OPINION (AN COLÚN): In touch with reality in Lough Boora

On Friday morning I went for a dip in the Birr Pool at seven.
Engaging in the usual small talk I asked a fellow regular swimmer how he was. “It's Friday,” he said. “A good day - the weekend on the way.”
The weekend came and went and on Monday I once again drove to the Leisure Centre for an early morning swim. On this occasion, when I enquired after the health of the same swimmer, his emotional vibe music was downbeat, in contrast to Friday - “Back to reality,” came the gloomy response. I sympathised with his point of view.
The weekends can often be about doing fun things or things which matter to us. Weekdays can be filled with a lot of unpleasant, soulless stuff where we feel beaten down and subdued by life's trials, society's injustices and people's stupidity and lack of compassion.
The weekends and the weekdays can represent two different realities. During our lives we are bounced between these realities relentlessly - between good and evil, stupidity and wisdom, greed and generosity, kindness and heartlessness.
On Sunday morning I rose at 3.30 and drove to Lough Boora with the aim of imbuing the reality that is good. Standing by my car, waiting in the dark near Boora's Visitor Centre, the first bird began to sing. A song thrush. Its liquid notes a thing of great beauty.
I thought of some lovely lines of Poetry:
“Now this is end of misting time
When world and madness, evil
Are left behind
The money men are not in charge where he is sleeping;
Their shallow ethos does not rule
A nightingale is singing somewhere in the wood.”
Sadly we don't have nightingales in Ireland but to my mind the song thrush's song is equally beautiful.
On I went, through this magnificent parkland, which felt like Eden, Paradise. More and more birds joined the chorus. The place was teeming with avian life. It felt like I was surrounded by thousands of birds. My bird app notified me of which birds had joined the chorus. After a couple of hours it had identified 26, including cuckoos, linnets, sedge buntings, willow warblers, blackcaps, dunnocks and goldcrests. The grey vault of heaven began to fracture and a number of the rain clouds dispersed. Aurora rose. I often remember those famous, beautiful lines of Homer at this time - “As soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered; Telemachus, the dear son of divine Odysseus, bound beneath his feet his fair sandals and took his mighty spear...” Rosy-fingered dawn.
I love the sky in Boora because it feels vast due to the landscape's flatness. A double rainbow appeared in this vastness. As I admired this new beauty I quoted aloud one of the many poems which I've memorised over the years -
“My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.”
Our memories connect us to what we once were like as children. The emotions of our youth can influence our feelings as adults. Our childhood traits can impact adult life, both positively and negatively. When we watch children at play, we notice that they demonstrate certain characteristics, which may remain with them into adulthood. Wordsworth is saying he felt very positive emotions when he was a child playing in nature, and he links these emotions to a sense of the divine, of goodness and right action. As we grow up, these positive emotions can be beaten out of us by the blinkered Group Think around us or by life's traumas. The poet is saying that no matter what happens to us, no matter what life throws at one, we must remain true to the positive instincts of our childhoods, we must remain true to our better selves. In certain extreme situations this can mean responding to life's vicissitudes, traumas and challenges with great bravery and heroism.
In the story of Noah in the Bible, the rainbow was given by God as a sign of God's promise that He would not again destroy the entire earth in a flood. Although God knew that evil would once again consume the world not too long after the flood, he made a promise that no matter how bad things got, he would not destroy the earth again with a natural disaster. Instead, God is patient with us. He represents hope's ultimate victory. The rainbow is the mark of a continuing covenant, it is the symbol of a better life, the symbol of a better way of living. As we remember our beautiful childhood experiences, as we decide to respond to life with our better natures, we are acknowledging that sacred covenant, revealing through our actions that we still believe that there's a love and goodness flowing through the universe.