An extract from this working title (March 2008)
By Mary Aver
Blackberry Picking
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking.
- Seamus Heaney
I defy anyone to spend time in communion with the earth in Ireland and not feel it. It will insist on whispering in your ear and sending your mind a – wandering, it may be a song or a poem or simply relaxing into life ‘for a change’. I still cannot tell you for certain who first inspired me but I inspired I was and for six years I took groups to the west coast on retreat. It all began in 1995 and each year thirty or forty men and women trusted my passion and journeyed to The Burren.
The Burren is a phenomenon. It is a geological mystery, stretching out over three hundred square miles in the northern region of County Clare. It is composed of limestone, a sedimentary rock called ‘karst’ vast, with an emptiness that is haunting. Take one step and you will wonder where you are, as there are sub- tropical plants that grow alongside alpine species, and orchids take the mind away to other continents and you will think about an ice age that must have rearranged the poles.
I always drive slowly as I approach the entrance to The Burren and advise others to do the same. I can turn the car around at least once and maybe a few times and make ‘the entrance’ to the Burren again and be consumed by its splendor. I will not tell you more except to entice you and wish you this – “to be stunned by the beauty that awaits you” and then you can never be the same, as you will wish to return again and again.
When we arrived at Shannon airport a convoy of cars took off with visitors from Denmark, London, Sweden, South Africa and US. After the initial arrival and settling in, each day we went out on vision quests to familiarise ourselves with the wildness there. These short bursts for one hour or so eventually culminated in one all night ritual on a mountain top.
The field belonged to a friend who is a local farmer. The best part of any ritual is the day spent preparing. Not everyone agrees with me on this especially if there are nettles to be plucked, dock leaves to be rooted out. To make it more agreeable each nettle and dock leaf could represent a thought or a holding pattern that had resided in our consciousness and that we needed to dissolve.
This is an extract from my book working title Journey from the Mountain.
The chapter describes how nature calls us and moves our mind so that the beauty of the place can heal and guide us. We need a silent mind to appreciate it fully. My experience over the past decades of taking people away from their familiar surroundings and going into nature – nature invites the mind to become silent. The spirits of the place wish to teach us, they wait for us tenderly and patiently and when we surrender ourselves there is nothing else except to be adorned.
I regard the time with Schumacher in May as entering the temple of nature with all of its beauty and mystery.
See more about Reconnecting with Nature as Healer, the course that Mary will teach on in May 2008
