Remembrances

Newgrange Winter Solstice Photograph by Cyril Byrne - The Irish Times In 2007, I traveled to Scotland and Ireland to see the megalithic stone circle at  Callanish on the Isle of Lewis, and the Karrowkeel and Newgrange passage tombs in Ireland. I couldn’t have imagined the powerful emotional, spiritual and kinesthetic experience of being in these ancient sacred places. Newgrange was especially powerful for me. Walking down the narrow entrance passageway, where some of the stones are close enough to rub your shoulders, you come to a cross-shaped chamber with a marvelous corbel vault ceiling. There are three niches, with incised stones and large stone basins on the floor. A guide arranges the visitors along the walls so that the path to the back wall of the chamber is clear. He extinguishes the artificial lights, plunging the chamber into utter darkness and silence. Then, he turns on a single 40 watt bulb whose beam is directed at the back wall, simulating the winter s...

Language, paradoxically, can perpetuate and reinforce the illusion of separateness, while also offering a solvent for its dissolution. It is the task of the writer, and all artists, to work the transformative alchemy of boundary dissolution and unifying integration in the crucible of their craft. Big Sur River Inn August 15, 2010 Something about this place immediately induces a feeling of calm and well-being in me. We are seated at a table outside on the deck, shaded by a colorful umbrella. The lawn slopes gently down to the Little Sur River; sunlight dances on the stones in the clear flowing water. You can never step in the same river twice, or so said Heraclitus – a wise man, it would seem. Perhaps in unconscious recognition of this, people have dragged wooden Adirondack chairs into the stream, arranging them in casual groups of two or three or four, so that they might leisurely while away the hours in the dappled shade, while dogs and babies cavort in pleasant harmony a...