Ireland VI

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Glengarriff, June 6, 1999

The higher we climbed the more awesome the scenery became. The mountain itself was covered in a sea of grass, and the way it shone and rippled it really did look almost liquid... Occasionally out in the meadows between the ridges the stream would make small pools, which were brown when the sun shone directly on them and the loveliest blue when it didn't. It was amazing up there, so big and free and wild.

You could almost feel magic up there, not like the little fairies and leprechauns of recent years, cute and harmless, but the pookas, the kelpies, the banshees. Once again it was a very Narnian landscape. The Western Waste perhaps. Or Archland. You almost expected Bree to walk up. It was also a very Tolkienesque landscape. You could just see Gandalf and Bilbo and all the rest wandering through the mountains.

I'm not in any way trying to take away the glory of God's creation with this talk of magic. You are very much aware of Him up there. And I had the most incredibly secure feeling up there, even on the edge of steep drop-offs that should have made me fearful, with my dislike of heights. It wasn't really a physical security, it was a spiritual one. Just knowing that no matter what happened, if you fell and got smashed to bits or if you went down back into the world with all its suffering, everything was going to be all right.

There is such a sense of rightness on a mountainside. Such a secure peace. I just can't describe it properly. A little of it is still with me right now.

We took peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with us for lunch. They were ambrosial, the best PB&J sandwiches I have ever eaten.