You'll be wondering why I called this Hello America. Well someone out there asked me to put together a few stories that collect into a big bun of nostalgia. So here it is. Glangevlin, Mullingar, a horse, a clown, a young girl, and funerals. All the usual on a single string with one idea going through; life is always past. Stories are always in the past tense. Being here now is the experience of silence and it's both hard to find and yet it's just at your fingertips. Hello America. We love you. 

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The troubles in Ireland were a strange time of tragedy and sorrow and silence. The story was in the silence between the words. I would drink late in the night along the border where sometimes guards came in after their patrol was over, and sometimes strangers in long coats. It was never easy to know who you were talking to. But sometimes there were funny moments. Like the time an Irish soldier got lost in the snow. 

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Living on the border between the north and south of Ireland during the Troubles was like being in multiple universes at the same time. I used to drink in a pub late into the night in West Cavan listening to stories of strange events that took place outside in the dark. 

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This is a mad podcast. Don't know how it got here. I was in my room talking to myself, out loud, and I was talking about being down and then being up and then being down again. And then I realised that there was another voice in the room but it was inside my head. Cos there's always two levels to any moment. There's what we're doing on the outside and what we're doing on the inside. 

But I didn't mean to talk about all this. I meant to tell you about my teacher. And so I left it until tomorrow's podcast. I'll talk about my teacher in the next episode. 

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We all make journeys. Like the Portlaoise Pilot who flew the Atlantic. That's a physical journey. But I met an old man one time in the kitchen at Christmas, and he too had travelled, in time and in his mind so that he was sort of deranged in his old age. Or maybe he had just grown wise.

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It's impossible to talk about grief. Grief is grief. It's a place we have to go sometimes. I hope you like the second part of this week ends meditation. In the Orthodox Christian tradition this is the weekend of the Dormition of Mary; the going to sleep. I love that phrase. And it was just accidental that I happened to be reflecting on Mother this weekend. Hope you enjoy. 

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I hope you like this reflection about Mother, and grief, and lots of other things I wrote about in this book. One of my favourite books. I'll post part two of this tomorrow. 

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Depression always lifts when I choose to find what is beautiful in the room, or in my memory and when I shape it into a story. Hope you like this meditation about my mother, and where real life links into the created past that we shape with love. Have a great weekend. Michael.

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I'm on again about storytelling and little craft bits, and I just wanted to share a little bit of craft stuff and my love for storytelling. Tomorrow I'll be at the same thing, with a reading from two books and reflections. Warm wishes. Michael. The photograph was taken when we were doing some filming with the camper van during the summer. And now the camper van is gone. I sold it. it feels like the end of a chapter in my life. What next? Don't know. 

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My stories in the past decade tend towards memoir, and I try to create stories from experiences that were healing, if not miraculous. In fact I think life is a miracle. which is another way of saying I believe in metaphors. and there could be no poetry if it were not for the metaphors. 

So here's a little reflection on storytelling and it contains a short reading from a book I wrote many years ago called Priest. I hope you enjoy it.  I was out walking this morning, August 14 on the beach at Carrickfinn and it came to me that I should about the Mammy, and the great Mother and the way she is everywhere sometimes, even in the blue of the ocean. And then I thought I'd add this little reflection on where I get stories and how I try to find something beautiful in the sky nowadays.

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