John O'Donohue passed from the visible world to the invisible on January 4, 2008. Through his life and works, John has touched the lives of an enormous number of people across the globe. John's family hopes that his memory will be carried in the hearts of those who knew and appreciated him during his all too short time with us; and that his words of love will continue to weave "an invisible cloak, to mind your life."
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir agus beannacht.
MEMORY OPENS NEW PRESENCES ~~ From the essay "Tears of Grief at the Altar of Memory" by John's brother, Pat O'Donohue
The journey of grief is individually unique to each person. It is an entering into the “corner-field of memory” where all the shared moments of a past life have gathered. John used to always say that “nothing is ever lost or forgotten”. If we could grasp the full implication of that statement, we would find ourselves in the arms of the ultimate comfort.
The memories of the missing one are ageless, eternal, as pure and clear as their moment of conception. The term ‘memory fades’ means to me that it is we who are fading from the place of memory. Our desire to visit there becomes eroded by our reliance on the conveyor-belt of routine which kidnaps our days making us lethargic. While we are alive our memories do not intrude, yet I think that they are not inert but live just over our shoulder and will appear on request in order to illuminate a darkness, lighten a load or trace a tear-drop. Normally we are too distracted to be fully present to our memoria. We live our lives too much in a linear fashion with not enough attention to the chinks into the other dimensions where all the real fun happens! We must learn to move more carefully and awaken to our own rhythm so that our hearts can fully absorb all that the poultice of memory is offering us. ‘Time will heal’, only if we become attentive to the wound. Healing occurs at a much deeper level than at the surface.
photo courtesy of Nutan Jaques Piraprez (a dear friend of John's) from FB Jose Luis Avila
AVIGNON: ELEGY FOR JOHN O’DONOHUE
The invisible conversation you held while you were alive can still be heard in every shadowed wall, in the birdsong of morning, and in the last light of evening, the final rays above the river drawing the shape you make in the air by your absence. So that even in the warmth of the southern night I hear your laughter singing from the same familiar sunlit nowhere you always inhabited even before you left and that still flows with me, morning or evening, invisibly close to where I go. Even in narrow streets, surrounded by stone, I listen through those walls in parallels now, and at times inhabit an intimacy where I seem to hear your unseen heart beating close to mine, counting the seconds of my life, as if telling me to live fully in this parallel until I come, some fateful day and meet you, standing at the threshold of yours.
When I speak, the words are no longer mine to give away, even though I begin alone, we seem to finish every sentence together and often in ways I needed but could not imagine, so that now I cannot tell where I begin a theme and you join in, and I wander among my friends, wondering if they know to whom they speak. I know now the essence of our friendship because the impetus of your death continually leads me to places where I feel you just about to appear again, your hands lifted toward me, your laughter reminding me of what we both wanted while you lived and breathed, your body strangely reborn in mine, and yet continually coming and going from me, at times the familiar line of your back suddenly turning to that shouted wave at the corner before you disappear; off to some imaginative otherness where others wait, but always returning after an hour, a day a month, a year, the beckoning stranger come to meet me, shaking hands for the first time, the light in your eyes alive again to our future, with no shadow of parting.
Avignon Elegy: June 2013 © David Whyte
When I speak, the words are no longer mine to give away, even though I begin alone, we seem to finish every sentence together and often in ways I needed but could not imagine, so that now I cannot tell where I begin a theme and you join in, and I wander among my friends, wondering if they know to whom they speak. I know now the essence of our friendship because the impetus of your death continually leads me to places where I feel you just about to appear again, your hands lifted toward me, your laughter reminding me of what we both wanted while you lived and breathed, your body strangely reborn in mine, and yet continually coming and going from me, at times the familiar line of your back suddenly turning to that shouted wave at the corner before you disappear; off to some imaginative otherness where others wait, but always returning after an hour, a day a month, a year, the beckoning stranger come to meet me, shaking hands for the first time, the light in your eyes alive again to our future, with no shadow of parting.
Avignon Elegy: June 2013 © David Whyte
music to words of Beannacht https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhMCBnwS220
O'Donohue himself reading it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rYnWCophIM Blessing the Space Between Us
true listening, looking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCzIU9jPFk
read by him, several poems http://www.onbeing.org/program/inner-landscape-beauty/feature/john-odonohues-poems-recited-poet-himself/1127
A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness
» A Blessing for One Who Holds Power
» Beannacht
» For the Pilgrim a Kiss: The Caha River
» For the Pilgrim a Kiss: Between Things
» For the Pilgrim a Kiss: Body Language
» Since You Came
» The Nativity
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