The Glen

and paying the cancer tax

Dear Ones,

Last I wrote, I was headed to Ireland for a living list trip. We made the trip, and it was beautiful, memorable and absolutely worth it. Ireland is a special place. I pushed my body to walk and hike some miles most days as we explored as much as we were able.  AND, I came home utterly exhausted and promptly got sick. Two weeks of travel, followed by 3 weeks of paying the cancer tax.

My first reaction on returning home and realizing the price that I would now pay was anger. I was angry that I have to live with these limitations. One consequence was that I would miss celebrating my son’s 30^th birthday (heartbreaking) and attending a concert with him of our long-time favorite, Brandi Carlile, a concert at which she would be joined by surprise guests Annie Lennox and Joni Mitchell.  (I know, I know – this one hurts.) I have bought so many aspirational concert tickets in the last few years that I have passed on to others. Fingers crossed that I actually get to attend my first post-pandemic concert next weekend with the transcendent Allison Russell. But I digress.

So I was angry for a while, and eventually accepted what is.  There isn’t really another option. And as I am finally starting to feel better, I return to the memories of what was in most ways a fabulous trip.

Today I want to tell you about The Glen. I’ll include several photos to try to give a taste of this special place.

Before our recent trip to Ireland, I’d stumbled across occasional mention of a place referred to as The Glen in County Sligo. I was intrigued by the description, and maybe even more so by the fact that there were no real directions to find it other than coordinates and a picture of a small well on the side of a narrow, rural road opposite of which was the entrance to the trail.

The Glen is cut into Knocknarea, a prominent flat-topped legendary mountain in the area.  On top of this mountain is a giant cairn, said to be the burial place of Queen Maeve. The history of this region as a center of pilgrimage and ritual dates back over 5,000 years, and includes multiple megalithic sites, cairns and passage tombs. The Glen is an ancient crack in the side of the mountain that creates a narrow canyon.

Knocknarea

We set out to find it on a day exploring County Sligo. We put the information we had into Google maps which took us on a narrow, theoretically two-way, but one-lane road to the driveway of a remote house.  We knew we were in the vicinity because directions had said to drive towards Knocknarea, and then pass the entrance and look for a well on the side of the road.  Passing the house, we had nothing to lose by continuing on.  Lo and behold, we found the well!

We pulled the car off the road into a thicket of blackberry brambles and hedges, and I hopped out to look for the trail entrance. I went ahead of the car, peering into what might be trailhead openings, but all were overgrown and led precipitously down the side of a cliff. My wife called to me from the car, and she’d found the entrance just behind us. A small cloth tie marked the opening.

The well, searching for the entrance, the entrance, the walking sticks

We knew to prepare for a wet trail and were relieved and happy to find that some kind soul had left walking sticks at the trail head (especially helpful when hiking with neuropathy). We grabbed a stick and headed down a single-file trail leaning into the cliff wall on the left, and avoiding the steep drop on the right. The trail was overgrown and covered in thick, black, shoe-sucking mud, which made it the perfect setting for magic. We climbed over downed trees and through a section where the water weeping from the cliff wall turned the trail into a shallow stream. We passed wild fuschia that lit up the deep greens with red lantern flowers. We descended into quiet, accompanied by the sounds of trickling water and the wind in the trees.

navigating the mud, hiking in, wild fuschia

Eventually the trail opened into what surely felt like a fairy ring. We explored the edges and decided this must be the place, and we were content and awed by such beauty. There was another cloth marker on a bush, marking what we thought was our destination.

fairy ring

Something pulled at me to poke around a little farther. I moved through an opening in the trees and came around a corner and stopped as my jaw literally dropped. The trail opened into a canyon with a regal family of trees standing at its entrance and steep vine-covered stone walls on either side reaching up three stories high. This was the glen!

coming around the corner to this that made my jaw drop — this is the glen

There are places we find in this lifetime that surround us with sacred presence, and the glen was a powerful one. The veil is thin in so many places in Ireland, but held in the embrace of this canyon, it felt translucent. Dropped into this space, we were in time out of time, surrounded by grandeur and such stillness and quiet.

the sister trees, tree communion, looking in, looking out

We walked carefully, reverently, resting in that magical space. While there was evidence of other’s visits, we never saw another soul during ours. How lucky we are to have experienced this place.

After we returned, I learned that the limestone slab that tops the dolmen (portal tomb) at Listoghil in Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery was likely quarried from The Glen about 5,600 years ago. We had visited this site immediately prior to The Glen. One can only imagine the ways in which this has been sacred space for thousands of years.

Listoghil portal tomb with slab from The Glen, it is oriented due east for sunrise

The memory gives an image and a feeling that I can still conjure and let wash over me. In days when the weight of the world is too much to bear, I get still, close my eyes, and take myself back there for a respite. The Glen once again becomes a portal for me to sacred connection, just as it has been for others for millennia.

I hope you have sacred places you can return to, physically or in memory to take respite when you need it. In those places, sometimes we can transform grief into healing love. I’d love to hear about them if you care to share.

Thank you for being here. Please share this with folks who might be interested.

Lots of love,

Maija

Songs of the Week:

One of the gifts of my yoga practice some years back was an introduction to mantra and sacred chant which resonated deeply, and help me still to find that place of peace, connection and healing.  A few for today are Luminous Place by Jaya Lakshmi and Ananda Das, Gayatri Mantra by Deva Premal, and Kali Durga by Mercedes Bahleda. You can look up more about the meanings of these mantras if you are interested, but you can also just let them wash over you.