I recall speaking a few years back to a French friend of mine about the film 'Into Great Silence', about the lives of Carthusian monks at the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French alps. He could not see their lives as anything but awful, self-imposed prison sentences. Though indeed somewhat terrifyingly austere, I could also imagine how incredible it might be to spend the bulk of each day in silent contemplation of the divine.
As a footnote, that very bourgeoisie friend, who spent his days chasing after "stinky cheeses", fine wines, and fine delicacies to dine upon, attempted suicide a short while later. He may as well have been a character in a Houellebecq novel.
If hedonism is all you've got, well, understand that may not be enough to get you through.
It think that may be correct. I only saw it once years ago and recall being frustrated the quality of the footage seemed distractingly poor. Honestly, I wish someone like Werner Herzog or Scorcese had made that exact same film simply because I would have seen more than grainy, underexposed mush. So a brilliant idea and opportunity knee-capped by awful cinematography in my opinion. Note: this is perhaps less about the film than about the fact cinematography is overly important to me. I can't help it! Some people can easily watch and enjoy things that make my eyes ache. Also should be noted I saw it on DVD and it's possible a bad transfer was involved.
Honestly there are not very many films and filmmakers genuinely interested in spirituality. Hungary... there's Béla Tarr. Internationally you've got Bresson ('Au Hasard Balhtazar' and 'Mouchette'), Kieślowski ('Double Life of Veronique'), Ozu ('Tokyo Story', 'Late Spring'), Tarkovsky (essentially all of his films), Lucile Hadzihalilovic ('Innocence'), Carl Theodor Dreyer ('The Passion of Joan of Arc'). A case could be made for Kelly Reichardt, specifically 'Wendy and Lucy' and 'Certain Women'. Some might argue for Terrence Malik, I would not, though maybe he got there in 'The New World'. A case could also be made for Hayao Miyazaki for 'Totoro', 'Spirited Away', and 'Princess Mononoke'. Paul Schrader's 'First Reformed' is incredible.
Some are certainly missing from this list, but it's not a long list in any case. And that's a shame because film is so capable and so under-explored in this area. Paul Schrader in fact is probably the world authority on this kind of cinema and I'd highly recommend his 'Transcendental Style in Film', especially the second edition with the new introduction.
Your comment puts me in mind of Anthony Bourdain. If ever there was a man who had everything it was him; rich, famous, twice good looking, beloved of women and envied by men. Dead by his own hand at 61. But then, it is not uncommon to hear stories of people who seemingly have everything that kill themselves. I never heard of a monk committing suicide, though. PS I love Houellebecq.
She was not recorded as managing to get into church even once in her whole life!
But absorbed the Spirit in the wildest of wilderness beyond the greatest of her churchgoing peers.
God discerns the heart.
I’m missing church today. Do I even know why?
I know my justification… sick kid.
But underneath it, well, I’m relieved not to go… I wanted coffee and slow sunshine this morning.
I’ll let God sort it out, my reasons are sand. God discerns my heart… and then haha compassion! And judgement (restorative and pedagogical justice done on my truant head ;)
They chose both. Bear in mind that these were Christian saints. They were not in the wilds to escape church teachings, but to deepen them and practice them, and to battle the devil. When they went to the wilderness it was usually with the blessing of their spiritual father. Colman built a church in the forest, as did many of the saints I will be writing about. 'Going to the forest vs going to church' was never a question. None of these saints would ever have sanctioned the notion that it was possible to be Christian without the church.
But the saints did not sanction it, which is why they were Christian saints. Of course, many people from many traditions (and none) have sought God in the wildnerness, throughout human history. Doing so is not a Christian idea, or innovation. But is it specifically the Christian saints I will be writing about.
Many churches and cathedrals were built on top of such wild sacred site; to include their energetic qualities beneath the altars, where once there were ones of natural stone. Humanity has a way of getting too close at times, as Nature recedes somewhat; but the energy remains for those who are open and grateful.
Thanks Paul for the wonderful idea of sharing these sacred wells with us.
Some humans get closer to God by entering buildings, some do a St. Anthony The Great. Some can do either one, for, like cats, all places are alike to them.
At my parish, we have a cat, she loves wandering around inside the temple and can often be seen praying along with us during Vigil. But she does need to stay outside during the Liturgy.
Very true, it does look like Iceland! Before choosing to emigrate to Ireland I looked long and hard at Iceland as an alternative but the language and positively unreal cost of living—which makes expensive Ireland seem an outright bargain (https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp)— ultimately dissuaded me.
Ireland is the European HQ of Pfizer and I expect the Irish will be screwed hard by whatever shenanigans are next on deck. People here really will need to take to the green desert if they don't want to be more or less held down and injected with whatever the boys at DARPA want in our bodies.
Yes, plenty of wells here, many of them simply practical, and traditionally used for drawing water for the house etc. Why are some hallowed and some not? That's part of the mystery of it all, I suppose.
There's a lot to mull over here, thanks Paul. Apart from the aching wildness of rock and greenery; there's the other things you mention: the miracle of levitation, the felling of ancient trees and the crucifixion of the spirit of place. Aren't holy wells strange attractors of powers good and evil? I've always found pools of hidden water quite threatening, as if there's a dissolution lurking there. Good advice not to drink and, yes, the real spring isn't there, but up the mountain. I just keep wondering, then, what a well really is.
We have a similar history here in Norway, with "holy places" and "hermit's places" (indeed, many missionaries also came to Norway and Iceland to seek God, probably from Britain and Ireland - some historical sources say that hermits were on Iceland when the Norwegian Vikings arrived there to settle).
In my area the small huts of the hermits were called "Kova". So that word is probably related to "cave". The word is not in use in Norwegian anymore, but some people in my area have the name "Kovajord", "cave-earth" or "cave-field", and I suspect that this name relates back to this phenomenon.
There was also much transferring of more ancient "nature mysticism" over to Christian folk beliefs, in medieval times. This also would include the intermingling of Christian faith with elements of nature (trees, plants, flowers, rocks, sites etc.) But in Norway this eroded away after the Reformation, so to speak, but especially as late as the 19th century (that is when "The Enlightenment" and modernization kicks in, for better and for worse).
I have thought about an idea of starting a scout group in my local church which would deal with practical tasks and experiences (classic scouting things), but connected to nature elements: Fire, water, earth, air, types of animals etc. The thing is: Each of these elements is "spiritualized" and "divinized" in the Bible, in complex ways. (God is in the fire (Moses), in the wind (Elijah, in a "Kova"), in holy water (baptism or ritual cleaning of the law), in wood (tabernacle) etc. etc.) So it is would seem quite fruitful to build bridges between the Tradition/liturgy/spirituality and practical experience of - and engagement with - nature. Of course there is much mysticism involved in these things, but at the same time "the metaphysics of mechanical materialism" is no longer really believable, if it ever was.
Hallvard, if you go ahead with your idea of a group experience with Nature and the elements you will no doubt enter the fascinating world of how our different sensitivities awaken to the different elements. Not everyone has the same type of Nature intelligence; different groups of individuals have similar sensitivities which can be deepened when explored as the elements naturally 'speak' when we can listen. Pray and reverence as well as a space of not knowing (meditation) can be wonderful tools to work with. We are all similar but not the same. Thanks for your interesting comments.
I look at the stuff I take camping and think Im a "light" hiker or minimalist but this guy just crawls between two rocks and lives there. Very impressive. I do wonder if he had anything, a knife or fire making tool. Im sure he didnt just sit around all day, would be fascinating to me to know the day to day of his life.
As someone with earth-based spiritual leanings (what one friend calls being a "small-p pagan") I'm enjoying reading about the holy wells of Ireland and considering the places I have known in my local USA geographies that hold similar sacred energies, whether or not I was aware of them at the time I encountered them. I had visited the city of Seattle, Washington as a child, but only when I visited as an adult did did I comprehend the powerful presence of Mount Rainier. It's visible from many places, and whenever it appeared in the distance I couldn't take my eyes off it. I began to understand how the ancients perceived mountains as gods, or the dwelling places of gods.
I clicked through to the article about offerings and litter and was struck by the phrase "non-spiritual egocentric motives." Most offering traditions strike me as being both spiritual AND egocentric -- "gifts" made out of self-interest, hoping God or the gods would bend reality in one's favor. Bribes, by another name. There may be no atheists in foxholes, and we've all wanted things to turn out our way. But a gift, to my mind, is given out of love, and not in the hope of getting something in return.
Still, I find the rag and "clootie tree" tradition beautiful, and long to make offerings of my own. At various times I have, taking care to leave gifts that are discreet and non-harming ("biodegradable" doesn't have a spiritual ring to it, but it's an essential component). I have left small polished stones, a bit of ground aromatic spices, or tiny wood carvings at places I love as tokens of my affection. (One favorite spot is a small, trickling fountain tucked into a neighborhood in Washington DC.) This latest essay inspires me to resume my modest practice of leaving occasional offerings.
The rags tied to the trees at wells are not gifts, but prayers for intercession. Not 'bribes' - which would be a more 'pagan' way of looking at it - but pleas for help. 'Offerings' is in fact probably the wrong word to use, in a Christian context, which is a useful thing for me to note. Neither God nor the saints needs to be given gifts. I'll be writing more about this as we go along.
Offerings , gifts , bribes, intercession prayers or pleas .. what interesting distinctions ! The question that pops to mind is; why present any of these at sacred wells?
Sounds to me very similar to the practice of lighting a candle in church, in front of an icon, or at a grave. It's a symbol for ongoing prayer and remembrance.
But why make a plea at a natural well ? It isn't a church , it isn't an icon or a grave. Why would it be an effective place to make a plea , request etc. ? What exactly makes it so? Now if these are solely pleas for healing then I can understand how prayers could be made, water already deemed to be holy would be collected and carried away for healing purposes. Strings and clothes tied to nearby trees would be left as evidence/ reminders to supplicant and the supplicated to.
I don't think Paul mentioned it but many sacred wells in Ireland were before the Christian's came associated with healing goddesses like Brighid, the triple goddess of healing, poetry, and smithcraft and the goddess Airmed, also associated with a healing wells and the healing art of herbalism.
Very good Sunday morning reading. I do wonder how often such hermits managed to get to Mass, whether priests visited to offer confession and Eucharist. Comparing the world at that time with the way we live now and it is hard to understand how there are not thousands seeking hermitage.
Lovely piece. It brought back to mind the "spring house" on my grandparents' farm. It was a small fieldstone shed built over a spring just downhill from the house. Inside, the floor was a smooth rectangle of water, kept to a consistent level by what amounted to a small dam at the rear of the structure, over which water constantly trickled, flowing out the rear of the house so that the area behind it was always a bit squishy. On older American farms, spring houses were common features, as I expect they were in many places. While they were built partly to protect water sources, their main purpose, especially by the time my dad came along, was refrigeration. No matter how hot it got in the summer, the spring water was cool enough to preserve food, which was kept in large jars or pots sunk into the water. And no matter how cold it got in winter, that liquid rectangle would never freeze.
No one ascribed sacredness to the place (and my grandparents, being good Methodists, would have scoffed at such superstition), but it was a place that had a strong presence. On the rare occasions I saw inside (by the time I came along not much was stored there except soft drinks for the big family gatherings we had at the farm), I did feel something akin to reverence. The inside was dark, still, and silent, and but for the watery floor, the place could have passed for a disused chapel.
I didn’t think the spring house pointed toward God, but it did seem to point to a life lived close to the land, lived with a reliance on the land being itself. Taking water the land gave without being prodded by an electric pump. Cooling food without plugging in a refrigerator. That was something already appealing to me in my pre-teens. I didn’t then have the notion of deliberately inhabiting places such as I would pick up later from nature writers, but I felt like I glimpsed something like that resting in the cool shadows of the spring house. And if that spring house intimated life in harmony with some sustaining wholeness, perhaps there was sacredness about it.
Thanks, Paul. And: if you are not familiar with it, you might enjoy Brian Friel’s beautiful play, “Translations,” which deals with the Ordnance Survey and has a conversation centered around a well called “Tobair Vree “
Interesting that Christian holy men and women of old more often than not chose solitude and silence in wild places as a way of getting closer to God. I find it especially interesting since the Bible begins ''In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God'. It would seem that to experience the essential nature of the 'Word' (God) it is best to be silent and listen, truly listen, out for it. Interesting, too, is that the listening is done near to water, life-giving and life-preserving.
Kati, I have always assumed that 'the word' ways was/ is to be interpreted as both a means to understand God and also a means by which God reveals Himself to us humans (like what I imagiine you mean by your 'silence taking some form'). Interesting though that when the Biible was translated into Greek 'the logos', 'the word' literally, was used as a translation of whatever the expression is in the language spoken by those who first wrote the Bible, and that 'the logos' (literacy?) is a means to understanding the world around us, and thereby it offers us humans a path to literacy (understanding).
Paul, I will be traveling in Ireland next week and would like to visit the well and cave. How easy is it to find? Is it inside the Burren National Park? Thanks.
Thanks Paul for the directions. I visited the well and cave today in the rain. My pictures look just like yours. It was quite wet and muddy but the hike was worth it. I can’t imagine how you were able to lie down on the rocky cave floor.
It’s interesting to me that Christian Saints choose solitude in wild places to get closer to God, not going to church.
I can definitely relate to that.
I recall speaking a few years back to a French friend of mine about the film 'Into Great Silence', about the lives of Carthusian monks at the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French alps. He could not see their lives as anything but awful, self-imposed prison sentences. Though indeed somewhat terrifyingly austere, I could also imagine how incredible it might be to spend the bulk of each day in silent contemplation of the divine.
As a footnote, that very bourgeoisie friend, who spent his days chasing after "stinky cheeses", fine wines, and fine delicacies to dine upon, attempted suicide a short while later. He may as well have been a character in a Houellebecq novel.
If hedonism is all you've got, well, understand that may not be enough to get you through.
It think that may be correct. I only saw it once years ago and recall being frustrated the quality of the footage seemed distractingly poor. Honestly, I wish someone like Werner Herzog or Scorcese had made that exact same film simply because I would have seen more than grainy, underexposed mush. So a brilliant idea and opportunity knee-capped by awful cinematography in my opinion. Note: this is perhaps less about the film than about the fact cinematography is overly important to me. I can't help it! Some people can easily watch and enjoy things that make my eyes ache. Also should be noted I saw it on DVD and it's possible a bad transfer was involved.
Honestly there are not very many films and filmmakers genuinely interested in spirituality. Hungary... there's Béla Tarr. Internationally you've got Bresson ('Au Hasard Balhtazar' and 'Mouchette'), Kieślowski ('Double Life of Veronique'), Ozu ('Tokyo Story', 'Late Spring'), Tarkovsky (essentially all of his films), Lucile Hadzihalilovic ('Innocence'), Carl Theodor Dreyer ('The Passion of Joan of Arc'). A case could be made for Kelly Reichardt, specifically 'Wendy and Lucy' and 'Certain Women'. Some might argue for Terrence Malik, I would not, though maybe he got there in 'The New World'. A case could also be made for Hayao Miyazaki for 'Totoro', 'Spirited Away', and 'Princess Mononoke'. Paul Schrader's 'First Reformed' is incredible.
Some are certainly missing from this list, but it's not a long list in any case. And that's a shame because film is so capable and so under-explored in this area. Paul Schrader in fact is probably the world authority on this kind of cinema and I'd highly recommend his 'Transcendental Style in Film', especially the second edition with the new introduction.
I think only Herzog could pull it off.
Your comment puts me in mind of Anthony Bourdain. If ever there was a man who had everything it was him; rich, famous, twice good looking, beloved of women and envied by men. Dead by his own hand at 61. But then, it is not uncommon to hear stories of people who seemingly have everything that kill themselves. I never heard of a monk committing suicide, though. PS I love Houellebecq.
Whenever Richard Cory went downtown…
The wildest famous one is Mary of Egypt.
She was not recorded as managing to get into church even once in her whole life!
But absorbed the Spirit in the wildest of wilderness beyond the greatest of her churchgoing peers.
God discerns the heart.
I’m missing church today. Do I even know why?
I know my justification… sick kid.
But underneath it, well, I’m relieved not to go… I wanted coffee and slow sunshine this morning.
I’ll let God sort it out, my reasons are sand. God discerns my heart… and then haha compassion! And judgement (restorative and pedagogical justice done on my truant head ;)
I love him for it.
MB
They chose both. Bear in mind that these were Christian saints. They were not in the wilds to escape church teachings, but to deepen them and practice them, and to battle the devil. When they went to the wilderness it was usually with the blessing of their spiritual father. Colman built a church in the forest, as did many of the saints I will be writing about. 'Going to the forest vs going to church' was never a question. None of these saints would ever have sanctioned the notion that it was possible to be Christian without the church.
I wonder at the thought that none of them would. I'm confident that I am far from being in a minority in sanctioning that very notion.
That may be true now but it's a very late notion historically speaking.
But the saints did not sanction it, which is why they were Christian saints. Of course, many people from many traditions (and none) have sought God in the wildnerness, throughout human history. Doing so is not a Christian idea, or innovation. But is it specifically the Christian saints I will be writing about.
Jesus himself did. John the Baptist. St Paul. St John. Myself. Many others throughout the Christianity.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Jesus began the church and St Paul was its first great evangelist.
I think what you're onto here is the mystical boundaries of the church versus the visible institutional boundaries.
i getcha ;)
-MB
Many churches and cathedrals were built on top of such wild sacred site; to include their energetic qualities beneath the altars, where once there were ones of natural stone. Humanity has a way of getting too close at times, as Nature recedes somewhat; but the energy remains for those who are open and grateful.
Thanks Paul for the wonderful idea of sharing these sacred wells with us.
Some humans get closer to God by entering buildings, some do a St. Anthony The Great. Some can do either one, for, like cats, all places are alike to them.
At my parish, we have a cat, she loves wandering around inside the temple and can often be seen praying along with us during Vigil. But she does need to stay outside during the Liturgy.
It is my understanding that cats are permitted to participate in Orthodox church serves, but dogs are not.
EDIT: I know English just fine. This stupid autocorrect does not.
Great. The green desert looks a bit like Iceland. The next stop if the green desert wasn’t wild enough?
Very true, it does look like Iceland! Before choosing to emigrate to Ireland I looked long and hard at Iceland as an alternative but the language and positively unreal cost of living—which makes expensive Ireland seem an outright bargain (https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp)— ultimately dissuaded me.
Also, Iceland didn't particularly distinguish itself politically during COVID (https://qz.com/2044284/icelands-rising-covid-19-cases-demonstrate-vaccine-efficacy) but it didn't ever reach New Zealand levels of oppressive WEF madness either.
Ireland is the European HQ of Pfizer and I expect the Irish will be screwed hard by whatever shenanigans are next on deck. People here really will need to take to the green desert if they don't want to be more or less held down and injected with whatever the boys at DARPA want in our bodies.
Paul! How did you learn about these places in the first time?
Are there springs, and wells in Ireland that were not holy wells ? Did people go there for fresh water the way they did in the Mediterranean ?
If there are, why do you think that some springs became holy ones, and some not ?
A question of being in a very secluded spot ?
Thank you.
The area is lovely. Desolate, but lovely.
Yes, plenty of wells here, many of them simply practical, and traditionally used for drawing water for the house etc. Why are some hallowed and some not? That's part of the mystery of it all, I suppose.
Thank you.
There's a lot to mull over here, thanks Paul. Apart from the aching wildness of rock and greenery; there's the other things you mention: the miracle of levitation, the felling of ancient trees and the crucifixion of the spirit of place. Aren't holy wells strange attractors of powers good and evil? I've always found pools of hidden water quite threatening, as if there's a dissolution lurking there. Good advice not to drink and, yes, the real spring isn't there, but up the mountain. I just keep wondering, then, what a well really is.
Wells have direct contact with the underworld........a traditional Plutonic realm
Many wells also are accompanied by hollow trees and tend to receive more lightning strikes than other places, as they connect heaven and earth.
Interesting.
We have a similar history here in Norway, with "holy places" and "hermit's places" (indeed, many missionaries also came to Norway and Iceland to seek God, probably from Britain and Ireland - some historical sources say that hermits were on Iceland when the Norwegian Vikings arrived there to settle).
In my area the small huts of the hermits were called "Kova". So that word is probably related to "cave". The word is not in use in Norwegian anymore, but some people in my area have the name "Kovajord", "cave-earth" or "cave-field", and I suspect that this name relates back to this phenomenon.
There was also much transferring of more ancient "nature mysticism" over to Christian folk beliefs, in medieval times. This also would include the intermingling of Christian faith with elements of nature (trees, plants, flowers, rocks, sites etc.) But in Norway this eroded away after the Reformation, so to speak, but especially as late as the 19th century (that is when "The Enlightenment" and modernization kicks in, for better and for worse).
I have thought about an idea of starting a scout group in my local church which would deal with practical tasks and experiences (classic scouting things), but connected to nature elements: Fire, water, earth, air, types of animals etc. The thing is: Each of these elements is "spiritualized" and "divinized" in the Bible, in complex ways. (God is in the fire (Moses), in the wind (Elijah, in a "Kova"), in holy water (baptism or ritual cleaning of the law), in wood (tabernacle) etc. etc.) So it is would seem quite fruitful to build bridges between the Tradition/liturgy/spirituality and practical experience of - and engagement with - nature. Of course there is much mysticism involved in these things, but at the same time "the metaphysics of mechanical materialism" is no longer really believable, if it ever was.
To a believer, God is as natural as anything physical. In fact, to a believer, atheism is unnatural.
Hallvard, if you go ahead with your idea of a group experience with Nature and the elements you will no doubt enter the fascinating world of how our different sensitivities awaken to the different elements. Not everyone has the same type of Nature intelligence; different groups of individuals have similar sensitivities which can be deepened when explored as the elements naturally 'speak' when we can listen. Pray and reverence as well as a space of not knowing (meditation) can be wonderful tools to work with. We are all similar but not the same. Thanks for your interesting comments.
I look at the stuff I take camping and think Im a "light" hiker or minimalist but this guy just crawls between two rocks and lives there. Very impressive. I do wonder if he had anything, a knife or fire making tool. Im sure he didnt just sit around all day, would be fascinating to me to know the day to day of his life.
Sounds great Paul.. must look it up sometime en route to Doolin for the Craic agus an Ceól.
Very inspiring Sunday read. Shared with the family. Much appreciated.
As someone with earth-based spiritual leanings (what one friend calls being a "small-p pagan") I'm enjoying reading about the holy wells of Ireland and considering the places I have known in my local USA geographies that hold similar sacred energies, whether or not I was aware of them at the time I encountered them. I had visited the city of Seattle, Washington as a child, but only when I visited as an adult did did I comprehend the powerful presence of Mount Rainier. It's visible from many places, and whenever it appeared in the distance I couldn't take my eyes off it. I began to understand how the ancients perceived mountains as gods, or the dwelling places of gods.
I clicked through to the article about offerings and litter and was struck by the phrase "non-spiritual egocentric motives." Most offering traditions strike me as being both spiritual AND egocentric -- "gifts" made out of self-interest, hoping God or the gods would bend reality in one's favor. Bribes, by another name. There may be no atheists in foxholes, and we've all wanted things to turn out our way. But a gift, to my mind, is given out of love, and not in the hope of getting something in return.
Still, I find the rag and "clootie tree" tradition beautiful, and long to make offerings of my own. At various times I have, taking care to leave gifts that are discreet and non-harming ("biodegradable" doesn't have a spiritual ring to it, but it's an essential component). I have left small polished stones, a bit of ground aromatic spices, or tiny wood carvings at places I love as tokens of my affection. (One favorite spot is a small, trickling fountain tucked into a neighborhood in Washington DC.) This latest essay inspires me to resume my modest practice of leaving occasional offerings.
The rags tied to the trees at wells are not gifts, but prayers for intercession. Not 'bribes' - which would be a more 'pagan' way of looking at it - but pleas for help. 'Offerings' is in fact probably the wrong word to use, in a Christian context, which is a useful thing for me to note. Neither God nor the saints needs to be given gifts. I'll be writing more about this as we go along.
Offerings , gifts , bribes, intercession prayers or pleas .. what interesting distinctions ! The question that pops to mind is; why present any of these at sacred wells?
Sounds to me very similar to the practice of lighting a candle in church, in front of an icon, or at a grave. It's a symbol for ongoing prayer and remembrance.
But why make a plea at a natural well ? It isn't a church , it isn't an icon or a grave. Why would it be an effective place to make a plea , request etc. ? What exactly makes it so? Now if these are solely pleas for healing then I can understand how prayers could be made, water already deemed to be holy would be collected and carried away for healing purposes. Strings and clothes tied to nearby trees would be left as evidence/ reminders to supplicant and the supplicated to.
I imagine it's the association of the well with the saint. It's functioning as a shrine more or less.
I don't think Paul mentioned it but many sacred wells in Ireland were before the Christian's came associated with healing goddesses like Brighid, the triple goddess of healing, poetry, and smithcraft and the goddess Airmed, also associated with a healing wells and the healing art of herbalism.
Very good Sunday morning reading. I do wonder how often such hermits managed to get to Mass, whether priests visited to offer confession and Eucharist. Comparing the world at that time with the way we live now and it is hard to understand how there are not thousands seeking hermitage.
Lovely piece. It brought back to mind the "spring house" on my grandparents' farm. It was a small fieldstone shed built over a spring just downhill from the house. Inside, the floor was a smooth rectangle of water, kept to a consistent level by what amounted to a small dam at the rear of the structure, over which water constantly trickled, flowing out the rear of the house so that the area behind it was always a bit squishy. On older American farms, spring houses were common features, as I expect they were in many places. While they were built partly to protect water sources, their main purpose, especially by the time my dad came along, was refrigeration. No matter how hot it got in the summer, the spring water was cool enough to preserve food, which was kept in large jars or pots sunk into the water. And no matter how cold it got in winter, that liquid rectangle would never freeze.
No one ascribed sacredness to the place (and my grandparents, being good Methodists, would have scoffed at such superstition), but it was a place that had a strong presence. On the rare occasions I saw inside (by the time I came along not much was stored there except soft drinks for the big family gatherings we had at the farm), I did feel something akin to reverence. The inside was dark, still, and silent, and but for the watery floor, the place could have passed for a disused chapel.
I didn’t think the spring house pointed toward God, but it did seem to point to a life lived close to the land, lived with a reliance on the land being itself. Taking water the land gave without being prodded by an electric pump. Cooling food without plugging in a refrigerator. That was something already appealing to me in my pre-teens. I didn’t then have the notion of deliberately inhabiting places such as I would pick up later from nature writers, but I felt like I glimpsed something like that resting in the cool shadows of the spring house. And if that spring house intimated life in harmony with some sustaining wholeness, perhaps there was sacredness about it.
Thanks, Paul. And: if you are not familiar with it, you might enjoy Brian Friel’s beautiful play, “Translations,” which deals with the Ordnance Survey and has a conversation centered around a well called “Tobair Vree “
Interesting that Christian holy men and women of old more often than not chose solitude and silence in wild places as a way of getting closer to God. I find it especially interesting since the Bible begins ''In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God'. It would seem that to experience the essential nature of the 'Word' (God) it is best to be silent and listen, truly listen, out for it. Interesting, too, is that the listening is done near to water, life-giving and life-preserving.
Kati, I have always assumed that 'the word' ways was/ is to be interpreted as both a means to understand God and also a means by which God reveals Himself to us humans (like what I imagiine you mean by your 'silence taking some form'). Interesting though that when the Biible was translated into Greek 'the logos', 'the word' literally, was used as a translation of whatever the expression is in the language spoken by those who first wrote the Bible, and that 'the logos' (literacy?) is a means to understanding the world around us, and thereby it offers us humans a path to literacy (understanding).
Wonderful. The pilgrimage begins! Thank you.
Paul, I will be traveling in Ireland next week and would like to visit the well and cave. How easy is it to find? Is it inside the Burren National Park? Thanks.
It's up a few remote roads, but not so far from Kinvarra. This should help:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Slieve+Carran+-+Eagles+Rock/@53.0763725,-9.0031643,2070m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x485b9e4b9e7dcea7:0xc623c50f9d78d208!2sSlieve+Carran+-+Eagles+Rock!8m2!3d53.0763725!4d-8.9987869!16s%2Fg%2F11g9vs8l06!3m5!1s0x485b9e4b9e7dcea7:0xc623c50f9d78d208!8m2!3d53.0763725!4d-8.9987869!16s%2Fg%2F11g9vs8l06?entry=ttu
Thanks Paul for the directions. I visited the well and cave today in the rain. My pictures look just like yours. It was quite wet and muddy but the hike was worth it. I can’t imagine how you were able to lie down on the rocky cave floor.
Thanks again, Tom Wiarda