One of my favorite earliest memories was waking up on a summer morning and hearing the cuckoo. She was always celebrated with excitement in my house growing up. It was the first sign of summer. In gaelic irish, we would say, "Tá an cúach tagtha!"(Pronounced koo-ack). "The cuckoo has arrived!"
I was only four or five, yet I remember jumping out of bed on this particular morning after hearing the cuckoo and running outside to the trees behind the house and listening for her. I saw the sun through the leaves. It felt warm in the shade. I could feel the breeze on my skin.The morning had every sign, even at that early hour, that it was going to be a hot day. A 1980s heatwave.
I felt so happy. It was a feeling of complete joy. There was a sense of excitement with the changing season. I felt it full in my body. I was present at that very moment. A tingling joy. The cookoo delivering her message. Summer had arrived!
Even now, even still, on summer mornings, I remember that feeling and memory. To appreciate fully the wonder and excitement of the sun and the gifts this new season will bring. The abundance of it all. Life in full abundance.
The quote below reminds me of that feeling. I love it. It is by American writer Henry Beston. It reminds me to appreciate the morning sun. The life-giving sun. To let in the joy.
Grá mór, Eileen
'On that morning, the sun, which had steadily been approaching the corner, turns it, the golden round rising clear of all obstruction and flooding the kitchen with the first spring light. It is for us an occasion of real joy. We may not belong to the Golden Age or the years of the golden bough, but we can observe and rejoice, and in such natural joy and natural response lies one of the profoundest secrets of human happiness' Henry Beston
Eileen Ni Shuilleabhain
Photography Tarkovsky
www.teallach.com
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