Out there, in that Divine Dark.
An excerpt from the writings of John Moriarty thanks to our friends at The Lilliput Press.
Reading John Moriarty is a type of dreaming; there is a flow and cadence and a voice that vibrates omnipresent as you move through it. He becomes present like a holy ghost. He is fully formed but you must come to him fluid, like approaching a wave to be surfed. You must be like water. I first heard about John while I was on the River Owenmore, in western Ireland, walking with a friend who knew him well. John had lived there, on the river, and he had left his mark with the people and the place. Below is a story selected from his book Turtle Was Gone A Long Time Vol.1 with permission to print here given from the kind publisher Antony Farrell and The Lilliput Press in Dublin. We get preachy, we know, but more people should know about both John Moriarty and The Lilliput Press so we are here to spread the good gospel.
Big Mike he was called and ever since he came home to the island, after thirty years at sea, people felt there something inwardly torn or broken about him. He's had a rough crossing somewhere.
By nightfall, on the day of his arrival, everyone knew he was back. Everyone who saw it was glad to see smoke from the old chimney.
After a couple of days anyone who hadn't seen him looked forward to meeting him on Sunday after mass. He didn't show up. Neither was there sight or light of him the following Sunday. One thing, and that a big thing, they knew about him now: he wasn't rowing in behind Christ.
Sarah Coyne didn't like it. Not that Sarah was pious. As midwife on the island, Sarah had helped to bring him into the world and if only for the sake of his dead father and his dead mother, she wanted to hear that hed fared fairly well in the world.
One night, her curiosity getting the better other, she went up to see him.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph!' she said to Jim Barlow an hour or so later in her own house, 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph! He has and yet he hasn't come back. He is still out there somewhere in the roaring forties of the sea, or in the roaring forties of his mind, out where the sound of the last foghorn and the life of the last lighthouse cannot reach him!
Trying to throw a lifeline to him she was the next day when she sent him up a loaf of homemade brown bread and a jar of gooseberry jam neatly labelled and dated.
"Look at the brains of sheep and fish, Marcus King said to Sarah one day. "You've seen them, haven't you? You've seen how furled they are. Thar's what's what happened to him, Sarah. He unfurled too much of his mind to the wind. He let out too much sail to the wind? No, Sarah, no. We aren't keeled for those waters. We aren't keeled for the waters Big Mike was blown into.”
Walking home from mass that Sunday with Sarah, Marcus was a strong, able man. Little did he or she suspect that within a year hed be passing these same house, Lavelles house, Burke's house, Coyne's house, his own house, in a coffin.
On the night after the funeral, lying awake in bed, Ned Lavelle was wondering who now would man the beam oars in his eight-oar curragh.
Big Mike was the only prospect.
One day, making a breast of it, he asked him.
That evening there was the sound of other footsteps, footsteps the women hadn't heard before, on the gravel path going down to the sea.
Coming to their doors they wished him well. Something in him evoked a need in them. The need Sarah Coyne had felt when she sent him up the loaf of homemade brown bread and the pot of gooseberry jam.
As was their custom, they waited to watch the curraghs going out, seventeen of them, out wide around the breakers, out around the headland, into the ocean.
Next morning at daybreak they would, once again, be standing in their doors, counting them, more anxiously this time, as they came into view around the headland.
That was the pattern of island life, the sound of footsteps; in ones and twos and threes, going down to the sea every evening, coming back every morning.
Within a year Big Mike had fallen in with all the old ways of his people. Outwardly, there was nothing odd or different about him. He even showed up at mass a few times. And yet he was strange.
Sometimes in May, hauling their pots, fishermen in these waters would find a pale, delicately blue lobster. He, they would tell you, was a stray. He had come from the limestone seafloors to the south. Down there his colouring camouflaged him. Up here, on a seafloor of granite and schist, he stood out. And so, somehow, did Big Mike. Things he would sometimes say in the course of an ordinary conversation didn't blend with local opinion. They didn't have the colour of the recognized sacred tradition.
Sarah Coyne would give anything to know. She went to see him one Sunday night and she asked him straight out, did he or didn't he believe in God.
I do, he said, I believe in God. But I also believe in something deeper than God, something more divine the God.'
Backing away from the awful sincerity of the man, Sarah didn't ask him the further question that had come to mind. She didn't settle in for the long conversation she had imagined.
"It is hard on us getting used to you, Mike' she said, leaving. 'It is hard on all of us. But I helped to bring you into the world, Mike. Even before your mother did, I cupped your head in my hands, so I have maybe a right to tell you, we aren't as deeply keeled as you think we are.
So don't let out too much sail to the wind, Mike. Don't let out too much sail to the wind.'
On land a man can run the risk of being an individual. He can find his own way of cutting the turf. On land a man can be himself, with or against the traditional way. On the ocean, no. At nightfall the moment four men step off the pier into their boat, the moment they fix their oars in their hole pins and start pulling, leaving their moorings, at that moment whatever is individual and peculiar in them becomes submerged in a calm, collective, common rowing. Even if, out on the ocean on a wild night, the man in the bows makes a bad decision you will, till he recovers, row in with it, because four men rowing together have some chance, whereas four men rowing at cross purposes have no chance at all.
Manning the beam oars, Big Mike submerged himself in a common task. And maybe that's why, regularly now, he came to mass, Recognizing Jesus to be a good man at sea, he was willing to row in behind him.
And so it was that the women knew him, as they knew every other man, by the sound of his footsteps on the gravel path. And something in those sounds, a sense of silence sown by them, reassured Eilo Lacey.
It occurred in her, having talked to him one evening in his house, that maybe Big Mike was a holy man.
But how could this be? How could a next-door neighbour of hers be any such thing?
Neither in appearance or behaviour did he resemble any of the saints she regularly prayed to.
He didn't talk about holy things. And yet, when he talked about ordinary things, about tea or turf, it was like being at mass.
Could it be, she wondered, but only to herself, could it be that there is a kind of holiness Christianity has never recognized?
The thought threatened her. That thought put an end to all such thoughts. She would stay with what she knew. She would stay with the mass that Christ instituted and the priest celebrated.
By the end of March it was evident that Sarah Coyne was dying. She was dying hard, not willing to give in.
She asked Big Mike to sit with her at night.
Nine nights later he was still ministering to her, calmly, in word and deed.
In the end Sarah died in peace.
She had helped him to come into the world. He helped her leave it.
And people were sure of it. At her wake and at her funeral they were sure of it. They were sure that Big Mike had prepared her for whatever it was she would meet in eternity.
And now it wasn't only Eilo Lacey who was threatened by strange thoughts. All over again, everyone was having to get used to Big Mike.
Nor was that the end of it.
Having cleaned the nets one morning, he told Ned Lavelle that he wanted a break, so he wouldn't be manning the beam oars that night.
This wasn't upsetting news for Ned. For the past couple of years his grandson, who had replaced Big Mike a few times, had been hoping for just such an opportunity.
That evening the women were aware of a vacancy, of something familiar not there, on the gravel path outside their doors, their doors to seaward. And again the next morning, it was by their absence that they were aware of Big Mike's footsteps.
It was like a bereavement, Nora McGrail thought. It was like an angel fallen silent.
One day, off and on all day, Ned Lavelle heard hammering up at Big Mike's house. Again the next day a few times he heard it.
What now, he wondered, what's he up to now?
Only one thing to do, he thought, I'll go and find out.
"You're not thinking,' he said, seeing what was afoot, youre not thinking, are you Mike, of going to sea in that one.'
'I was thinking that maybe I might,' Big Mike replied.
'Don't,' Ned said. 'Don't go to sea in a boat as ill-omened as she is.
It isn't hearsay, he said. 'I was there myself that day. I saw it myself. She was standing there, perfect and finished, a beautiful thing. Proud of her, the boatwright tapped her lightly on the right gunwale, and with a sudden, frightening crack, she split from stem to stem. A bad sign. A warning. Your grandfather heeded it. He left her to rot.'
People were at a loss what to think or do the evening Big Mike walked down to the pier and rowed himself out alone in all ill-omened boat into the ocean. Every door was next door that night. In houses three doors away, four doors away, from their own door is where everyone was sitting, talking, trying to comprehend. Everyone wanted to know what everyone else was thinking. What was he up to? Whatever it was, he wasn't respecting the ocean. He was tempting the ocean. He was breaking the bond, the understanding, between the people and the ocean.
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt not tempt the ocean.
Thou shalt not tempt the immensities beyond the headland.
What else could it be? He didn't intend to come back. And now after every tide they would have to comb the foreshores looking for evidence of his drowning.
At daybreak they were waiting for the first boats to appear around the headland. Eagerly, as they came, they counted them - fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and yes, there it is, the eighteenth boat, they are all coming home, Big Mike is coming home.
He came home the next morning.
Morning after morning he came home like someone who had all his wits about him, he cleaned his nets, talked, as often as he would, about the drift and run of the sea, and then went home.
Whatever it was, it wasn't madness.
Yet again though, people were having to get used to him.
Three or four months later, having cleaned them one morning, he put his nets in a bag and took them home with him. Eilo Lacey who called to him, bringing eggs to him, later that morning, saw them hanging up outside in his outhouse.
Calling it a day, everyone said. Big Mike has called it a day.
Even the rocks seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
And the women felt their prayers had been answered. They were glad. They wouldn't be coming home from the shore some morning with a washed-up sock or shoe.
They had reckoned only with their own hopes. Because there it was again that evening, the sound of his footsteps, Big Mike going down to the sea.
Three doors, four doors, five doors away from their own door you'd find them again that night, the people talking.
Gone out without nets!
There were no two ways about it.
The only question was, would it be classed as suicide, and if it was, where would they bury him? Given the currents, there was every chance to that he would be washed up on this or on one of the neighbouring islands.
But no. Not yet.
In the morning, at first light, eighteen boats came round the head. land. Let him be now, John Joseph Burke said. Let him be. We don't know at all what ails him.'
Madness people could understand.
But this was worse than madness.
More dangerous altogether than madness.
Night after night, with no nets!
His nets hung up in a sack outside his outhouse, and yet, there he was rowing himself out every evening, out wide around the breakers, out around the headland into the ocean. For what?
There was no understanding it. As Mike Kane, doddering on two sticks, had advised them to do, they let him go. Even to pray for him now, some people felt, was somehow not right. Even if it ended up in disaster, even if you were the one who came across the washed-up shoe, so be it.
Big Mike was gone beyond recall. Within himself, he was gone beyond the sound of the last foghorn, beyond the light of the last lighthouse.
And yet, for anyone who looked at him more than passingly, there was, very obviously, a kind of sanctity in him, and for anyone who listened, more than passingly, there was, in the sound of his footsteps now, a deep tranquility, a sense, as it were, of journey's end.
A man, gone beyond any lifeline Christianity could throw to him.
That's how it seemed.
And yet he might be a holy man.
Here on our island.
It was a terrifying thought.
'God bless you Big Mike, Mike Kane said looking after him going down to the sea one evening. 'God bless you, Big Mike.'
A great fog came down over land and sea one night.
Steevie Ridge went to his door and looked out. He heard nothing.
And you'd smell nothing, he called back to his wife, even with the snout of a fox you'd smell nothing tonight.
Julia Nec was Steevie's next-door neighbour.
Julia was blind. But Julia believed.
In the depths of her apron pocket she had a rosary beads. Those beads were her stars. They were her constellations.
It was in her apron pocket that Julias firmament was. And in that firmament there were fifteen mysteries, five of them joyful, five of them sorrowful and five of them glorious.
Constellations to navigate by in time and eternity.
But when tonight Julia took them into her hand below in the depths of her apron pocket, she felt only darkness.
It was like the darkness that was before the world was.
Tonight, for the first time in her life, Julia had nothing to navigate by. Her faith was blind.
Oceanward also the darkness was serious.
Even if they could somehow shine out there tonight, the light of the human mind and the light of the human heart would be brighter extinguished.
Instinctively, on a night like this, fishermen row into the deep, and that's what they did.
Out there, in the deep, there are no breakers or headlands against which the ocean might roll them.
'Something ahead of us! Something ahead of us!' the man in the bow called out.
In unison, without thinking, all four rowers sheared away - away - away.
What in God's name can it be, Ned Lavelle thought. A whale or what!
And then, out of nowhere, like a slip of the tongue it was, he heard himself saying, 'Big Mike or what?'
Big Mike out here?
Could it be possible that it is out into this Great Deep he comes?
He called out,
'Is that you. Big Mike?"
'Is that you. Big Mike?' And the answer came back.
'It is.'
'I's me.'
'It's Big Mike.'
'How's the fishing, Mike?'
'The fishing is good?'
"The fishing is very good.'
And from far, far away they heard him, all four of them heard him,
Big Mike calling out,
"The fishing is good.'
'The fishing is very good.'
'The fishing, not fishing at all.'
'Is blessedness, is bliss.'
Eventually, there was light. To begin with, they couldn't determine whether it was the light of sunrise or of sunset. Hoping that it was sunrise, they rowed, but without much confidence, in its direction. In the end they found their bearings and rowed home. Big Mike, in his boat alone, rowing behind them.
It was more than Ned Lavelle could take.
He got up and went up to Big Mike's house.
"What does it mean, Mike?'
'What in Chris's name does it mean? In the dark last night I called out asking you how the fishing was and in your voice, there is no mistaking your voice, Big Mike, in your voice, all four of us, hearing you, you answered, "The fishing is good, the fishing is very good, the fishing, not fishing at all, is blessedness, is bliss." I looked in your boat, moored below at the pier this morning, and there wasn't a fish-scale in it. What are you up to, Big Mike?'
It's a long story, Ned. Living it or being lived by it, it was long. I wasn't long at sea when one night keeping watch before the mast I heard a sound. It wasn't an everyday sound and it wasn't in my everyday hearing I heard it. Hearing it, I knew that something at once wonderful and terrible had happened. All I could say about it is that, ever so briefly, while it lasted, I wasn't in the world. Either my world had vanished or my awareness of it had vanished, or maybe they had vanished together, and there it was, the sound, the first pure sound out of the Divine Silence.
'For fear of blasphemy I'll say no more about it. I was never the same after that. The sailors sensed it. They said it was nerves. And I suppose outwardly, anyway, it was nerves, for I had lost all sense of inner individual grounding, of grounding in selfhood, and I hadn't yet found grounding in God. Inwardly, I was in an awful no-man's-land, or no-man's-void, between ground lost and ground not yet found. During all those years though, deep within me, I was a kind of praying, a kind of speechless praying. I was, if you like, a dumfounded state of prayer. And then at last, to give it a chance, I would sometimes go inland, spending weeks on end in monasteries in India and China, in Hindu monasteries in India, and in Taoist monasteries in China. But even in them there wasn't the kind of silence I was seeking, and one day, in the Australian outback, an old medicine man advised me to go home, and that's why, one evening after thirty years, there was smoke from this chimney. From then on it was like being Job, it was like being Jonah. And like Job and like Jonah, I had to let God enact a parable on me. I had to become a living parable. A Truth that God would make visible be made visible in me.
Night after night, alone in an unlucky boat, I rowed myself out, out wide around the breakers, out around the headland, into the ocean. Out there, night after night, I cast the net of my mind into the ocean of experience. Into it also I cast the net of my heart. Every morning, hauling the net of my mind, I hoped that in it I would find the great creed, the great knowing. But I never did. Neither did I, hauling the net of my heart, find in it the great emotion, the great saving passion or rapture. In both nets, from time to time, I found marvels. But I didn't find final healing.
'Final healing isn't healing of the mind, nor is it healing of the heart. It is healing beyond them, into Divine Ground. Divine Ground within. Divine Ground below passion and love in the human heart, below knowing in the human mind.
“You know the rest.
The net of my mind and the net of my heart hung up in a bag outside in my outhouse, I rowed myself out, and it's true Ned, it's true.
Out there, in that Divine Dark,
Out there, in that Divine Deep,
The fishing is good,
The fishing is very good.
Out there, in that Divine Dark,
Out there, in that Divine Deep,
The fishing, not fishing at all,
Is blessedness, is bliss.”
John Moriarty was born in Kerry on February 2nd 1938 and died there on June 1st 2007. He taught English literature at the University of Manitoba in Canada for six years, and returned to Ireland in 1971. His books include Dreamtime (1994); the trilogy Turtle Was Gone a Long Time: Crossing the Kedron (1996), Horsehead Nebula Neighing (1997) and Anaconda Canoe (1998); Nostos, An Autobiography (2001); Invoking Ireland (2005); Night Journey to Buddh Gaia (2006); Serious Sounds (2007); and One Evening in Eden (2007), a boxed CD collection of his talks, stories and poetry.
The Lilliput Press is an Irish publishing house, founded in 1984 by Antony Farrell. John Moriarty, as well as Tim Robinson, were among the early authors chosen by Farrell to publish, which is a testament to a good eye. You can find many of John’s books through their wonderful website.