Let me take you down to a town called Paradise. Van Morrison No Guru, No Teacher, No Method. In Corrogue there is paradise. Many mornings during the week I take the highroad. This is the high road between the village of Glenfarne and the village of Rossinver in Co. Leitrim. This is a high road that winds and bends over the mountain. Early in the year I drive slowly. This is to avoid running over the frogs that seem to migrate from one side of the road to another. On this road I am going on a long drive. I am on a drive to a town called paradise. This town is the central town in a place of eternity. In Ireland this place is called Tir Na Nog. Tir Na Nog is not a physical place but a state of being. It is a state of awareness. This is the mythological place where people are always beautiful and never age. This is a soul place. This is the place an Anam Cara will invite you to come to and belong. Many of my readers know that Van Morrison the Irish singer/songwriter is an inspiration to me. On the high road to Rossinver, while avoiding migrating frogs, I play his album, No Teacher, No Guru, No Method. It is on this album that the song A town called Paradise is heard. I love playing this song loud. There is no other traffic on this high road except for the odd tractor that travels slow and sure. This song for me is about my relationship to the Beloved. This is the central relationship that an Anam Cara commits to. It is the moment to moment awareness of what is. It is the seeking to know the joy of paradise at deeper and deeper levels of awareness. This is the work of surrender to the timeless now." Most of us driving our car are totally unaware. We enter the vehicle, switch on the engine, and engage gears without very much awareness of what we are doing. We arrive at our destination without any awareness of the journey in between. This car journey is a mirror of the longer journey we call our life. When we are alone in our car we have a great opportunity. We have the opportunity to be alone and aware. We can choose to be totally present to our minds, body and emotions. We can choose not to be distracted by music or talk radio. We can equally choose to play music that lifts the heart and that we consciously listen too. We can buy tapes and CD`s that life and inspire the soul. Each time we enter the car we can make a commitment to be aware. Feel yourself sitting on the seat. Feel your hands on the steering wheel. Listen to the sound of the engine. Say, Thank you, to this vehicle that allows you to arrive at the place of your choosing. Remember to be aware of your breathing. Breathe deep into your belly and keep it soft. When you arrive you will feel focused and relaxed. Stop thinking about anywhere else other than this moment. This moment is the town called paradise. This moment is forever. In this moment, entered without judgment or compassion, there is beauty. You become as the people of Tir Na Nog. You become eternal and filled with beauty. To begin with you will look for this experience of beauty. You will wish to grab at the experience of the eternal. In the beginning your ego wants this beauty and this experience for itself. It can only imagine the credos it will receive once it has such a prize. The problem (if it is a problem) is to know that you are this beauty and this eternity. Your ego wants it but cannot really accept the possibility of such wonder. It has to disappear in order that the wonder can be. As Marianne Williamson has reminded us in her beautiful book Return to Love, we are afraid of our magnificence. We are afraid of our light and not our darkness. We have lost our paradise. We have lost the paradise of being here now. On the high road between Glenfarne and Rossinver I am practicing entry into paradise. This is a knack. It arrives. It does not arrive. When it is there I know. When it is not there I know. I focus and wait, knowing that infinite patience brings instant results. Why not take a trip to this town called Paradise," where you can be free. You can learn to be free of care, of worry, of going anywhere or having to be anyone other than the delight you are. When travelling on any journey make it a journey of focused awareness. Become present to the moment. This is the real and only time of your life. Become the presence of the Beloved. Become the perfume of love in action. This perfume is timeless and beautiful beyond any measure your mind can think about. One glimpse of Tir Na Nog and you will know that a real holiday is. It is beyond re-creation. It is you being aware of creation itself in the timeless beauty of forever loving now. This is what an Anam Cara reminds you off. They remind you that you are forever enough. They remind you that the Blessing is already here. They remind you that you are this blessing. Going nowhere, the river flows and the grass grows by itself. Come on down to paradise" where you are free to be all you ever imagined and more. 2005 Tony Cuckson |
