Geo-politics today appears like a terrifying fairground. The Russian roulette table is increasingly wrapped around the United States rickety wheel. The Roman candle of EU relations (not just Brexit) is spitting out intensely burning splinters. The rollercoaster of Asia-Pacific interests is being driven ever more aggressively. Spin and win abounds.
Yet the truth is that most of us haven’t wasted our summer evenings on the constant distraction of 24-hour political news cycles and publicity games – whether internationally or locally. (That’s especially the case for those billions born into absolute poverty; or mass warfare, cultural genocide and gendered slavery; or the never-ending starvation of their humanity - in every sense.)
Instead, many of us here in first-world, relatively comfortable, largely democratic, modern Ireland have enjoyed balmy night times until the small hours under a canopy of starry ancestors and often encircling the flicker of a burning camp fire, with conversations unfolding like an unfinished map plotting the exploration of subjects much more fundamental than the daily melodrama of electorally-driven politics.
By an accident of birth, our island-life and ancient heritage has historically encouraged our island’s people to look at the world differently, not unlike native nations of the Great Plains in today’s North America or Aboriginal culture in modern Australia.
One of the intriguing deeply personal undercurrents I’ve heard through the honest twilight of crackling flames over the last couple of months is the contrast between many attitudes about God and ghosts.
Repeatedly, most people seem to have a fairly certain view whether they believe in the notion of a God or ‘creator’. Either yes, they have faith, or no, they find it incomprehensible.
Then ask them whether they believe in ghosts, and there is a significant increase in ambiguity. People will often start to talk about the idea of ‘something else’, that they have heard credible stories or had personal experiences, that there is a dimension of the unknown to the concept of ‘creation’ – stuff we simply don’t know.
You’ll hear about black dogs, and bad roads, and sudden appearances and banshees, and meeting people on their way who have just recently died. You’ll hear of superstitions and spirit stories, and cures for ailments, and you’ll hear tales of fairy thorns and cold rooms and certain omens. You’ll even hear confirmed atheists that talk to their dead friends and loved ones, maybe just for comfort. And plenty of wake-houses still keep sheets over the mirrors.
Cynics might sneer that it’s all just tradition or cultural folklore or hand-me-down old stories. But lots of good, rational people have a connection with ‘something else’ that’s deeply embedded and integral in the Irish psyche. And this ‘bog-blood’ running through our veins is no bad thing – whether we call it faith or belief or spirituality. It’s a fundamental part of who we are and how we think.
I recently chatted with a close friend living in Australia. Near to his home, fire pits have been discovered that date back 60,000 years ago. Cave paintings have been found that are 30,000 years old. Here in Ireland, the hot weather has recently revealed more fantastic ancient dwellings and artefacts in places like Newgrange, again thousands of years old. All an eternity from today’s global politics.
The fire-starters and cave-painters, and the star-watchers and stone-builders of the ancients, were far more in touch with the invisible dimensions of nature and the mysteries of creation than our generation could ever become.
Yet they made dreams that have outlasted their short lives by hundreds of generations, with methods that still mystify our modern science. And they understood that the heritage they imparted around camp fires held far greater meaning than simply the words or stories that were spoken.
The commercial amusement arcade of politics will probably pass us through another House of Horrors in coming months – with brinkmanship and fright nights, and organised chaos and fake crisis, from Brexit to North Korea.
Perhaps the best we can do is begin setting our own agenda and reconnecting with dimensions of our creation that far outlive the narrow interests of news-hungry elites, simply refusing to entertain their fairground of folly.
The Celtic festival of Samhain – and Christian celebrations of All Saints and All Souls Days - will be waiting after the harvest. It’s a special time of self-awareness and renewal, connections and spirituality: a time for more camp fires; and untold stories of old truths; and dawns of realisation that fixing the earth starts with each other; and stark reminders that we don’t have all the rational answers to the magical place around us. But nor do we need them to create positive cultures of community that could span millennia.
