Bewildered Moments

So we ventured forth into the Belfast Museum of History and walked through the halls of Natural history into the bowels of the Troubles. I can say, as I said a year and a half ago, I was brought to tears. The vast rich history of Ireland never ceases to amaze me; the art, music and language born of a very colorful people. But the machines of empires can quickly spoil any appetite for identity.
As I finished reading several placards which detailed timelines and scenes of the Troubles I stepped outside for a smoke.

As I inhaled that calming smoke I noticed a gentleman to my right and jokingly asked if this was the smoking section. He chuckled and said he should quit and then we both shared a slight at the expense of governments and their irresponsibleness of spending the tax on other things than what they had promised; like education and so on. He then asked what we were doing in Belfast and I explained we were doing university projects and then I asked him what he did. He was a British soldier during the Troubles and the look in his eyes said it all.

I won’t say his name, out of respect for the fact he spoke with me about it, but what he told me sent a chill down my spine. It is easy to blame the other side, even easier to place that blame, but to hear the story from one on that side can be far more educational than a book or movie. I can say that he was given conflicting orders and that he did not like what he had to do, so much that after his 25 years of service he left England and moved to Belfast. By the end of the conversation we both had tears in our eyes, and as I said to him that there was nothing he could have done as he was following orders (and anyone in the service will tell you what happens to those who don’t!) and that at least he left the service.

He told us to stay in the city center for venturing outside of that zone could land us in a bad situation, and wished us a fine day. As we walked away I looked back and noted him looking at the ground. I think I felt like he did and wondered why such orders had come down to those who were just soldiers and why the brass upstairs did not have the nuts to do the murderous jobs themselves. Maybe it was because they were landed gentry?

We went back to our hostel and as I laid in bed thinking I wondered back to many of the pages of “Soil and Soul” and what Alastair McIntosh had written. I dreamt of explosions, gun fire and old men weeping into mugs of ale wondering if their wives had given birth as the fought a war that was based on 800 years of repression and internal colonization. I dreamt of my early 20s, of walking the streets late at night watching the horrible things that go on in dark alleys and even darker streets. And when I awoke I was really anxious to be out of Northern Ireland and back into the Republic.

Lughnasadh Revelations

On this day we walked to St. Columbus Bay and stood among the cairns reveling in the sea and rock. The wind was slight and the place was void of all but Jill and I. It made for quite the scene in which one could contemplate the world around them and that is exactly what we did. It also brought up decades old issues and resolutions that I had patiently worked through because I had the love of a fantastic partner in life.

When we returned to the B&B we both laid down for a brief nap. It was during this time images and scenes of my past crept into my mind reminding me of the darker place I had came from. I was not always so positive or hopeful like I am today; instead I was filled with anger, hate and discourse. I was lost in a world I thought would rather loose me, instead, as I later realized, it was always welcoming and waiting.

This revelation would not come to me at my younger years; instead it tempered me with lessons disguised in horrid experiences that would later reveal their truths through talking to a gentleman by the name of Gabriel Quincy Collymore. Sometimes one must walk in the darkness in order to gain the strength to prevent such madness to happen again.

It is not something I am proud of but in my days away from home I wandered the streets of Colorado Springs not knowing where I would end up. I saw some pretty horrible stuff, including an old man who was beaten by a group of teens simply because he walked on their “side” of the road. I idly sat by as this happened and did nothing, feeling the guilt of this action for decades, but I silently swore to God I would never do that again.

Years later I would be doing a midnight shift at a Circle K on Austin Bluffs Parkway and Oro Blanco when a group of teens attacked a customer. A friend had stopped by and as I ran past I told him not to let anyone leave. I opened the doors in time to witness this mob stomping on the customers head and drew my arm back as I charged the crowd. At that instant a county sheriff saw the group and pulled into the lot, but it was too late as the damage was done and the man lay in his own pool of blood.

They had to call the fire department to spray down the wall of all the blood and I myself who had helped the man up to keep him from drowning in his own blood had to wash my arms in bleach to prevent any sort of blood contamination. Even more years later while working at a Texaco I witnessed a man who had pulled in to get gas punch his wife in the face. I turned to my co-worker during the early morning shift and told him to call the police while I grabbed a mop and snapped off the fabric to make a club.

In the end she went inside as I held the man at bay and the cops arrived. I pressed charges but would later find out that she had dropped them and all was back to normal for the two. These senseless acts creep into my mind periodically to remind me of how life is so precious.

I lost my job at Circle K because I would not testify on behalf of the company; instead I stood with the poor man who could have been safe had my manager replaced the exterior lights weeks earlier. I lost my job at Texaco because I refused to drop the charges against the man who beat his wife and I began to develop an anger towards corporations who would rather sell out people than admit to things they could have done to better protect them and our environment.

I was angry at the world around me for not being able to recognize I could be an asset but created obstacles I had no idea how to overcome. I was angry at my family for failing to realize I did not even have a clue as to how to proceed in life with what I was born with. I was angry at the military for sending me home without ever trying me as a soldier simply because I had only one trigger finger, but what I did not realize is that the universe had different plans for me then, I just did not understand what they were.

It is incredible the kinds of people you meet along journeys around the world. Spiritual, kind and angelic beings who at the right time step into your life to reinforce the path one takes.

Interesting Bedfellows

The last few days have been very interesting but not in the sort of way one would think. You would think that coming to the Holy Isle one would find open minds and arms, but I found instead a deep divide in spiritual thought. What should have been a glorious week has been a somewhat minor disappointment. I can only chalk it up as one of those humbling times and equate it to what Saint Columba must have felt.

The Iona Hostel was indeed a technology free zone, so much that when I attempted to use my laptop on the second day to work on photographs I was reprimanded in front of other people about a “strict” policy about no computers in the kitchen or seating area. I was very much taken aback and floored. I had thought from reading their website that is was a place where internet and cable television, or television at all, we void of which I was okay.

Perhaps what truly struck me as unreasonable was the fact that nowhere was it posted, either facility or web site, of this fact and when I was told I could sit on my bunk and use it in my dorm room. I promptly packed up my laptop and Jill and I ventured into town to find a new place to stay. Unfortunately we would have to wait two days before that would happen.

We made the arrangements and went back to the hostel to inform them we would be leaving two days early and would like our money for those days. Then they told us we would have to wait until they filled the beds, as they plan a week ahead, and that if they could not fill them we would not get one. We said fine and went to our rooms and sort of sat there wondering why there were no postings and why they had to reprimand me in front of other house guests. I personally felt they had misrepresented their hostel on their website and did not feel it was right; nor did our dorm mates.

What became a hassle was ironed out, or so we thought, and we were offered a day where we could use them. Things looked brighter until the evening when Jill was painting. She had begun a project and was sitting at a much smaller table, there were two including a rather large table, and when dinner time came around was told she needed to put her project up. Again this was done in front of everyone with much the same arrogant attitude as my situation. Now it wasn’t only laptops but our projects as well, even though we were at a smaller table that sat only four.

I can understand they may have needed to use the table, and I can understand them needing to tell us, but was it necessary to do it in a manner that belittled us? I can only chalk it up as a social difference.

What I do not understand is in a place so filled with other people from all over the world why some sort of discreetness cannot be adopted. It seems so silly to have gotten upset over but when we are here for our college doing projects and work; it is simply not conducive for us to not be able to work. I am very happy we are heading over to a Bed and Breakfast tomorrow where at least I will be able to process pictures and do some of my portfolio work.

The silver lining was our bunk mates. The diverse group of people we shared a room with would include persons from Holland, Australia, the United Kingdom and Scotland. Our individual personalities meshed together in a way that was both joyful and uplifting. In the end it will be them I remember, along with the beauty of Iona, and I will walk away with a new insight to these various places and the people who live there.

So in the end I am chalking it up as a lesson of humility, being on the Holy Isle, and moving forward while noting where I will stay at in the future. I will come back to Iona, I found my spirit on Dun I, but I will not be coming back to the Iona Hostel, instead I will locate a place that is much more conducive to what my needs are.

I Wonder, I Wander

I wonder long,
I wander far,
To find an answer,
To the world at large.

As I wonder,
About the loss of faith,
I wander further,
Seeking answers galore.

But as I wonder,
At the loss of faith,
I wander to places,
Of a different space.

It is in these wanderings,
That I find my thoughts,
Of when the church,
May have lost its’ soul.

Then I wonder,
Why it was so,
Had they lost it,
During those dark times.

So I wander further,
Trying to make sense,
How something so lovely,
Had lost its’ soul.

And still I wander,
While I quietly wonder,
How money became an idol,
For something so lovely.

And as I wondered,
While I was wandering,
Down these foreign roads,
How they lost their soul.

Then I wandered,
Up a steep hill,
And sat upon a stone,
While I pondered so.

As I gazed across the land,
While the ocean flowed,
The silent thoughts,
Were keeping me company.

It was then I wondered,
If the church would know,
That the soul is worth more,
Then a few pieces of gold.

So I wondered long,
And I wandered further,
That’s where I found my soul,
On a distant shore.

- P.M.Sattler
- July 30, 2011

Sunrise Blessings

I awoke very early on the first morning on Iona to a wonderful rising sun. The clouds splattered across the sky with the horizon holding off the darker ones. I stood outside and had my morning smoke as I pondered the forces that created this tiny isle that I heard you can circumvent in just a few hours. How majestic they must have been.

How does one even begin to think of crossing a vast ocean in just a tiny craft as St. Columba must have done? To me it is just unfathomable.

I moved about the dorm room in a silence I had hoped would not disturb the others. I gathered my things to step out into the waking day and I hummed a tune not known in my mind. Yet I sit here typing on a piece of plastic and metal that did not exist even 30 years ago. Unreal to imagine what it would have been like without it and penning it all down with a quill or pen on a piece of paper or parchment. Then I remembered the illuminated pieces and I can hardly imagine making the dyes, or colors, and taking countless hours to paint the books they once produced.

What a marvelous sight just outside my window. The colors stretching across the sky like a painters canvas and I cannot help but feel the presence of the universe in such a small place. I have never questioned God, or His existence, but I have often wondered if He had forsaken us, but it is during times like this when I am reaffirmed of some greater power that lies behind the creation of a place so beautiful as the one I am currently at.

I stayed up late taking pictures of the dusk that enveloped the land and awoke early in the morning to capture some of the dawning colors. How wonderful it is to be able to witness such moments of the day when you are in a liminal state. I feel very liminal here – in the world but apart from it.