The Spirit and the Land Cannot Be Separated – A Personal Tale of Redemption

The world can be painful and confusing at times, and most people to have ever lived agree that these two things are the world’s defining features. As if this wasn’t enough, I and many others today struggle with the pain and confusion of a lost spirituality and nationhood. The faith of our forbearers and the security of the land is something we have to struggle to hold onto or perhaps rediscover all over again. The truth is, however, these things are immediately available to us, if our hearts and minds be clear.

Since 1998 the canaries in the depths of the coalmine have been raising the alarm about what we’re now seeing the negative impacts of and what more people are waking up to – our country’s regime of unlimited immigration. Paired with that, more and more of us are mourning a way of life that was lost over recent decades, or perhaps over centuries.
That is the unfolding catastrophe I woke up to in 2015 along with so many others, and which prompted me to establish a YouTube channel and this website of the same name – To add my voice. To record my canary’s death so that others may be aware of the danger. But truth be told, I didn’t have any real answers, only visions of what we lost, unable to find many others who saw the same.

The Encounter

I continued to pursue the most pressing questions in my heart and mind – who are we, where are we going, and what are we doing here? Except in the years after 2015 the need to resolve those questions became more urgent, and the question of “what does it mean to be Irish?” was added to that list.
My journey “randomly” brought me to the Foinn (singular, Fonn) one evening – ancient Irish prayer, sung as opposed to chanted. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew it was for a reason, when I listened to Tar a thighearna… Tar a thi at full volume in the solitude of my bedroom, but I instantly fell in love with its otherworldly majesty. So I lay down on my bed and allowed the sound reverberate through me and into my heart – Come, Oh thou Lord… Come Oh thou being.

Laying there with empty mind ready to receive, I saw, almost like I was flying like a cloud or a crow across the sacred landscape of Ireland. The pristine and glorious countryside and rolling hills and mountains, across a crystal stream. I was taken aback, yet didn’t want it to end. The prayer, however, did end, and so did the vision, but this great feeling of love and belonging didn’t end. It stayed with me for the rest of the day.
Later I prepared for bed, when my housemate at the time barged into my room with two cups of tea, as he normally does. We spoke of the mundane things of our lives and the world, until we got onto the subject of death, and he asked “Do you think there’s something after this?” I forget how I answered him, but my final words before almost instantly falling asleep was, “If there is a world beyond, please show me.”

The next day was like any other. I had business in Galway city, but I was walking up Prospect Hill just off Eyre Square and, as I write this now, I can’t imagine what business I’d have on that side of town. It must have been a random impulse. On the footpath I saw something that looked like an alien – some kind of creature in distress, gagging, having thrown up either its innards or perhaps worms. After what felt like a short eternity, one of the dozens of people walking by said “It’s a signet.” I thought, “What the f*ck is a signet?” and quickly Googled the word – a baby swan.
Another man stopped, looked down at it for a second, and said “Put it out of it’s misery.”
I stood there looking in both shock and grief, wondering how a baby swan ends up half a kilometre from the canals and river, when a woman appeared in my periphery, also looking down on this poor thing. Red hair, speaking with an American accent, we got motivated to look into who one calls in this scenario, and we decided upon Swan Rescue. While she was on the phone and I picked up from her tone that there was nothing to be done for the poor thing, I knelt down and said a prayer for it. We commiserated for a while, then she extended her hand and said “I’m Erin,” then took her leave. The poor creature passed away not long after that and I carried on my day in confusion and shock, eventually forgetting it happened.

The Revelation

I had forgotten. Until my day ended and I had peace and quiet to think things over, when it all fell into place.

I had asked a serious question the night before – Is there something beyond this life? If so, please show me.
Whatever compelled me to walk out of my way, up that street (probably for something in the convenience store there), I was guided to this image of abandonment and death. The mighty swan, cherished by our ancestors, the emissary between Heaven and Earth, lay dying in its youth while dozens walked by – not seeing it or wishing they had not seen it as they carried on their daily lives. Whatever thread of compassion alive in me at the time didn’t allow me to walk on by. As I wondered why nobody was willing to help, red haired Erin appeared – an Irish-American woman clearly named after Ireland itself. She probably knew as well as I did that the situation was hopeless, but we tried anyway.

This wasn’t a random and ordinary chain of events, it was a visitation. A thinning of the veil. A condescension of the Divine in the response to openness and a pure-hearted question. The answer was clear: Many may not care, but you do, and the Divine does. You are not alone, and your witness and prayers are not in vain.

The Meaning

This is a story I guarded very closely, as I imagine many people guard such otherworldly events, because I knew or feared that others would think I’m schizophrenic or a liar. But a strange thing happens after you search for the Divine long enough – its presence becomes your new reality, and you find yourself speaking its language and obeying its laws, and eventually what the collective consensus trance has to say doesn’t really matter anymore. Beyond the demands of life (food, shelter, company etc), Meaning begins to be what matters, and you see that this is what truly sustains us, and it’s what so many of us are looking for more, now than ever, in a world that seems driven to strip everything of it. We look for it in all sorts of places and in all sorts of things, but ultimately we are disappointed because everywhere we’re looking tends to be reliant on each other: relationships, religions, media, culture, work, social groups of various sorts, and the country.
We’re broken people, turning to broken people for wholeness.

Don’t mistake me for saying these things aren’t important and we should go live in a cave and forsake the world – they are important. They’re so important that we should take a few steps back and ask ourselves how we can best rejuvenate them.

The body is only as healthy as the cells that comprise it. In a sick body, none of the cells are capable of saving it on their own, nor can they unionise and demand to be healthy. In a human body this is an easy fix – there’s a dictator responsible for the entire body and healthier choices can be made, but in the matter of relationships, religion, culture, and country, there is no such dictator coming to tell us what to do to be healthy again. We have mediators, judges, politicians, bosses, and priests – but they’re all as sick as anyone else, and sadly these people tend to be the sickest among us.
Our sickness isn’t of law, policy, or doctrine – although many of these are rotten, we already found the answer to these problems thousands of years ago. Our sickness is of the spirit. OUR spirit. The one belonging to each one of us.

Now, I told you what I think the ailment is, and you’ll justifiably tell me what the one-shot remedy is. As trite a this may sound, I can’t tell you. I can only point you in the right direction. It’s in our ancestors’ myths and stories, it’s in the oldest of Christian Churches, it’s in the purest of philosophies – all of those things that point to Beauty, Truth, Honour, Compassion, and the celebration and honouring of Creation.

The path is yours to walk alone – but you are never alone.