Healthy as a trout (a cure for laziness by bicycle).

Tags

bicycle, brittany, christianity, cures, cycling, fish, health, holy wells, lazyness, monks, pagans, piseógs

I spot the giveaway signs of an ancient well  (the heap of rock, the lone hawthorn tree) and go to investigate.

In ancient times water, springing up through sand or rock or grass, was seen by its very action, as mysterious.

It was believed that by flowing up from the ‘underworld’ this water was not only pure and uncontaminated, (The restorative powers of drinking clean water to maintain a healthy life may be taken for granted by us nowadays but not back then), but also supernatural, containing powers that promised healing to those who drank it, splashed it on afflicted areas of the body or paid homage at it.

Sometimes these springs ‘puddled’ and formed wells and when a trout, eel, or best of all, a salmon appeared in them, the phenomena was further enhanced.

Such fish were viewed as the keepers of the well.                                       Holding wisdom and knowledge, they could be consulted in times of trouble. 

Wells with a keeper were held in the highest esteem and bad luck to anyone who interfered with their inhabitants. (even if it was just a lowly frog)

Every so often a bird swooped down for a drink and dropped the hawberry it was carrying.

The next year when a tiny hawthorn sapling appeared, and (despite the hungry hares) survived and grew to maturity, the people were further convinced of the powers of the well . This tree would then come in handy for hanging pieces of cloth from the clothing of an ill person (After first dipping the material in the water in the hopes that it would bring good health) These tree’s became known as raggedy bushes and again bad luck to anyone who tampered with them.

http://treecouncil.ie/treeregisterofireland/83.htm.

When christianity came to Ireland in the 5th century the monks were clever enough not to alienate themselves from the local beliefs and seeing how they [the locals] revered such places, gave the wells the names of saints.

These saints in turn, promised to continue the cures and here the division between paganism and christianity became blurred until finally these wells became known as ‘holy wells’.

To this day pagan and christian rites at such wells remain entwined. (When praying at a well it is also advised to walk clockwise with the sun)*

There are said to be over 3,000  holy wells in ireland and if I were to cycle to every one of them in order to obtain the cures they offer I would probably end up healthier than the trout that sometimes dwell in them.

Now though I don’t doubt my good health would be due more to the action of cycling than to splashing water on my various bodily parts, I still like to believe there is an element of truth in these cures.

Plus I do like a good destination and what better one to aim for than a well with a promise of something more than just a refreshing drink.

It has also occurred to me, as I pedal along boreens that rise and fall, twist and turn, taking me passed curious horses in fields and clusters of small cottages, that maybe these cures are subliminal.

For example in searching for a well with the cure for sight (There are many of these) I am forced along such pleasant routes that I cannot fail to have my eyes opened by the beauty of the scenery around me.

And if I come upon a well with the cure for hearing or sense of smell, I could  leave it feeling its waters had benefited me when really it was because I was on my bicycle and therefore alert to the sigh of the breeze, the sound of the sea, the scent of the honeysuckle in the hedgerows (As opposed to being confined in a stuffy car where I couldn’t hear or smell anything).

Now a good bicycle is a cure in itself and I have never lived without one or even two of these simple instruments of healthy travel. (Though unlike Marieke below I have also never been able to cycle more than one at a time.)

Its not as though I’m a very sporty person! Quite the opposite!

In fact I would label myself as being a Lazy ambitionist (or should that be an Ambitious laze?).

Although I spend days pouring over OS maps, I will eventually get up and go places but I like to do so slowly and without too much effort.

The fact that when I decided to cycle across france, I chose to do it as flatly as possible is proof of this.

Landing with my bicycle at Bordeaux, I cycled to Arcachon, then dipping the wheel of the yellow bicycle in the atlantic, I headed  back to Bordeaux and I followed the Garonne river as far as toulouse, where I picked up the canal du midi and cycled along it (with the odd diversion into the Montagne Noir) as far as Sete on the mediterranean, knowing well that neither river or canal flows upwards.

But before I give you a picture of being slothlike, I will remind you that I cycled the wild atlantic way two years running on a single speed old black bicycle with a little wooden trailer carrying my camping gear and other accoutrements attached .

(Though because I had a picture of the map of Ireland on the classroom wall in my head, I chose to cycle from north to south feeling there must surely be more downhills than uphills when going in that direction).

But back to holy wells of which Ireland is as riddled with as the shiney new colander hanging in my kitchen (which I haven’t quite got around to using yet).

A recent visit to Saint Deirbhiles holy well in Co Mayo has re wetted my appetite for such places.

A cure for the eye with water (cycling to St Deirbhiles holy well)

So recently and armed with an O.S map of the area I headed to Co wexford and found three holy wells.

Two of which were not in use.

The first was down a small road leading to the sea in the townland of Glascarrig.

To get at it, I ignored the sign stating that the water was not suitable for drinking and pushed open the rusty gate.  Trampling aside the hog weed that was smothering the well I dipped in my cup for a sip. (Noting later that not only did I NOT suffer any ill effects from the drinking its water but sustained NO blistering from this toxic weed. (Has this well the cure of the skin?)

The next well was harder to find but I met an elderly farmer who directed me in its general direction.

When I asked him if he knew what it had the cure of, he replied with a straight face ‘ I do! It has the cure of the piseóg’

Despite his directions I had difficulty in finding it as the steps up to the embankment where it was supposedly situated were overgrown with ferns.

When I eventually did, I saw that it was covered with broken branches. Under the branches lay a piece of tarpaulin held in place by cement kerbing.

The children’s song ‘ Farmer in the well’ came to mind and I hastily replaced the branches and slithered down the embankment.

I would check later in the paper for any missing bodies in the area. Meanwhile I headed across the field to a site marked on the OS map as a moated site.

The third well was easier to find (though I would say I far prefer to search for the less obvious)

The gate was newly painted and following the line of trees along a worn path through a field, I skirted an ancient walled graveyard.

A further gate led me through a small wood and there ahead and recently whitewashed lay Saint Machains well.

What ‘cure’ this well holds I cannot tell you, but I drank some of its water anyway.

And suddenly I have an urge to get the boat to Brittany with my yellow bicycle and go cycling over there in search of some french Holy wells.

Maybe St Machain, who himself appears to have travelled from here from Scotland had the cure for that laziness of travel I mentioned earlier.

I just hope Brittany isn’t too hilly.

FIN

*P.S I am not an archeologist or a folklorist or any other ‘ist’ that may through the study of Holywells have a more researched knowledge of them. These are my thoughts, some gained from reading the history and geography of Ireland, some through reading Irish Mythology but mostly from going out in search of and finding them.  

Part Three; Simple wealth (The four Yoku’s)

Tags

barefoot, bicycle, buddhism, Divorce, farmer, happy, lotto, mother, philosophy, poor, pub, rich, wind bathing, yoku's

 

( Where I learn to count my blessings, remind myself that one doesn’t need money to be happy, which may annoy a few people, and swear never to mention the stuff again )

Oscar Wilde said ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars’.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The morning Matilda Maracella awoke in the ‘turkey house’ and watched the swallows fly through the holes in the roof, she wept with despair.

Although the mattress she lay on was comfortable and the small table beside it held a lamp, a jug of water and a glass, she had never been in such a helpless position, had never been at such a low ebb.

But as She lay there, her head resting on her tear soaked pillow, small thoughts of an optimistic kind began to wheedle their way through her head.  And as her moments of delving into Buddhism came to mind, she remembered learning about impermanence.

Whatever IS will be WAS.

‘If I feel at my lowest now‘ she reasoned, ‘the only place I can go after this, is up! 

Holding onto that thought, she let her eyes stray over her surroundings.

The thick walls of the old building were of grey stone, seen here and there where the plaster was peeling off.

They swept solidly upwards towards a cathedral like ceiling and halfway up, the blackened indentation of a fireplace indicated where the second floor had been . The remainder of the joists were also visible in the wall.

The long windows had lost their glass and were boarded up with sheets of corrugated iron from the outside, but the wooden window frames were still in good condition . Her eyes followed the walls on up to the ceiling.

Here the swallows nests poked out between the exposed rafters.

Where the roof slates were missing, she could catch glimpses of early morning sky.

‘Things can’t be that bad if I have my sight’ she told herself comfortingly.

As another swallow skimmed over her head and was greeted by the frantic chirping of hungry young she realised no matter how despairing she was feeling, the rest of the world was going to keep on about it’s business.

By now she was tired of feeling sorry for herself. It was becoming boring and a waste of a lovely morning.

She thought she should store this memory so that when things DID improve, she could pull it out as reference to how far she had come since that morning.

She also thought that luckily so far, none of the swallows droppings had landed on her and whilst keeping this optimistic view she wiped her eyes, scrambled off the bed, folded the blanket neatly, hopped on her bike and cycled off down to the sea for a swim.

and as her legs spun the pedals and the road flashed under her wheels it occurred to her that she still had a lot of blessings to count. 

I have inherited my mother’s optimistic view of life. She never worried, always believing that change of feeling/ circumstance/ money would come from somewhere at the last moment.

My mother always said she would have liked to have been a quaker but I felt that she was more buddhist like in her thinking.

She didn’t feel the same about me! Once when we were discussing this and I mentioned I would like to be a buddhist she laughed and said ‘Maybe, but you have you considered how much you like to talk’.

Of course as with a lot of things my mother didn’t realise how open minded and forward sighted she was.

I have watched her face huge challenges where she would look thoughtful before answering.

-Hmmm let me see now…..

-Maybe if you….

-Have you considered…..

-Don’t panic! why don’t you….

and her best one of all

-Sure nothing stays the same, It’ll be different tomorrow…..

This didn’t mean she sat back and did nothing. Far from being passive, she would tackle any challenges she knew she could change for the better but she didn’t allow herself to worry about misfortunes that she recognised to be beyond her control.

And if she didn’t understand certain aspects of OUR worries she would read up about them.

‘Guess what I am reading at the moment’ Was how she often greeted me, waving a book about some far out belief, idea, concept in my face.

She greeted the news of my divorce with nothing short of delight.

‘Now’ she said happily ‘you can reinvent yourself’ ,

I think she meant find I could find myself again.

And so I did.

*****

I have lived a life no more extraordinary than the next person.

The night spent in the turkey house all those years ago was just a blip and I still look back on it with fondness.

It was my turning point.

The point in my life when it struck me that when I have money I am happy and when I have no money I am happy too.

I heard recently about a farmer who had won the lotto. It was a large lottery that week.

Millions in fact.

Can you imagine his face when he discovered he was a multimillionaire? Can you imagine what went through his mind as he ate his porridge that morning.

Did he shoot off and buy a mansion in the caribbean complete with yacht, helicopter and fast cars as many in his shoes would have?

No he did not!

First he responsibly paid off all his children’s mortgages and then he bought them all new cars.

And still he had a few millions left.

So he scratched his head and thought for a while before doing what every farmer does, he decided to buy more land.

Now his neighbour and and best friend, (they were from adjacent farms and had grown up together, helping each others dad’s bring in the hay and the turf, wrestling with each other on the heaped up hay in the barn , being rescued together out of bog holes when helping foot the turf) thought that HE would sell him some of his.

Not a lot mind. No point in losing the run of himself where money is concerned. He was a sensible man. Yes he would sell him the few acres along the river. They were prone to flooding anyway and not of great use.

And to make it worth his while he would ask for double the price.

His friend could well afford it, he reasoned, as he rubbed his hands together.

Fair is fair.

Now we can  both be rich.

So they came to an agreement on a price that actually ended up being three times the value of the land.

The acreage was transferred over and that was that you would have thought.

But the friend had morals and too late they got the better of him and began to niggle at him and he felt ashamed and could no longer look his friend in the eye.

He began to avoid him.

And the Lotto winning farmer knew he had been fooled and felt hurt that his friend was not honest. He was also saddened by his greed and the realization that his friend was not the man he thought he was.

Soon that hurt turned to resentment and he glared at his friend whenever he came upon him and refused to speak to him.

Of course now they could no longer meet for their evening pint in the local. A custom of theirs since they had lied about their age (and got away with it) at sixteen!  So they both began to avoid that pub for fear of bumping into each other.

The millionaire farmer began to go to one far beyond the valley.

And because he couldn’t afford to be stopped by the guards with so many pints on him (yes losing his friend had caused him to take to the drink more thoroughly and no amount of money could buy off losing your licence due to a drunk driving charge) his shiney new land rover stayed parked at the house whilst he battled the elements on his old black raleigh bike.

You might think one of his son’s would drop him over and back but they were too busy hosting dinner parties for their new posh friends (did I mention they all demanded larger houses)

Meanwhile the other regulars stopped going to the local pub too. The craic was gone from it they moaned.

Sure weren’t the two farmers the finest storytellers in the land and night after night they lifted the rafters with the laughter caused by their jokes and tales.

Without them there was nothing to talk about but the price of hoggets and the austerity measures of the country which made them all wander home depressed and shout at their wives who, in return, refused to bake them rough brown soda bread so they had to resort to white shop loaves instead which made them constipated.

So they began to take their custom to livelier quarters and indeed half of them followed farmer One to the pub far beyond the valley and the other half followed farmer Two to the pub on the other side of the mountain.

By this time the owner of the local pub, getting only a smathering of business went bankrupt and he cursed the millionaire farmer to the end of his days for causing his demise.

….then a year went by and the sons felt that they should upgrade their cars to the present year. oh and possibly bigger models! And his daughters in law complained about the size of the houses so mayb……..?

By now the millionaire farmer was becoming more bedraggled as he cycled the countryside, his coat smelling of damp, his beard long and tangled, looking for a pub that would serve him. (At this stage most proprietors took him for a penniless tramp and turned him away).

Oh and before I forget, the final straw was, that his wife left him.

Unable to bear the sad specimen of the man he had become, she took off with the pub owner from the local and her half of the money.

And if gossip is to be believed they have bought a beach shack in thailand and are running a very successful business serving mojitos and all sort’s of foreign sounding drinks that would be unpronounceable let alone heard of back home .

So indeed, not a happy ending for our millionaire.

Before he died Steve jobs admitted that despite being rich he wasn’t a happy man. He also realised too late that no amount of money could save his life.

So what do I do to keep myself happy when I have no money?

My Yoku’s of course!

I have four favorites.

Shinrin yoku is the japanese word for the art of forest bathing

It doesn’t mean bathing in the true sense but really bathing the senses by going for walks deep into the forest to absorb the strength and calmness of the tree’s and to listen to the sounds of nature.

Kaze Yoku : Wind bathing. (This yoku I have sort of made up, though I’m sure it is already in existence).

To practice it you need to find a rock overlooking the sea preferably along the west coast of Ireland. It works best if the wind is coming from the northwest and strong enough to cause white horses on the sea. Taking care not to wear too much clothing stand on your rock close your eyes breath deeply and let the wind pour over you.

Hadashi Yoku: barefoot bathing.

For this yoku I head west to the burren. Best practised on a sunny day. Remove your shoes and slowly at first, paying careful attention to the undulations of the smooth marble like limestone, wend your way across the sun warmed terraces, letting your feet soak up the energies of the stone and enjoy their freedom away from the confines of shoes.

Jitensha Yoku : bicycle bathing.

 

This one is simple. Just get on your bicycle and pedal along in whatever fashion pleases you, where ever pleases you. Choose country roads, off the beaten track Boreens. Push through gates that lead down dubious looking paths even if they end up leading nowhere.

And do fly down the odd hill with the wind in your hair and the sun at your back while you are at it.

And when you practice these yoku’s you feel like the wealthiest and happiest person on the planet.

Vergings of a half hearted procrastinator.

Tags

appartment living, bicycle, labels, learning, philosophy, procrastination, words

THE PATH TO THE RIGHT WILL BRING ME TO THE SEA.

Procrastination; To postpone until tomorrow. To defer until a later date.

I should have paid more attention to english vocabulary when I was at school.

Since I started writing this blog I am coming across many interesting words that I am familiar with but not quite sure or can’t remember the meaning of.

Not a thing I am proud to admit to.

But It’s exciting! I see learning as a lifelong passion and am glad that I don’t know everything and still have lots to learn (the meaning of the word ‘Callipygian‘ for example or ‘doryphore’ or  ‘decubitus’ or ‘edacious’ or ‘ensorcell’ or even ‘absquatulate’)

I am proof of the idea that school at a young age is a bit of a waste, that we should be off adventuring and exploring when young and have the physical energy for it and do our learning later when our bodies have calmed down.

An Opsimath I suppose one could refer to me as (but that is subject matter for another essay).

One of the words I came across recently and had to look up to remind myself of its correct meaning was ‘procrastination’.

‘You don’t know the meaning of that!’ I hear you cry in disbelief.

Well I do have a vague idea, but maybe the fact that I am one is reason for my lack of interest in such a word.

Yes I am a procrastinator!

As I say these words out loud I feel a weight falling from my shoulders as when given a diagnosis.

A sort of So thats what I have/am feeling of resignation (and now that I have admitted to it, I can deal with it).

The problem of course is once you have a label you may find that even if you do manage to change, it can be hard to un-label yourself.

Or worse, you may be in danger of settling happily into your label.

Or that if you can’t teach an old dog new tricks (as the saying goes) How do you expect to teach a chronic procrastinator, who didn’t (until just recently) even realise she was one, new ways?

Am I being too hard on myself?

I thought I was just laid back/easygoing/verging on lazy.

Maybe I’m just a half hearted one

Is it possible to be a particular procrastinator, procrastinating only about certain things. Paying bills for example.

On a scale of one to ten which way do I lean?

I will go away now and ponder this and defer my judgement until later.

~~~

When I come back to my laptop I have decided not to procrastinate any longer but to settle down and get on with the writing of this piece.

But!

Its such a beautiful day and what I would really like to do is head off somewhere on my bicycle.

I debate about this for about ten minutes until the bicycle wins.

Now procrastinators should never live in apartments. It is much too difficult to get easily to the outside.

And mine being on the third floor is enough to turn a motivated person into a procrastinator.

But I make a start by taking my bike out through the living room door.

Having got that far I decide to keep going and go through my main door.

Then along a corridor and into a lift, where, lifting my bike up on its back wheel and letting its front wheel climb the lift wall, I can just about manage to fit us both in.

On arriving at the ground floor I untangle myself from where I have got my head caught between the handlebars and saddle and I wheel my bicycle down the reception area.

This is a very pleasant space with some large potted plants that have a notice stuck to each pot ‘Please do not water me‘!

As if!

Procrastinators rarely get around to watering their own plants let alone anyone else’s .

Though we do think about it.

No! the potted plants need not fear me drowning them!

Which brings to mind other people worse than us procrastors. People who are always on the ball, jumping at opportunities, whizzing round, motivated, interfering, controlling, not trusting others to take care of things. Over watering house plants!!

pfffft I am glad I am not like THAT.

I go through another door and one final one and at last I am outside.

By this time I am exhausted and I sit down on the bench outside the door.

Maybe I should call off my cycle and go back and have a cup of tea and finish writing my piece.

But the thought of the of getting back into my appartment with my bicycle is not really appealing either.

I sit and consider my options for five minutes.

The bicycle wins again.

But which way?

To the right the going is flat and will take me to the sea (should I go back and get my swimming suit).

To the left it is uphill and takes me to the mountains (should I go back and get some water in case I get thirsty).

Sitting on the warm bench I turn my face to the sun and mull it over.

I’ll go to the right I decide!

In a while………