Portals in my life
A portal transports you from one space to another. It is a door, an entrance, it is a physical structure (and according to Merriam-Webster, it is usually large and imposing). In Irish mythology, portals are extremely important. They connect our world to the Other World, the spiritual world.
The closest portal to where I grew up is the fairy tree in the Comeragh Mountains. It is a beautiful elm tree adorned with ribbons, bells, baby shoes and scarves. When you stop the car right next to it, the car starts to go backwards up with hill - pure magic! The Comeragh Mountains as a whole are filled with magic. Coumshingaun Lough (pronounced coomshinawn) is said to be so deep that it reaches the centre of the earth. A deep, wide lake in a valley high above sea level surrounded on all sides by towering mountains…it is a portal. Swim there and be changed.
My mother has moved house recently and a new portal has been unlocked. Dolman’s are also known as ‘portal tombs’. Nobody really knows what they were used for, but one part of their function was as a burial place. My dolman is off a random backroad, near nothing, with no signs to indicate that a structure older than the pyramids of Egypt is nearby. Surrounded by ploughed fields, there is a patch of trees, arranged in a sort of circle, with soft, mossy ground. A Dolman stands majestically in the middle, and a hush falls over the world in this small slice of total calm and peace. This almost-circle of trees, with a clearing in the middle must have existed in some capacity thousands of years ago. Maybe a twenty two year old came here and felt God’s presence in the winter sunlight just as I did. The Dolman has become a pagan oasis for people in the area, where the Catholic Church still has so much (too much) power over people’s daily lives. Inside the Dolman, it is cool and dark, even on a warm and sunny day. Yellow and mint green lichen wallpapers the little room and gemstones, tea lights, horseshoes and orange peels huddle together on the table in the middle. I don’t know much about paganism but wanted to leave something so I left a pen. I hoped the gods would understand the promise I was making.
I like to use portals whenever they are presented to me. I write this article on a train that is trundling through a veritable tundra of snow and icicles…an landscape I’ll never get used to and will always fill me with a sense of wonder. Yesterday I went for a run along a river in the middle of a storm and listened to Mitski. Every time I ran through an old train tunnel, I would emerge brand new. Every time I step on an airplane, I understand I will not be the same person getting off. If I want to step inside a portal, I go to the cinema in the afternoon and emerge when its dark out, full to the brim with a different world, ready to breathe it into my new life.
I love any excuse for a re-birth, a transformation, a portal. But the new year has never felt like a magical portal for me. Not like sea swimming does, not like laughing at a great joke does. Portals have to have three elements:
They have to be spontaneous. You can always be on the look out for possible portals but you aren’t able to create them. I’ve tried but it just feels fake and insincere, like I’m performing for someone. The best portals happen completely by accident. A sudden rainstorm. A few weeks ago, Julie bought a record no-one has ever heard of for five bucks and the very first song is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Driving under a rainbow. A shower in the dark.
They have to be fun. This is why New Year’s Resolutions/Manifestations/Rituals don’t qualify. Portals bring you to a different place, they’re not supposed to make you a better person. Portals won’t make you skinnier, richer, more talented. I see portals as mini holidays, they are supposed to be exciting or relaxing. For me, playing in an empty playground is the ultimate portal. Pure energy, delight, terror, boldness.
The portal will bring you to a new place. This probably means something different for me than for you. I’m sure a lot of people use churches as portals (the old, dark energy and big stained glass windows makes them ideal candidates), others might use their cars (enclosed, private, filled with loud music). For me, bodies of water are my most usual portals. The quiet space behind waterfalls, crossing a river, jumping into the ocean, sailing across the sea. I take portals to be literal things. I like my physical body or surroundings to actually change. This draws me to bridges, tunnels, planes, trains. But sometimes portals can bring you to a different state of mind like yoga, weed, a great therapy session, a long hug. You have to be open to portals and then you will begin to see them all around you.
This article was inspired by
, Gabi Abrao is connected to the spiritual world in a way most of us could only dream to be, and I would encourage you to check out how she sees the world. It’s different to most things.
“I don’t know much about paganism but wanted to leave something so I left a pen. I hoped the gods would understand the promise I was making.”
What a lovely passage!