Tina ThrussellTop o’ the mornin’ to ya! I’m back, and missing Ireland already! They don’t call it the Emerald Ilse for nothing! SO incredibly green. The locals say there are 40 shades of green in the Irish landscape. I believe them!
I was so delighted to see that Neil wrote about the power of being in nature for last week’s Tuesday email. There is so much truth to the importance of taking time in the great outdoors!
If me mam (my mom) and I hadn’t had those lovely times in the country, where I could put my barefeet on the earth and drink in the sight of green and blue, I would have had a harder time handling the time in the big cities.
The shot above was taken from a little footbridge in Glendalough (pronounced Glendalock) National Park. This park was a real treat because it combined nature and history. Miles of hiking trails (that will be for the next trip over!) surround the remains of the monastery of “The Valley of the 7 Churches” that St Kevin established over 1400 years ago! The extensive cemetery there is fascinating… headstones that date back to the early 1800s. People have been walking over the ‘mountains’ (I put that word in brackets because as an Alberta living at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, we would be hard-pressed to call those hills mountains!) on pilgrimage for some 1,400 years. Seven pilgrimages to Glendalough were considered equal to one pilgrimage to Rome.
And while my sharing today is a focus on the natural beauty of Ireland, what makes the Emerald Isle so special is the people who live there. The Irish are so kind! But that’s a story for another day…
