The Round Tower

Round towers are found throughout Ireland, remnants of a time of flourishing monasteries. We visited one from the 12th century and found a poem lurking there:

The ancient round tower holds me inside

Small, circular, and dark quiet cold stones

Lead up to stairs and more rooms on top

In this small closed space I feel like the soul inside a body

And look up to enter the mind, heart and ego.

All quiet on the surface of the mind room

As if behaving itself for the visitor

I hear only ancient breathing, this hidden room hiding all

I get to work cleaning, turn off past mistakes

And face the future wall of stone

There I touch with affection all that might be

Where do I want to put my mind? What do I want to let go?

I climb to the room of the heart and feel the beat of life

That lies here in the land of love and calls our best energy to flow

Stacked brick on brick love is round and keeps

Its greatest expression of itself for Krishna

A return to the very source of all love

And loves best of all pure love

There it stands supreme and beautiful

In this climbing tower of old and weathered stone.

I work to keep the heart room free of sidetracked love

I gather them in a bag by the door.

The floor of the ego sits on top and there I remember who I am

The ego is and always will be

‘Never was there a time that I did not exist, nor you ...’

The self in a body is covered, the false ego convinced of it’s place in the world.

In this safe high room in the still standing tower

The ego finds its true self, original and strong

I belong to another, am a part of, not the main thing

Loved and in love, connected with the source

And elements and ingredients of life. I am a child of God.

In this round tower of ancient prayer and bell ringing, I am called home.