Out of the shadows

We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.

John O Donohue

It wasn't a great summer; grey skies, too much rain, cold seas. But for a couple of days the golden sun lit up our lives and we all came out of the shadows.

Photographers call it the "golden hour".  It's that time of the day, early or late, when light slides in at an angle casting lanky silhouettes and tinting the world with warmth. When you study light and peer endlessly through a lens, you are drawn to this like a moth to a flame.

But the best part? In the gloaming, back doors, front doors, windows and hearts are opened to the light. Glasses of wine and cups of coffee are brought down to the shore. Youngsters are chatting, perched on the low walls, barbecues are set and smoking. Our small community is united by staring into the light show of an evening sky.

This golden life force, our sun, makes us smile, feeds our souls and entices us out of the shadows. And this is even more true for photographers!

Open heart, cold sea : 15.8.15

I checked the sea temperature today. Not much more than 13/14 degrees centigrade anywhere in Ireland. This year the cold sea water was harder to bear. 

By the time we arrive in Kerry our friends are already a couple of weeks into the rhythm of twice daily swims. They glow from endorphins, icy water and warm wine. Dingle is their annual pilgrimage, and a sanctuary away from everything. 

As a brief respite from the awful summer, the sun appears. It calms the icy water and the waves in Coumenoule are a bit less terrifying. I tingle all over from a fair few dunkings and summer holiday happiness. 

On the way back I listen to John O'Donohue talking to Krista Tippett in a re-released interview from 2007. While I always found John hard to read, his lilting voice confirms so much tonight......

"Well, I think it makes a huge difference when you wake in the morning and come out of your house. Whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you but in a totally different form. And if you go towards it with an open heart and a real watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you. And I think that that was one of the recognitions of the Celtic imagination: that landscape wasn't just matter, but that it was actually alive. What amazes me about landscape, landscape recalls you into a mindful mode of stillness, solitude, and silence where you can truly receive time."

To the waters and the wild

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand.

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

"The Stolen Child" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, published in 1889

Listen to the poem set to music by the Waterboys here

See more wild places in the gallery here

It's called friendship #Pilgrimage August

Out west the beauty of the landscape would make you weep, but it's the people and the chat that would warm your heart. It's summer in Kerry and there is no shortage of talk. From morning until night we are discussing the situation in Gaza, the decline of the Labour party and the travails of Johnser. 

Somewhere in Dingle, girls are eating three flavours of ice cream and coffee is being brewed "at exactly the correct temperature". A farmer fixes his gutters and three men are standing at the edge of the turquoise Atlantic wondering about the state of the world. Maybe Putin will blockade the Kerrygold butter next? They won't touch the baby formula though, one re-assures the other. On a tartan rug they rail against the travesty that is Garth Brooks and whether or not the GAA has lost the run of itself entirely.

The hot tea served from a flask on these beaches is of a very high quality, we Irish like our tea bursting with flavour. Later when we gobble our Kerry lamb or monkfish on a risotto of roasted tomatoes, we will still be sharing stories about family, the economy, or how we love those Scandanavian dramas on Netflix.

Along the coast, christened recently the Wild Atlantic Way, the sun is setting and the swimming rituals continue. There is a buzz of conversation from assorted picnics and shadowy squeals of joy coming from the shoreline. The elders have comfortable chairs. The younger generations wear wet-suits so they can stay immersed in the waves for longer. 

It's getting late and still we are talking away for Ireland. It's what we do around a fire on a winter's evening but tonight we are under the stars, barely believing the "real summer" that we are having this year, honing a true art form; it's called friendship. 



Browse more photos from my home in Ireland here

The tangy orange of the Blog Awards 2013

The cafe near Coumenoule

The lush Montbretia hedgerows of the Dingle Penninsula

The Surf School in Inch

Mr Orange Shorts in Coumenoule

Does all this orange clash horribly with the foxglovish purples on this page? Yes...... but it goes nicely with the new Blog Awards badge which you will find there on the sidebar! Thanks for the nominations in the Best Photography Blog and Best Great Outdoors categories. Here's to night out on the town if the whole shebang shakes down in my favour. Congratulations to all the other wonderful Irish Bloggers who were also long listed, I nominated a few myself.

Once you keep an eye out for orange it is uncanny how often you will then see it. Last week on the annual jaunt to Kerry it was there in the quirky cafe on the a cliff above Coumenoule on the Dingle Penninsula.  We had breakfast of Rhubarb Tart and Cream like your Granny used to make, at the table of your dreams, with a view to die for. In case you are wondering what it is called, there is a sign which simply says CAFE.......

You could also easily die in the crashing waves on the beach there! The call of the wild Atlantic seems to outweigh any fear and the water's edge is dotted with risk takers of all ages. I stopped swimming enthusiastically in Coumenoule a number of years ago when I took a thrashing in a washing machine like three waves in a row. Be sure to keep a close eye and a tight grip on your offspring, or cut a dash in orange shorts......

Those orange flags are of the Surf School in Inch where we usually manage to get a swim on the way home from the west. But most of all the endless bulging hedgerows of Kerry, a blaze of orange in the late summer with the beautiful wild flower Montbretia absolutely everywhere.....magic......

Best of luck to all my blogging friends and take a peek at my new blog one half shut eye which is nominated in the Best Newcomer Blog Category......

Friendship at the edge of time

Every year there is one sure thing, we will make a journey out to the west of Ireland where the Atlantic crashes against the shoreline of Europe, last stop before New York. There will be clouds, there will be mist and there will be a sense of leaping off the edge of the world and into the benign abyss.

Out past the road from Dungarvan to Youghal from Cork to Macroom, from Killarney to Dingle. Way out there is a spot where as the skies get bigger so do the questions. Back to the land, face towards the sea, how to go on, how to let go?

I swim with the hobbit footed woman, she is focussed on the cold. Still icy water creeps up our legs announcing the warmth of bits that have remained under exposed all winter. She dives in. She can't dilly dally, her gift to the world is to keep moving. Her style is discipline and three swims a day. It doesn't matter if it's warm, cold, raining, windy, misty, grey, blue, golden. She is relentless. Some one true to her commitments, some one you could trust. Part seal, part salty siren.

Later in the pouring rain we four slip into the ancient walled settlement, stone upon stone. The rain has seeped into my coat and is dribbling down the back of my shirt. Out here on the edge we hold each other momentarily while time swirls around us thundering down from the mountain, gushing up through the earth beneath our feet.

Moods swing in the modulating skies, colours chase shadows over the landscape, rainbows appear and disappear like visions in the firmament. Time breathes hard onto my face, drying the raindrops. With the faintest scent of herbs wafting through the air, we turn for home, our feet more firmly rooted, each in our own way.




Dedicated to my precious family and friends who have shared special small moments with me all through this summer.........

Also on Vision and Verb today

......and just at that moment......

Special times come and go so fast. The one beautiful evening this summer. That last photo opportunity of the day. The final moments of the slithering sinking sun.

After a pet day on Rossbeigh Strand, that elusive sun is tracked until it's very last golden seconds of light. Lads stop playing football on the sand and have a few beers. A woman lingers at the water's edge of her evening swim, absorbed. Now the cameras of all shapes and sizes are lined up and at the ready.

It seems as if we all pause.....and just at that moment, there is so much love and gratitude for all of this, so much, I think I can feel it in the air..........

Alone with my thoughts

 

On a small strip of land between the sea and the wall of the house, this beautiful horse has been casually grazing. He is a constant presence and from the house can be seen peeping up over the stone wall, his dappled coat blending in perfectly with the misty landscape.

If ever an animal or a scene was conjured up to convey "a typical Irish landscape" then maybe this is it!

The neighbours feed him vegetables and he shyly takes everything he can get, soon going back to his strong silent pose just over the wall. 

His gaze follows my route back to the house, our bar-b-que, the evening swim, the Weather Forecast on TV. Through it all he is there, still curious, still watching, still negotiating that little strip of land he calls home.

I struggle with his isolation. I think about what he might be missing. But then I remember my own world, often alone with this camera and my thoughts. We look into each other's eyes, a small moment of shared experience.......

You can browse or buy more of my images from Kerry here

....and in no time I began to forget.....

There were 5 kinds of weather in that sky and the mist hanging over the mountains made the beach disappear in an endless haze. Sun filtered through from time to time and the surfing classes, picnics and family gatherings continued, in spite of sprinkles of rain, thickening fog or sand blowing.....

We could no longer resist a dip in the Atlantic. Balmy salt water and soft waves. An eery light that made the whole of Inch Beach look like an alien planet.

I let the sea water and the dramatic ocean bay of weather sweep over me. The silky sea, the cool sparkly dazzle, the dark mountains and those busy beings like so many ants, undertaking a thousand happy tasks.........and in no time, I began to forget.......