A little over six months ago, I looked into the eyes of the lady I loved more than I’ve ever loved in my life, and said goodbye. It was only supposed to be for a couple months. Our time apart was always hard, a layer of darkness descending, like a sheet of black silk slowly […]
On Valentine’s Day: Surviving a broken heart, finding hope in Edgar A. Poe and Annabel Lee’s metaphoric necrophilia
Though it’s tempting after reading Annabel Lee to believe Poe thought otherwise, sometimes love dies. There’s always a choice involved. Someone has to make the decision that this is it. If it’s not you, it’s a blow that’s hard to recover from. To start with, you don’t want to. Your love didn’t die. You want […]
On the abandoned village of Port, in Donegal Ireland … wind swept, wet and wild, the folklore of Irish music and the ideal place to go drowning
Top: The Glengesh Pass, Donegal, Ireland The top of Glengesh Pass in Donegal, Ireland is breathtaking. You’re in one of the most remote corners of the country here, sparsely populated, windswept and wild. You’re as likely to hear Gaelic spoken as English, for life hasn’t changed a whole lot over the past hundred years. The […]
On pagan sexuality, getting laid in the seventies, the great god Pan, the Marquis de Sade and the mating habits of goats
Top: Statue of Pan, The Eagles Nest, Northport, Long Island Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced. Marquis de Sade I credit my parents with instilling in me a love for pagan sexuality. Not intentionally – they didn’t advocate any kind of sex. It’s something that was only mentioned a couple […]
On Byron, the glory and agony of love, and the curse and blessing of loving but one
Top: In the grass at Knowlton Henge There can be a dark side to living and loving with passion – the loss of the one you adore. It’s Byronically ironic that the poet known for breaking hearts never shied from expressing the pain he found in his own. Love seldom comes in easy to open […]
Old Wardour Castle … a splendidly haunted ruin in the British countryside
Top: Old Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire “On the south western border of Wiltshire about half between Salisbury and Shaftesbury and in the parish Tisbury stand the ivy crowned remains of the old castle Wardour.” The Antiquary, Volumes 3-4 Front Cover.W. Allen, 1873 Old Wardour Castle was built as an impressive fortified home for Lord Lovell in the late […]
A megalithic darkness descending on Stanton Drew stone circles and cove
“There among the stones they committed unspeakable acts. On the stones, against the stones. Their cloaks barriers to the storm of nature that raged around them, they were thrown aside and as two beasts they met in the circle in rut, in heat, in pure primal desire. It was a ritual of sorts, a wedding […]
Ghost stories and supernatural occurrences from Avebury circle and henge
Entrance to the Avebury henge Hair stands high on the cat’s back like a ridge of threatening hills. Sheepdogs howl, make tracks and growl — their tails hanging low. And young children falter in their games at the altar of life’s hide-and-seek between tall pillars, where Sunday-night killers in grey raincoats peek. Down to the […]
Dunbeg Fort on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula: Saved for centuries by local folklore, slowly being reclaimed by the Atlantic Ocean
View from the interior of Dunbeg Fort, with Mount Eagle in the background On the edge of Europe, along the coast of Dingle Peninsula, Dunbeg Fort is a promontory fort, not far from Dingle town towards Slea Head. Known in Gaelic as An Dún Beag, it was protected by sheer cliffs on three sides, falling into […]
An Irish folk tale, Maid of Mullaghmore and memories of Muckross Head, county Donegal
I once spent about a week hanging out with Caoimhin Mac Aoidh, noted Donegal fiddler and historian, particularly on all things Donegal fiddle. He wrote about the tune Maighdean Mhara Mhullach Mhoir, or The Maid or more precise, The Mermaid of Mullaghmore. I was driving up the coast of Donegal, on the way to the village of Teelin, […]
