The Giant's Causeway

I had visited the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim during my childhood in Northern Ireland. I clearly remember being enthralled by its strange and magical shapes, so on a return trip almost fifty years later, it became first on my list of things to revisit.

The Causeway
is renowned for its polygonal columns of
layered basalt, the result of a volcanic eruption 60 million years ago. Lava welling up through fissures in the chalk bed and quickly cooling formed the famous amphitheatres of hexagonal columns in the Causeway.

Today, the Giant’s Causeway is UNESCO’s only World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland and it is managed by the National Trust. A very special memory for me: my sister on one side, my husband on the other, and the North Atlantic crashing loudly into the rocks around us! This is a moment in time I will hold in my heart forever.

(Photo by Troy Bell)

Of course, this is Ireland we’re talking about, and science is not the only possible explanation for this curious landscape! Legend has it that the giant Finn McCool lived on these shores many years ago, and repeatedly tossed insults across the sea with another giant called Benendonner. One day Finn decided to go to Scotland and destroy the foul-mouthed Scot once and for all. He tossed huge columns of stone into the water to build a Causeway, (which also appears on the coast of Scotland). In this way, Finn approached his opponent quietly…and then just as quietly, turned and rushed home once he saw that the other giant was so much bigger than him.

Finn MacCool

Benandonner noticed the Causeway and, in turn, decided to go to Ireland to take care of his haughty opponent. When Finn saw him approaching he was terrified, but his wife Oonagh had a brilliant idea. She dressed Finn as a baby and put him down as if to sleep. When Benandonner arrived and declared his intentions, Oonagh asked him to wait around until Finn returned from a supposed hunting trip. In the meantime she asked him to help her feed “the baby”. When Benandonner saw the size of “the baby” he was terrified as he wondered how big the father would be. He therefore excused himself and in horror hurried back to Scotland tearing up the Causeway on the way to ensure his safety. Henceforth the two giants lived happily ever after in their respective lands and never again hurled abuse at each other.

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Believe whichever story you wish, but should you get to Northern Ireland, I guarantee you too, will fall under the enchantment of the Giant's Causeway!

I'm linking this post to Watery Wednesday! For more photos that are damp, doused and drenched check out the link

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http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/

Sedona Skies

I am in love with Sedona,



where endless skies stretch on forever to form the perfect backdrop for peaks so brilliantly tinged with red that they take one's breath away.

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The skies are mercurial..from minute to minute they dazzle and change with the brilliance of every hue one can possibly imagine.
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Unlikely athough it seems, the photos on this page were taken over the course of a single overnight stay. To say one night was not enough is an understatement. Sedona's hills, her whisper-soft air and brilliant skies seem to me what heaven must be like.
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We are heading back to the
Southwest for an autumn trip...its lure

remains irresistable

to me.

My camera and I can hardly wait...
there are many more pictures to take!

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I am linking this post to Looking At The Sky on Friday, graciously hosted by CrAzY Working Mom at the link below. Do stop by for skies that inspire!

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http://www.crazyworkingmom.com/

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Haiku For The Jade Buddha

Gentle Jade Buddha,

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born of our hope that we might

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put an end to war...

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The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace is carved from a solid block of perfect jade. The Buddha is on tour throughout major world cities before settling into a permanent home in The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia.

At a monastery just outside Vancouver, BC, I was fortunate enough to sit before him in a moment of contemplation.

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The Jade Buddha asks us to reflect upon peace, irrespective of our religion…peace for our friends, for our families and workmates…and peace in our own hearts and minds.

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In this manner, joy can win out over anger, and we may at last find our way to peace in the world.

Namaste...

I am linking this post to The Thursday Think Tank at Poets United. My thanks to Robert for wonderful words and much inspiration...

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http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2010/08/thursday-think-tank-prompt-11.html

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In Glasgow Cathedral

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Ancient steps worn smooth...

a constant quest to touch the

Light of holy grace...
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Medieval Glasgow Cathedral survived the Reformation intact and remains in active use today. While it's known to have one of the finest collection of stained-glass windows in post-war Britain, it was the stone steps, worn down by centuries of supplicants, that captured my heart's eye.

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I am linking this post to the Thursday Think Tank Prompt at Poets United. For poems that inspire, do visit the link below. Many thanks to Robert Lloyd for hosting this fine site...
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http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/

Haiku For A Lion

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While I have not yet joined Poets United, their Thurdsay Think Tank Prompt this week asked its writers to explore 'eyes'. This haiku came to mind...

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Tawny eyes meet mine,

and hold…golden grass shimmers,

time ceases to be…

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For a brief, wonderful moment, I locked eyes with this young lion on the Serengeti Plain...

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A City Divided

A ‘Peace Line’ cuts the capital city of Northern Ireland in half. Euphemistically named, it is actually a series of twenty-six walls of brick and corrugated iron that separate the Catholic and Protestant communities in Belfast. It was built in the tumultuous years of religious and political strife known as the Troubles, but even today, gates in the walls are locked each evening and every weekend.

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Tour guides are quick to point out that it’s best to stay with one’s own, and take no risks going into areas where a welcome is not assured.
It is the familiar mantra of my childhood, made all the more chilling by decades of strife that have made this division worse, not better.

On a visit to my birth city three years ago, I was devastated to see the damage that’s been done in the name of liberation. In thirty plus years of civil war, the city has ceased to grow. Though my first time back in many years, I might have stepped off a bus anywhere and found my way to the town centre, so little has the city grown in size.

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The ravages of time are evident on every street. The ubiquitous Peace Line fences abruptly end streets, and
are boldly marked with sectarian graffiti.

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On a rain-soaked day, we drove past Divis Tower, situated by the fence that separates the opposing factions of the Falls Road and the Shankill Road. It is the sixth tallest building in Belfast...in the Seventies, the British Army occupied the top two floors. It was a hot spot during the Troubles, particulary after an Army sniper at the top shot and killed an IRA member on the ground below.

Ruin is to be found everywhere.

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The Crumlin Road Courthouse was designed by architect, Charlie Lanyon.

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A stunningly beautiful building, it closed its doors in 1998, and sits unused behind a tall fence topped with barbed wire.
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Everything about Belfast has been changed by the fighting. Today, it resembles nothing more than a war zone. Indeed, it brings to mind the Israeli Apartheid Wall between Israel and Palestinian West Bank, which has its own bloody history of confrontation. The similarities are patently obvious, and equally distressing. When will we start breaking down walls, not building more? When will human life become more important than religious differences or property lines? I don’t have an answer, but I know we must find one.

Israeli Apartheid Wall

http://mondediplo.com/2010/01/20palestine







Belfast Murals Wall

We are a planet in crisis. No longer do we have the luxury, or the promise, of pristine air and bountiful food for all. As a species, we are using up resources at a faster rate than they can be replenished. Greed and selfishness have become the driving forces that threaten our children’s futures, and put the whole world in peril. This is not a time to divide, but to unify. We are one family on earth, no matter which God we chose to follow,
and like a family, must trust one another and work together to heal our weary world. .

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At the end of our first day in Belfast, still reeling with shock at the desecration of my beloved city, we took a stroll along the banks of the River Lagan that I’d walked so often as a child. Here, little had changed. The beautiful green hills that Ireland is known for were freshly splashed with spring rain, and the pristine river was still home to the stately swans I had always admired. As if to remind us that beauty can thrive even in the midst
of horror, the sun peeked through the clouds and a glorious rainbow began to form in front of our eyes.

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I choose to see it is a sign of things to come, an acknowledgement that dreadful damage can be undone, and reason can prevail once more.

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For the sake of the world's future, I have to believe that I 'm right.

Africa's True Treasure

Africa is a continent of great contrast. There is unimaginable beauty in its sweeping landscapes and soft, golden air.. and heartrending poverty evidenced by round-bellied youngsters on roadsides who stoically wait with hand outstretched to each passer-by who might offer sustenance of one sort or another.

Those children whose families can afford uniforms and fees fare better, and are able to attend school. They exit their modest dwellings, white shirts impeccable and heads high, to walk long distances on dusty roads to their classrooms.

Many clutch containers: their first job of the day is to collect the kerosene needed to fuel lamps and cooking stoves.
They eye us curiously as we pass by in our safari trucks, and so often offer a smile that's wider than the sky.

That smile is what I wish for every child, the simple joy of a day with enough to eat, and the chance to build a better life through education. While such things are a given for most children in North America, this is not the case in Sub-Saharan Africa. I've written previously of how AIDS/HIV, corruption and war are crippling families and depriving children of a future.

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It is estimated that fifteen million orphans in Africa struggle daily to get by without parents or support systems.

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Fifteen million...

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These beautiful children are the true treasures of the African continent. I never tire of looking at their eager faces...the expectation of children everywhere that the world will bring them joy and fulfillment.

We must make this a world that offers every child that hope.

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I am not brilliant..I do not know how to stop the government corruption that keeps aid money from getting to the needy..or
how to help forgotten orphans in far-flung villages who have lost their parents and
grandparents to AIDS and poverty..but I know I must do something.
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I went to Africa as a tourist after years of
dreaming I might. I saw beauty that left me breathles, and fell in love with its many joys..but nothing touched my heart so deeply as its children.

Children are our future. Whether here or on the other side of the world, they are our greatest treasure and our richest resource.

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My hope is that every child's face may shine with health and the anticipation of good things to come, no matter where they happen to live.

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Surely that's not too much to ask...is it?
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