Dear Biddy,

It is time to say farewell.  Thank you for being a travelling companion in 2014. This is my last letter to you.

When I review my letters I notice themes of life and death, love, light and darkness and an elemental thread of the UniVerse holding the words together. Thank you for your inspiration and challenges, sending me into the wilds and keeping the faith with my pilgrimage in everyday life.

I now shake the dust from my Irish shoes and greet another woman from the past. I think you both could trade stories of wrestling ideas with the powerful in your worlds. You both could join in a jig or a reel to have your feet tapping and heels clicking in time and tune.

Before I go I ask for your blessing:

Biddy Wise Woman of Clare

Set me on my way with a final swig from the blue bottle

Dispensing a blessing for this pilgrim

I am writing my weekly letter in 2015 to Mexican woman Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. I am looking forward to getting to know her and sharing some of my story with her, just as I have with you.

I remember Biddy, when I first met you in Ennis introduced by the redheaded Jane O’Brien and then went on my own journey of discovery to learn more about you.

A reference from Yeats about you that was included in my first letter to you and he pondered: Is Eden out of time and out of space? The celestial questions of time and space are forever unfolding to be asked; and part of the reason I write, is to see where answers might be knitted together from random thoughts, scraps of conversations and inspiration from being in relationship through these letters with one like you.

It is time now Biddy to sing the Parting Glass to you, knowing we will meet again on the road somewhere.  I sing with those lads from Limmerick, Owen and Moley, the brothers Ó Súilleabháin, who I was delighted to be in such good company, on a tour of Western Ireland in 2013 and where my spirit continues to be nourished. These letters have kept a thread of my time in Ireland woven into my week for the past year and now I rise and raise my glass “goodnight and joy be to you all.”

Bye, bye Biddy thank you, Moira

 

Readers please note to continue to follow in 2015 click here