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