My Celtic Roots

When I was just a child, my father was away at war and his absence for months at a time had a profound effect on me. There were no phone calls, no internet, no visits. He was just "gone" ~ all but for the images in my memory. The only thing I could depend on was the feeling of connectedness I had with "everywhere" when I was out in nature. I knew my father might not physically come back but, in my mind, I held a magical mystical connection to him wherever he was. Because of the deep need I had to feel that he wasn't really gone even though I couldn't "see" him ~ I created him to be right with me and therefore I could never lose him. A child's imagination is a wonderful thing and can create protection against some pretty harsh realities.

That experience with my mind's imagination served me again and again other times in my life as well. It came through in singing and dancing, in being with nature, it came through in drawing and painting, and in creating art with things from nature, and it came through being a "dreamer" and having hope, no matter what. The arts and nature have been a way for me to have "no doubt" about the interconnectedness of all things.

Because of my Irish ancestry, I know that Ireland is "the land of the magical earth". And, its music comes out from your feet when you dance, your voice when you sing and stories when you speak the simple outer life and the Irish inner life of the "imagination". The prosperity of the spirit is sometimes all that is left. And, our music, our arts, our ability to laugh...can tell our stories ~happy ones, sad ones, cultural ones, historic ones ~ and therein lies our treasures. ~ Patty Ann Smith