Traveling Matters

11/04/2023

Timeless wisdom.

There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition, there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/anam-cara

Beloved Friends - Co. Galway, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

09/02/2023

What does travel mean to you?

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing.

Make sure, before you go,
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you towards
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life;
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the blessing, 'For the Traveler,' found in his books,
To Bless the Space Between Us (US) / Benedictus (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

08/18/2023

So true and why travel will open our eyes away and when we return home.

When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see. Too often we squander the invitations extended to us because our looking has become repetitive and blind. The mystery and beauty is all around us but we never manage to see it. When the imagination awakens, the inner world illuminates. We begin to glimpse things that no-one speaks about, that the outer world seems to ignore.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Ballyvaughan, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

08/08/2023

Love this area in county Mayo. I’ve taken many of traveler here but now this new business! Let’s go…

07/23/2023

So true

04/16/2023

Every day we have a new beginning.

There is nothing to fear in the act of beginning. More often than not it knows the journey ahead better than we ever could. Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, To Bless the Space Between Us (US) and Benedictus (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

The Burren
County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

09/03/2022

Hello friends near and far. Days are full living in the abundance of daily travel. In 4 days my lovely group of 16 willing and enthusiastic friends and clients will arrive for a new adventure to explore the Hidden Gems in parts of Northern Ireland and Donegal...just among many places to plant our feet and enjoy. I can't wait to share the itinerary I have diligently created and the special peoples of Ireland they will meet.

07/17/2022

In preparation of a most diverse group that we will be guiding around ireland in September we attended this lecture in one of the Halls at Galway University. The presenters were insightful as well as the people attending. We look forward to sharing our knowledge of current affairs.

07/09/2022

I was just looking at my photos of John and the groups we co-lead together way back in 1999-2000. It was an honor and I’m forever grateful for his depth of guiding us to feed our inner life. Travel can crack open the unlocked spaces to immense presence of who we are.

Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream that disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Galway, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

06/26/2022

Travel tests our ability to see with renewed eyes what is ordinary that is extraordinary. Keep discovering. It’s a long short life

When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days. When your mind becomes more acquainted with reverence, the light, grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently. When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Kerry, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

04/10/2022

An old post but cute that was sent to me .
https://fb.watch/chSNbqcXij/

04/09/2022

Each day is a new threshold.

At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books: To Bless the Space Between Us (US) / Benedictus (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Kerry, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

03/19/2022

JOURNEY OF THE SOUL

One of the qualities that you can develop, particularly in your older years, is a sense of great compassion for yourself. When you visit the wounds within the temple of memory, you should not blame yourself for making bad mistakes that you greatly regret. Sometimes you have grown unexpectedly through these mistakes. Frequently, in a journey of the soul, the most precious moments are the mistakes. They have brought you to a place that you would otherwise have always avoided. You should bring a compassionate mindfulness to your mistakes and wounds. Endeavor to inhabit the rhythm you were in at that time. If you visit this configuration of your soul with forgiveness in your heart, it will fall into place itself. When you forgive yourself, the inner wounds begin to heal. You come in out of the exile of hurt into the joy of inner belonging.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Kerry, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

03/12/2022

Words of deep reflection and action

The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force. And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together. Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Lough Inagh, County Galway - Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

12/25/2021

At Christmas, time deepens. The Celtic imagination knew that time is eternity in disguise. They embraced the day as a sacred space. Christmas reminds us to glory in the simplicity and wonder of one day; it unveils the extraordinary that our hurried lives conceal and neglect.

We have been given such immense possibilities. We desperately need to make clearances in our entangled lives to let our souls breathe. We must take care of ourselves and especially of our suffering brothers and sisters.

©JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the unpublished collection of John O'Donohue

Co Kerry, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

12/21/2021

Some day I will return and perhaps be one of the lucky people to be there on December 21st.
May your December bring you well being and moments of reflection and remembrance.

The Newgrange passage tomb, a 5,000-year-old tomb in County Meath, is older than the pyramids of Giza in Egypt and sunlight hits the back of this Neolithic passage tomb every year it's as though our ancestors are reaching out to us.

12/21/2021

Greetings my travelling friends. It is a beautiful day to celebrate Winter Solstice. It is an astronomical phenomenon that marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice occurs on December 21 or 22, when the sun shines directly over the tropic of Capricorn.

For those of you that were with me many years ago in Newgrange Co Meath, Ireland we had the rare privelege to go into the narrow chamber. Each year on Solstice at sunrise on the shortest day of the year, for 17 minutes, direct sunlight can enter the Newgrange monument, not through the doorway, but through the specially contrived small opening above the entrance known as the ‘roof box’, to illuminate the Chamber. Perhaps in the future when it is safe to travel as a group we can visit Newgrange.

If you wish to stream the movement of this spectacular event (weather permitting in Ireland) you can google:
OPW Newgrange 2021 and you can enjoy this special time of year. I will post a link to read more about this amazing ancient celtic sight that you can experience.

May you spread your light for all new beginnings.

11/27/2021

Now is the time to rest.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the blessing, 'For One Who is Exhausted,' from John's books:
Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)

Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Ballyvaughan, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

10/23/2021

There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Benedictus (Europe) /
To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Co Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

09/05/2021

I read this today from a post and felt it worth sharing since I am in Ireland. Personally, I have been traveling for a lifetime and my greatest teachers have been countries I have been privileged to visit around the world and the strangers who have befriended me and taught me about living.
Try to travel, otherwise
you may become racist,
and you may end up believing
that your skin is the only one
to be right,
that your language
is the most romantic
and that you were the first
to be the first.

Travel,
because if you don't travel then
your thoughts won’t be strengthened,
won’t get filled with ideas.
Your dreams will be born with fragile legs and then you end up believing in tv-shows, and in those who invent enemies
that fit perfectly with your nightmares
to make you live in terror.

Travel,
because travel teaches
to say good morning to everyone
regardless of which sun we come from.

Travel,because travel teaches
to say goodnight to everyone
regardless of the darkness
that we carry inside.

Travel, because traveling teaches to resist,
not to depend, to accept others, not just for who they are
but also for what they can never be.
To know what we are capable of,
to feel part of a family beyond borders,
beyond traditions and culture.
Traveling teaches us to be beyond.

Travel,
otherwise you end up believing
that you are made only for a panorama
and instead inside you
there are wonderful landscapes
still to visit.
- Gio Evan, poet and songwriter.
Translated from Italian.

08/20/2021

So true his words

As we journey onwards in life, more and more spaces within us fill with absence. We begin to have more and more friends among the dead. Every person suffers the absence of their past. It is utterly astonishing how the force and fiber of each day unravel into the vacant air of yesterday. You look behind you and you see nothing of your days here. Our vanished days increase our experience of absence. Yet our past does not deconstruct as if it never was. Memory is the place where our vanished days secretly gather. Memory rescues experience from total disappearance. The kingdom of memory is full of the ruins of presence. It is astonishing how faithful experience actually is; how it never vanishes completely. Experience leaves deep traces in us. It is surprising that years after something has happened to you the needle of thought can hit some groove in the mind and the music of a long vanished event can rise in your soul as fresh and vital as the evening it happened.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Eternal Echoes
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Co. Kerry, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

07/13/2021

We all strive to live in the shelter of our friend and family.

When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own. There are times of great uncertainty in every life. Left alone at such a time, you feel dishevelment and confusion like gravity. When a friend comes with words of encouragement, a light and lightness visit you and you begin to find the stairs and the door out of the dark. The sense of encouragement you feel from the friend is not simply her words or gestures; it is rather her whole presence enfolding you and helping you find the concealed door. The encouraging presence manages to understand you and put herself in your shoes. There is no judgment but words of relief and release.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Eternal Echoes.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Cottage Door
Clifden - Co. Galway, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

06/21/2021

https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/conan-obrien-irish-dancing?utm_campaign=IC+FAV+-+June+21+-+2021-06-21&utm_content=Story3&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Infusion&inf_contact_key=b437a4b0665f781f519ac7672c689fa1cc0558ed5d4c28cbfab114022b1ec50d
There are days when you must find something that makes you laugh until you hurt. This is so funny. Hope it brightens your day.

Conan O'Brien says that his visit to Chicago's Irish American Heritage Center where he learned to Irish dance is one of his favorite "Conan" moments. The Irish American comedian is winding down his TBS talk show "Conan" before heading to HBO Max for a new variety series.

06/19/2021

There are no manuals for the construction of the individual you would like to become. You are the only one who can decide this and take up the lifetime of work that it demands. This is a wonderful privilege and such an exciting adventure. To grow into the person that your deepest longing desires is a great blessing. If you can find a creative harmony between your soul and your life, you will have found something infinitely precious. You may not be able to do much about the great problems of the world or to change the situation you are in, but if you can awaken the eternal beauty and light of your soul, you will bring light wherever you go. The gift of life is given to us for ourselves and also to bring peace, courage, and compassion to others.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Eternal Echoes
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Co. Kerry, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

05/16/2021

All through your life, the most precious experiences seem to vanish. Transience turns everything to air. You look behind and see no sign even of a yesterday that was so intense. Yet in truth, nothing ever disappears, nothing is lost. Everything that happens to us in the world passes into us. It all becomes part of the inner temple of the soul and it can never be lost. This is the art of the soul: to harvest your deeper life from all the seasons of your experience. This is probably why the soul never surfaces fully. The intimacy and tenderness of its light would blind us. We continue in our days to wander between the shadowing and the brightening, while all the time a more subtle brightness sustains us. If we could but realize the sureness around us, we would be much more courageous in our lives. The frames of anxiety that keep us caged would dissolve. We would live the life we love and in that way, day by day, free our future from the weight of regret.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)

Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Dunquin, Co. Kerry / Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill