Along the Pilgrim Path

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Days dream themselves into being in the high places, and dreams dare a little deeper there. Beside the sleeping lake, the still surface reaches up at the first sign of contact. I hover my hand above, and watch her rise to greet me. We both exhale.

In the high places, along the pilgrim path, the old stories are walked along, an ancient route, thousands of footfalls worthy, of pilgrim and fox and hare and wren. These were the walking routes to silence.

We joined at Kealkil, four of us, spreading across two generations, some with more tales in our step, some with more spring.

We gather first in circle.

‘On the old paths, we walk with intention’, I offer.

‘A Sankalpa’, someone else brings.

‘It need not be said aloud, but in your heart’.

We bring our hands together, like a star, or a cross.

‘Go team’. And so we begin with laughter.

The high paths are never straight. We pass woodland, tinged with Autumn. We pass a singing river. We pass slabs, stripped-lined with quartz. ‘We are walking on millennia’, I say, and we take a step back in time.

In the high places, conversations move at the pace of breath. We walk in and out of silence, then stories. We talk of poetry and places, and of travels which served to take us home.

At the clearing with the welcome sign, we lay our picnic under ‘failte’. The rise is welcoming us. The feast multiples as we each lay our bearings.

Along the old path, there are songs, silly ones, and the one which invites brothers and sisters to come down to the river to pray.

At the river, I wash my face in her flowing waters. I drink. I joke, ‘If I die today, it is a good day to die. And part of me is not joking. I place my hand on the grass, and a bee stings my palm. It swells with the possibility. We walk on.

My friend has a chime. Every fifteen minutes it rings like a resonant singing bowl. It is a moment to pause, to come back from the story to the self, then listen deeper. I keep looking forward to the chime.

At the hawthorn tree, the berries are like congregations, offering their gifts. The silver birch, leafless now, reaches out her limbs for nests. Their wintering is a generous place. We walk on, zigzagging up the steep.

At the highest place, a lake surprises us. I sit by her waters and see the ancient deep. Here she is, settled in her nook, as her waters are forever replenished, rising and falling. The mountain breathes.

After the high places, there are low.

The hills begin to fall and curve; the path a folding current to carry us to the sanctuary.

We pass through hazel, oak, ash, like walking into the memory of the place still dreaming itself awake.

The high place, the old pilgrim path, opens to another lake, then drops to an old monastic site, upon which a chapel rests. Gougane Barra, the rock cleft of Barra. Finbarr’s site.

I do not enter. Instead, I walk to the water’s edge, and see the chapel reflected there, then turn to take the next step towards home. The path continues outwards, onwards. I do not know how long it will take to get there, but as my feet know by now, the journey is a resplendent thing.

Samhain: Initiations in the Dark

For Manchán

Clare Mulvany