Clearcut

On June 22nd 2014 I woke up at five thirty am after a restless sleep. The previous day I had had an experience which resulted in my feeling as if I had been kicked very severely in my stomach. The actual experience was so minor my reaction was all the more distressing. For the rest of the evening of the 21st and probably through most of the night I berated myself savagely. I continued to do that from 5.30am to 6.30am on the morning of the 22nd before deciding to get up and bring beauty to a wounded place. I had forgotten that I can only give what I have to give and had not yet appreciated the wisdom of ‘healer, heal thyself’.

Some weeks previously I had noticed that the place I now describe as ‘the most beautiful place I have ever been to’ was wounded. The place is a beautiful forest in my home town in Cootehill, Co. Cavan, Ireland. Three years ago I went exploring it with my mother’s gorgeous dog, Sunny, and discovered that instead of the one lake I always knew was there, there actually are three. I remember the exact moment when I stood in awe looking across one of the lakes realising that this was for me the most beautiful place I had ever seen. Even at the time I was struck by how incredible that was when I had travelled across the world and visited places like the Great Wall of China, Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, Cape Cod, New Orleans, Maryland, the Swiss Alps, Snowdon, Waterford and Donegal. Imagine my most beautiful place in the world being in my hometown and I had never known! Over the past three years Sunny and I have come to know and love Bellamont Forest so I was taken aback a few months ago to discover that foresters had moved in and many of the trees were being chopped down. As I walked past the piles and piles of tree trunks waiting to be exiled I knew that here was the wounded place I would do my best to bring radical joy to. So Sunny and I set out early on the 22nd June on my quest to bring radical joy to what I thought was a ‘wounded forest’. How wrong I was!

I didn’t really notice just how hurt I was as I set out on my walk, but W.B. Yeats was so right. Peace does come ‘dropping slowly’. My first stop to gaze across the first lake and notice the stillness of the early morning. The forest seemed to protect and cradle me gently as Sunny and I moved on to continue our walk to reach the ‘wounded place’. It seems funny now—I was literally a ‘walking wounded’ and didn’t realise it. Even worse, I was actively ‘walking wounding’ as I continued to berate myself for what had happened the previous day.

As I walked though, I slowly began to notice how strong and beautiful the light ahead of me was and I began to feel one or two more drops of peace. And then we were there. At a spot I thought was wounded. Attacking myself even more severely for my arrogance I turned to continue my walk and saw it—the huge, enormous, gigantic, frightening black bird I had created without even realising. As I stood there in shock I experienced the beauty and peace of the forest, the birds, the sun and the air bringing radical joy to the many, many wounded places within me.

My sense of failure over not even being able to make a bird became amazing as I realised how even up until that moment I had continued to attack and wound myself.

Feeling humbler with every step I continued my walk, watching Sunny joyfully embracing the thrill of being. We passed the piles of tree trunks and I thanked them, no longer seeing them as wounded. I wished them well on their journey.

I stopped several more times to gaze on the beauty that surrounded me—the beauty of the lakes and the beauty of the light shining through the trees that were alive as well as those that seemed to be dead or dying. I followed the advice of one of my favourite poets W.H. Davis and I ‘stopped and stared’. As I walked, I kept an eye on the black bird I had created and noticed with relief that it no longer was directly in my path and had steadily faded. Two roads diverged in a wood— I began to realise which one I choose to travel.

 And that is making all the difference.