Sometimes when practicing mindfulness, Patrick Mulcahy, AKA The Mindful Farmer, returns to a specific childhood memory
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The river flows fast and gurglingly to its first bend, which has been widened by its impact and has left a huge bed of silt ideal for gardening. It is at this bend that I have spent much of my time meditating under the weeping willow tree surely hundreds of years old wondering about the world, the sky above, the soil beneath me, and me in the middle.
As a child if only I knew what grew beneath the soil. As a child if only I knew what flew right above the clouds and me in the middle. The river as usual trying to smooth and heal the soil by kissing its banks with permanent love. I now know from my life experience, we are ancestral products of our genetics and the waters of our forbearers and the millions of soil particles that make up one clay. It is no wonder we are complex, how could we be any other way?
As a child I felt all these ingredients within me and could not understand why during the day I constantly poked the soil with my stick and looking up at the sky to witness the various forms of life floating in and out through the clouds mirroring what was going on beneath the soil. This constant agitation by day followed by the sleepless night while I cliff-hangingly held on from the anxiety of not understanding my world. This out of life daily and nightly experience had to be dealt with separately from my normal daily life and I did so by prayer and meditation and we all grew together to where we are today, peaceful and with a little more understanding of life. Listen to your soul and pay attention to your terrestrial minders.
It is here that I place my cardboard paper boats into the river. I would have a series of these boats made in my spare time in a little shed alongside the cow house, especially after school when the rain was belting down on the tin roof. I loved this sound and I still do to this day. My boats were of various sizes depending on the number of passenger messages that were on board, some days we would only have a few passenger messages and other days the boats would be heavy with passenger messages. The messages carried dreams, problems, anxieties, worries in all shapes and forms and you may ask, why would a child in rural Ireland in the sixties suffer from such issues? My answer is that children through the ages see the world of their parents in a more magnified form.
So I would place my boat into the river at the bend with all my passenger messages on board and let it off on its voyage. The first part of the journey is very straight forward until it reaches its first S bend to the left, about 80 yards up river. I walk along, careful not to step on the flowers at the bank of the river. It varied from time to time during the year but it started with snowdrops and bluebells early in the year to daffodils to briar roses, wild woodbine, wild butterfly bushes. Ash trees laden down with red pearls, wild crab apple trees laden down with golden fruits, wild plum trees with bitter sweet fruit plums. Here there was always a wonderful fusion of wonderful aromas. After our first bend things always got complicated.
A build-up of broken branches and debris clogged up the river and stemmed the passage of my boat. Here I had to put into use my “Farmer’s Stick,” which transformed from being a meditation tool to being a navigational one. After I would clear its way, on we would proceed. My boat, my dreams and baggage on board to the next bend about 500 yards ahead, which gave me time to think and view the beauty that surrounded me. Cows lying out in the field, some black and white (Friesian), one of which is my favourite that I bought at Dromcollogher mart while at school for 41 pounds with a big white star on her forehead. Another is a pole Angus that I bought at the same mart for 40 pounds. Then there were the shorthorn cows, lovely mixed brown colours that Mam loved. Dad always had to have a few Kerry cows, a beautiful jet black cow with their very distinctive white horn tips. All the cows in those days wore their horns; they looked beautiful with their crowns on board, but modern regulations rule that cattle must be dehorned except in special situations.
The cows were spread out around the field chewing the cud and were all relaxed. They were used to seeing this child up and down the river. On the left of the river the fields rose high and usually were spatted with sheep: some white, some white with black, and the odd black sheep. You could hear them baaing in the distance in a relaxed mood, calling their little lambs. In later years we had a red white-head bull. Bought at the mart by my dad, he was in his later years but was fine for a small group of cows. He was a pure pet. So slow on the move that I used to sit on his back to get him up the fields. We used to go everywhere together. He had the temperament of my father, kind but firm when it was needed.
The birds were always busy in the trees and bushes and as the river turned its next S bend to the right it divided the trees and bushes into two, giving great shelter to plants and animals. This happened all the way until the river passed into our neighbour’s fields. Nature was wonderful here for about 500 – 600 yards. It was here I’d sit and hide and meditate with my stick and my mind and my animals and birds and bees buzzing away in the distance. I was always nervous of bees because my mum got a very severe sting once upon a time and needed hospitalisation. A Mum missing out of the home was like taking God out of this world. She held the home together like a true leader, always inspiring and encouraging, like every mum does worldwide.
This part of the river was almost most difficult as it was wide and shallow, lots of big branches grew out of the ground and clogged it up collecting any debris that came its way and during the heavy rain the water turned to dark brown, camouflaging my brown cardboard boat finding it difficult to find amongst all the debris. There were times when it broke up altogether here and this was bad news for me and it sent a worrying message: my dreams in tatters and my problems on the other hand solved and broken up and gone off and dealt with. These situations would lead me to believe that problems can be temporary and that some dreams are not meant to be.
On days when my boat sailed through and on their way I got a clearer message – my dreams for today are secure and my problems on their way to the sea and off site. My worries about my broken boats were would my broken dreams come back to worry me at night time and this usually happened. I think I am better at this now but some people who know me well say I overthink life sometimes and that is true, but if you are doing this for nearly six decades it is hard to change. I used to be a huge worrier in my youth and that is why my stick and my river, my boat, my fields, my earth, and my clay were and are so dear to me and I would class them as my friends and tools to get from childhood to here and now.
Just before the river left our fields there was about 100 yards of very fertile ground high on the right and it was here my dad and I would do all the market gardening. All kinds of veg for the house, from cabbages, turnips, carrots, parsnips, huge onions, potatoes, and the big heaps of well rotted and turned farmyard manure drawn here by hand. All this land was hand tilled by my dad and I and it fed us as a family every year and when we had surplus it went out to the neighbours and the waste went to the pigs who were penned in their houses next to the vegetable patch. We had to be very careful with the pigs and always kept the fencing well structured, as one mistake in your fence with the pigs and your garden would be a complete mess. During the day we would let the pigs roam loose in their various paddocks, but they would always be put back in their pens by nightfall.
Often times my boat trips would coincide with locking up the pigs and fowl and bringing the cows in to be milked next to the pig houses were, as well as the hen house, turkey house and the geese house. This house was divided in three and they all had their own importance. I think the gander shaded the dominance over the cock and turkeys. It was always a close call and the cock with the hens could always be counted on to stir things up. All these sounds were beautiful and to this day resonate like a tuning fork in my ear.
I am now nearing the end of my boat trip and I gaze at my boat leaving my field of dreams as it babbles along in the river as it heads off on its voyage. Alone now I nursed it for as long as I could and it has on board my dreams for today and my worries of today and during these days tomorrow as well, but we all now know that tomorrow is always busy worrying about itself and no need for us to worry about it. Live in the now, take one second at a time, let everyone know that you are living in the now and respect their presence as a special gift. Give unconditional love to your nearest and dearest and create an aura of calm and beauty around you and all you encounter and you will help make the world a better and more beautiful place.
Flow river, flow.
Patrick’s book, The Mindful Farmer: Hope in a Time of Crisis can be found here.
Find out more about Patrick on our Contributors’ Page.
(Photo: Natalia Medd/flickr.com/CC-BY SA 2.0)
- The Boat by Patrick Mulcahy - November 24, 2022