interstitial
occurring in or being an interval or intervening space or segment
Last May, late spring, I travelled to Ireland to participate in a walking tour of poetry, myth and song. I realised only during the experience, that what I had stumbled upon and was being ushered through, was an initiation.
Every other day we were driven somewhere to visit an ancient site, walk an ancient landscape and be lost again at the frontier of belonging. The crowning jewel of each moment was some form of poetry. Sometimes it was the smell of peatfire, sometimes a meal or birdcall, or the magic punchline that jumped off the pages of a trickster’s screenplay and landed with a plop, right into the middle of our laps.
Nothing was announced, things happened as if by rumour and then effortlessly and harmoniously so. The only tears were the necessary ones of grief we brought with us, which were gently midwifed by the poet, and alchemised in the crucibles of our waking souls, into gratitude and meaning.
No one was left behind.
On the first night after arriving, we were driven to an ancient sacred well that had origins of use stretching back to paleolithic times, by the name of Tobar Phadraig, the well of Patrick.
To get to the well, one had to park the vans and follow the stone track by foot, a narrow road that hugged the limestone hillside of an exponential slope, hedged in on either side by stone wall. The stone walls all made by hand, each stone placed parallel and perpendicular to its neighbours to create a lattice, which could stop a sheep and allow the wind.
To our right was the burnished gold and iron mirror of the Galway bay, drifting out towards the late evening sun setting over the wild Atlantic.
To our left was the steepening limestone hill from which the sacred well ran. And in that wall, about half a mile up the road was a stile. A stile is a way of passing a wall, a selective invitation for a human —a friend— to move freely but to withhold an animal, or a human with a certain manner of approach.
The photo below is of another stile deeper inland. For reference, I am 6 foot (183cm) and standing on the plinth in the gap, the top of the wall would take me a little below the hip bones.
The arrangement of the stile at the sacred well was a little different. The upright stones that form the pillars, were resting on a step built into the wall, but the gap between just as narrow.
To get into the area of the sacred well, one had to step on the plinth and turn sideways to pass the narrow stile, a direct square-shouldered assault will not work.
The sense that struck me as I saw it, even before I stepped through it, was that this was a tiny temple in the wall, the eye of a needle “forcing you to pivot, itself a necessary rite of humility, to amend your stance to the modesty of the well, naked of all the usual demands we make of our sacred places and of ourselves when we wish to come to them.”
What happened at that well is between me and my god, but the idea of being between moments, passing a threshold into the interstitial space between spaces stayed with me.
An equinox is this.
We are now at the moment. We are poised at the threshold of a new moment, where the length of the day and the night is the same, where the shadow and light of the world sit in balance. The Vernal or Spring Equinox, in the Northern Hemisphere, the Autumn Equinox in the Southern. Equinox is Latin for “Equal Night”. If Solstice is where the Sun stands still, Equinox is where the World hangs still.
Equinox is the moment of suspension between moments. At Solstice we get to decide how we want to step through the door, how we want to choose our stance. At Equinox we get to decide what world we want to step forward into and who we want to take those steps as.
What a trip!
The initiation I went through helped me decide what world I wanted to step towards in my own pilgrimage, and the part of my persona I was going to allow to flourish and arrive on that journey. I would like to extend this invitation to you too.
This is, after all, the perfect time to do it. There is a Right time.
DRINKING FROM A DEEPER WELL Passing through the wall by the narrow stone gate, the work of forgotten masons, set on a rough-hewn threshold, guarded silently by two limestone uprights, who serve functionally and so elegantly as pillars to the tiny temple in the wall; less a place to come to, than a way to pass. No bold stepping through; A needle's eye, forcing you to pivot sideways to gain passage, itself a shrine to the necessary rite of humility, to amend your stance to the modesty of the well naked of all the usual demands we make of our sacred places and of ourselves when we wish to come to them. Climbing steeply by the crooked turf path beyond aiming for the crest lined with delicate buds of the early purple orchid and tumbled stone leading almost right past that simple place of ancient reverence and replenishment; So shallow you might step into it and wet only your shoes, so deep, it has run seemingly forever beyond living memory, cascading in rustic turn from earth, by way of well, and fountain, and trough, to find a way under the wall, beneath the road, down the long rolling slope, and on towards the sea. Crouching on the stone weir for one hurried interlude of sacred intimacy contemplating how I might stack purpose atop the assertion of the poet and leave standing like crafted stone stile in its own way; a message to myself made ready. Drawn between two hallowed fields of invitation each given to stillness and to moving in their own way. Announcing their welcome to both the panoramic vista, the stuff of postcard and song, and to the stern voice exhorting you to pay attention to the question you have been avoiding, so well you weren’t aware. Returning then back out again, through the narrow stile, released from that place, back onto the road, tempted again to boldness, towards the next step. Following, with borrowed certainty the long walk back, in the fading light, and not the way you came. Yielding to the comforting crunch of gravel beneath the firm soles of your untested boots, Belaying the old revelation like a counterweight fixed to rope, metered out along the green road, of the foolishness of expectations. Hearing the broken voice of your soul all the while trying to belong amidst the clamour and imagined urgency of the fading light and the shuffling crowd, some chattering gaily, some walking alone mouthing words in silent prayer, following faithfully, the same way. Sinking into yourself like the sun sinks below the hidden rim of cloud and ocean, and yourself not knowing whether you best belonged in front of the march or at the back. Wrestling with that question while your ears lay trained upon your heart to catch any rumour of the deeper imminent question you are assured you missed, and keeping your eyes fixed to spy the way you are told you cannot. Arriving at the end to the scattered leavings of the sunset clinging low above the western sea, and the evening star, as if on cue speaking something you could make out in full, only later: You are not here to drink from this fountain, You are here to drink from the eternal wellspring within you, even as you fill it. You are not here to lead these people. You are here to be led towards your waiting self even as you disappear. You are not here to seek belonging to the close village, or the sky or the limestone slopes, that hem in the untamed horizon, you are simply here to let all things alone for their year of rewilding, and to grant belonging, to yourself. DRINKING FROM A DEEPER WELL, by Rocco Jarman from STEPPING THROUGH — Following our own star through the door to Tomorrow, available on Amazon.
David Whyte, who hosted the tour is not simply a poet, he is that too, and a master of that craft, but more so his own craft. A kind of ‘journalism of the soul’, by which he demonstrates an understanding of your most private admissions, ones you have not even begun to find the language for internally much less say aloud. He has an exceptional eye.
If you can, do the tour, it will change you forever.
David Whyte has a marvellous body of work, including TED talks and a meaningful Substack.
The last verse of the poem hit home... thanks for the reminder of equinox, and rewilding, a constant but worthwhile effort for every human.