Anam Cara

BALANCE

“Most of us are moving through such an undergrowth of excess that we cannot sense the shape of ourselves anymore.”

Between 1998 and 2010, the Céifin Institute (largely under the driving force of Fr. Harry Bohan) held a series of annual conferences in Ennis, Co. Clare. They took a hard look at “our society in the new millennium,” beginning with the prescient question “Are we forgetting something?” (I.e., in the midst of an economic boom, what has happened to our values?) These were stimulating and challenging events, addressed by high-powered speakers from home and abroad. For me as a broadcaster they were the source of many lively contributions to “The Open Mind,” in either interview or extract form. The theme for 1999 was “Working Towards Balance” and John O’Donohue was a guest speaker who undertook his own exploration of “Balance.” As an introduction to his talk, John read his poem “Thought-Work,” in which the working of the mind is compared to the work of the architect-crows he observed building their nests in the Burren.