Shorelines

This is my five-hundredth blog post and the last photos of our recent holiday

on the West coast of Co Clare.

It would be fair to title this photo 'Ancient and Modern'.

In the foreground is the traditional curach which has been in use for centuries 

by the inshore fishermen of Ireland.

Modern lobster and crab pots made of steel.

My eye was caught by the high trees, so close to the shore, an unusual sight

in this part of Clare for you can travel for miles without seeing any at all.

The glorious limestone of the Burren dominates all 

and provides an eye stopping backdrop.

The small harbour of Ballyvaghan and a large old anchor

The houses of Ballyvaghan seem to cling to the shore for survival, 

squashed as they are between the Burren hills and the sea.

Further along the coast is Fanore beach with its sand dunes. 

I imagine that it may be a good place to fish with a rod and line 

given the right conditions.

In the foreground are the feeding grounds of sea birds as well as herons and egrets.

The rocky isles are almost totally covered by the high tides each day.

Night falls slowly and the sea has a particular look about it 

that says winter is not far away.

The ever-present elements of wind powered waves crash upon coastal rocks

to shape the land that we call home.

****

My great appreciation and thanks to everyone who visits and reads this blog

and please leave me a comment for it is nice know who has visited.

TRANQUILITY

This blog has returned to normal, well whatever normal is... This blog is a continuation of our holiday in Co. Clare and the photos are those that were taken in the early morning immediately after my first nights sleep in a strange bed. A single bed at that, which in itself felt strange, not having the comfortable companionship of a sleeping partner immediately next to me. 

The dawn light breaks lovingly through in the eastern sky.

On the horizon the low fog and the sea reflects the dawn lights.

And all is tranquil.

Looking to the northeast-ish.

Our holiday home and the replaced Bentley catches the early light.

Long shadows are cast upon the ground, typical for the time of the year.

The small harbour of Ballyvaghan with its fishing boats sit silently shrouded under 

Cappanwalla and Gleninagh Moutains of The Burren.

Later that day we visited an Arts and Crafts Exhibition where Jane met a local artist Helen Lowe.

 It turned out, unknown to me, that they are Facebook friends ! 

There are more photo's to share with you because I really do want to show case

this part of Ireland with you all.

The un-coffined ones.

I had a strange experience when we were taking a late summer holiday in Ballyvaghan in Co.Clare. One clear, sunny day I sat looking at the sea at high tide, the only movement was from the waves as they ended their journey and gently touched the shore.

I became aware that there were lines of greyish-white floating on the water. As I looked more carefully I saw it was script and could make out names, numbers and even the names of ships in some of the lines.

The majority of names were foreign ones, though mingled between them were the more recognisable Irish and British names. Nearly all of these names had numbers, such 23,16, 78 and 52 next to them which I presumed were ages. In some cases names of ships also followed. 

Hundreds and hundreds lines of names were floating towards the shoreline and disappearing in the slight foam as it touched the beach.
This vision went on without stopping for an hour and a half, until I just had to take a break and go indoors for a cup of coffee and biscuit where I shared my experience with my companion.

About an hour later I returned to the car for a pipe of tobacco. 
Surprisingly my earlier ‘vision’ was still there, the script was identical in style although the names were different.

The next day when I looked at the sea at high tide the vision was still there only this time, 
I was unable to decipher the language for it was written in an oriental language similar to Chinese Hanzi.
My conclusion is that my vision showed the names of people who had been drowned at sea and whose bodies were never recovered. 

Water has memory, an idea first propounded by Samuel Hahnemann, a 18th-century German doctor and then debunked by scientists of the day and sadly by some today.
However, in the 1980’s Dr. Jacques Benveniste proved that water does indeed have memory. Unfortunately Dr. Benveniste died before any awards could be made but Prof. Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize Laureate, has taken on the formidable task of following the pioneering work of Beneviste.  Once again it has been proven that water has the ability to reproduce the properties of any substance it once contained.  In other words - water has memory.

Back to my vision - what then caused me to see this?
I have no answer, nor do I know if others have had the same experience.
This experience did lead me to construct a poem from my vision 

The Un-coffined Ones

I watched in awe a million names drift ashore

grey white words floating on waves

To become absorbed gently on the foreshore

and beached at last for evermore.

Written in old unused script

names foreign unknown

from long ago and yesterday

The lost un-coffined ones.

Pedro, Sebastian, Antonio

Jon- Marie, Roberta, Siobhan

To name but a few

Names of the lost dead

Mourned and perhaps still loved

beneath the waves they lie deep

In the oceans depths untouched

No flowers for their graves.

© MRL November 2018