#Lough Inagh

[innervoiceartblog]

A SACRED JOURNEY

When you travel,

A new silence

Goes with you,

And if you listen,

You will hear

What your heart would

Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing.

Make sure, before you go,

To bless your going forth,

To free your heart of ballast

So that the compass of your soul

Might direct you towards

The territories of spirit

Where you will discover

More of your hidden life;

And the urgencies

That deserve to claim you.

~ John O'Donohue

Excerpt from, "For the Traveler"

TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US) / BENEDICTUS (Europe)

Image: Lough Inagh / Connemara

Photo: © Ann Cahill

[primordialsoundmeditation]

I give thanks for arriving

Safely in a new dawn,

For the gift of eyes

To see the world,

The gift of mind

To feel at home

In my life.

The waves of possibility

Breaking on the shore of dawn,

The harvest of the past

That awaits my hunger,

And all the furtherings

This new day will bring.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

The blessing, On Waking, from the books, Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)

Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Dawn at Lough Inagh - Connemara

County Galway, Ireland

Photo: © Ann Cahill

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

THE FACE IN THE STONE

The face in the stone is a mirror looking into you. You have gazed into the moving waters you have seen the slow light, in the sky above Lough Inagh; beneath you, streams have flowed, and rivers of earth have moved beneath your feet, but you have never looked into the immovability of stone like this, the way it holds you, gives you not a way forward but a doorway in, staunches your need to leave, becomes faithful by going nowhere, something that wants you to stay here and look back, be weathered by what comes to you, like the way you too have travelled from so far away to be here, once reluctant and now as solid and as here and as willing to be touched as everything you have found.

…

STONE from 'David Whyte : Essentials' : © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

…

The Face in the Stone Photo © David Whyte Thobar Phádraig County Clare August 23rd 2016

Photo © David Whyte

Thobar Phádraig

County Clare August 23rd 2016

...

I returned to this place just yesterday with my Irish walking group, but I first came across this ancient, evocative, carved face at Thobar Phádraig in County Clare, high above Galway Bay over twenty years ago. She is many centuries old, perhaps over a thousand, no one knows, but our first meeting created something of a shock to my system as I felt distinctly, on first seeing her, as if I had heard something being said to me that I needed to know but could not for the life of me, quite understand. It was the beginning of a very private and very long apprenticeship over the next two decades as I returned, often more than once a year, to stand in front of her, Inas long a silence as I could bear, and see if perhaps, I could now catch what she had first said to me all those years ago. Just a few years ago, under very special circumstances, I was allowed to see her face again, as if for the first time, and she did at last, speak to me again as she had at the beginning. This time I was ready to listen. Hence. ‘The Face in the Stone’ [DW]

[mothmiso]

Galway and Greater Ireland (2) (3) (4) by photocles

Via Flickr:

(1) Salthill, Galway. (2) The old stone boathouse on Lough Inagh in Co. Galway. (3) Odd design choices in Loughrea. (4) Some fine stone carving on the interior of the Corcomroe Abbey ruins in Co. Clare.    

[stumbleimg]

Lough Inagh, Co. Galway, Ireland [2756x3445] [OC]

[stairnaheireann]

📍Lough Inagh, Co Galway 📸 @conorcorbett

[opal765]

Western Ireland, Connemara, Lough Inagh, Binn Chorr seen from Letterbreckaun (667 m)

[she-neverknowsthetasteof-death]

Lough Inagh, Connemara National Park, Settembre 2017

[ceekbee]

When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days. When your mind becomes more acquainted with reverence, the light, grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently. When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)

Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Autumn Sunrise at Lough Inagh - Connemara, Ireland

Photo: © Ann Cahill

[innervoiceartblog]

You have traveled too fast over false ground; Now your soul has come, to take you back. Take refuge in your senses, open up To all the small miracles you rushed through. Become inclined to watch the way of rain When it falls slow and free. Imitate the habit of twilight, Taking time to open the well of color That fostered the brightness of day. Draw alongside the silence of stone Until its calmness can claim you. - John O'Donohue

Excerpt from the blessing, 'For One Who is Exhausted' BENEDICTUS (Europe) / TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)

Lough Inagh, Connemara, Photo © Ann Cahill

[primordialsoundmeditation]

Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If as you age you become more still, you will discover that stillness can be a great companion. The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself. In this stillness, you will engage your soul. Many people miss out on themselves completely as they journey through life. They know others, they know places, they know skills, they know their work, but tragically, they do not know themselves at all. Aging can be a lovely time of ripening when you actually meet yourself, indeed maybe for the first time. There are beautiful lines from T. S. Eliot that say:

'And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.'

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the book, Anam Cara,

25th Anniversary Edition.

Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Lough Inagh, Co Galway, Ireland - January 2024

Photo: © Ann Cahill

[thegreato1ne]

New on 500px : Lough Inagh Sunset by seaver1 by seaver1 Lough Inagh, County Galway from 500px For download Click Here

[ruknowhere]

SANTIAGO

The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding

then revealing the way you should take,

the road dropping away from you

as if leaving you to walk

on thin air, then catching you,

holding you up,

when you thought you would fall,

And the way forward always in the end

the way that you followed,

the way that you came, the way that carried you

into your future, that brought you to this place,

no matter that it sometimes took your promise from you,

no matter that it always had to break

your heart along the way: the sense of having walked

from far inside yourself, out into the revelation,

to have risked yourself for something that seemed

to stand both inside you and far beyond you,

and that called you back in the end to the only road

you could follow, walking as you did, in your rags

of love and speaking in the voice that by night

became a prayer for safe arrival.

So that one day you realized

that what you wanted had already happened,

and long ago and in the dwelling place

in which you lived in before you began,

and that every step along the way, you had carried

the heart and the mind and the promise

that first set you off and then drew you on

and that, you were more marvelous in your

simple wish to find a way than the gilded roofs

of any destination you could reach:

as if, all along, you had thought the end point

might be a city with golden towers, and cheering crowds,

and turning the corner at what you thought

was the end of the road, you found just

a simple reflection, and a clear revelation

beneath the face looking back and beneath it

another invitation, all in one glimpse:

like a person or a place you had sought forever,

like a broad field of freedom that beckoned you beyond;

like another life, and the road still stretching on.

…

SANTIAGO

From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte

©2012 David Whyte

https://davidwhyte.com/collections/books/products/pilgrim

…

Pilgrim Road

Photo © David Whyte

Lough Inagh

Connemara, Ireland.

June 23rd 2016

[makedata]

Lough Inagh Evening by seaver1 // Twelve Bens from Lough Inagh, County Galway

[clogging]

Lough Inagh Evening by seaver1

[connor-burrows]

Lough Inagh Evening by seaver1