My Marian Garden

My friend, John, is fond of teasing me... Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, he likes to say. So as much as I watch closely on the moon. And collect clusters of crystals, often green. And tread lightly in the great outdoors with almost devout Buddhist intent. I just can’t help myself. Once a Catholic always a Catholic. And just like my Ning Ning, a Foley once, my grandfather's mother, I've always longed to be Irish. Irish Catholic. For all I never knew her.

Sadly.

She passed when I was still a baby.

But Ireland she left me.

There is a photo of her and my grandmother and my mother, me on her lap, in black white. When I was a very chubby baby. My grandfather must have taken it. He was always behind the camera.

Still, I've always longed to be Irish. My heritage. Maybe it was my Ning Ning's gift to me.

Growing up, my brown eyes. Mousy brown hair. So dull. And then I spotted her at a doll show with my nana... My Rebecca.

Porcelain with autumn coloured curls and shimmering green eyes and skin creamy. At a fair. She was everything I wanted to be and wasn't and I just had to have her... And my nana, my maternal grandmother, bought her for me. I have her still. Her leg broken and glued back together, her once green eyes now a faded blue. But I love her still.

Later, at varsity, I fell in love in with Seamus Heaney in my third year of poetry. Poetry had never made much of an impact of me, aside from Whitman, but here, Heaney resonated. Powerfully. He didn't mince his words. And his words felt like being barefoot on a patch of dirt.

Connected to something raw and natural and real. I fell in love. With the power of poetry. Because of Heaney. And Oisin Kelly an artist I have worshipped, especially for his wooden Madonna.

And so I have always longed. For the people. For the land. To make it my own.

And truly, the most powerful presence, my ancestral bearance, has to be of the Blessed Virgin Mary. My papa was raised to whisper in her ear, to her divine, and to humbly beg of her for guidance.

I recall so vividly, we broke down once on a long roadtrip, my grandparents and my mother and I, and the car for reasons unfathomable would simply not start. My papa took five minutes to step away and whisper into the ear of his Mother Mary. A Rosary always. He returned. Rosary safely tucked away again. Told us all to get in. And the car started moments after.

An Irish love. An Irish devotion. Mary, the Irish apparition.

Four times now it is said she has appeared to bless the Irish.

Most famously, she appeared 140 years ago in 1879, in the small Mayo village of Knock where a village girl named Mary Beirne first witnessed three life sized figures standing by the gable of the church grounds. Word spread, and the villagers came to see for themselves, and to worship, in the pouring rain.

Our Lady was central, with St Joseph to one side and St John the Evangelist to the other. Yet again in 2009, word abounded that Mary would reappear in Knock and ten thousand flocked to the city to bear witness, but only to find themselves drenched and disappointed. Still to this day, tourists come to the city to pay their respects and the town is adorned by renditions of the Blessed Virgin.

In 2017, and not so very long ago, a pensioner by the name of Des Fitzgerald acquired a statue of the Virgin Mary from a little shop, originally from a convent. Thinking only that it was a beautiful rendition, he thought little more until he realised he could finally walk with ease again.

Since his 70s, the 82 year old man had been confined to a wheelchair and walker but no more. He created a shrine of his statue and invited one and all with no charge to come and seek guidance and healing.

Meanwhile, in the summer of 1985, a phenomenon swept across the nation of Ireland. Statues of the Blessed Virgin appeared to be moving freely of their own accord. The most famous sighting was in County Cork village of Blainspittle where she appeared to be moving freely around her home of the wild grotto.

Passing the shrine with her daughters one night, a local woman by the name of Cathy O'Malley decided to pray. To their shock and awe, the statue came to life, sighing, hands moving.

Finally, in the County Limerick town of Rathkeale, two work men were cutting down a tree on the grounds of a church. To their amazement, the stump left behind held the figure of a woman. And upon closer reflection, they believed it to be that of the Virgin Mary.

Soon word spread and believers flocked to the small town to bear witness to the tree which became known as the Holy Stump of Rathkeale. The Blessed Virgin, sprung afresh from the very earth.

The practice of Marian devotion has a vast history, becoming widespread already since the 8th century, only ever increasing and growing in times of discord and persecution. And during the Cromwellian wars of 1642, the Confederation of Kilkennhy declared her 'Protectoress of Ireland' while single decade rosaries were hidden in sleeves in defiance of the ban on the devotional beads in the eighteenth century.

Beyond this, Irishman Frank Duff founded The Legion of Mary, working with the poor of Dublin and praised by Pope Pius XI in 1931, with around ten million members to date, making it the largest lay apostolic organization in the church.

Meanwhile to utter the greeting 'Dia dhuit' ('God to you') in Irish is answered always with 'Dia is Muire dhuit' ('God and the Blessed Mother to you'). And in Scotland, where Christian faith was established by Irish missionaries, the cry of suffering in the old tongue is still 'a Mhoire, Mhoire! Oh Mary, Mary!'

And while the naming of young girls in Ireland after the Blessed Virgin was almost unheard of until the 17th century in Ireland, today it abounds with one in four women named Mary. The ordinary form of the name is usually 'Maire', 'Muire' being used exclusively for the Blessed Virgin and therefore considered most honoured of all names. My grandfather had a younger sister named Mary. Good Catholics they were.

I've always felt deeply connected to the Virgin Mary.

I had a little plastic glow in the dark figuring of her when I was little. Maybe 4. Maybe 5. Maybe 6. Battered. I have it still. Many a day, teary, upset, angry, hurt, a turmoil of emotions for I was a sensitive child, I would crawl into a darkened cupboard so I could simply sit and watch her glow, her presence calming. And my grandparents' gardens have never been without her. My grandfather always insisted. His mother's child. The Irish in him.

And I have always loved them. These Madonnas cast. Keeping sacrosanct. Maternal. Their benevolent presence in a garden. Peacekeepers. Bearers of love. And kindness.

But only truly when I encountered the rendering of the Blessed Virgin by an artist friend, in his garden, that's when I became a devout believer. If in nothing else but our Sacred Mother.

She sits, in recline, feet before her. folds in her robe. Feet so strong and grounded. Such gentle repose. So very natural and at one with all in his wild and unkempt garden.

I asked after her. Transfixed. She was the first work of art he ever sculpted at school. A jealous boy took her later and left her in pieces in a garbage bin and my friend had rescued her, and pieced her back together and looking upon her now, she was every bit as perfect as ever. And strong. And proud. And with those bare feet of hers, so very rooted.

The Irish in me longs to feel ever closer to the Blessed Virgin.

And in her, a maternal force that perhaps this world could use right now.

As I plan her heavenly garden...

The white 'Annunciation' lily a symbol of her purity... The violet a symbol of her humility... 'Our Lady's Slipper' a symbol of her graceful visitation to Elizabeth and each step 'beauteous'... Thistle-Down, yet another visitation symbol for its graceful movements... The Rose, one of the most prevalent symbols of all... In medieval times, the mystic rose the symbol drawn with four petals either on a stained glass background, or stitched in a quilt pattern to represent her heavenly presence...

The pansy as the 'trinity' flower of the Blessed Virgin... And of course, the strawberry, representing in both flower and berry, the fruitfulness of her Lady.

Soon... One day... I will plant this garden in her honour. And to plant a garden these days, a good thing. With ever expanding cities and concrete jungles, for all that persevering dandelions and their compatriots force their way through the cracks to announce their arrival to the bees, gardens are good things.

And I grow ever grateful for my Irish heritage. Feeling ever closer to the power of the sacred feminine. The Holy Mother.

I smile now, remembering when my grandfather passed, three years ago now, and in every pocket, organising his things, my grandmother and I found a rosary (its name and origins in the ‘mystic rose’ that is the Mother of Christ), truly in every pocket, even in his swimming trunks and oh how we laughed and cried too. His birth month in May the month of the Blessed Virgin too.

And yes. He was so close to God, to Christ, but to the Blessed Virgin always. To her especially. And I imagine him her favourite too.

For wasn't it she who first whispered in her son's ear to perform his first task? But beyond this... Mary to me is a Holy presence I turn to in her own right so very often when I am lost and seeking answers, when I feel we have all lost our way...

In Hebrew, the name of Mary as ‘miryam’ has been translated by many as 'mar' (bitter) and 'yam' (sea), often taking it to symbolise her suffering and many tears of sorrow. I turn now to the Sorrowful Mother, for her tears for our green earth. The masculine has failed us. It is time we turn to the feminine. To figures like the Blessed Virgin of gardens and grace to save us now.

Still others have interpreted 'mar' as 'drop of the sea' and 'stillamaris' which was later changed to 'stella' (star) maris, accounting for the popular name for Mary as 'Star of the Sea', believing she could guide sinners along the path to Eternal Shores if they only followed her guiding light. Perhaps, just perhaps, we can turn to the maternal, the feminine sacred now, as our guiding light, for all we have sinned against this remarkable planet, teeming with wonder and one of a kind.

I remember now a drawing a friend rendered for me. A Black Madonna. In pastels. A friend with eyes that danced like brown butterflies. Tall. Lanky. Round faced with curls like a cherub's. Skin soft as a falling petal and rosy as a nectarine. Always in army boots and trenchcoats too big. I loved my Madonna in pastels. But I lost her. Somehow. Somewhere. And my friend hanged herself. Rosy as a nectarine. Strange fruit she always was. She can never draw me another Madonna and I rue my carelessness. And I have to believe she is at peace now. My strange fruit. With my Madonna.

But to this day, regardless of my relationship with higher powers that may or may not be… Regardless of my disappointment with the branding, the capitalist machine that powers so many so-called spiritual sanctuaries, places of worship and prayer… In spite of, to my mind, the misappropriation of the teachings of a rebel messiah… The Mother Mary, by way of that glow-in-the-dark figure, resides by my bedside table. Old, and a little worn with a chipped base. The blue of her cloak peeling, her symbol of purity and the skies above and once so long ago as the blue of Byzantine royalty.

But I will plant a garden. For Mary. And for strange fruit.

And then I will let it run rampant and wild.

I will leave the lawn around my Blessed Virgin to become a patch of clovers and dandelions.

I will leave the nasturtiums to mingle with the roses.

And of all the many roses, I must surely plant a Christmas rose. For legend has it that on the eve of Christmas, when the three wise men lay offerings of gold and frankincense and myrrh at the feet of the sleeping baby, a young shepherd girl stood by weeping for she had nothing to offer the child.

Too poor and the winter too severe.

Then an angel passed by and upon seeing the young maiden weeping, leaned down and scooped away the snow to reveal to the tearful girl a single white rose to give to the wee babe. So nasturtiums and roses indeed.

But they must not overshadow the precious pansies. And I will delight as the bees come to suck the sweet nectar. And I will bite into a pear and know this too, in paintings, the symbol of the fruits of Our Lady. So juicy. The crunch of it. Golden green speckled.

Our Lady of Bitter Sorrows will hear my prayer for this suffering land we have neglected, we have abused and used up and abandoned too. For women bear fruit. And Mary most pregnant of all, with fruit so holy. And so it is that she becomes my ancestral inheritance. As I pray to her. Just like my grandfather, my Papa used to. His whole life. Believing most in the Sacred Mother.

Virgin Most Merciful. Refuge of Sinners. Mother of Perpetual Aid.

As species hang in the balance. As glaciers melt to flow. As methane gases grow ever closer to the surface. As bees struggle all the more to find foraging. As scientists resort to words like 'natural resource' to try and phrase our impending crisis in such a way as capitalists will understand and come to respect our once bountiful earth so plundered bereft.

And there is time for work. But there is time for rest too. There must be. My sanity depends on it. A sanity, my clarity, that depends too on this wildling life, this dream, this that I ask of the most Merciful I am slowly bringing into focus, in small ways, each and every day. By collecting seeds of learning, learning names of tree, flower, bush, bird. Learning song of bird. Learning properties of plants. A gift. Always giving. Like seeds finding root, and young tendrils, in spring. Nature so giving. Our Mother so benevolent.

And it is time to return to ancestral servitude.

Indeed it is time.

And to hope a Mother can hear the pleas of her supplicants.

For we have sinned against this earth so giving. And She cries for all the more Her sorrow.

And only a miracle can save us now.

And in the meanwhile, while I wait on my prayers to be heard, a garden shall be planted so that the mystic rose may bloom and bees aplenty.

The pansies most precious. A trinity.

And the pear sweetest of all.

Madonna by Oisin Kelly