grandma Dot and her baking pantry.  I don’t recall many, if any times when she wasn’t in the pantry.  Until about 3 weeks ago she was Grandma Dorothy (Dot for short) to me.  Three weeks ago one of my brothers sent me her birth certificate and not only was her last name not the same, neither was her first name.  I knew her as Dorothy Crowley.  She was born Hanora Keohane to Jeremiah and Julia Keohane!  As the story goes, when they landed in Boston she changed her name to Dorothy Crowley.  I knew nothing about her; nothing at all; not even whether she had brothers or sisters.  My God, what a brave young girl she was to have abandoned allto come to a foreign land, not knowing what awaited her.  Perhaps it was these thoughts that played in her head; a woman who spoke little – outloud, δηλαδή, but whose eyes, καλά, they held many memories and stories.  I wished she was still alive that I might speak to her of these things.

It is my grandmother’s family that I’ve managed to track down here in Ireland, but I think that my journey has much more meaning than finding lost relatives.  I think my journey is about finding the lost me; to know who I am and to be true to that which I uncover.  These are the callings of the spirit to come home; come home to self.

Before leaving for Ireland I received one last e-mail from a woman I’d connected with in Ireland, Mary Smith, who had been providing me with valuable information about my family.  That e-mail closed with the following words,

“Happy holiday and the air will tell you everything you need to know.”

I believe this, yet would change it to the Spirit will tell me everything I need to know.  Yet, the air, the wind…my remembrance of Heidi; the wind whipping rain and snow upon me, mingled with ice pellets…feeling alive and vibrant at the top of that mountain peak.  Waving at my friends the mountain goats as I began the drive back down the mountain; feeling free and as if I could fly.

Today I stayed in the city; sun was shining and planned on a walk about to photograph sights, sounds and people.  But the rain and the snow came down and my fingers froze after awhile, so I listened to the air and the wind and after several hours returned to the hotel, where I now sit and write, thinking about my family and again wishing my father was still alive and on this journey with me.  I am a typical tourist; picked me up a couple of Irish CDs that now play in the background on my computer as I write.  The words of the songs of the fishermen lost at sea, the harshness of life; men who left to work in the mines elsewhere…none as venturous as my grandparents who crossed the “big pond” (Atlantic Ocean) to the shores of North America.

I close off for now, to sit back and listen to what the air would tell me, would have me know.  I received another e-mail from a woman in Ireland and shall tomorrow venture to Kinsale which is just south of Cork…to find; only the air knows and will reveal all to me.