Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

by John O'Donohue

Overview

"A soaring, eloquent meditation on the art of living . . . a treasury for readers of all faiths . . . his book itself is a profound, healing prayer." —Publishers Weekly
There is a divine restlessness in the human heart, our eternal echo of longing that lives deep within us and never lets us settle for what we have or where we are. In this exquisitely crafted and inspirational book, John O'Donohue, author of the bestseller Anam Cara, explores the most basic of human desires—the desire to belong, a desire that constantly draws us toward new possibilities of self-discovery, friendship, and creativity.
In these pages, you will encounter a wealth of provocative and comforting thoughts . . .

• Discovery Is the Nature of the Soul
• Home as the Cradle of Destiny
• Innocence Keeps Mystery Playful
• Functionalism Kills Presence
• The Addiction of Distraction
• The Cage of Frightened Identity
• The Haunted Room in the Mind
• The Shelter of Continuity
• Our Secret Kinship with the Darkness
• Suffering's Slow Teachings
• Prayers: A Clearance in the Thicket of Thought
• Absence and Presence Are Sisters
• Brittle Language Numbs Longing

"[O'Donohue's books] fairly plead with humankind to escape our contemporary dehumanizing traps and, in so doing, return to a spiritual heritage that includes intimacy, poetry, connectedness and compassion." —Boulder Planet

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061853272
Publisher:	HarperCollins e-books
Publication date:	06/11/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	306
File size:	899 KB

About the Author

John O'Donohue (1956-2008) was a poet, philosopher, and scholar and a native Gaelic speaker from County Clare, Ireland. He was awarded a PhD in Philosophical Theology from the University of Tübingen, with post-doctoral study of Meister Eckhart. John's numerous international bestselling books include Anam Cara, Beauty, Eternal Echoes, and the beloved To Bless the Space Between Us (published as Benedictus in Europe), among many others, guiding readers through the landscape of the Irish imagination. 

Read an Excerpt

Awakening in the World:The Threshold of Belonging

The Belonging of the Earth

In the beginning was the dream. In the eternal night whereno dawn broke, the dream deepened. Before anything everwas, it had to be dreamed. Everything had its beginning inpossibility. Every single thing is somehow the expressionand incarnation of a thought. If a thing had never beenthought, it could never be. If we take Nature as the greatartist of longing then all presences in the world haveemerged from her mind and imagination. We are children ofthe earth's dreaming. When you compare the silent, under-night of Nature with the detached and intimate intensity ofthe person, it is almost as if Nature is in dream and we areher children who have broken through the dawn into timeand place. Fashioned in the dreaming of the clay, we arealways somehow haunted by that; we are unable ever finallyto decide what is dream and what is reality. Each day we livein what we call reality. Yet the more we think about it, themore life seems to resemble a dream. We rush through ourdays in such stress and intensity, as if we were here to stayand the serious project of the world depended on us. Weworry and grow anxious; we magnify trivia until theybecome important enough to control our lives. Yet all the time, we have forgotten that we are but temporary sojourners on the surface of a strange planet spinning slowly in the infinite night of the cosmos. There is no protective zone around any of us. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. There is no definitive dividing line between reality and dream. What we consider real is often precariously dream like. One of the linguistic philosophers said that thereis n evidence that could be employed to disprove this claim: Th world only came into existence ten minutes ago complete with all our memories. Any evidence you could proffer could still be accounted for by the claim. Because our grip on reality is tenuous, every heart is infused with the dream o belonging.

Belonging: The Wisdom of Rhythm

To be human is to belong. Belonging is a circle that embrace everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature. The word "belonging" holds together the two fundamental aspects o life: Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing. Belonging is deep; only in a superficial sense does it refer to our external attachment to people places, and things. It is the living and passionate presence o the soul. Belonging is the heart and warmth of intimacy when we deny it, we grow cold and empty. Our life's journey is the task of refining our belonging so that it may become more true, loving, good, and free. We do not have to force belonging. The longing within us always draws u towards belonging and again towards new forms of belonging when we have outgrown the old ones. Postmodern culture tends to define identity in terms of ownership: possessions, status, and qualities. Yet the crucial essence of who you are is not owned by you. The most intimate belonging is SelfBelonging. Yet your self is not something you could ever own; it is rather the total gift that every moment of your life endeavors to receive with honor. True belonging is gracious receptivity. This is the appropriate art of belonging in friendship: friends do not belong to each other, but rather with each other. This with reaches to the very depths of their twinned souls.

True belonging is not ownership; it never grasps or holds on from fear or greed. Belonging knows its own shape and direction. True belonging comes from within. It strives for a harmony between the outer forms of belonging and the inner music of the soul. We seem to have forgotten the true depth and spiritual nature of intimate belonging. Our minds are oversaturated and demented. We need to rediscover ascetical tranquillity and come home to the temple of our senses. This would anchor our longing and help us to feel the world from within. When we allow dislocation to control us, we become outsiders, exiled from the intimacy of true unity with ourselves, each other, and creation. Our bodies know that they belong; it is our minds that make our lives so homeless. Guided by longing, belonging is the wisdom of rhythm. When we are in rhythm with our own nature, things flow and balance naturally. Every fragment does not have to be relocated, reordered; things cohere and fit according to their deeper impulse and instinct. Our modern hunger to belong is particularly intense. An increasing majority of people feel no belonging. We have fallen out of rhythm with life. The art of belonging is the recovery of the wisdom of rhythm.

Like fields, mountains, and animals we know we belong here on earth. However, unlike them, the quality and passion of our longing make us restlessly aware that we cannot belong to the earth. The longing in the human soul makes it impossible for us ever to fully belong to any place, system,or project. We are involved passionately in the world, yet there is nothing here that can claim us completely. When we forget how partial and temporary our belonging must remain, we put ourselves in the way of danger and disappointment. We compromise something eternal within us. The sacred duty of being an individual is to gradually learn how to live so as to awaken the eternal within oneself. Our ways of belonging in the world should never be restricted to or fixated on one kind of belonging that remains stagnant. If you listen to the voices of your own longing, they will constantly call you to new styles of belonging which are energetic and mirror the complexity of your life as you deepen and intensify your presence on earth.

Reading Group Guide

Plot Summary
A pioneering work of Celtic wisdom, John O'Donohue's Eternal Echoes embarks upon a journey in discovering the heart of our postmodern world -- a hungry, lonesome world that suffers from a sense of isolation and fragmentation. There is a divine restlessness in the human heart, our eternal echo of longing that lives deep within us and never lets us settle for what we have or where we are. Now, in this exquisitely crafted, inspirational book, John O'Donohue explores that most basic of human desires -- the desire to belong. It is a desire that constantly draws us toward new possibilities of self-discovery, friendship, and creativity.

From this luminous, richly-textured book we can gain insight into our troubled times, drawing inspiration from Ireland's enduring spiritual heritage of Celtic thought and imagination. It is a heritage of profound, mystical wisdom that will open the pathways to peace and contentment, and lead us to love with creativity, honor, and compassion in the one life that has been given to us.

Questions for Discussion

Why is there such a crisis of belonging in our times? What are the characteristics of our fragmented and broken belonging? What are the voices of longing in your heart at this time in your life? Where do you think you were before you came here? What is the true relationship of longing and belonging? In your childhood, how did longing and belonging relate? In what ways do you actually belong in the world?

Human presence is unique, passionate and complex: discuss. What styles of presence do you have? How are you present to people who are angry, indifferent or threatening? Where is your anger? Is there anyascetic dimension to your life? Freedom also consists in keeping the contours of your choices porous: discuss. How do you incarnate longing?

What is false belonging? Why are you afraid of freedom? The images others make for us are never sufficient: discuss. How are guilt and shame related? Where is the haunted room in your mind? Where are the walls of your private prisons? Can you identify in your life the gifts brought to you by the angels of attraction and inspiration?

Suffering and evil are the most critical evidence against our belief in a good, kind God: discuss. Can there be growth and creativity without darkness? Why are we so vulnerable? Is spontaneity disappearing from our lives? Does suffering eventually give way to transformation? How important is failure in your life? No wound is ever silent: discuss.

What is your understanding of prayer? When and how do you pray? How does prayer help us to see things differently? How is wonder related to prayer? Why is wonder so vital to the world of spirituality? How does prayer change our experience of space and time? Write out your own prayer to suit the rhythm of your life and the shape of your soul.

What are the absences in your life? How does presence differ from absence? When do you experience real presence? When we talk too easily about ourselves, we cheapen our mystery: discuss. How does the role of participant and observer balance in your life? Discuss a philosophy of loss. What pathways toward new community lie hidden around us? What is the grief in your life? Who are the people you never hear from? What traditions do you really belong to? How can you reclaim the traditions that belong to you?