We Make the Road By Walking
Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road--
Only wakes upon the sea.
Antonio Machado
(Thankyou Adria Garcia Mateu for sending us this beautiful poem)
Green fields sail past silently at speeds we will not travel at again for some time. I am smiling in gratitude for the generosity and open home we received from Colleen, Padriag and Soairse in Dublin last night as my gaze follows the landscape and my mind begins to drift to what lies ahead - the new landscapes, the new people, the new rhythm.
As we arc around another corner, Maniks head rolls gently from side to side without waking him as if dancing to the rippling conversations that fill the air of the bus we are riding south. We have begun the circle. That archetypal gesture that seems to underpin the geometry of our lives. Day to night, year to year, life to death. Moment to moment we spiral through the landscapes of the world.
As it is with making circles, in a physical sense Manik and I have started from the point that we will end this walk - Ballycastle, a sleepy seaside town nestled between the cliffs and valleys of Northern Irelands north east corner. Scotland is visible just few miles across the sea. In a broader sense this journey is for each of us an arc of a much longer circle that began long ago and runs over the horizon of our lives. A journey to discover and create another layer of who we are and what it is to be a human alive on this planet. A road that is made by walking.
Our bus glides to a halt in Cork and there stand two fresh smiling faces with full packs. We are now four - Konsi, Martin, Manik and Zand. Amazing that nine months ago Classroom Alive: Ireland was simply a dream and few lines on a page in a journal and now we stand four humans from three countries (N. Ireland, USA & Germany) ready to brave wind, rain and each other to make the journey back north. The power of a clear, heartfelt purpose, a simple organising structure, a few resources and a little courage to trust ourselves and each other to create and shape our experience of the world glows vivid in gilt in each others eyes as we meet and embrace for the first time.
Together now as the group who will begin the walk we catch the bus to our start point - Kinsale, down on the south west coast of the island. As we travel, our conversation is peppered with sharings of both excitement and trepidation. “ahhhh, I feel so good. I can’t wait to get out there.”…”I hope my ankle will hold.”…“How heavy is your pack?”…”Tell me about your study question?”…“Shall we just start tonight?”…The bus arrived and we began. After a quick stop in a pub for a celebratory pint and to share out the collective weight of food and cooking gear we where off to find our first camp just outside Kinsale. On the kind advice of a local a lush grass field about 2km out of town makes this new communities first home. Beneath billowing clouds and sheltered from the swift wind by thick hedges tents go up, the wood stove is lit, a meal and learning from the day is shared. The rhythm has begun. We will repeat this simple pattern again and again in the days and weeks to come - the question of what is home has been loosened from the shackles of a fixed place and now resides simply on our backs and in the relationship to the land and each other. Full bellies and sleepy heads make their way into sleeping bags as the light fades and the first night of Classroom Alive: Ireland dawns.
Day 1 - 5th May 2014, Kinsale to near Timoleague
Its raining. Everything is wet. Literally and metaphorically the reality of the Irish weather is slowly sinking in as the four of us trudge out of the sopping field that held our dreams last night and out onto the road west towards Clonakilty. We are in the cloud as we walk, light mizzle surrounding us like a blanket. This is at least the third type of rain we have had this morning and the 3 lads from overseas are marvelling at the variety and rate of change of this array of descending wetness. I did try to warn them but, as with most things, experience is the best teacher. Alongside the myriad of Irish rain varieties we are also being taught something else this day that warms our souls and gives us heart for the road ahead. The pure and good natured generosity of people we are encountering along the way. Our first knock on a door to ask if we can fill up water bottles and offer a quick explanation of our journey is meet with “Your walking from where to where?…Are ya mad?…Sure thats great!”, followed by water, extra apples, bananas, and offers of lifts if we are stuck. Others wind down the window to offer a lift in the back of the pickup truck to these four strange creatures clad in rain gear and back packs meandering their way through the back roads of west cork in weather virtually everyone else for miles around is watching from behind a window in a nice warm room. The rain eases from the grey sky above and we pause for our first lunch - tortillas filled with cheese, mayo, mustard, tomatoes and cucumber - on a wall in the centre of a small village called Ballinspittle. Then step by step we make our way onwards towards Timoleague, beginning to keep our eyes open for places we might spend the night. Again generosity pours forth, another knock and a brief chat and we are walking a little further up the road to the back of an old youth hostel to ask if we can pitch our tents for the night. Our question is meet at the door by the caretaker with a “Give me a moment” - he makes a quick phone call - “Aye, no bother. Enjoy it now lads.” We can’t help but look at each other and smile as we make our way round the back humbled by the kindness we have received. And as we do, the clouds lift for the first time and sun streams down as we pitch our tents. Things begin to dry, spirits soar and our first study session begins. Land art, photography lessons, reading about education, fire making and quite reflection weave afternoon into evening. Another meal cooked in one pot. The clouds return as we take our weary bodies to bed where we are watched over by a statue of the virgin Mary that sits in the corner of the property and whose open arms somehow reflect the grace we have been offered by those on our path, our courage to face the worst of weather and the gratitude to our bodies for bearing these heavy packs on this first full day.
Today, Day 5, 9th May 2014
We have completed our first 62km to Skibbereen and arrived to the wonderful home and care of Richard Henderson. Today is our first rest day and our achy feet, shoulders, hips and legs are grateful for the respite. Despite the tiredness however it has become clear over the past days that this walking is what our bodies are really made for. They are shifting with relative ease into the pace, rhythm and weight despite for most of us the majority of our past few months having been spent sitting at desks or behind computer screens. Though tired there is a huge sense of release in the extended motion our bodies are moving through. Minds to are becoming more present. Fewer thoughts of what occupied us before crowd our thoughts as the moment to moment flow of breath, step, shifting landscape and skyscape (the wind is mighty and the sky above has been transforming moment to moment since we began) has called us closer to the present. During these past days Charlotte has joined us from Dublin to make us five and blend some beautiful female spirit in amidst the four boys. She will head back to the city today before joining us again at the beginning of next month. Our day is filled with route planning, cloth washing, assessing what gear we don't actually leave and connecting to loved ones eager to hear of our well-being and stories. As we sit now at the end of the day reflecting on our journey full of wine, roast chicken and chard from the garden, laughter flows and memories of the firelight night by the atlantic on the evening of day three rise like the tide as the moment where something shifted and this pattern we are in began to become normal. The following morning we began by wading across a river to find our next road and somehow at that moment we crossed a threshold where linear time began to blur and things began to feel like they had always been this way.
We are finding the rhythm one step at a time.
We are making the road by walking.
Tomorrow we begin again.
Next comes the Bera Way.
Walk well wherever you are,
Love
The Classroom Alive: Ireland crew
Zand, Manik, Konsi, Martin & Charlotte
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