Nature’s cleaner

Back when we worked at Killruddery, I discovered Nature’s handcleaner. In years past, we’ve always used all sorts of lotions and potions to clean our hands when we had no bathroom facilities on hand. Working with the animals and often giving the pigs some fairly greasy kitchen leftovers and then washing the containers, one day, I, in desperation, wiped my hands on the wet grass. It was amazing! It cut through the grease far quicker than most soaps would! I found myself a lush clump of grass and swished out the containers… Granted, not sparkly kitchen clean, but clean enough that I didn’t have to carry dirty containers back and… my hands were clean!

Since then, grass has become my first choice for cleaning when I’m out of doors and it just feels so good!

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He preached with his eyes closed

Yes, he did indeed preach with his eyes closed, but that was the least of what made Father Brennan unique. I remember the first time I met him very clearly. Jurgis and I had started dating. He decided to take me to the little (make that ‘tiny’) Catholic church in our neighbourhood just so that I could see it. I’d never been to a Catholic church before.

It was indeed a tiny church, two narrow rows of pews. Not the kind of church you can lose yourself or be inconspicuous in. To say Father Brennan was remarkable would be an understatement. Jurgis’ family were Catholic, by long-standing national/family tradition and purely in name, barely making it to church for the requisite christenings, marriages or funerals. Jurgis himself had probably only set foot in that little church a couple of times… and yet, Father B (to save me typing out his name each time) remembered him.

We walked in and found ourselves mid-church seats, neither of us being eager to attract attention. Jurgis hadn’t been in ages and I was out of my depth, not knowing what to do with all that ritual that everyone seemed to have been born knowing. I was just figuring out when to kneel, when to stand, when to open the little prayer book and flap around looking for the right words (often ending up on the wrong page and pretending I knew what I was saying) when the collection was taken up. Now I’m familiar with collections. All churches have them in one form or another. I’m even familiar with the ‘turn around and greet your neighbour’ bit. What I wasn’t prepared for was Father B himself. He swept down from his pulpit and stopped to chat with each member of the congregation. Yes, there were that ‘many’. He approached us and I prepared myself for the “Hello, nice to meet you.” What I got was more along the lines of “Faith! And it’s good to meet your future wife! You’ll be coming here for the wedding, won’t you?” Father B was an Irishman with a voice designed for cathedrals, not tiny churches with 20 occupants. Every face in the little church turned to watch his sheer pleasure at our impending nuptials we knew nothing about at the time.

That wasn’t the end of my experience of the dear Father. The sermon was yet to come. He stood, hands folded across the front of his chest, closed his eyes and swayed slightly… back and forth… back and forth. I thought he was preparing himself or offering some sort of internal blessing, but the entire sermon was delivered like that! I was so fascinated, I don’t remember a word of the sermon. Ok, that and the fact that it is now many many years ago.

Fast forward a time and a half. We went back to Father B’s tiny church after our engagement, perhaps to show him that his prophesying was indeed accurate. “Faith and you’ll surely be bringing the little ones here to be christened?” Uh huh. Definitely! We laughed all the way home.

On hindsight, we should have gotten married in that little church. I think our memories of our wedding would have been very different. As it was, we got married in a vast cathedral in town - a place not one of us enjoyed and came fraught with its own politics and issues. If I have any advice for anyone considering their nuptials it would be to find themselves a Father B and avoid the grandeur of vast halls. Sadly, we never saw him again, but he definitely left his mark on our memories.

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Life ‘n death

Image courtesy of Free Irish Photos

As spring makes its vibrant presence known, my mind, heart and soul is tuned into vibrant life. I celebrate life. All around me, the earth is awakening and shaking its feathers out. You can almost hear the tiny leaf buds bursting through the ground in search of the sun. I celebrate my own life too. My life is satisfying and each day that goes by, I’m grateful for new experiences and good health. I could go on, but I wanted to talk about death and no, this is not, in my opinion, a morbid subject.

A few people in my circle of friends and family have experienced death recently, either that of someone close to them or a beloved pet… perhaps even the death of a dream. It happens. It’s part of the cycle of life. The whole point of the ‘cycle’ is that it continues. We’re born, but we’re not born from nothing. As we live, life and death are part of our passage through time. When we die, however we choose to finally ‘go’, we return to the earth to once again nourish life.

We have a family joke that goes back for years where we vowed to donate HRM’s body to science (yes, it is possible - http://hta.gov.uk/index.cfm) when he goes. That should keep the scientists fascinated for a time, I’m sure. Death, to us, has never been a morbid or scary subject, though we do go through heartbreak when we lose someone close to us, but that is because we miss them dearly.

There are so many bewildering options for when a loved one dies - or oneself, if you’re doing some advanced preparation. We’ve been there, sadly saying goodbye to far too many who were close to us. Cremation, burial, a bewildering choice of coffins and procedures. Death, like much of life, has become terribly commercial. I can’t think of anything worse to put loved ones through if I were to go! There are good choices though…. Someone posted a link to an article, which got me looking into more articles, which got me reading (you know how it goes) about options and I have to tell you, I think I have found the perfect way to recycle and recreate myself… a tree! I’ve always said that when I die, I want to be planted without a coffin at the foot of a tree, but this is way better, or at the very least, just as good.

The Bios Urn - You get cremated and the ashes are put into a biodegradable pot along with the seed of a tree. The pot then gets planted, so your loved ones can tend the tree and watch it grow. Isn’t that perfect? The tree will absorb the nutrients from the ash, so I’d be part of the tree. This isn’t a dream of extending my life force, but a dream of being able to help nourish a living thing in my own death. That tree would then go on to provide a home and resting place for all the birds I’ve loved to watch. The tree will glory in each season, giving shelter… and possibly food and homes to animals. Even if the tree gets cut down, it’s not that bad. It will warm someone’s hearth, provide furniture or a part of a home, or possibly become the paper onto which a young soul could journal (or do maths - now that’s karma!) as they go through their own life’s journey.

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