1956 – 2008
I visited John O’Donohue’s grave a some years back, shortly after he died in 2008. We were in the west coast of Ireland in a little roadside pub in Fanore, County Clare having a guinness looking out at the southside of Galway Bay. We knew he had been buried in the area since it was his birthplace and his family lived around there. Upon finishing the guinness, we asked the owner of the pub if he knew where John was buried, and he smiled and said, oh yea or something like that, and pointed out a window to a small cemetery a quarter mile down the road, said “He’s right over there.”
So we walked down the road to this small cemetery, and eventually found his grave. It was unmarked, with only a six foot slab of granite as a marker. Someone had spelled out his name in small stones ‘J O H N’, and there were some momentos, a few dried flowers, someone left a colored stone, not much. I remember the warmish air, a soft wind, and standing there for quite some time in a peacefulness. I remember looking out at the blueness of the ocean, the whitecaps, the green thick grasses across the road which went down towards the shore, and the granite gray shoreline itself. I remember a fox ran by, skittish, and some birds, waggletails and rooks, some seagulls up high. After some time I sat on the low stone wall surrounding the churchyard, then leaned back, closed my eyes, fell asleep for a little while, still tired from the jet lag of traveling and feeling a deep peace. I can still feel it, writing this. It was perfect, everything John O’Donohue lived and wrote about. Since then another family marker has replaced the unmarked granite stone, as is good, but I’m grateful to have seen the earlier setting too.
Poet, philosopher, mystic… John O’Donohue… I’m not even sure how to write about him. His education, evolution from the Catholic tradition to a Celtic understanding, his command of words, the beauty of his poetry, sincerity of his talks and interviews, his understanding and perceptions of the natural world… It just goes on. If you do not know of John, then today is a good day. When I listen to him talking in videos, or reading his books, or poetry, I feel the same peacefulness as I did on the day visiting his grave, that we are not strangers to our world, but belong and are part of the natural cycles, and intrinsic to them. I just go quiet like the day in the churchyard, feeling the sun and wind and colors wash over me, letting go of needing or wanting to go anywhere, just grateful to be.
He wrote a number of books, and is best known for the publication Anam Cara: A Book Of Celtic Wisdom (1998). Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend, anam cara meaning “soul friend.” It is a unique understanding and description of our relationship to ourselves and others, and a longstanding prayer I carry for others, to meet their anam cara. Other books he published are Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong, The Four Elements: Reflections on Nature, Echoes of Memory. There are more. I have no favorites, everything he wrote carries the same sensitivity, perception, insights, and his poetry is standalone beautiful.
Below is a video of John speaking, just a random choice. His website and you tube have more. I recommend listening to him read his poem ‘Beannacht‘ (blessing, a poem he wrote for his mother Josie).