May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
and until we meet again,....
(This Slide show can be viewed in high definition.)
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. and until we meet again,.... I've always loved this old Irish blessing. Those words must strike a cord with the 50% of my DNA that comes from Ireland. Or maybe it's the way the lines so easily describe the emotional sustenance our natural world provides. After experiencing Ireland last year with my husband and daughter, these words took on a new meaning - one that I've tried to capture in the slide show below. (This Slide show can be viewed in high definition.) Written and photographed by Courtney Snyder
Just before sundown on the Atlantic Coast of County Donegal, Ireland. This is from the viewing point at Slieve League - Ireland's second highest sea cliffs. The only way there is a narrow and winding road from which I too this photo. It is called 'One Man's Path.' This post was written by Courtney Snyder. I've come to believe there is part of us that knows exactly what to choose, where to go - a wise compass of sorts. Through our civilizing/educational process, we learn to doubt or even ignore this critical tool. As far back as I can remember, I had taken most direction from the outside. I found comfort in structure, following rules and traveling a straight line. This changed when I found myself at a dead-end. It was 1998. I was in my last year of residency and accompanying my husband on a trip for one of his job interviews. There, before me, was a preview of the rest of my life. I would be the wife of a surgeon - secondary to that, I would be a psychiatrist - living in large suburban house on an affluent street in a Texas town of 50,000. For someone else this may have been a dream-come-true. For me, it was an end - the end of an interesting and unfolding life and the end of my 'self'. I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want. That was the start of listening to myself. Over the next 13 years, my compass took me through a divorce, onto a satisfying psychiatric practice, into lasting love and marriage, to a simpler way of living, to motherhood at 37, to closing my practice to be at home with my daughter and now towards a creative work life. I still don't have it all figured out. I never will. But along the way, I’m learning to trust myself and remember:
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I am an artist, psychiatrist and mother.
I live in Louisville, Kentucky with my husband and daughter. Categories
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