I'm always wondering what comedy is; maybe it's the perfection of wisdom. The completion of tragedy. And for decades, and even maybe still the great mother of all comedy was Maureen Potter. She was an artist who mastered her craft. She turned clowning into something wise. She had an effect on the nation. She was more than just human. She was the icon, the buddha of laughter whose energy permeated every small parish hall in the country.

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Two stories this week. Two hauntings. Warm wishes.

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My times in Warsaw, a month or sometimes two, at a single time, alone in an apartment were a  crucial strategy in writing the 6 books I have written in the last 9 years. But it wasn't hard work. Going to Warsaw from `Leitrim was exhilarating and it's a city not as frenetic as other western capitals. there is a calm to the streets and the people and you can hear the ghosts of far away  at every street corner. I love Warsaw. 

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Starting October with some reading from Talking to Strangers a book I'm fond of and which I wrote in 2015. 

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It's a meditation. Do it with me. Ask the question. Who am i. And dont be afraid of not ever having an answer. Being here now is about   letting go of the answers. I am not the lover, as Rumi says, I am the loving. I am not the storyteller. I am the story. And the older I get the more I look like my mother. Maybe I am my mother.  

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And being here now is only the first step. the second step is embracing the other, whether it's the squirrel or the cat or the beloved. The other one is the one.  Being here now is only the first moment of consciousness. The second moment is the realization that there is someone out there beyond the galaxy of our own egoic hologram.

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Where I was forced into an obedience that I did not want, but which was not entirely bad. A great time in the monastery, locked away every night with the Buddhas and the Horses Milk, and then thinking about how sometimes being disempowered allows us to let go of anxieties and listen for a deeper voice. How sharing stories means that they are no longer burdens we carry in our hearts. they become the pathway to intimacy.

And I think I'm doing this big long song of remembrance for Mongolia because I think maybe it will be helpful for me to remember that time, if the Covid 19 second wave gets bad and we find ourselves in Lockdown again. If we do, I know I'm not alone. Cos we are in this together. That's the big secret of Covid 19; our common shared life on earth together.

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I wanted to put three columns from the old days together, so these are the ones I picked. Each one is about a secret held in. I think a secret held in can be exhausting for the one who holds it, but such a secret can also turn you into a writer if you just tell the story.  

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This podcast is close to a dream. First an old friend came, and then I remembered the story about the Stag. 

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The thing here is the rose. I've nothing more to say. But sometimes at this time of year I find the fading light as wonderful as the most splendid summer morning. This is the time of surprises. So I thought I'd share a few remembrances of Belfast and the drabness of the world, and the wonder of poetry and then I got thinking again of the garden. And all it's surprises.

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