white pine floor

The white pine is the state tree of Michigan. We chose plain white pine boards for the floor of the atelier, our studio, formerly a chicken coop. Before I left for Ireland, Don and Peter worked on it, using old fashioned cut nails to install the boards. While I was in Ireland these past two weeks, Don finished installing the boards, sanded for four hours, then rolled the spar - the varnish used for wooden boats. We wanted the boards to be unstained so they would gradually age into the golden glow that pine turns over time.

The white pine has a lot of symbolism in the US, and in Michigan. The Haudenosaunee Indians (pejoratively called Iroquois, meaning "black snakes" in French, which they translated from what a rival Huron tribe called them) considered it their symbol of peace because of the union of the five tribes under their peace treaty. White pine needles grow in clusters of five. The five tribes Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onodaga, and Seneca were united after centuries of war, into one Indian nation. (These tribes are from the eastern US, and there may be information about the white pine symbol in Michigan, but I didn't find it.)

This union of Indian tribes is considered to be the longest running constitutional government still existing, and was partially the model used for the US government.

Now that the floor is done, we are going to create a ceremony for blessing l'atelier, using the Native American stories of peacemaking as a guide. Then we will move the furnishings in.

I found much of this interesting information about the Haudenosaunee and the white pine at this nice site.

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Meeting up with friends

It's our last day in Eire, and nothing big to do except pack. We'll have a final group dinner tonight. It's been a "grand" and "brilliant" time (as the Irish would say).

I'm heading out here in a bit to take the first bus into Dublin's City Centre for some early morning photos of the Liffey. But first I'd like to share the joys I had of meeting up with two friends this week.

Tuesday, Jim and I met up for lunch at a café for the first time. I met him at my sister Ginnie's photoblog with Shutterchance.com, where he also has a photoblog. Jim is a Dubliner, graphic designer, world traveler and photoblogger in spades. He also introduced me to Photoblip, where he has another blog. There is a serious question whether I will be able to keep up with three blogs (yes, I hear you out there), but I started one so that I could visit Jim at his. It seems like a very nice community of bloggers, very responsive and welcoming, thanks to my introduction by Jim. I like the format very much, and I like their idea that you post a picture that you took on the day you post it.

Jim is one of the reasons I love blogging so much: meeting nice people. He is charming, kind, interesting, and has an eye for taking lovely photographs of his Dublin. Most unfortunately, a few days before we were to meet up, he was struck by a bicyclist-courier going in the wrong direction and broke his wrist in the accident. We laughed at his Napoleanic pose.


Carrie is the friend I talked about in my post about letters Don's 4th graders wrote to a Marine pilot in Iraq, Carrie's husband. She teaches English at Boston University and has been participating in a 6-week NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) project on James Joyce at Trinity College, a summer seminar for university teachers. Carrie is a fellow "Sappho" -- a member of my poetry group. She graduated from MSU the year before me, also in English. The happiest news of all is that her husband Derek will be leaving Iraq in just a couple of weeks for a two year job in San Diego! He had expected to be deployed until February 2008. Hallelujah! And Carrie will even have time to be with him a while before she starts her teaching semester in the fall. It was great having a picnic in St. Stephan's Green, eating Thai shrimp salads and custard pastries from Marks & Spencer's Food Hall. A nice French couple took our picture together.

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Mystery tour

Get ready for a long post. But it's mostly pictures. It's called a Mysery Tour because it visits ancient sites that we can only guess about some of the meanings behind what's been found.


Three small buses took us to five historical/sacred sites within a short distance of Dublin today. Isn't this bus cute?


Aeman drove my bus, and he was an excellent guide with lots of interesting historical facts and stories to tell. He and another one of the drivers speak Irish/Gaelic. It's so beautiful when they speak it, quite poetic. No, we couldn't understand it, but they just recited some lovely song lyrics.




We stopped first at Fourknocks, where we took a group photo (photo after next) on top of the burial mound, which happens to be 5,000 years old. See the lady in the back row, third from the left, the one Glen is pointing at? She's not in our program. We're calling her the mystery lady.



Yes, that's me in the group photo with the only runaway hair of the bunch. What's up with that? Local magnetism? No one else's seems to be blowing in the wind.



We were all able to fit inside the burial chamber, where stones with designs, like this one by Inge, still puzzle scholars. This site is older than Stonehenge.



Aeman and the other two drivers took turns explaining the sites throughout the day.

Second we drove to Mellifont Abbey, a Cistercian monastery built in the 12th century.






By this second stop I had managed to calm my hair down, plus it was raining.

Third was Monasterboice, known for its amazing collection of Celtic crosses.

And some non-Celtic ones too.


Fourth, it was the Hill of Slane with its panoramic view, statue of St. Patrick, and climb-able ruins. It was here that St. Patrick lit the first paschal fires to defy the nearby Celtic kings at Tara.

The fifth and final destination was Tara, my favorite. This place is so special to me, I had to be quiet, away from the students. I let them play and run on the hengiform while I greeted the beech trees in the churchyard. Man, I hate that I can only visit them for 45 minutes once a year. By the way, I mistakenly thought the trees were yews until this year.

I love beech trees' smooth bark.

It was hard to leave my tree parents today.

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General Post Office

I know I'm posting a lot, but it's a good way for me to journal during this program. Don't feel bad if you can't keep up with me and comment. This is what I need to do for myself. But I do hope you'll enjoy the visit.

I had to mail some postcards today, so I thought there would be no better place to mail them than in the General Post Office in Dublin, where the leaders of the Easter uprising of 1916 had their headquarters.

The uprising was defeated and its leaders arrested and executed. But less than three years later, in 1919, survivors of the Rising convened and established the Irish Republic.

I added this photo today so you could see the bullet holes in the column in front of the GPO.



An original copy of the Proclamation of independence is on permanent display inside. You can read the proclamation here.

In 2005 the Irish government decided to go ahead with a plan to move postal services elsewhere and preserve this building as a commemoration to the Easter Uprising.


Today I also saw an exhibit of William Butler Yeats at the National Library. His handwritten copy of the poem “Easter 1916” was not there in the case where it should have been by this plaque.

“Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?”

Here you can read the whole poem.

This is an inspiring place. And tomorrow we go to Tara again!

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Blarney Castle

The third castle on this site near Cork was built in 1446.

On the walk to the castle, we crossed over a bridge with coins glistening in the water. Shadows: Inge and me. After the photo we threw coins in with a wish.



This site says:

"The Earl of Leicester was commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to take possession of the castle. Whenever he endeavoured to negotiate the matter McCarthy always suggested a banquet or some other form of delay, so that when the queen asked for progress reports a long missive was sent, at the end of which the castle remained untaken. The queen was said to be so irritated that she remarked that the earl's reports were all 'Blarney'."

The castle is almost 90' high.

There are winding narrow stairs, secret passages, large rooms, tiny rooms, tunnels and beautiful windows.

Francis Sylvester Mahony wrote that whoever kisses the Blarney stone becomes eloquent, to woo a woman or become a Member of Parliament.

I wasn't going to kiss it, but when our students got excited to do it, I couldn't pass up the chance to become eloquent, and well, just to laugh at the experience.

Inge didn't kiss it, but she took my picture with this man whose job it is to hold women (and men) all day and say silly things like "Let's see how you kiss in the daytime." From the look of his pile of euro coins, I'd say his lines are working. But once I got down in there, backwards, he kept telling me to go farther and farther, until my lips were touching the bottom of the stone edge. Scaaaaaary! (Even though there are now bars that keep you from falling.)

After kissing the Blarney stone, we went to dinner in town, where on each table a vase with one yellow rose sat. Both Inge's and my mom love/d yellow roses, so that was a nice memory. (Inge's mom is still alive.)

When we took our second bus in Cork, some of our students were boarding too. Lena and Becky found some three leaf clovers.

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