Pilgrimage Day 3: the Dingle Peninsula

Featuring the third day of our pilgrimage (July 18), I'll share my journal musings interspersed with pictures of our trek through Dingle - where we met a dolphin, Fungue (foon-gie), who's single.


We are heading to Dingle today. This part (the traveling) is more settled (than County Clare). The hills are really beautiful - like a patchwork of green - with little hedgerows of bushes dividing small tracts of land. The amount of trees here remind me more of Michigan - just not as tall.








There is something about the Irish spirit that I feel like I am trying to discover...
like their secret to endurance,
their commitment to endure,
to press on,
their fidelity to the land,
to each other,
to family and heritage

Part of me wonders if when our people left the land, if they felt like they lost part of themselves - and that is why we see such cases of depression and addiction in Irish families...this yearning, this fighting spirit with nothing to fight for because they've reached a place of freedom...but have left behind all they knew - a deeper part of themselves than they realized....




I think that what I was hoping for was a feeling that I would recover myself...part of my heart, my self that I have lost - a sense of history, of place, of home.

 

And I think that's why what that bartender said last night about me not being a real Irish woman and drinking a half pint hurt so much. Because I was hoping...expecting, like, people to just love me - to welcome me. And instead it was like, you're not one of us. You don't belong in Ireland. Real Irish stay. Real Irish dig in. Real Irish lean into the pain, and they take the hard road.

It makes me wonder how people feel about those who left.

It's like the Prodigal Son -
both sons are hurting -
one longs for home, the other is bitter toward the one who left - neither forget, both hurt...
both are changed by the leaving -
only Reconciliation can heal.
Only humility of spirit,
owning what you are and what you're not,
turning toward home with a humble, open heart -
hoping for a loving reception by your Father -
to be welcomed home.

Lisa (my roommate) and I took a wild ride on Fungue, the dolphin who is single & read to mingle.

If you use the force, you can see the lightsaber in my hand. That middle island is featured in the upcoming Star Wars movie. 

Our group capturing the view

Father David and Mama Sarah

I am not Ireland.


I'm more...and I'm less...
but in my heart is a longing for freedom and for home,
a spirit terrified of being still too long - or forgotten,
but questions my own strength and courage.


We all are feeling our way through,
fumbling forward,
pressing into the future,
but with eyes looking back,
and a heart yearning for home.