
“Tir na nÓg means ‘land of youth’ although ‘na nÓg’ is probably better translated as ‘the ever-young’ because it refers to a world beyond time in which events occur in a non-linear sequence much like how time was defined by Einstein or Heisenberg in the early twentieth century. Tir na nÓg is the land of youth because without time, aging is not an issue. Everyone is young or at least ageless there.
Some accounts describe [such realms] as consisting of forested wilderness while others describe flower clad meadows buzzing with bees. There are tales of cities and fortresses made of precious metals and feather thatch, while other tales home in on a sacred well at the heart of the land, surrounded by a grove of nine hazel trees or a single dominant tree with a bloom on every bough…
For each element of Tir na nÓg and its other sister lands there are key concepts that must be communicated. For instance, its sacred well was sometimes regarded as the birthplace of humanity, even of the entirety of existence. The tree that looms over the well is considered the axis of the world. It is the central tent post of this circus realm we inhabit and also the central tenet on which the druid’s power is based. The part of the sacred tree known as the silver branch is a metaphor for a concept that is beyond my ability to communicate – a concept as vast as any ocean.”
– Manchan Magan, Listen to the Land Speak
I’m sitting alone on a wooden chair, under an awning that shelters me from the summer sun. I’m surrounded by green cedars, oaks and a garden of flowers and grass. From within, I sense the earth’s opening heart. It unfolds, as if decompressing from being held under an enormous weight.
The old myths seem to tell us that the heart, when finally able to unfold, opens into an infinite space, a place that was present before the heart pumped blood through its vessels and will remain after it has stopped beating.
The weight holding down the heart comes from the time when men began to look at the rivers and lakes, trees and fields and all the animals as a means for their own ends. Not enough to grow food to eat and have water to drink. They wanted riches for themselves.
In the face of this, we need reminders of the deeper reality within the everyday. Sometimes we find it in the intensity of the blue sky. Other times, in the sound of someone making music. I encourage my son to create whatever he can – he’s made trebuchets out of reclaimed wood and carved faces into sticks. He’s printed 3-D figures in resin and built whole armies of fantastical creatures, painted in vivid colours. I’ve found him reading a huge novel, in a corner of his room. I hope that the forces of life and creativity are forming powerful struts within him that will hold up and protect his inner life when he goes out into the world. When he has to deal with the stresses of fitting into the workforce somehow. I don’t want him to lose his inner spark.
I was very interested in Indigenous cultures and stories of Turtle Island for many years. I’ve spent time at Mohawk spiritual gatherings and read books about Haudenosaunee culture and politics. But these cultures are not my own and I will always be outside of them.
During the pandemic I learned the bodhrán from an Irish percussionist who also introduced me to modern Irish culture and the notion of the Irish diaspora. I never really thought I was part of the diaspora because my family has been gone from Ireland for such a long time. But ironically, when I turned my attention away from exploring North American Indigenous cultures and stories, I actually found that I have an ancestral culture of my own that seems to have claimed me. Maybe it’s just that I have claimed it, but it’s a bond that’s undeniable and existed before I became consciously aware of it. Sometimes things really are right under your nose and you don’t see them.
At times when I hear Irish people speaking, I hear my own relatives talking. My grandmother and grandfather had very strong Irish accents and my mother does to a lesser extent. It is uncanny how when I hear those accents, I’m transported back to the kitchen table in my grandparents’ house, where I would sit with my granny. An echo within. The sound of their voices almost entering the present.
My drumming is humble and so is my writing. I am not sure I am connected to the sacred tree that towers above the holy well, where it forms the axis of the world. Empire building and profit making have damaged the beauty of the world and those who fear rivers that run wild and forests that harbour hidden holy wells have done everything possible to destroy any entryways to such realms.
But it may be that simply being open to the possibility of such places by listening and looking for them is enough to be a part of them. Connection to the deepest aspects of living is not restricted to the richest or the wisest or the most talented. Knowing this is the key to undermining the empire builders, I think.
So, back to the heart. For me, the working life weighs down my heart and makes the space I need to be able to create harder to access and inhabit. Yet if I am any good at my job, it’s because it’s fed by creativity. Ability to write and to make connections between concepts are the basis of my working life.
So, the heart opens, and the flowers and bees of golden summer celebrate that fact by their mere existence. Within my heart the infinite realm unfolds and expands. I need do nothing but observe it. Like my son, I tuck myself away in the corner of a room where it is quiet, and I can listen. There I sometimes play my drum, and I hear my heart reverberate throughout the whole house.