Tags
Art, artists, Awareness, Being, consciousness, Existence, freedom, Ireland, Luka Bloom, music, nomad, photography, Trust
Years ago I made a decision to leave the beaten track or perhaps the decision made me?
A peculiar sense of a whisper from life deeper than my understanding could reach, called me towards something completely and utterly unknown. I gave away all my belongings and leaped. And I fell. Hard. And I leaped again. And again. Somehow, like training a muscle, my sense of just to be, and even where to be when, grew stronger while the questions of how, what to do and what about money faded until one day I realized they had stopped taking up the ridiculous amount of mind-space it has an annoying habit of doing. Not only to me, I suspect. I don’t blame it though, it’s all it has ever learned, a program that doesn’t know better. What took its place was simply being. After all, we are human-beings, aren’t we? A dear friend once said to me “your being is your doing” after I once again had fallen hard and for all I know, he hit the spot and planted a seed of trust that I will never forget.
I have come across a lot of misinterpretation of the act of being as ‘doing nothing’. Once I was hurt by it, because I suppose I believed it too. Today it makes me smile. In my experience for what its worth, everything that arises from being has a natural, organic and quite pure core to it that doesn’t have an agenda, no calculating mind and no motive. It is simply something that happens to arise from the love and joy of it with no attachment to the outcome.
This way of living and being, some would call it being peculiar, an eccentric even. To me it’s simply being true to oneself not that of a programmed society that tell us how to think and live mostly controlled by guilt, fear. Makes one wonder, if we are all eccentrics, if we stopped trying to live up to what we are brainwashed to think and feel? I’m much honored in fact, to be called an eccentric (wouldn’t have been years ago when I was still fighting myself in a hopeless attempt to fit in) figuring in this post alongside Oscar Wilde, John Stuart Mill and Henry David Thoreau among others Eccentrics, Those Very Peculiar People by the sharp Malcolm Greenhill who knows how to put words to the line and get the message through, calling the reader to reflect (and ponder 🙂
Now, being the being in Ireland. After 5 nomadic years, one misty rainy day, 5 minutes before my bus leaves, I hear a traditional tune in a cozy little cafe and music shop in Doolin, Ireland. Something cracked open and I knew I had reached home. All I needed was to put my suitcase down. I looked around and thought why not ask if they need staff? A year later I was running the place which was also the door into a world of music and musicians I didn’t know existed. A new life awaited me and the tread is growing stronger and clearer for each day where art and creativity are playing an ever growing part.
Besides what I described in my recent post I am now organizing and managing my good friend Luka Bloom’s upcoming Clare Cafe Tour September 2013. We are having much fun creating this. Did I ever look for doing anything like this? No. It simply just happened from listening and following my gut and the resonance with people and their art and along the way receiving their genuine invitation for me to be a part of it. Although this way has become so very natural, it still makes me in awe of just how incredible it all is.
I’m still working in a cafe (another one) Doolin Cafe, one of the venues for the cafe tour and I enjoy it much; great people, really good coffee, wonderful customers (for the most part), amazing food and good craic! So much for 6 years in University, however I regret nothing. On the contrary it has all given me insight in many walks of life and how many ways there are to live our lives. There is obviously no one correct way, yet we all respond to genuine kindness and to be listened to, without bias. This is essential to my art of coaching which too has found it’s own peculiar way, a way I honor deeply.
It happens my outlook on life can inspire others that passes by; here is a story, or rather two, from Aimee: Aran Islands and Hanne – Doolin, Ireland and a visit to Mullaghmore in the Burren can do wonders for a sensitive soul Mullaghmore – Clare, Ireland
Know to be and the rest will follow…
Click here for a little poem I wrote about Mullaghmore.
Hanne Thornfeldt Fisker 
Hanne, I really look forward to meeting you one day. You’re a true inspiration and definitely what the English call a “real character” i.e. you dance to your own music.
I have arrived in the right spot then, here they tell long tales of a person and definitely not always positive ones and for the most part really crazy stories, yet always with a glint in the eye and ending the story with slight pride in their voice; “… but he was a real character” The Irish are particularly fond of characters here on the west coast which I love about them and there are many of those around for sure. Yes, Malcolm we definitely must meet one day, here or there and with boots for hiking!
Tak for din visdom og dit mod.
Best regards Jan B Frederiksen
Sent from my iPhone
Jan, tusind tak. Håber alt vel hos dig.
Tak for dig Hanne😘
Mia, tak 🙂
And here you, lucky us to hear your story. Ireland, one day, I will go ba ck and visit the Burren, Aran, Wicklow, etc. and see if I can retrace my steps. Love Ireland.
You must, Ireland is one of those places that never leaves the heart, once entered.
this is good to read…the good stuff, Hanne
Liana, you called it, thanks 🙂
Hanne, as always, you make me slow down and forget my ‘doing’ and just ‘be’ while I read and ponder your every word and image. I arrived back here via one of your comments on Malcolm Greenhill’s blog… And to quote you — “A friend asked me quite recently ‘what is love to you’: My reply was, and this counts for all relations to other people: to love someone in such a way that it makes oneself and the other person feel free… ” Earlier today, my heart was searching for such an explanation. I was feeling imprisoned by a person’s love and didn’t know how to explain this to him. Thanks to you I have the answer… you are wise and a ‘real character’! Peace and many blessings, michele
Dear Michele, thank you for this beautiful comment. Always you speak from a soaring heart that seems to forever reach for ‘the beyond’. I am happy if some of my words and experiences with life can bring some resonance to others and I treasure much the connection we have made through the sphere of cyberspace. Soar on Michele. /Hanne
Wow! It sounds like you are living an awesome life! If I could pack up and move to Ireland, if I was led to, I totally would! Sadly I am trapped by dependence on the health care system here in the United States, that covers the cost of expensive medication I take, and doctor’s visits and such.
For the time being at least, I feel I am where I need to be, but if I could move anywhere in the world and be able to get by, it would be Ireland. I’m a descendent of the Donnelly clan, Donnelly was my grandmother’s maiden name, and I love hearing about family history, and love the land of Ireland, much of it I have seen in photos you have posted in the time since I came across your page randomly… I have not actually gone to many people’s blogs on wordpress who did not initiate contact with me in some way first, whether they liked one of my posts, left me a comment, or participated in a conversation I had on someone else’s post, but I am glad I ventured out into the blogosphre and came across you page!
What you described of you life, sounds so beautiful, and so alive! It reminded me of one of my favorite passages from Christian scripture, that sounds similar to what you are doing. I am kind of obsessed with something called Combinatorial Creativity, which is, in the sense I most do it, the pairing of similar creative things to show creative connections between them… so I will indulge! It’s not very long 🙂
“26 And he [God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods [of time] and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
– Acts 17:26-28
Fergus, thank you much for yet another thorough comment. And yes, aliveness is what I feel, with all that comes with it in a very timeless way. It was an apparent long journey though, now there’s just life. As it is.
I’m sorry to hear you are trapped and need medication. I hope your circumstances change but I the most important thing is when you said; you for the time being feel you are where you need to be.
Sounds like you one though will be visiting Ireland. It’s a magical place!
Never heard of Combinatorial Creativity, will check it out.
Thank you again for venturing out and connect here. I’m very rarely online for long these days, hence the delay.
No problem, thanks for responding and the encouragement 🙂
You are so brave and fierce like the nature elements you photograph. so glad you found a place and space for your very own Being, Hanne.
Thank you so much, Annette, for these beautiful words. I wrote this piece four years ago and suddenly it showed up again, in a time when I truly needed to remember some basic things about this peculiar life 🙂 And some things was not forgotten but only enhanced since I wrote it… like creativity and photography.