West Country Pilgrim and travel insurance

Dragonflies flittered around my head.  Willow reeds along the stream rustled and swayed in the growing breeze.  Behind me, a dense wood twittered with

evening sounds.  Birds began to sweep out of the forest, catching lazy insects.  The chestnut blaze kept staring at me, as if trying to commune.  I wished

for a second I had a camera, but quickly relented.  Some moments are too holy to limit with a photograph.  Even writing seems like a transgression.

Was Yeats ever at this enchanted spot?  Possibly.  I knew I could search his biography, unearth the annals of history, and make sure.  But I preferred to

trust that he was there, that he saw the same fairy-tale landscape I did.  I sat there in the cool evening meadow and believed.  And thus, quietly and

without fanfare, I discovered the true intention of a pilgrimage: to inspire faith.  We alone must make our journey holy, not expect the sidhe to rise out

of the earth and sweep us to a promised land.

The next morning, after watching swallows chase each other through the

castle turrets, I traveled north to Yeats grave in Drumcliff.  As I stepped into the silent churchyard, buses of tourists noisily arrived in the car

park.  But I was alone at the quiet grave of my sacred poet for a few precious minutes.  Ben Bulben loomed over me in the morning sun, springing from the

pages of poetry.  I pronounced a prayer-verse: Who Goes With Fergus  And then, before the other hesitant pilgrims entered the cemetery, I left.

Some things are more important than time.