On St. Patrick’s Day, ‘tis time for a story

Well, don’t you know, ‘tis St. Patrick’s Day. So, with a name such as mine, it seems only fair, if not incumbent upon me, to share something Irish with you. What I’ll do is tell you some things that I know about being Irish. And perhaps they will come together and form a theme or a point, or a lesson, or, perhaps, they will combine in such a way as to become a story. Who knows? If not, at least you will hear something that is definitely Irish. Whatever that means. This I can promise you.

OK, so let’s see. One thing we know for certain comes from a wonderful book I have read and read again by John O’Donohue called “Anam Cara.” He eloquently reminds us that in the Celtic world, wells were sacred places.

“Wells,” he shares, “are seen as threshold places between the deeper, dark, unknown subterranean world and the outer world of light and form.” Wells are revered as special apertures through which divinity, knowledge and the source of life flows forth.

To this day, people still visit sacred springs. They walk several times around a well, traveling in a clockwise direction, and often leave votive offerings.

I’m not saying we Irish are superstitious. We just happen to be plugged into a deep sense of how things work.

And there is a certain understanding that when a well awakens in the mind, new possibilities begin to flow.

It is a place of depth, connection and, at last, understanding.

What I’m about to tell you springs from such a well. It is, as we like to say, based on a true story. Or, at least, it has something to do with the way I remember it.

I’m going back to when two of our daughters, Kate (whose middle name is Erin, Gaelic for Ireland) and Tara (whose middle name, Aidan, loosely translates into Little Fiery One) were taking Irish Step Dancing classes, their teacher, who came from Milltown Malbay, a tiny village on the coast of  County Clare, in the West Coast of Ireland, planned a trip for her class to stay in her home town for a week, then travel across the country to dance in the St. Patrick’s Parade in Dublin. So Kate, Tara, our daughter Colleen, the artist, (whose middle name Devin, translates from the Irish into poet) and Donna and I sold pizzas along with the other dancers in the troupe to raise most of the funds we needed to travel to Ireland.

There I, personally, learned many things, including the essence of storytelling.

The family we stayed with, the Hugees’, were wonderful, warm, welcoming and ideally matched to us. We had much in common, so it was easy to connect. The father, who was the head of a school, was intrigued that I was a writer, so he told me we had to travel into town (which consisted of a church, a bank, and over a dozen pubs) to meet a friend of his (in one of the pubs – the church and bank just happened to be closed at the time) who had been traveling around the country recording the tales of shanachies (professional story tellers). When we caught up with him, he told us how he’d spent decades going into the countryside, recording ancient tales in the words of some of Ireland’s oldest story tellers. (They would stare in wonder, dumbfounded, completely stunned, as they heard the tape recorder played back their voices.)

Most interesting was that when he would, on occasion, return to record someone he’d recorded before – to see if there were any new stories or old stories forgotten – he would first end up hearing  several stories that he’d previously recorded. Then, upon listening closely, later, he found that they were told exactly the same. Time and time again. The words, the pauses, everything was in the same place, with the same pacing and emphasis.

That is the wonder of an oral tradition. The telling remains the same – for the teller of the story. The trick, if the story is to be passed on, is to be able to share it with others, so they can tell it, with all of its nuance and subtle details, so that they, too, can make it their own and bring it home in a way that connects with a new audience, with the same richness and meaning as the original telling.

How do these mythical stories connect with us now?

If you’ve ever been to Ireland, you’ll see ruins (as they are called in a different culture), really just stones, reminding you of a structure that was there centuries before. But in Ireland, what you might not realize is that nobody would ever think of tearing those old stones down. They are a connection to the past. And there is a belief that old souls remain there, comfortably. And the last thing you’d want to do is upset them, because upset old souls can cause immense mischief.

So the past, the present and the future live together in a harmony, so long as nobody upsets it. That harmony can often elude us. But, in Ireland, we know it needs to be respected.

With that in mind, let me take you back to the 1970’s, when everyone in Ireland was excited because John DeLorean had decided to make his back-to-the-future car in Belfast, near the shipyards where the Titanic was built. What a re-invention of the past this would be. He was opening up new possibilities. Then, he made a mistake that everyone in Ireland knew would be fatal. They knew it before the weird doors on his first car was ever opened. DeLorean’s mistake was that he knocked down some old buildings that were in his way. And the Irish just shook their heads, in utter disbelief. How could he not get it? How could he be so disconnected? What the American unwittingly did was to disturb old souls, who rose, upset to be awakened, worse yet to discover that their world had been completely changed. These are not things that you do in Ireland. You have to respect the past. Honor it, for the love of God.

Ancient stories come back in ways that can surprise us. Sometimes knock us for a loop. They are the lessons that, for some crazy reason, we have to keep learning.

Deep inside, the Irish tradition I love most is that of storytelling. Because there is nothing like a good story to bring a point come home, to bring a smile or a tear, to bring a true connection.

If you’re feeling stuck, storytelling is a good way to think through options.

Consider the well that runs deep inside of you, that is connected to every well on this planet. And dig deep. And connect.

As you are struggling to figure out how to make a point or connect with someone, realize what is really important.

Then think of the stories that have meant the most to you. They may be ancient. They may be personal. Either way, they are longing to be told.

And when you do, people who thought they knew you will turn their heads sideways, and let you know that they hadn’t thought about what you were trying to say in quite that way before.

And what will strike them most is that they hadn’t realized that about you before.

Something new will have been shared.

On many levels.

You will have both drank from the same well.

Your connection with them will be strengthened in ways that you couldn’t have imagined.

All because you told a story that was meaningful to you.