There are those who separate aspects of their lives into clearly discrete opposing categories. Work and leisure, home and away, private and public, etc. Some people find the motivation to keep going in their jobs in the fact that, in Europe at least, there is ample time to go on paid holiday each year. Living, as I do, in the heart of north-western continental Europe, I am often somewhat bemused at the hundreds of thousands of families who simultaneously hit the Autobahn network on the Friday afternoon of school holiday commencement, causing widespread gridlock of international proportions. They all seem to be in a terrible hurry!
My take on holidays is somewhat different. I have been heard to tell people that `I am always on holiday´. This is not a tounge-in-cheek claim to be beyond the everyday mundane responsibilities of earning a living and pulling my weight, but rather an expression of an attitude formed over the years. It is about the wakefullness and sense of wonder I am willing and oftentimes able to bring to any given moment. This week’s essay will look at the role of holidays, or Holy Days, and travel in general, in the cultivation of this practice.
There was nothing much exotic about the regular Irish urban childhood in the 60’s and 70’s. Not at first glance, that is. But if you had a father like mine, who was capable of going several layers deep in any given situation, the exotic quickly begins to emerge. Last week’s reflections described the annual family holidays of my childhood, – being outdoors all day every day and learning to read, appreciate, and enjoy the subtle signs of nature at every turn.
This education stirred my appreciation of awe, even and especially, in the ordinary. Clouds and sun rays at play on the western horizon of an evening, a snail emerging from its shell on a wet morning, a butterfly alighting on the ivy, or a small stream swollen after a night’s rain.
My sheltered Irish existance was blown open when, at the age of nineteen, I left my native island for Germany and, subsequently, began to travel extensively throughout the world. The world of plants holds a special fascination for me. As an avid gardener, for example, tomatoes, chillies and aubergines are highly exotic plants, even to this day. That old sense of excitement; it never wears off!
Hard, long contintal winters in the South of Germany where I lived for over twenty years, with sunny blue skies, snow and sub-zero temperatures for weeks on end, and, in contrast, hot summers punctuated with electric thunder storms and the sure knowledge that a jacket wouldn’t be needed for weeks; these were the exotic experiences that impressed me initially and still greatly do.
When engaged in international corporate management, working long hours in an office, I began to take my family not only to Ireland, but to destinations that were unfamiliar to me, for example in the Alps or elsewhere on this and the North American continent.
I began to notice things that fascinated me; the insects in Charlottesville, Virginia, were, on average, much larger than their counterparts with which I was familiar. Also snakes, which legend tells us St Patrick drove out of Ireland 1500 years ago, abounded. Or when standing on the south shore of Lake Erie looking north towards Canada, trying to imagine it freezing over in winter, I was overwhelmed by the notion.
Later, with my work in international telecommunications, ecological NGOs, and International Development, I was to visit destinations further afield, even more exotic. The West Bank, where it never seemed to rain; Shanghai, which looked like a sparkling, brand new New York straigt out of the box; Borneo, where it was common to hold the markets at night, due to the incessant daytime heat, and of course Delhi, the metropole that never sleeps. The place that really delighted me most was Africa; Mozambique where I designed and coordinated a project over two years, and South Africa, which continues to draw me in a way I cannot explain. The stars of the Southern Hemisphere a thousand miles from the next meteropole is a majestic sight difficult to describe. The fruition of a boyhood dream to get to know and maintain contain contact with the humpback whales was the icing on the cake.
Above all, it is the people who fascinate me most. The thousand and one ways in which laughter, tears, love and aggression are experienced and enacted throughout the world. And the commonalities; a mother’s love for her child, the power of a smile shared, and the way humour is used to grease the wheels in a world that can be difficult and painful.
To each of these places, and all of these peoples, I have endeavored to bring that heightened sense of wonder which comes from being in the present, and have felt in awe of the Universe.
That is what, for me, marks out a Holy Day; that heightened sense of communion with the Creator and all of creation in the here and now.
Like everybody, I have that very human tendency to take things for granted. Translated into my language, this means I put myself into auto pilot, consumed by thoughts from the past and concerns about an uncertain future, thereby missing the present moment. It is in the present moment, and only there, where human linear time and divine time, i.e. eternity, meet.
It is no accident that the same word is used in English for the intersection of these dimensions and the `present’ , in the sense of a gift. Travel always brings me closer to this gift.
