Campervan Therapy

We’re back in Glendalough, Seán’s family home, but because we love van life so much,  we’re camping in front of the house. A woodpecker wakes us up each morning, with its knock, knock, knock and the house martins chirp from the nest in the eave of the house. The stars at night are unbelievably bright, in the moonless black velvet. And, of course, when in Glendalough, rambling is the order of the day.

The Meditation Garden

We start our walk at St. Kevin’s Church, in Laragh, where there’s a meditation garden, with sculptures coupled with contemplative inscriptions. I especially like two memorials, one on granite, to the miners from the now-defunct mines; the other for the foresters.

And the words from Ecclesiastes ring so true.

It’s good to see memorials that honour ordinary working people, but there’s a glaring omission – the women. What of mothers, carers, bakers, seamstresses, hotel workers,  educators, farmers, nurses, doctors? The lives of ordinary women are lost from ‘herstory’ across the world, so it’d be good to see more of them.

St Kevin and Seamus Heaney

Seán listens to my rant about women’s erasure from the history books with his usual good nature, bless his cotton socks. Anyway the next stop on the meditation circuit is a beautiful extract from Seamus Heaney’s poem, St. Kevin and the Blackbird. Click on the link to hear Famous Seamus read it. To listen to him is like a prayer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKGmQcSFbMc

This installation captures the essence of these Wicklow hills, the granite, the legend of St. Kevin, the blackbird, the moss and the ivy.

The Wicklow Way

The track to the Wicklow Way starts opposite the church, through the woods. Once on the way itself, we’re treated to distant views of hills and lakes through the trees.

And always the insouciant yellow of the gorse bushes, which flaunt themselves among February’s dun colours.

Glendalough’s Upper and Lower Lakes

The closer we wind to Glendalough’s two lakes the more you can make out the path of the great glacier, from the last Ice Age that carved this valley and you can imagine the power of that ice and the water as it melted. It’s as if the meditative mood has stayed with us, as we’re both silent staring down at the sight. As always, this natural phenomenon is humbling, a reminder of just how insignificant we humans are compared to these mountains.

From the Big Picture to the Detail

As we walk back along the Green Road from Glendalough, it’s the details of the landscape that are so striking, the moss up the beech, birch and oak tree trunks, hanging from branches, the lichen, the many plants, from shamrock, to sorrel, to umbilicus rupestris. (There’s a name for you, but I prefer the common name of wall pennywort). The rocks themselves are multi-coloured, some stained rust-red from the iron-rich rivulets, some green, always telling the geological story of millennia.

The rock formations weathered by years, wind and rain, are the stuff of children’s fantasy stories. I almost imagine a hobbit sticking his or her head out to invite me into their cave-dwelling. As always, rambling has been a workout for body, heart and mind.