The An Tairseach Experience

The An Tairseach (Threshold) Experience

“Widening Circles"

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

The Flaring Forth…

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

~Rainer Maria Rilke~

One of the colleagues in the course bought my first ever small glass of Guinness.  He said, you will like it as you drink it along.  And he was right, the first sip was bitter-ish, but as I took the next sips, slowly, the taste grew on me, so to speak.  If I were to describe what the “An Tairseach experience” was like, it would be like that of drinking the Guinness slowly.  The slow and mindfulness of processes that took place during the ten weeks enabled me to absorbed joyfully what the sabbatical course was meant to be.  The title of the course was, “Exploring Spirituality in the context of: An Expanding Universe, An Endangered Earth and The Christian Tradition.”  

There were twenty-two participants in our autumn group, from Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, Nigeria, United States, Canada and Ireland with varied work/mission experience from Ireland/United Kingdom, Africa, Asia, South America, the Carribeans, North America, and Islands of the Pacific and Oceania.  We have all in common our Christian faith, our love of the Earth, and dare I say we are all “Seekers” --- as Mary Oliver’s poem, “My work is loving the world.  Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—equal seekers of sweetness…”  Most, if not all, are seasoned missioners and religious, and are in some kind of ‘transition’ needing closures and new beginnings.  While seventeen were residing at the Dominican Ecology Centre, five of us were housed in lovely ‘Self-catering’ cottages in Ashford, about six kilometers away from Wicklow town. 

We met the seven Dominican Sisters of Cabra who direct the program during opening liturgy. We introduced ourselves to the group and named our expectations.  Mine was to have deepened understanding of evolutionary spirituality.  Our main inputs for the ten weeks are Cosmology, Theology and Processing Theology, and talks on Creation, Evolution and Faith, Celtic Spirituality and the Mystics, Organic Agriculture (Soil, Seeds and Sustainability), Climate Change and Climate Justice, Ecological Footprint, Women and Christianity, Biblical Ecology, Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh in Theology of the Common Place, Changing Worldviews and Challenges of Living out Laudato si and the implication of evolutionary paradigm to our faith and its basic tenets. Our prayers in the Cosmic Garden held our deep awareness of the oneness in creation and its continuing process of unfolding and expanding. The arts and creativity workshops challenged us to use and develop the right brain.  The circle dance and dream workshops enabled our bodies and the deep consciousness to understand our connections to ourselves, others and the cosmos. 

The ten weeks have passed by, seemingly quiet and natural to the pulse of life in An Tairseach even as we joined the celebrations of two of the four important Irish festivals:  Autumn Equinox and the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) held during the end of autumn and the beginning of the new Celtic year.  This was the ancient origins of Halloween, when people of those days wore masks to ward off evil spirits.  We celebrated the Halloween by remembering deep time by each participant wearing the masks we painted ourselves in according to the geological periods.   

Our Wednesday nature and pilgrimage walks with Fr. Michael Rodgers, infused with nature poetry and celebrations of the Eucharist, brought us to a new level of expression and understanding of the new meaning of ‘universal communion’.  On Fridays, the wisdom circles listened as individuals shared their ‘pearls’ as well as the burning questions of the week. 

The image I have now is a word, “seamlessness,” if I were to describe what the whole experience was like.  The universe, we learned, is continuously working in seemingly ‘seamless’ patterns of creating and recreating.  The life and studies we had at An Tairseach was a microcosm example of being diverse and one.  I looked often at the rolling hills and forests of green all seem stitched to the beautiful tapestry of the sky and its weather, the cows and the sheep break the greens like speckle of pearls white and black.  The trees with their branches joined forming verdant arches on the roads.  Slowly, their colors changed, much like the work of the quiet artist fanning the brush with yellow, red, gold and brown in the canvass of God’s books of revelation.  We see incarnation everywhere.  Yes?  It is that easy to see if we have the eyes to see and the heart to take it in.  Truly, these encounters are expansions of oneself and our communities, much like ripples, widening circles, as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, “I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.”