The Sacred and the Scared - Part 1

Have you ever noticed in the English language that there are some words, with a transposition of 2 letters, can give you an entirely different word?  Like "tarp" and "trap".  These words might be related in some way; you could use a tarp to make a trap, for example.  Or you "tried" and got "tired".

While things like that fascinate me, I want to focus on an another pair of these words, sacred and scared.  Many of the sites we have visited here in Ireland have been associated with the "sacredness" of many different peoples.  There are two which readily come to mind, Kylemore Abbey and Croagh Patrick.

Many of you are aware of the vast differences between these two places, some of you are not.  Kylemore is located on a lovey lake in the Connemara region of County Galway of the western coast of Ireland.  Croagh Patrick over looks Clew Bay and it's 365 islands near Murrisk in County Mayo, the northwest corner of the Island.  Kylemore is a series of picturesque buildings and gardens built and planted about 200 years ago.  Croagh Patrick is a cone-shaped mountain which has stood tall at 764 meters for millennia.  Kylemore fashioned by the creativity and ingenuity of man and money.  Croagh Patrick formed by God and the forces of nature.

When one arrives at Kylemore from the east, the first glimpse is of an ethereal castle across a glass-like lake. It seems almost paper-like in it's construction from this distance; a place that seems more at home in the mind of author J.R.R. Tolkien   It is inviting and welcoming as was it's builder, Mitchell Henry.  From the beginning, it was a labor of love for his wife, Margaret.  You are completely engulfed by the beauty of the surroundings and the structures.  However, I was not prepared for what awaited me in the "Miniature Cathedral" on the property.

Margaret died quite suddenly at a young age while on a trip to Egypt.  Overcome by his grief for his "anam cara", Mitchell built a small version of a Neo-Gothic cathedral adjacent to the house.  This was to be his memorial for her.  They were married to each other and to the place that is Kylemore.  It was a magnificent edificial monument to they undying love.

As you enter the cathedral, it feels smallish by human standards.  However, as the serenity of this place washes over you, the structure takes on the vastness of the universe.  The presence of peace which fills the sanctuary is so thick, you cannot help but drink it in.  There are those who attempt, albeit unconsciously, to hold their breath until they can exit for fear of drinking in this elixir of well being.  While others, apparently numb to unseen things in life, trudge through the living waters like an inconvenient mud puddle.  But for those who sense the difference of the place, there are no words to be spoken.  Grace and tenderness flow from every curved and cut stone with a warmth that penetrates the clothes and skin to the very soul.  One must sit for fear of falling under the weight of this "loving peace".  The only thing appropriate which can flow out of one's human-ness is tears; for words or even sounds would dis-grace the place.

How does one leave such a place?  Slowly, with a silent thanks, a humbled heart and a nourished soul.

A Place of Extremes

As my wife and I spent the day driving about Cleggan, Clifden, and Roundstone I was struck by the extremes of the day.  It the midst of this beautiful sunny day, there is a wind like no other. A wind which possesses a fierceness of a viking raider looking for a village to ransack.  It would rip the very clothes off of you if given half a chance.  It reminded me of on of the Hebrew words for wind or spirit, ruache.  It is pronounced roo-achhhh, almost sounds German.  But it sounds powerful and fierce.  It was that kind of wind I faced today as I looked at Inishturk Island.  The ocean could not resist the strength of this marauding force.  So wave after wave raced forward as if pushed by a locomotive toward the land,  only to explode into a mountain of white foam as it meet with the immovable rocks.

Rocks, now there is a concept.  Rocks and rocks and more rocks.  From lush green meadows beautiful to behold and marvelous to photograph,  to a place between Clifden and Roundstone which had more rock than grass.  How would, what would these sheep eat?  For every square meter of grass there were at least 10 square meters of rock.  And there wasn't a square meter of grass to be found.  Even the mountains were more rock than foliage.  It was a harsh and stark landscape.  It made we winch inside as if I was falling on to it.  There was a savage brutality to it, like the gods had pummeled the earth and grassy flesh had been beaten away only to expose the broken bones of the rocky structure beneath.

While the sun and the blue sky were in abundance, a large chunk of cloud would come our way and remind us it will rain when it pleases.  Weather never bothers me when I travel, so I was almost glad to see the rain when it popped in for a surprise visit.  It's like one of those relatives you haven't seen for a while and you are not sure if you're glad they stopped.  And you are glad when they leave.  But when the hail showed up, I was surprised! Didn't see that coming! Almost like the mother-in-law coming for a visit... I said almost.

As we rounded a curve, I saw the distinct silhouette of some crosses. So off we went to find this cemetery.  When we finally found the cemetery, it was over looking a beautiful bay.  There was no one famous buried there that we knew of. This was a multi-level cemetery, like a giant stairway leading to the water.  I think it was so the folks in front didn't obscure the view for the folks in the back.  This was on the leeward side of the hill facing away from the wind.  Finally at rest with a beautiful view and the wind at their back.  And such a beautiful view of the water that teems with life.  The tides mirroring the ebb and flow of life.

But I think that's the way Ireland likes it.  The constant reminder of these extremes, that humanity is not in charge here.  And is allowed to remain only through sheer grit, power of will and only for a short time.  This place, this island is not for the faint of heart.  Life and death, harshness and beautiful, sun and hail, wind and surf, such a whirlwind of images today.  But one seems to speak to me the most of Ireland and it's people.

These small flowers, I don't know their name but they seem readily abundant.  They are growing out of the rock, buffeted by the wind and sprayed by the salt water.  Why do you stay?  How do you hold on? Wouldn't you bloom better and brighter in someone's sheltered garden?

The colors are not flashy or gaudy like some flowers.  However, there is a subdued beauty to them.  There is a warmth that is contrasted by the coldness of the rock it grows on.  You won't see them from far away.  They just seem to blend in, but when you move closer there they are; tough, lovely and holding on to the rock in the face of a harsh wind.

I think the best beauty comes out of adversity.  I think toughness comes from standing against an opposing force for a while.  For people who think life would be better, or life would be lovelier if it were easier, I would say, "Look to these flowers, look to the Irish."

But to see them, you have to take the time and you have to get real close.

Driving in Ireland and other near disasters

Almost missing our domestic connection to our international flight was bad enough.  But add to that not sleeping for the entire flight to Dublin, you can just imagine my physical and emotional state (we are not even talking psychological - currently still in therapy).  Now, I find myself throwing our bags in a car and hopping into the passenger's seat.  My wife calmly said, "Wrong side of the car, honey."  She uses "honey" when she has discovered something I have done wrong but I,as of that point, are unaware of my miscue.

After finding my place on the "right" side of the car, I spend a full 15 minutes familiarizing myself with the controls.  After starting the car, and pulling out of the parking slot, I am triumphant as I am on the left hand side of the road.  My wife reminds me, "Honey, we are still in the parking lot."  Now I must take my talents on to a road with other moving vehicles.  My prayer life hit new heights at that very moment.  Pulling into traffic I repeat to myself, "stay to the left".  For the next hour, I ask my wife 742 times, "Am I in the correct lane?"

I soon discover my two new best friends are Mary, the GPS voice (sorry +Diane Bilyeu) and Dodi.  Dodi is doing her best Sigourney Weaver impersonation from Galaxy Quest.  She carefully repeats and interprets the voice from the GPS.  While these two women are speaking to one another, I have found a new meditative mantra   "The center of the road is on my right.  I hold the center of the road in my right hand.  Left is right."  While this is all well and good on M-50 and M-4 (for those of you in the states, these are median divided 4 lanes),  the moment one leaves the the motorway is another matter altogether.  No amount of chanting, mantras or prayers can prepare you for the "regular" roads.

Imagine, if you will, the white line on the outside edge of your lane, the one right next to the "shoulder" of the road.  In the states, there is usually enough room to get half a car on the shoulder.  In many places, the entire car can be gotten off the road and onto the shoulder.  Not so much here. Fences, hedges, barns, and stone walls use the white strip as a building guide.  So while Dodi is yelling, "Get over, GET OVER!" I am yelling at the car coming from the opposite direction, "Get over, GET OVER!"  Even Mary the GPS voice has joined in, "In 3 miles...get over, GET OVER!" This trio of shrieking voices rivals Anuna for composition and harmony.  After a while, we stopped screaming altogether and merely scrunched up our shoulders, closed our eyes and hoped for the best with each passing car.

Traffic circles are no longer the terror they once were. I take them in stride like a Grand Prix master.  They seem to make sense to me now.  I even enjoy city driving.  Want to know why?  Every one is in their own lane.  I don't have to think which one is mine.  Follow the tails lights, not the headlights is the principle I live by now.  No, I don't usually do that anyway!  I'm too creative to just follow the crowd.

What still is a difficulty for me...country intersections with no other cars for reference.  That is when I start chanting again, "The center of the road is on my right.  I hold the center of the road in my right hand.  Left is right."  All the while my eyes are tightly closed.

Following The Inuksuk

My great, great, grandfather, Peter McGlyn(n) was born in County Sligo, Ireland.  Sometime early in his life, Peter emigrated to England.  He met and married Margaret Barron and had 5 sons.   One of the sons, Alphonsus, my great grandfather, emigrated to Canada when he was a young man.  He married Mary Jane Kelly and had 7 children.  One of the sons, Peter, my grandfather, was the only one of his siblings who emigrated to the States.

I have had a wonderful time tracing my ancestral heritage back to Ireland.  Searching for dates and hints here and there has been an adventure to be sure.  During the search, I began to wonder about the impact of those who have gone before me.  What traits had they left for me to follow?  How much of what I am today has been impacted by the generations before me?

One of my friends, +Clao Wue told me about the Inuksuk. She built one in the Scottish Highlands at a fantastic place she had fallen in love with.

Wikipedia explains, “An inuksuk (plural inuksuit) ^[1] (from the Inuktitut: ᐃᓄᒃᓱᒃ, plural ᐃᓄᒃᓱᐃᑦ) is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America.

The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting ^[4] or to mark a food cache.^[5] The Inupiat in northern Alaska used inuksuit to assist in the herding of caribou into contained areas for slaughter.^[6] Varying in shape and size, the inuksuit have longtime roots in the Inuit culture.

Historically, the most common type of inuksuk is a single stone positioned in an upright manner.^[7] There is some debate as to whether the appearance of human- or cross-shaped cairns developed in the Inuit culture before the arrival of European missionaries and explorers. ^[7] The size of some innaguait suggest that the construction was often a communal effort.^[4]”

The Inuksuk is a type of cairn. A cairn helps travelers keep heading in the right direction.  It is unlike a road map or GPS which prescribes a specific route.  Cairns allow for variation in the path on the way to the next cairn.  Sometime, when a view, or interesting plant, or animal has caused me to deviate from the path for a closer look, I have had to back track to the last cairn to regain my bearings.  The beauty of this is getting to experience the same path twice,  but from two different perspectives.

What I find fascinating about the Inuksuk is its tendency to be human in its shape.  Unlike an amorphous pile of rocks, it’s like having someone there pointing the way, encouraging you to keep moving forward.

I think the generations of our families point us to things.  They are our Inuksuk.  They point to things within ourselves and things around us.  When I look into the face of my father, I see some of the characteristics of my grandfather.  When I look at my father’s life, I see bits and pieces of my grandfather’s life, and so on.

In a time when we were less mobile as a society, each generation were impacted by the previous one or two possibly three generations which preceded it, because they lived next door or even upstairs.  Now days, it is a different story.  My parents are in New York.  I am in Michigan. While some of my kids are in Colorado and California. Thousands of miles separate our daily lives and significant life events.  While we might catch these events in flickering pixels, they are better seen in the flesh and blood of family faces.

I think we need inuksuit throughout our lives.  We need a “human form” reminding us about where we came from and at the same time, pointing us forward to the future.  Maybe your family hasn’t been so connected.  But there are inuksuit, people who are willing to guide, to friend, to experience life and be the witness to your journey.

Carrying the Cairn

For those of you who go hiking or hill-walking, as my Irish friends call it (+Nicky McBride), you will be familiar with the concept of a cairn.  A trail marker can be just about anything from a painted “blaze” on a tree (Appalachian Trail), or stick shaped arrows on the ground.  But a cairn is more traditionally understood to be a pile of rocks.  But not just any pile of rocks.

Wikipedia tells us, “a cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones. It comes from the Scottish Gaelic: càrn (plural càirn). They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, and in complexity from loose, conical rock piles to delicately balanced sculptures and elaborate feats of megalithic engineering. Today, cairns are built for many purposes. The most common use in North America and Northern Europe is to mark mountain bike and hiking trails and other cross-country trail blazing, especially in mountain regions at or above the tree line.”

While the most common usage of a cairn is a trail marker, stone piles have been used for millennia to mark boundaries, religious ceremonial places, and to commemorate events.    When a significant event had taken place, stones were piled up in a unique way as a memorial marker or a reminder of the event.  

Commemoration is great reason for making a cairn.

Almost 20 years ago, I first heard of a place called Isle Royale.  It is a remote island out in the middle of Lake Superior, the biggest of the 5 Great Lakes in the US.  It is a true archipelago formed by glacial movements long ago.  It is accessible by ferry, but can only be explored on foot.  What started as a thought slowly became a dream to hike thru the wilderness that is Isle Royale.

The dream remained just a dream for 13 years.  I had been cleaning out some files and found my Isle Royale folder.  I lovingly leaved through the collection of papers.  Each article, every magazine, all my handwritten notes were examined carefully.  I thought I would share my long lost treasure with our children when they came for Thanksgiving.

Surprisingly, my sons (which include son-in-laws) said, “Let’s do it, Dad!”  So the planning began for a week on Isle Royale the following August.  Video conferences, emails, the creation of a Facebook page, designing of tee-shirts and numerous phone calls kept us all connected for the following months as we prepared for our journey.

Men of the Dream

In the middle of all this planning, I realized what a big deal this was for me and for my boys.  My sons were making my dream a reality.  They were giving me a gift, an opportunity to experience my dream.  My dream had become their dream.  That was very special indeed.  I needed to do something.  They needed, I needed, a tangible reminder, a memorial marker for this dream.  We needed a cairn to remind of this dream, this trip.  Have you ever given someone a bag of rocks as a gift?  Unless they’re diamonds, or some other precious gem, don’t bother.  For some reason, people don’t see the value in a bag of plain old rocks.

So I searched and found the next best thing to a bag of rocks.  I found a “cairn” necklace, the outline of a pile of rocks stamped on a small piece of metal.  Just before we boarded the ferry for the island, I gave each of my boys their “cairn”.  We all put them on and to this day, some 3 years later, we all still wearing them.

For that first trip (and the 3 subsequent), we made a cairn somewhere on the Island and placed our “personal cairns” on it.  Here is the picture from our first trip.

Fiontar Tine 2010

By the way, this past year, 2012, my oldest grandson (14 years) and my father (81 years) came to the island with us.  Each one got their “portable” cairn as well. There were 4 generations of “cairn wearing” McGlynns on the island.  The island was very happy; so was I.

Do you have a cairn?  It can be of the portable or permanent type.  They are important for our lives.  More than memories, they are tangible evidence that something significant has happened.  When we take the time to build or make or find a physical object that represents the event, it adds weight to the memory.  It becomes a silent witness to the event.  There is also an added benefit.  It will cause people to ask, “What is that for?”  I have had literally hundreds of people ask me what my necklace means.  Imagine my joy, when I get to tell them about my dream, about my adventure and about my boys.

So every day, I carry the cairn.