A Show of Remembrance

The Inner Landscape of Beauty
John O'Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher beloved for his book Anam Cara — Gaelic for "soul friend" — and for his insistence on beauty as a human calling and a defining aspect of God. Before his untimely death this year, he spoke with Krista in our studios. And so this hour has become a remembrance of him. But John O'Donohue had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with what he called "the invisible world." And he would also surely see this also as a serendipitous continuation of his life's work — of bringing ancient Celtic wisdom to modern confusions and longings.

 

O'Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher beloved for his books, including Anam Cara — Gaelic for "soul friend" — and for his insistence on beauty as a human calling and a defining aspect of God. I sat down with him in the fall for a wide-ranging, two-hour conversation. Then before it could go to air, he died in his sleep, suddenly and apparently naturally and peacefully, at the age of 52. And so this hour of conversation has become a remembrance of him.

We're putting his lovely, lively, exuberant voice out there in the world, though he is no longer in it. And he would surely see this as a serendipitous continuation of his life's work — of bringing ancient Celtic wisdom to modern confusions and longings.

We ended the show with his reading of "Beannacht," a poem of blessing he wrote for his mother upon the death of his father. A number of listeners who read and loved John O'Donohue's work have written to us as we began to post this and other poems he read to me last fall:

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the gray window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

And our senior producer Mitch Hanley posted a pair of informative entries about his research into the beautiful, essential music for this program. He writes about the style of Gaelic singing called sean-nos and the helpful contributions of an Irish listener from Belfast.

"Music," John O'Donohue said to me, "is what language would love to be if it could."

 

 

I Recommend Reading:
To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
by John O'Donohue

John O'Donohue's delightful last book is published posthumously this week.