Yesterday, I had the great opportunity to go apple picking out near Shenandoah Town. There was a big bumper crop this year and after we filled a few bags full to overflowing, we walked up to the barn to wash off some dog “dudu” from our shoes. Somewhere in the conversation , the owner showed us his antique car which he had redone. The paint coat was black with blue and purple streaks, and looked very wonderful. I took some pictures and felt moved by the beauty and the art work. 

The unconscious wanted to leap onto that running board and bring me back to my early childhood. I found myself standing in our family Ford black shiny car. I was standing behind my great grandmother’s front seat. I was up close with her mink stole, which she wore draped around her neck. The stole is shiny, with honey tones and there are two little glass eyes on the heads of the minks.  I put my fingers on the eyes.

Great grandmother lived on a farm and raise nine children. I understand that she bought the car for my dad, so he could pick her up in Bishopstown and bring her to church in Rosemount to attend mass. She was in her eighties and considered that going to Mass was a must for her. It was a distance of about 3 miles.

In my inner eye, I am at the road gate at the end of a long avenue.  I am looking up at a big wrought iron gate, painted white with two stone gray pillars, one on each side. There is some green moss suggestions on the north side of the pyramid shaped top.

I am the one to open the gate for the car to go through. It is a latch type gate and raising the latch allows the gate to swing open. I am in a dress and coat, red and white colors and I am wearing little patent leather black shoes and white ankle socks.

The car ambles through the gate and I push the gate back into closed position, and the latch goes up by itself. My father’s welcoming hand reaches back to pull the door closed. 

Grandmother comes to our house for dinner on this Sunday.  The fire is lit in the parlor and is a warm turf fire.  The stove in the kitchen is set to a high setting, the dampers pulled open,  to finish cooking home grown potatoes in the back of the oven, making the skins crisp and the inner centers steamy. My mother never thought it a problem to wrestle out those smoking potatoes from the back left hand side of the oven where it is the hottest.

The tension between my father and my mother’s line;  grandmother, great grandmother and my mother, is not in evidence this day. My mother stayed home to prepare the food.

My younger sister and I hide behind the door and when my father pulls it closed he sees us and smiles down at us. He was an anxious serious man but our little curly top heads behind the door, my sister blonde and mine dark brown, took him by surprise as we absorbed the adults and their moves from behind the shelter of that big wooden green door.

Great grandmother was a religious woman. She sat by her own fire side saying rosaries during the daytime. Sometimes she had us join her, as she incanted the words to the Virgin Mary. 

We hear her speak to my father cordially, about the weather, the neighbors, local births and deaths. They all relax, as the warmth from the fires and the food from the stove, have a beneficial effect on everything. Chicken soup is on the menu and greens are on hand and the main meal is followed by apples and custard and cream for dessert.

Their way to warm up to each other now surfaces in me as I try and warm up to the one who made us all. I walk out through that avenue and cross the road and climb the Hill of NaCosta, to let go of what attitudes in me that I have no cure for.

In my meditation I climb higher onto the top of the hill and I hear the silence. I hear the sheep bleating. I see the mushrooms in a circle and I know the one who owns it all is here and is everywhere.

I drop out of my head down into my chest landing in my heart drum and I am in Ireland walking free. I am released to pinch off those lines of binding and I am righted and all are righted by the breath of God available to me. The vibrations go in all directions, into the past, now and into the future. 

Happy Solstice and Happy dreaming. Time spent in inner work, will never let you down;  be it prayer, music, holy words in song or said, in stretching the body literally and in prayer at the same time, sacrificing junk food and other things, or waiting in silence for the cure for what there is no cure for. It will bring you into that sole/soul refuge. I pray for you, and you pray that we both have the white raiment and the gold tried in the fire and that all our tears are wiped away.

Love from Rose.