With all the wisdom attributed to the Owl, I could well believe that would extend to foreknowledge of death, but perhaps my culture had seized on only that and the superstitions about owls had obscured the rest of the story.

We embrace life, not death. No Dukkerer will ever tell anyone they are going to die, even if it is written all over the cards.“That’s the one prediction even an idiot can make,” my gypsy mentor used to say with a laugh. “The secret of dukkering is to tell people they are going to live.”
So it was with mixed feelings that I climbed out of the boat and onto the shore.The initiation was beautiful – I can still smell the honey and I still see the eyes of the Priestess – wide, wise eyes that shone like silver in the moonlight.

I followed the path that led to the owl, feeling at peace. She was bigger than any owl I have ever seen, snowy white, with eyes that seemed to reflect everything around them. I saw myself reflected in her eyes, and realised I was right. With her great wisdom, she knew everything about me – but there was nothing to fear.`

`What do I need to know as I continue this journey?” I asked.

The great silver eyes never blinked. I saw myself as in a mirror, rising stronger from the storms and fires of life, stumbling and falling but never staying down, always somehow finding the strength to start again.

“What you have always known,” the Great Owl said. “That the only force stronger than you is love. It gives you your strength. The harder life becomes, the greater love grows. It is a rose that blooms in the desert, a fire that burns without fuel, the only thing you need to sustain you on your journey.”

I thanked the Great Owl with all humility, and I felt my strength returning. When love is the center of my life, the decisions are easy.

I reached into my pocket and found a rose quartz crystal, which I had picked upon my travels.
I laid this down and walked quietly back through the labyrinth, following the priestesses.
But it was another wise woman I remembered as I took my leave of the island. Mother Theresa’s words echoed in my mind – “there are no great deeds. Only small deeds done with great love.”

Outside the inn, we climb off our camels with varying degrees of skill – Le Enchanteur dismounts with dignity and strides toward the Inn door as is she had ridden in a golden carriage all the way from Pilgrim’s Well.

My legs feel permanently welded into a wishbone shape – now I understand why they call the camel `the ship of the desert’ – not only does it feel like you are swaying along over a sea of sand in the crow’s nest of a tall ship, you have considerable trouble regaining your land legs once you get off again.

But Layla has been very sweet and well behaved through the whole trip and I am happy to give her a loving pat before she is led away for a well deserved rest.

The Inn is a white two storey building with date palms peeking over the roof. We all follow Le Enchanteur through the white door with its vivid blue motifs, into a deliciously cool dining room. The Inn is simple, but not rustic – ceiling fans sweep overhead, and the far wall is lined with arched doorways leading out into a shaded courtyard.

A few curious faces watch our party as we are led to our tables – I see many races here, and hear many languages spoken, from lilting musical French to silvery chiming Chinese.
Our table is spread with clean white Egyptian cotton and we make ourselves thankfully comfortable in the rattan chairs. I look around me at the fascinating faces and notice I am not the only one of our party of pilgrims that has surreptitiously taken out my sketchpad.

Breakfast was a delicious spread of fresh fruits, goat cheese and flat bread. My legs are coming back to life and I look forward to exploring the Inn after I have been shown to my room. This proves to be small but airy place just off the balcony on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard. It holds a simple wooden bed covered with a white chenille bedspread and mosquito net, with a washstand and cupboard. I rinse out my travel clothes and hang them over the end of the bed – they will dry quickly in this heat. Then, in fresh white tunic and pants, I make my way down to the courtyard.

It is a perfect square, surrounded on all sides by the Inn. An arched gateway leads out to the camel stables where I can see Layla being groomed. In the centre of the courtyard is a marble fountain filled with sparkling water. I sit on a bench and get out my sketchpad, enjoying the scenes around me.

I see many of the people from the dining room and fall to wondering about them as I try to think up a story for Le Enchanteur. Nearby I see a tall, striking looking man in a white suit, speaking in a soft Edinburgh burr. His companions are hanging on every word – I can tell he is a great story teller, so I edge closer. His tale captures me and I make a few notes – there is so much happening here, so much to look at and here. Nearby a group of children are playing jacks by the fountain, while their mothers gossip over tiny cups of strong, bitter coffee.

I have to work on my story for Le Enchanteur so I go to the writing room for a while. It is cool in here, with the ceiling fans slowing whirring overhead. I sit at one of the writing desks and write for a while, pausing every now and then to greet a fellow pilgrim.

After Lunch le Enchanteur holds court in the drawing room. Like the rest of the Inn this is very simply furnished with rattan chairs and ceiling fans, and she looks divine in a crisp white blouse and travelling skirt. She has already gathered a coterie of admiring men, among them my Scottish storyteller, who introduces himself as Dr Phineas MacFadden. I ask him if I can use his wonderful train story and he graciously consents, because it is for Madame Le Enchanteur, with whom he is plainly smitten.

Tonight, we all dress for dinner – I didn’t bring anything formal, but I did buy a selection of gauzy scarves and bangles from the market at Pilgrim’s Well, which gave my simple outfit some flair. We are to gather in the drawing room later with Le Enchanteur and entertain her with stories. I wonder how Dr MacFadden will react to the sight of Madame in her Scheherezade outfit. It may be hard for him to retain his customary composure.

Dinner is a pleasant surprise – I had been filled with notions of having to confront strange comestibles like sheep’s eyes and goat’s bladders, but I actually enjoyed a simple but flavourful dish of lamb stew and lentils and not an eyeball in sight (if you’ll pardon the pun.) The wine served is dark red, rich and mysterious with the faintest hint of rose petals.

Tomorrow I will go out and explore the town, and take my sketch pad with me. Who knows what I will find out there.

It has been a busy day at Pilgrim’s Well – the village people, expecting us, laid out a colourful market in the quiet streets. I bought dates and nuts for the journey, and a leather water bottle which I filled at the well itself, waiting in line behind the other travellers and the local women, who gave us curious, but friendly glances from their veiled dark eyes.

In my roomy leather bag I have packed my journal, and my sketching pencils. I have brought my watercolour pencils, although I understand water is precious here. But the colours are so vivid, the very air so alive with movement, that I cannot leave them behind.

I remember what my father told me, that it gets cold at night in these parts and I have a thick cloak to wrap over my loose cotton shirt and pants. My bag holds a change of clothes – rolled up tight so as not to take up much room. I have bought my old wooden recorder with me – not as sweet a sound as the flute, I think, but I rarely get a chance to play it in the world I am leaving behind.

My heart is beating fast with the excitement of a new adventure. I remember the last time I threw in my lot with the Enchantress, and the wonder of the journeys I took. But this one is, if anything, closer to my heart. A true journey of the heart, for I go in hallowed lands that I have long dreamt of, ever since my father woke my imagination and my longing with his tales of travels here.

As dusk falls we gather at the well, and find our camels. I confess I was nervous – the few camels I have known have been bad tempered beasts, but a smiling young boy leads me to a camel the colour of the soft brown earth, with eyes as beautiful as the women here. He tells me her name is Layla, which means radiant. He shows me how to command Layla to sit with her legs tucked in underneath her so I can climb onto her back. I almost fell off when she stood up again, but hung on tightly. Suddenly we were in motion, following the others into the darkness – Layla was taller than any horse I had ever ridden and I felt like a queen.

The deep saddle was comfortable enough, although my legs were stretched out over Layla’s broad back. As night fell I was glad of my cloak. The air had a distinct chill, but the sky above was breathtaking. We don’t realise how much light pollution blocks the stars from our view, but in places where there is none, there are literally billions of bright stars above, and you can see their colours like jewels scattered across the sky. The depth and breadth of the Milky Way is lost to those who live in cities. But we travellers saw it in all its splendour, a brilliant silver river mirroring our own Silk Road below.

I felt my spirits surge – I was on the edge of the world, looking out into an infinity of stars and constellations. It is the most beautiful and awe inspiring sight I have ever seen.

I must have slept, because the next time I looked, the sun was rising – a deep rosy golden glow that seemed to spread across the horizon. We heard a shout from the front of the caravan and word spread back from camel to camel that we were approaching the first caravanserai. The land rose into walls around us, weathered rock etched with the hand of a craftsman, and the air was cool as we rode into the valley. We all craned our necks for a first glimpse of the place we would call home for three days.

My soul hand came complete with homework notes to keep me on track

The quotes are by:
Words are a lens to focus one’s mind. – Ayn Rand
Beauty is in the heart of the beholder. – Al Bernstein
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. – Pablo Picasso

Even when you know it is going to happen, moving house is a chaotic business, but it is worth it – our new home is on a hill overlooking the river and the countryside around our village. We are in the `French quarter’ where all the streets have French names, and it is incredibly peaceful and pretty, the air is so clear you can taste it like fresh spring water and on most days, no matter how hot, we get a breeze.

I have started work on the garden – it has been somewhat neglected but the `bones’ are good. But the business of packing and unpacking and running back and forth between the old residence and the new has been exhausting, and every time I get home the piles of unpacked possessions reproach me.

So I have slipped away to the peace of White Owl Island, with a long cool drink and my hammock overlooking the bay where seals play. I have a small feathery white companion – a beautiful white owl called Yenna, who has befriended me and has been telling me stories of the silkies – she assures me that these are no ordinary seals, but the silkies that leave their skins behind on moonlit nights and dance on the sands.

I grew up with these legends in Ireland, but never was fortunate enough to see the silkies out of their seal skins. Yenna tells me that if I stay here tonight, I will see them, because there is a full moon in Pisces.

“That’s a celebration time for them,” Yenna hoots softly. “Pisces is the sign of the sea, ruled by Neptune, and tonight there will be music and wild dancing on the sands.”

I roll over in my hammock, and sip my cold drink. I know I have so much to do at home – but Yenna’s invitation to stay and watch the silkies with her is irresistable.

Will I really see them at last, those mysterious creatures that filled my childhood dreams? As if in answer to my question, there comes a strange music born on the breeze, a sweet but melancholy piping…

“The piper comes already,” Yenna whispered. “He is calling all the silkies to dance on the shore.”

My mind made up, I lie back in my hammock and breathe a contented sigh.

MIDNIGHT MUSIC

Music murmurs at midnight,
A medley round the moon.
Making madness for a moment,
The morrow comes too soon.

A million makeshift moments
Make a life, a madman’s rune,
As mysterious as the moon,
The mad and merry music of the moon.

I’ll put the billy on. You’re welcome to a cuppa.

This is what I saw as darkness fell on White Owl Island.

At night, the gurgling of the stream,
Which gave us so much,
Would sing me to sleep.

THE DOOKERER
(THE FORTUNE TELLER)

“Do you want to know the future, lady?”

She has ten gold teeth and five gold rings,
Her tent is dark and cool inside.
From behind the beaded curtain
Comes her wheedling voice and
Gold encrusted claw. Beckoning

“Do you want to hear your fortune, master?”

Her father was a seventh son. When he died,
Embraced in flame and hoarded riches,
She tore her silken scarves and wailed.
Then searched the ground for golden coins
Scattered from her broken bracelets.

“Do you want to learn the dookerin, child?”

Hidden in her musty tent I hear
This one and her burning for a man,
That one and his hunger for a quid.
“Pity the fools, their beds are cold,
Their purses slim. See lovers, wealth,
Sudden windfalls – telling fortunes
Is only telling them what they want to hear.”

My mother and me outside our caravan, Ireland 1949

OLD TRAVELER WOMEN

Through songs and stories, the Traveler People of Ireland keep their heritage alive.

Old traveler woman,
Where are your kin?
Where is your wagon,
And what do you sing
As you hang out the washing
On a backyard line,
With a fence all around you
And more houses behind.

My aunt sent me a photo. She sits in the garden of her retirement home, at ease in a deck chair, but her eyes are looking far away. I wonder if she is thinking of the old days, when her husband was still alive, and they lived in a leaky wagon. She was always on at him to fix that leak. When the weather was fine, she told him it was a good time to do it.
“Sure, woman, the sun is shining. There’s no need to fix it.”
When it rained, she shoved a bucket under the leak and berated him.
“Sure, woman, it’s raining, I can’t get up on the roof in this weather.”
Her complaints wore him down, but instead of fixing the leak, he bought a new wagon. He gave the old one to my father to store canvas.
“To be sure,” he said as he walked away, “you’ll have to fix that leak in the roof before it rains.”

When you were a chavvie
You never wore shoes,
You never read schoolbooks
Or watched the day’s news.
The world rattled past you
Like a runaway tram,
But you took no notice
In your old caravan.

I was born a traveler, or as the Irish say, `born on the straw’. As a chavvie (child), my life was a series of campgrounds and crossroads. I never attended a school, but the whole of Ireland was my classroom.
My mother was one of the Settled People until she married my father, and she taught me to read and write. None of the other travelers saw the point in that. Stories and information were saved in the head, and passed on round the campfire.
Did they ever tell a story about me? I wondered. Like the time I was running down the road and cut my foot on a piece of broken glass. I left a trail of blood all the way back to the campground, where the traveler women washed my foot in a bucket of water and poured vinegar over the wound to `kill the gerrems (germs).’ Then the women held the edges of the wound together and smeared honey on it before bandaging it with a strip of linen. I hobbled about for a bit, but it healed perfectly without stitches.
My father demanded to know what I had done with the boots he had bought for me. I didn’t tell him I had hidden them under a hedge. I couldn’t wear shoes at all. I still prefer to go barefoot.

You were a young dona,
and a mother and wife,
Thinking you’d be a traveler
For the rest of your life.
But the fences, old woman,
Were closing you in -
You’ve a house and a yard now,
Like the rest of your kin.

My mother recalls her first glimpse of the traveler’s campground after she married my father. Raised in a village, she married my father against her own mother’s wishes. Coming into the traveling life as an adult was a shock, she admitted. Women had to do without the refinements and comforts of the Settled Life. She did the laundry with a tin washtub and a rubbing board.
Then there was the strangeness of the Irish culture – my mother was English, and here she was, surrounded by people who believed in fairies and ghosts.
One night she gathered in the washing from the makeshift line and was walking back to the wagon draped in white sheets when she heard an unearthly shriek. A man was running away from the campground as fast as his legs could carry him.
My aunt looked out of the door of her wagon.
“Oh, Maire, it’s you,” she said. “You gave me a turn. I thought you were a ghost.”
So did the fleeing farmworker, who had popped down to see if anyone wanted milk.

Old traveler woman,
I know what you sing,
You sing of the old days,
On the road with your kin.
You peg out your washing
And dream of the day,
When you leave this fine prison,
And go traveling away.

My aunt’s picture was sent to Australia, where I now live. I have traveled far from Ireland. Like her, as I look out on a suburban backyard, I dream of the old days. And though I can read and write, I keep the stories and songs in my head, and pass them round by the fire’s glow.