This week I'm sticking to stories from columns. Some of my favourites over the years. And reflecting on what is permanent, or is anything permanent. Memories are so much like falling leaves.  And I suppose when I read back or listen back on these stories, they give me an exquisite sense of nostalgia, a sense of the past that has dissolved. A sense that life is...... impermanent. And that's a kind of letting go. Every time I say to myself, here is a story of how real the world once was on a particular day, long ago, and yet all that happened and mattered in that moment is gone. it has dissolved. That's for me the nature of stories. They allow us let go. Each telling of a story is a deeper letting go of the past. Tell yourself stories in grief, because it allows the past to dissolve. Tell yourself stories in pain, because it allows the trauma to dissolve. Tell yourself stories because it allows you let go of everything for the sake of living now, in this moment. 

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I wanted to share these reflections which continue on from the previous podcast, because they are a way of showing you how I write; how the stories come from ordinary life, and how my emotions filter them, as they sustain me and then I retell them in books, columns or on this podcast. For me everything needs hope. So when I'm in shadow times, I cling to some trace of light. And I'm glad to say I am always haunted by love; the tenderness of heaven reaches into the darkest corner of our psyche. 

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The picture is of me and the singer Finbar Coady telling stories with Pavee Point many years ago. The podcast is the first half of a long chat with lots of stories to brighten your heart. or at least I hope it does. it brightens me to tell them, even if one or two are sad. The second half of this will come later, and the two haves make a single unit. Hope you like it.

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This is the podcast I put up yesterday; a reflection on Maureen Potter. Some people didn't succeed in downloading it. I know nothing about the technical side of things so I'm just repeating the download here, in the hope that everyone can access this one. Lovely Monday. Have a great Day. 

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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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