The Seven Streams

Be a provenance of something gathered

The Seven Streams

Come down drenched, at the end of May,
with the cold rain so far into your bones
that nothing will warm you except your
own walking, and let the sun come out
at day’s end near Slievenaglusha
with the rainbows doubling over Mulloch Mor
and see your clothes steaming in the bright air.

Be a provenance of something gathered,
a summation of previous intuitions,
let your vulnerabilities walking 
on the cracked sliding limestone
be this time, not a weakness, but a faculty
for understanding what’s about to happen.

Stand above the Seven Streams
letting the deep-down current surface 
around you, then branch and branch
as they do, back into the mountain
and as if you were able for that flow,
say the few necessary words
and walk on, broader and cleansed
for having imagined.

Photo: Jared Martineau

The Seven Streams are a geographical and mythological anomaly in a remote part of the Burren mountains of North Clare; an ancient, difficult to find place of sanctity and healing. The water is pure, as is the air.

The water appears from beneath a limestone escarpment, creates a clear, wide pool, then meanders through a short, shallow valley before disappearing, like our own lives, to appear again, seemingly defying the laws of physics by reappearing as seven separate flows beneath the cliff below. It is always a place that points to what is essential, what must be uncovered, and what must be let alone, to go its own way.

—from David Whyte: Essentials