John O'Donohue

One of the programs I like to listen to while doing tedious chores is Speaking Of Faith on NPR. Although it would seem by that title it would be exclusively about religion, many of the pieces are about meaning, ethics, and ideas. Today I listened to the program in which the show host interviewed John O'Donohue, an Irish poet and philosopher, months before his unexpected death. He spoke about how the material and the spiritual, the visible and the invisible worlds intertwine in human experience. Deep stuff, beautiful stuff. Stuff that helps me recenter when the news of our day makes for depressing thoughts.

I cannot adequately summarize his thoughts in this post, so I hope you click on the link above and listen to his beautiful Gaelic-accented words of wisdom for yourself. One of the ideas about which he speaks is the need in human life for beauty: music, poetry, nature, friendship, love. For this reason the title given this interview is "The Inner Landscape Of Beauty." He writes his own material and poetry but he also quotes others such as the French writer Blaise Pascal:

In difficult times you should always carry

something of the beautiful in your mind.

What follows is the poem he wrote for his mother after the passing of his father:

Beannacht
("Blessing")

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(Echoes of Memory)

Ellen, if you read this post, that poem is for you.