However long the day, evening will come. [Video]
“However long the day, evening will come.”
There is another old saying in Ireland, “Dhá fháid é an lá, tiocfaidh an tráthnóna”.
“However long the day, evening will come.”
This proverb invites us to view change and transformation as a metaphorical dark night- an initiation. It is often a harrowing, bewildering time, not knowing if dawn will come or, in this sean fhocal, the evening after a long day.
Every time we cross the threshold of change, an aspect of ourselves dies away, and a new part of ourselves is about to be revealed. It can be a difficult time.
The word liminal comes from the word limin, Latin for threshold. Threshold is the separating of one space from another. Grief and loss are integral in these liminal places in our development. We are letting go, like the leaves let go in Autumn, of what no longer serves us.
Any transformation or changes in our lives, a change of job, a change of country, a loss of a loved one, a miscarriage, a relationship breaking up, children moving out and moving on in their lives, any change involves loss. Even the most welcomed changes require us to let something go. Grief and loss are inherent aspects of our growth and the human condition. Threshold times in our lives are so difficult because we are encountering mystery. We don’t know the road ahead and are no longer where we were. We are in between. It is an uprooting, before, becoming. Being with uncertainty or mystery can be very frightening and challenging. We can feel a sense of great sadness and confusion; we feel anxious, overwhelmed, guilty, ashamed, and generally ‘not ourselves’. We can also find dream images of wastelands, deserts, or dark forests at these threshold times of change. It can sometimes feel overwhelming, the sense of— where am I? It is infused with a sense of meaninglessness. It feels like we have no compass and no map.
If we understand these times as times of transformation and meet them with understanding, compassion, and open hearts in the darkness, then we can begin to trust that evening will come after that long day.
‘Old Words’ or Proverbs in Ireland
I grew up in the South Connemara Gaeltacht, on the west coast of Ireland. It is one of the remaining regions in Ireland that speaks Gaeilge (Irish) daily. It is my first language and my native tongue. As a child, “Sean fhocail”, which, in the Irish language, means “Old Words”, are the Proverbs that were part of everyday speech where I grew up. What I find beautiful about Sean Fhocail, or Sean Fhocla as we say in my particular regions, is their close association with the land, with animals, birds, the sea, with the presence of the sun, moon and the tides, and of course the changing weather, with the moments of merriment and celebration, with the ordinary daily life of our people. Sean Fhocail, like folklore, are passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. This wisdom can stretch back hundreds of years. The landscape was imbued with sacred significance and mystery for our Gaelic and Celtic ancestors. Every field had a name. Every mountain, stream, and rock had its own story to tell. Every tree and river had its own significance, its own spirit.
Sean Fhocail are a witness to the past. They are a glimpse into an ancient world. There is a deep wisdom about them that I have always loved. These ancestral treasures can once again be an invitation to us to explore our own relationship to the landscape and the natural world as well as our relationship to the rich inner landscape of the soul.
