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We’ll be chugging along here for a whileen so maybe grab a relaxing sup of something warm, if you can, and rest your worldly bones. Last Sunday, as I eased my arse into the seat of my car, I was spiritually interrupted. Even through the mud-stained window screen, I couldn’t help but notice that the sun was engaged in a bitter duel with some devilish looking clouds in the skies above Tuam. Recently, I have become quite taken by the notion that the appearance of shafts of blistering light or darkness into the driver’s seat of my car are a sort of divine intervention. Not to be ignored.
Now, when this occurred, believe it or not, I was on the way to the local Garda Station to pick up a summons, no less. For speeding, and not far-right literary activity, which was a little disappointing and ego deflating but I’ll endeavour to get over the snub. The curious thing, though, is I never received a ticket for this alleged summer speeding event. On the phone, the male Garda announced he ” couldn’t find me “ so as to deliver the summons in person. Yet, he found my number. Hmmm.
But, I suppose, on the bright side I should be grateful. As it is eminently good news if the local police genuinely are having difficulty locating my whereabouts. At any rate, I find myself at court appearance stage unless I hand over 320 yoyos in the next week. Please and thank you. Or else rock into the district court on February 28th.
Lovely.
Anyway, I took the battle at play in the skies to be a heavenly reminder to ignore any calls back into the clutches of the matrix at the present time. Even at Garda request. Instead, I instinctively decided to re-dedicate the afternoon to observing this struggle between light and darkness at play over the villages and towns of north Galway and south Mayo. To see what, if anything, such a motoring activity might unearth. So, I lit a cigarette, hit play on - “ Here I am Lord “ - a hymn I’ve been listening to, over and over, for the past few days - and off I sped chasing into the unknown. The unknown worlds within and without myself, you might say.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how the sole occupant of the West’s Awake currently practices much of his spirituality. Which is to say - it probably ain’t for everybody. But is not without its occasional revelations, I might add too.
Normally, when I go on these sun or moon chasing drives I commence by just kind of ambling along the way. Absorbing the music and clearing the clutter from my mind. Until the music melds into the worrying clacking noise coming from the underbelly of my car. Usually, but not always, I arrive at a destination. A sleepy village called someplace else, A time and place a million miles away from the road ahead or the road behind. Where visions, images, aromas, sounds and emotions effortlessly rise to the surface. Past, present and future. It is here where my truth lies, when I have the courage to face it.
On Sunday, I was heading towards the southerly roundabout out of Tuam for the open roads of the motorway. All the while, trying to keep an eye fixed on the Skyfall battle enacting out above - when a panicked thought struck me.
“I’m spending too much driving-time on motorways “
A sudden sense that it is far too easy to cruise along a motorway in auto-pilot and that on this day any learnings weren’t to be found on the perfect tarmac. Familiar, automatic driving might lead to familiar, automatic thoughts. Someplace else might not be found so easily. Or worse, it might be a carbon copy of the original blueprint but not thoroughly authentic. I pondered a further thought. In terms of my off-beat spirit investigation were motorways like an AI danger to my soul exploration?
Hmmm, I reached no satisfactory answer but decided to invest thinking time to the subject on some silvery-streaked night of the future.
Anyway, newly superstitious, and just in case I’d miss a spiritual wrestling match, I manoeuvred a full circle on the roundabout and headed back to town. There was only one obvious solution open to me. The N83 and the zig zags of the death trap that is the Dunmore road. A national secondary route that government spending has thankfully and largely forgotten to dump a truck load of money on. You need to be in the full of your health driving most of this stretch of road at full pelt, or any arteries forking off of it, let me tell you. Lots of options, though, with easy access to many forlorn towns and formerly wild villages. I opted for Dunmore, Cloonfad, and Ballyhaunis to kick off the afternoon’s proceedings.
The fields and hedges whizzed by as I listened to my solitary hymn on repeat. A couple of the villages I passed seemed rotting from the centre out. Once handsome market towns lined by sturdy old buildings; now, with the souls and life hollowed out of them. Hinting at a rich past but a little mocking too. A haunting reminder those days are never to return again, or darker still, let be return again. Dunmore and Cloonfad particular eye-openers in this regard. I might have referenced these towns in previous scribblings.
After about forty minutes, I pulled into a petrol station in Ballyhaunis to grab a cup of tea and rooted around the passenger seat for some change to pay for it. In my haste I flicked a couple of two euro coins on to the ground and stretched over to pick them up. As an aside, you can accurately map the clutter of my mind by observing the clutter of the inside of my car. On Sunday’s audit, besides the obligatory empty boxes of L&M Blues, coffee cups, lighters, books, and some accumulated fan-mail from the revenue commissioners about a 2015 tax bill, I unearthed a couple of odd socks, two jumpers, more loose change, leaflets, a towel and half a Yorkie bar. All sprinkled fair with ash. Some decluttering was in order and overdue. As I began the exercise I glanced up to the heavens and the sun flicked a ray of approval in my direction before resuming its battle for supremacy. A little later, in the shop, and after sticking two Barry’s teabags into a cup and filling her up with hot water and some milk & sugar, a news notification from the Journal popped up on my phone. Gerry Gannon the Social Democrats TD was announcing that he was recently “ diagnosed” with ADHD.
Hmmmm, I thought.
As someone in probable possession of an extra strong cup of ADHD, the use of the word “diagnosed” triggered a negative emotion. ADHD, if it is an actual set of coherent and label-able things, to my racing mind, at least, should not be treated as a mental health disorder, per se, but rather looked upon as a gift. A gift from the heavens. But, like all divine gifts one must learn how to use ones skills to the best advantage of yourself and the world around you. Which takes an entire lifetime and then some. But, more importantly, what ADHD reflects is that the possessor processes the world differently to others. That’s my experience of it anyway.
There are many types of people that process the world differently. I won’t use the autistic analogy as an example but rather a different, perhaps, more shocking example. Men and women with Down syndrome. One of the side effects of our abortion legislation is that the number of children born with Down Syndrome has been reduced. Screening tests can generally be done around week ten of pregnancy and women who would normally never have considered abortion as an option in these circumstances suddenly are faced with an option. Some take it and some don’t. It is not for me to cast judgement or would I ever want to. But, I raise the point to observe this new situation from a different perspective. Namely, the effect that the overall removal of people with Down Syndrome might have on the world, as a whole, from this ADHD’s perspective.
In general terms, most of society would probably view a world with less people suffering from Down Syndrome as a good thing. People with Down Syndrome have a much lower life expectancy although it has risen hugely in recent times. However, along with all of the worry, heartache and health issues that undoubtedly come along with Down Syndrome, especially for parents and siblings; it also comes with something else. Down Syndrome births pure love into the world. Consistent innocence and pure love into a world where the shelves of both have never been emptier. So, the way I would frame looking at this picture is to ask a question.
What price does the world pay spiritually for the absence or denial of this type of love and innocence gifted to it ?
Is there a price to be paid?
Unfortunately, though, the priorities of the matrix dictate a requirement for people to process the world, and experience the world, as much as is inhumanly possible, exactly the same way. Except, perhaps for the chosen few glorifying themselves as human gods with the aid of AI chips thrown in for good measure to assist them in the con. So, for example, I’d struggle to believe that Gerry Gannon is truly ADHD. For, if he was, he couldn’t be as fast asleep about the global narratives at play in Ireland, as he seems to be as a politician. His ADHD mind wouldn’t allow it unless he is consistently lying to himself which is a possibility, I suppose.
ADHD in my own case has been a life filled with quick moving thoughts and constantly seeking the connection of unconnected dots. Fast. Often incorrectly. Often too fast and incorrectly and therein lies the struggle. I don’t do rote memorisation well but seem to embed knowledge and emotion together, deeply, I believe. It has benefits, and is, I believe, a most worthwhile struggle and way to experience life. It’s a life filled with an endless stream of questions and ideas if not so full of answers. I can’t imagine a life without these questions or one especially enhanced by automatically reaching for pharmaceutical intervention at the earliest opportunity. Because no-one can precisely inform me exactly what part of myself would be frozen in exchange for the seductive sedation of my mind. In other words, the single pharmaceutical answer is not worth the sacrifice of so many of my questions. But, that is just plain, old bonkers me.
So, the unlogical or lateral conclusion of this ADHD “ undiagnosed “ person on the Gannon news is that there ought to be a register available to the public of all Irish politicians and what prescription medication they are currently signed up to and whether this medication, in fact, is affecting their ability to represent the people. Maybe there is one in existance, I don’t know. However, to be clear, I am not saying this should be the case but it is a consideration almost impossible to escape for those of us that consume the world via the N83 and its side roads as opposed to the Auto-Bahn.
As a short example, here’s how my sun and shadow, ADHD addled mind, processed my thoughts on this subject yesterday whilst in that Ballyhaunis petrol station and then sitting in my semi-decluttered car out on the station forecourt. It is a mind-stream I have previously entertained and mused upon but spiced up on Sunday with the added juice of the Gannon news lobbed in.
diagnosed. scientific word. indicates something wrong with you. prescription medication. pharmacies. bookies. every town has lots of what? - pharmacies and bookies. addictions and prescriptions. prescriptive society. get them addicted. get them prescribed to something. onto the conveyor belt. early as possible. control. Hmm. maybe.
how much medication is my town on?
how much medication are the politicians on?
motorways. what’s the link please?. - driving the same, thinking the same. no thinking. hypnotic. sexy roads. sexless society. sedated landscape. low-vibe life. never go off the beaten track. we can’t control you there. Hmmm. maybe. maybe not. tea needs more sugar. uncle john. tablets. tablets. tablets. a drugged angel. should’ve known. never give in. never. hmmm. hitched from ballyhaunis to dunmore once. football match. won. 15 years old. drink and football. start of addictions. loved myself then. hated myself then. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. hmmm. fuck it. maybe not. find balance. my masculine. my feminine. which is hurt. which is healed. gannon’s possibly a cunt. Hmmm probably a cunt. possibly or probably? words. words. fucking words. find the right ones. love them. hate them. there’s the sun again. what about knock? knock’s down the road. knock, knock. anyone home?
let’s go fucking find out.
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The interior of Knock Basilica resembled nothing like I remembered it from my youth. Now, I’ve visited the smaller church located on the same grounds a number of times over the years but was never a particular fan of this concrete monstrosity erected in the mid seventies. The exterior still looks much the same but I must admit the interior is now quite a different spectacle altogether. Surprisingly so. Modern yet tasteful. Vast, airy and very high ceilinged in the middle. The altar strategically placed in the centre with the sectioned off pews circled around it. It was quiet so I walked around at a leisurely, touristy pace. Stopping here and there to read some of the history of the building and also to brush up on the reason why Knock holds a special place on the Catholic Church’s holy sites map. At a rough estimate, I reckon there is comfortable seating for up to about 1,200 people inside the basilica. Any type of music or choir must sound unreal and other worldly in this type of huge, open space. A magnificent wall mural depicting the apparition of our Lady in Knock dominates the eye-line regardless of where you sit or stand. It is spectacular to behold, to be fair.
The apparition story began on the 21st of August 1879, when fifteen people from the village witnessed an apparition of Mary on the gable wall of the parish church. They said she appeared with St Joseph, St John the Evangelist, a lamb, an altar and a cross. They watched in the pouring rain for two hours, reciting the Rosary. I grabbed a seat at the back of the almost empty Basilica and tried out a decade of the rosary for size. Counting Hail Mary’s in one’s mind is a particular nuisance for the ADHD inclined as the brain tends to wander off the abacus quite fast.
I stopped the Hail Mary routine after I arrived at a sufficient passage time where I adjudged that the number of Hail Mary’s recited must surely have been safely above ten and probably closer to twenty. Just in case, you know, any independent adjudicating angels were floating about the place counting. Anyway, I ceased praying and just focused on the wall mural. I found a pocket of peace just gazing at it. My mind began whirring slowly down, close to a halt. Some people refer to this as meditation, I suppose. Soon, I was in danger of falling fast asleep until my eyes dropped momentarily to the floor and noticed there were no knee-rests in the pews. My brain was immediately activated by this anomaly and was off again. I started wondering did people kneel on the concrete floor or did they kneel at all?
How did it work?
I set aside further thoughts on the kneeling situation for fear it might start cluttering up the passenger seat of my car again. In a similar fashion, to how my musings about whether Gerry Gannon was a possibly or a probably did the same. I let it all go. Although, it’s important to get the technical details right, I would argue. I don’t live a detailed orientated life but notice that often insignificant details are the window to a world of truth about people, places and things. So, anyway, I got up, stretched my legs and went looking for my county outside. Yes, you read that right. A roofed walkway encircles the Basilica with pillars placed on the outer side at certain points; the pillars hold up the concrete roof covering. Each pillar is dedicated to a county in Ireland and is built with stone from that county. I loved this county idea as a child and I find I still love it as an adult just as much. Soon, I found the mighty county of Galway and its handsome pillar of stone.
Thoughts about the ancient apparition got me to thinking about the world we live in. Many of the current happenings in this world seem apparition-like in nature. To me, at any rate. That I am, in a sense, standing at that old parish gable looking up at a world that scarcely seems credible yet is as real as real can be. But, what stares back from the stone isn’t Mary, Joseph or John the Evangelist. Rather, it’s most of the world. We, and I, often use the term “ the Matrix “ to describe the systematic foulness of what has consumed the globe. However, it strikes me that being aware of the matrix, and its evil, doesn’t make you a special category of person. Merely pointing it out and being aware of it doesn’t save you from its clutches. You’re still in it and most people, even most people within the Irish resistance have no concrete plans to try and escape its ensnaring vine ropes. This raises another question.
Can anyone truly leave it, I wonder?
To be frank, I am not confident, but my survival instinct is whispering to me, at all times, to keep trying. I don’t know why I feel that way. I’m not even suggesting everyone should feel that way or approach it that way. When those fifteen people huddled together a century and a half ago for two hours in the wind and the rain with their faith, rosary beads and poverty I assume not all in Knock observed the vision on the gable wall that they did. We all have to find our own apparition of truth and carve out a path, I guess, and have faith it leads eventually to the same place. A good place.
Was it a real apparition of our Lady and the divine in Knock in 1879?
I can’t know. But I believe that those fifteen people believed. And their simple faith is more than good enough for the likes of me. A peaceful thought and relaxing truth to chew on. In the meantime, I’ll just keep off the lures of motorway spirituality and stick to the by-roads as often as possible. In case, one day soon, I forget, forever, to even attempt these journeys into the wilderness of myself.
Now, that follow on thought does not especially please me to write. As it is, at times, kind of hellish to break away from the comfortable so often. This year is marked by elections. Both here and abroad. The aroma of hope fragrances the air. Yet my urge, to strike away from emerging groups and heroes pulses faster. Because they all, as far as I can observe, are content to self-contain safely within the overall matrix algorithm. I’ve dipped into the politics coverage, like everyone else, and probably won’t resist the lure of dropping back into writing about it again at some future point. However, a thought crystallised in my head yesterday as I walked away from Knock shrine and back to the car. I can’t fix or break out of the matrix by habitually engaging with the false but alluring promises of it. The matrix has already figured that part out and has no doubt made the necessary adjustments and fine-tunings. A remorseless and endlessly self-preserving mathematical formula.
The alternative?
Well, I guess, to live like a boreen bandit armed with a couple of prayers and the odd hymn singing in my heart. Dipping in but mostly out. With new visions to chase and old ghosts to continually face. The spring is just around the next hedge framed bend. New words will soon bud and blossom on the thorny sleeves of the whitethorn bushes. A highway-man, perhaps, living as far from the maddening highway as possible. Faithful that the sun does eventually blast through the clouds at the moments you least expect it to. Breath-taking in its raw beauty and power.
Some might even say divine.
Please consider supporting my work through one of the channels below.
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Buy Me a Coffee link: Click Here
I would appreciate if regular readers would now consider taking out a paid subscription. Donation to my work can also be made below. Issues with subscribing? - email lynbrook1974@gmail.com. Thanks G.
Had a shite day today-12 hours of understanding that people I thought were friends are batting for the other team. Painful but required. Thank God I have many others who would go to hell and back for me and I for them. Still, it's a tightener! This article cheered me up immensely. It's great on so many levels. Before I retired,-(I wasn't really thrown out, I promise!) I witnessed the adult ADHD "diagnosis" industry kick off. Of course benefit access is one issue, and a relevant one in practices like the one in which I worked, with child poverty at 60% and every other social yardstick off the scale in the wrong direction. But the medicalisation of what used to be known as "characters" and the categorisation of the infinite breadth and scope of human idiosyncrasies by a ICD-READ code is a tragedy, IMHO. Ministers claiming ADHD is just plain weird. A new victim group?
BTW Knock shrine during lockdown was a negation of everything it should have stood for. I visited, and broke every diktat, before being asked to leave. I was tempted to make them throw me out, but that's just my ADHD kicking in!
Good read, Gerry 😊
It seems most people are on drugs these days alright , whether prescription or other.. because we are expected to function like robots , this has been going on a long time but it is getting worse .. often wondered what would happen if caffeine disappeared overnight too 🤔. I'm not on drugs ( but with plenty of pressure to get on them so I can play a 'proper ' part in society) ..I did discover coffee 5 years ago and it was " ahh so this is how people function in this world "..but I can't keep up at all and I know I couldn't live a " normal "life because it's too demanding ..I'll manage with a caravan and foraging and odd jobs for now untill they make that impossible too . But what I'm really concerned about is our children , that there won't be any loopholes left for them to get out of the matrix at all on any level.