I’ve been feeling this stone for seven long years. It meets me in my deepest place. I love the feel of it, cold and hard yet so alive and light. But I’m also scared it might become a millstone around my neck. 

I feel it says sing me, sing the whole of me. The whole of me? The whole of me or the whole in me? I am to find the hole in me and sing from there, the whole of sorrow, the whole of dread, the hole through which we need to pass, the hole through which we are living, see the whole story. Holy moly.

This felt like a huge task, that’s why I circled back live on Lismore to be quiet enough to hear the stone and just stop. Stop wanting, stop making, do nothing, get bored, listen to the hole in me.

It was time to be alone, to make stone tables for the birds to feed from, to watch the fire, to sleep, to swim in Killecheran loch.
I needed to recalibrate. Tune in and tune up. Because I had tuned out. 

I’d returned to a habit from back in the day, of having a toke, a smoke as a way of relaxing my body, releasing my mind from the crazy world and the daily grind. Maybe I’d have been fine if I’d held it at bay, but no, that didn’t happen, that wasn’t the way. It got under my skin and I just couldn’t stop and from morning I’d smoke until night when I dropped.  I knew I was hiding, avoiding the glare of the news and, well, I was scared. 

But I’d also been ‘digging where I stand’, with ancestral energies from this land and so up come these feelings and meet me head on, the shame is unbearable, its tail is so long and it’s roots are so deep I just wanted to sleep.
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And the fear of going mad, devotion to stone, I can’t even look after a pot plant at home. I’m not equipped with the knowledge I need, I know nothing of flowers or trees or seeds. What is this pull towards land and stone and what is this journey I must do alone? If I am to drop into this deep hole. Lord, carry me through and protect my soul.