Eveanne Kelly
Carer
I think that people come to the city to be more social with their spirituality, because other people are a reflection of themselves, it brings up more challenges in them. When you’re living in a more rural setting its much more introspective, it’s much more within the self, but living in the city brings up much more of your issues and helps you deal with them. Also living in the city is a really good environment for experimenting with your spirituality because there’s so much opportunity to go to different therapies and groups and meet different people who are interested in exploring their spirituality and have different ideas about what that is. I love living in the city. I love healing more and more each day and meeting people who challenge me.
Ise
Musician
For me spirituality is found in being present. In that instant of noticing the beauty. In those fleeting moments during my day when I feel a connection to something deeper. Sometimes it comes easy to me and I find myself in that expansive space and sometimes I actively work at it, like a meditation, only on the move. The easiest way for me to fall into the moment is when I am singing or absorbed in music in some way, I don’t have to make an effort to leave the running commentary behind! But I can’t always be doing that! Our chattering monkey mind can be more easily awed into silence when it’s faced with the wonder of nature. But in the city, you sometimes have to look a bit harder for the beauty and make more of an effort to find a quiet space. In Dublin I find those quiet spaces anywhere from a bus ride to a walk on Killiney beach. And the beauty, well that’s everywhere, from the way we say thank you to the bus driver as we get off the bus, to literally smelling a rose overhanging the pavement from a garden. And not forgetting that beautiful group hug at the end of a Buddha Bag meeting. ;-)
www.isemusic.com
Oisin Byrne
Artist
My experience of Dublin, personally, has been one of connection. I feel a huge connection to the Irish spirit(s), and to Irish spirituality. The richness, the mischievousness, the earthiness, the playfulness, the sparky-ness, the aliveness and the interconnection here in Dublin are brighter and fuller for me than in any other city I have visited. Here I am at home: connected to a web of beings and friends who are diverse and beyond compare. Here I find a spirituality of wild laughter and freedom along with a deep connection to the earth and to nature. Here I jump daily into the icy Irish sea, and emerge fresh and full of fast breath, my body tingling into new being. Here too, I see sparkling networks of people, joining together with common feelings and thoughts: common positivities. These are a powerful and valuable point of power, mixing and melding different traditions of spirituality: mixing and melding the very best of their own spirits to inter-connect and inter-act.
Rory Faithfield
Musician
I’ve lived in Dublin for years but I grew up in Australia. When I was a kid I liked searching for buried treasure but never liked getting my hands dirty, so I became a songwriter. I decided Dublin was the place I needed to be, and synchronistic happenings kept me here. My drug fuelled adolescence in Sydney left me dazed and confused, and connecting with my family story in Ireland (I was named after Rory O’Connor, who was my Grandmother’s Cousin) gave me a new sense of place and purpose. Songs are my gateway to that difficult to define Source, otherwise known as God. I’m not sure who she is but I’m happy she brought me here. I like tea you know.
www.faithfield.com
