Our Stone

 

 

April 11, 2022

 

Greetings from ár gcloch,

 

In the southern end of Ireland there are places it seems the farmers are raising stones.  The fields are bordered with thousands of miles of stacked stone, and in the deep green amidst them you can see their cousins still held by the soil. 

 We wandered across the island, soaking in its beauty, from one side of the country to the other, from the Dublin to Kilarney, and the green places in between.  Some days it felt like we were literally soaking it in, as the rain whipped around us.  Which only made the sun feel that much better. 

 From the Irish Sea to the Atlantic, there were many things I could share, but for today there is one sensation that is strongest. Our Stone.

 Giants made of ice carved the place, dividing the earth into mountains and valleys, a space for lakes to mirror the sky and rivers to run and laugh, to shape the world in new ways. And in every place the earth was opened, there were stones.

 Only a blink ago, barely two thousand years, people put their hands on the stones they found, and made them into tools, and carved their history.  And time whirled and they built homes and castles and cathedrals and bridges, and they marked graves.  And countless generations passed, and still the stones are there when we came.

 We walked through these places and heard their stories.  I put my hands on these walls, on these things that others built, on the places they carved a message before there was language enough to share.  I could feel them through the long corridor, felt the same rain they felt, and smelled the ocean, and the forest, and felt the earth give under my feet as I walked where they walked.

 We tramped deep into the woods, stood at the end of a remote lake, where it was easy to feel what it would be like to stand there sixteen hundred years ago.  I put my hand into the shallows, felt the icy water hold me, and dug my hand deep into the stones and felt their shape.  I held them there, saw the mica glitter in the light, ran my fingers over their history. Perhaps these stones had existed since creation and were never touched by a human before.  And now they have, and they are Our Stone.

 There are myriad ways we have changed as a specie in the millennia since humans carved history into the Ogham stones.  But we have nearly everything in common with the people who stacked the stones in walls, or made stones into roads, or altars, or carved them into art.  We share the joys and aches of living, and when we touch the stones we have in common, we are connected to those millions of souls who were here before us.  Our Stone. 

 Ireland is green and sensual, alive with people and song and poetry and passion for living that outshines the hardships, no matter what brings them.  Ireland wears its history on its sleeve, and when you speak to anyone there, you learn it, feel it.  It’s present in the languages, in the stories, in the places they honor.  It’s carved in their stones.  It’s not all a pleasure to know, but it’s worth knowing. 

 The beauty that lasts through all of this, that frames it in a way, is where the stones give shape to the place.  Not only the stones that we have touched, but the ones that create the awe, the stones that touch us.  We hiked along the ragged edge of Howth, and a few days later on the opposite side of the country, the Cliffs of Moher. Dramatic shelfs of rock hold the ocean at bay, as they have for all time. 

 It seemed as if the island was held in a bowl of stone, and here I could see the edges of it.  Walk in a mile and put your hand in the earth, and you could feel it there as well.  Our Stone, shaped by the earth’s breath and tears, makes the sawtooth mountain, the glens alive with streams, gives drama and strength to the edges of the world. 

 And then we put our hands on the stone and we make it into new things and in the making we are joined with it, and with every other hand that has touched it.  I realize that it won’t matter if we carve our name into the stone, or that there is some record that we were here.  Because a thousand years from now when someone places their hand on the stone we touched, they will know us.

 I hold Our Stone in the palm of my hand and I feel the life of the other who held it.  It is a simple and beautiful way to be connected through something whose existence will out live our presence here.  I’m so grateful I didn’t miss it.

 “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

― W.B. Yeats

 

 

Hope this finds you ag mothú na cloiche,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith