The Etherial Essence of Life


Imagine a raspberry bush in winter and then imagine its life returning in spring. What is this mystery of burgeoning life and how does it get caught in the raspberry bush? Life is the essence that raises the bush from the earth as it grows, giving it colour and fragrance in spring and the rounded taste of its fruit. The bush could not do this but for the influence of the cosmos: warmth and pure light of the sun and fresh water.
Have you noticed the luminous colour lying over the natural fields of Ireland? Do you perceive the difference in a sprayed or depleted field? The light is gone out of the latter because it is barely alive. These subtle differences also exist in food. Compare the taste and smell of an organic raspberry with one forced in chemical-laced soil. One is alive and satisfying the other largely inert and bland. Go beyond the theory of vitamins and minerals; let your body become the scientist and discern whether there is nourishment and life in the taste, smell and enjoyment of any given food.

Tara.

A friend was recently in Virginia. I remember Virginia from childhood holidays--a breathtaking state--the ocean to the east and mountains to the west, and every shade of beauty in between. It was one of the earliest states of the Union with a long history of land cultivation. Of course there was poverty too, but there was a sense of commitment to the land and community decision.

About ten years ago I drove south from New York and saw a changed Virginia; malls and housing estates, fast food joints and superstores. It was painful to see --or rather not to see--the land. And my friend tells me it is even more so now.

I would have thought it different in Ireland whose real wealth lies in the beauty and grace of its nature. But there are permit signs on every green field and hillsides heaved up for endless unpermeated little boxes.

Even Tara--that repository of ancient protection over Ireland--it is only a convenient road, we are told, but what follows all such roads? Malls, housing estates, fast food joints and superstores, and the venerable and beneficient ghosts inhabiting the hill will flee. Where will they go? Virginia?