Happy September, the month of family birthdays.
Hope your Labor Day weekend was warm and sunny! We had a good downpour in Nashville and I didn’t complain because all the trees were wilting. After days and days of three digit temperatures, I’m looking forward to Fall. My Irish lineage craves soft, overcast rainy days. I’ve started a new knitting project and the Bride is taking a pottery class. The Grands are back in school and thriving… the Pumpkin is playing soccer and the Bug has finally grown an inch taller than me! But of course I’m shrinking, so there’s that…
I came across a little known connection between Ireland and our country while reading the BBC News yesterday. Did you know that back in 1847, while the Native American Choctaw people were being “relocated” to a reservation in Oklahoma, their tribal leaders sent a donation to Ireland to help with the Great Famine? They reached out to help others suffering around the world while experiencing their own Trail of Tears, where 15,000 died from disease, starvation and exhaustion.
What caught my eye, and the reason for the newspaper article, was the glorious “Eternal Heart” sculpture recently unveiled in Oklahoma by the Choctaw to symbolize our kindred spirits. And I say “our” because I have always loved Native culture, and wear a silver feather pendant from a Native artist in Arizona like a talisman around my neck.
The Irish and the Choctaws have continued to honour this gesture through continued acts of generosity. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Irish people demonstrated their support by providing €2 million in aid to Native Americans severely affected by the crisis. Similarly, in 2018, former Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar announced a scholarship for Choctaw people to study in Ireland.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3zvq3vz8o
But it’s not just one or two acts of generosity, it’s not just the companion sculpture of feathers in County Cork, Ireland, this connection is an example of the purest form of altruism. It’s the opposite of selfishness. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, altruism is a “willingness to do things that bring advantages to others, even if it results in disadvantage for yourself.”
Could you reach out to another with love and support, while suffering yourself, like the Choktaw? Dr Jim, my psychologist brother, said something to me the other day that stuck – “There are two ways of looking at things depending on your view of the world; they are the abundance vs scarcity model.” I had to sit with his reasoning for awhile. If you can take the balcony view, if you believe in the ‘greater good,’ your world view is that of abundance – you can appreciate the rain instead of fuming about a washed-out barbeque. You pick eggplants in your husband’s vegetable garden and imagine a new recipe for the evening’s meal. You can feel free to be creative, even fanciful.
You can donate money to one of the TN Three even if you know there’s no chance in hell a Democrat will be elected to the US Senate in this state. https://www.votegloriajohnson.com/ But you feel it in your bones that a woman, a smart compassionate woman, will be our next president.
You might even let your granddaughter weave fairy hair into your greying tresses!
MountainMornings 