The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
A DIAGNOSIS of Parkinson’s Disease is a life-changing event, and one person who knows this more than most is Robin Simms.
The former social worker from Manchester was diagnosed with the disease 14 years ago. He has since moved to Ma’am Connemara, where he happily lives with his partner, Stella, and two dogs, benefiting from what he believes are the “health-giving” properties of nature.
“About four years ago, they were buying me a wheelchair, now I’m climbing mountains. That for me is the magic of living here; living by nature and being happy and being in love,” he says.
A keen photographer and writer, Robin is currently in the process of putting together a book of his poetry and photographs along with meditations and music.
“I consider Parkinson’s to be a great teacher because since I was diagnosed, I’ve gone on to do lots of different things, as it meant I had to change my way of life. One of the reasons I ended up in Connemara is that I think living close to nature is health-giving. Illness teaches you what you need to learn in life and what you need to do to redress the balance of what’s wrong,” he says.
Robin is particularly influenced by the Celtic spirituality of the late John O’Donohue. “I was very touched by the poems he wrote, the way in which he talks to a lot of people in so many ways. I like the way he can talk very simply to people. I find a very strong echo in his system of beliefs and his passion for living so close to nature. For me, it’s a whole way of life, it’s not just an intellectual concept.”
The strength of John O’Donohue’s message even drew Robin to walk in the late priest-turned-poet’s footsteps by climbing the hills of Connemara.
“Walking, I think, brings you very much in contact with the natural world. I wanted to see what he could see when he went walking from his house. I believe we all leave echoes of our footprints everywhere and Connemara more so than any other place because it is so unspoilt by development. You have to put up with the devil for the weather though,” he smiles.
It was while on one of his walks on Lackadunne that Robin was inspired to write John O’Donohue’s Rock.
“We used to live on the other side of Rosmuc and John O’Donohue was well known there. The postmistress told us where he used to live because he used to pop in the post office quite a lot. I decided one day that I just wanted to have a walk around where he was, to see what he would have seen and to feel the elements as he would have felt. I was walking up there and I came down and stopped by this rock, and it just felt natural to pause there.
“I thought to myself, he must have stood here at times and looked out and wondered, letting his thoughts be touched by the landscape. Or maybe he just had a rest, who knows.”
Robin took a photograph of the rock, which he used when coming up with ideas for the poem. “I take a lot of photographs, it’s one of the great things I love about where I live, turning that beauty into photographs,” he explains.
“I had the photograph and it just occurred to me, John O’Donohue’s Rock. When I’m writing, the ideas just sort of germinate, when a poem comes to me, it just sits in me and then it comes out. Sometimes I can write it straight away and other times, it’s like working on a sculpture and you’re just chiselling away with it until you get just the right tone. This came to me over a few weeks but it actually took five or six drafts before I was happy with the final version,” he explains.
Robin has previously written for a magazine about Parkinson’s. However, he is now branching out with plans for his first book. “It’s at the draft stage at the moment. It’s all about walking in the mountains in Connemara with stories about each mountain as I walk it, along with mediations and music and pieces about how I look at life, and photographs.”
John O’Donohue’s Rock
Half way up the western slope of Lackadunne sits a large boulder.
A small silver stream snakes by its side as it winds its way to the floor of the valley below.
I call this place John O’Donohue’s Rock.
Rock spoke to John O’Donohue. He knew its language, a language common to all rock of the rugged west.
In his native Clare and Connemara, the dialect of stone had been passed from father to son.
He knew the rock as well as he knew the backs of those hands that handled the stone.
At John O’Donohue’s Rock, rests a boulder,
The organic shape of an egg, and large enough to hatch a man.
It fits the landscape perfectly.
It is where it is meant to be.
Like a well-placed punctuation mark, it sits between the rise of the earth and the flow of the water,
A counterpoint of balance in this Elemental Universe.
As I walked up the hill and came upon the rock,
I stopped awhile on my journey to look around and take some time to reflect on this desolate yet beautiful land.
A perfect place to pause,
And I rested my body on John O’Donohue’s Rock.
His home lies in the hamlet below.
The hills still carry the imprint of his footfall.
Up here, in this exposed vastness did he seek his muse?
Did he stop a while in this spot and lean against this stone and feel the whispers of an unseen Universe?
Or simply rest and enjoy the view?
I came to Lackadunne to walk the hills where he had lived and walked; to see the views that framed his universe.
I found a stone halfway up a hill
That whispered these words to me
I am John O’Donohue’s Rock.
