Despair made the deserts and hope shaped the oases.
Our worlds can be very large and also very small. We see only what our hearts can hold, whether we sail the seas to distant lands, or live out the whole of our lives in the village where we were born.
Don’t be spilling your troubles on the ground for other people to trip over. (Anne Bishop)
So, what did I learn in Ireland? To travel lightly. And I don’t mean that literally, altho’ that’s a fine idea, too. I learned (for the umpteenth time) to watch carefully the thoughts that fill my heart — because the landscape that we see with our eyes is also the one that actually lives in our hearts.
Our inner landscapes are made of structures or stories that we created early in life in order to try to make sense of our experiences. Most often it is these old stories that create and shape the life we’re living today. The way we tell our stories, what we believe to be true about ourselves and the world, determines in large part, what our outer “landscapes” look like.
For example, the ‘voice’ or negative thought associated with an old story might whisper to the heart: Yes, the butcher has cheated you, put his thumb on the scale to charge you the full price for less meat. But you are nothing, nobody, insignificant. No one will believe you if you accuse him — and if you do accuse him, he will not sell you meat anymore, and your family will go hungry. And the Light in that heart will grow dim, replaced with the despair associated with those thoughts. There would be less kindness in that heart today, and the ripples of unhappiness would be felt by every person that person encountered. Those hearts would also be dimmed a little. And the threads of Light in that particular outer landscape would become a little weaker, making the Dark more powerful. (Anne Bishop)
The inner landscape that we carry within us determines the outer landscape that meets us.
It is your life. Your journey. Your choice. Your opportunity. In many respects, you are creating your own reality, your own perception of the world. The landscape you look out your window and see is a reflection of the inner landscape you hold in your heart.
What was my own experience on my Irish journey with my inner and outer landscapes, my “old stories” and the Ireland I encountered? Glad you asked . . .
— A big-bucks coastal cottage full of old crumbs and webs and spiders (one of whom set up housekeeping immediately upon our arrival in my bellybutton, occasioning embarrassing itching throughout our stay, and for a shrink, giving new meaning to the term “navel-gazing”) . . .
— A repeatedly dinged rental car because we misread (badly) the width of the narrow rocky country lanes (making me gnash my teeth at the thought that pretty soon we were gonna have to buy the danged car, and look at what we were already spending for that blankety-blank cottage) . . .
— A husband who refused to leave the cottage except for trips into the village (both because he was so in love with the book he was writing and so NOT in love with those narrow rocky lanes) . . .
— Repeated busloads of German-speaking (why German??) tourists being dropped off in our yard for lengthy photo-ops of the standing-stones altar down the cliff from our cottage (making me cynically wonder at their bravery in climbing over thousand year old blood-stained rocks for said photo-ops) . . .
— And on and on . . .
Remember a long time ago I talked about studying Irish fairies? No need to find them in the outer! What with my resentment over old crumbs and webs; un-mowed grass and canny winking caretakers; narrow lanes and badly dinged cars; newspapers full of murder, mayhem, corruption, and political shenanigans; angry husbands; dollar signs mounting up; and lovely sights not likely to be seen, I had spriggans and pixies and phookas aplenty in my own inner congregation, wicked little critters who wanted to carp and complain and create mischief.
Yep. My inner landscape pretty much created a lot of the thoughts I had about the outer landscape of Ireland this time around.
The truth? Ireland is and was for me a world of dark enchantments, captivating beauty, enormous ugliness, callous superficiality, humor, mischief, joy, inspiration, terror, love, tragedy . . . It is the home of my ancestors, the place of my old stories, for good and not-so-good.