The Mindful Farmer Daily Diary Day 72

Good afternoon everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Another beautiful fresh morning here this morning and it was beautiful and fresh out the fields earlier. Today I would like to talk to you about “home”. It came to me yesterday after our time together on the Mindfulness challenge that I am so lucky to have a beautiful and happy home. Home doesn’t have to be modern, stately, state of the art, new architect designed building – for many, 4 walls is enough. I remember as a child our home was a very simple home but it was a home full of warmth and love. Today we have many fancy houses but how many qualify as homes? A real home is a place of shelter and love, warmth and I mean spiritual warmth. We always said at home that after a journey “there is no place like home”. I think this is one of the sweetest phrases in any language “níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin. The home is the nest where intimacy and belonging faster identify and individuality. The home can also be considered a continuation of the human body which is our original and primary home on earth as it houses the mind, heart and spirit. To be who we are meant to be we need to be home. When a place to belong is assured the adventure of growth can begin with great promise.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other. Prayers are working – no Covid19 deaths yesterday. Keep the prayers going and thank you for joining me yesterday on the Mindfulness Challenge. Continue to be mindful and we will all meet again tomorrow at 2pm.

God bless you all

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 71

Good morning everyone and welcome to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. A beautiful morning here this May morning and speaking of beauty and a beautiful experience we had yesterday and a very restful and respectful peaceful Sunday. We set up in the mindfulness garden of all places with slides, pools, pergodas, tables and chairs and the sunshine of course and the highlight of the day was the two main characters and actors, Ada Beth and JJ. They played all day and entertained us all day with their unconditional love and playfulness and to me this is a beautiful life. We were witnessing the lineage of our ancestors being acted out right in front of our own eyes in 2020. Each one of these incredible little characters are mirroring the essence of God through our ancestors we must never lose an opportunity to witness and appreciate these moments, for seeing such beauty is Gods handwriting and a special gift to us. It was a special day in a special way and we did in the sunshine what we were created to do – To Be Ourselves.

Looking forward to joining you later on our Mindfulness challenge.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 70

Good morning everyone and welcome once more to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Another wet and windy May morning. As usual we will do our garden tour – on a Sunday morning it is my way of expressing thanks for those beautiful gardens even though the wind and rain have blown away all the lovely blossoms. That’s natures first strike against this week. Nature hit at us again during the night as a group of foxes attacked our young baby deer and killed 3 of them. It is horrible to see even though John and I took turns walking the fields during the night they were too clever for us. This happens every year. We take turns doing 4 hour shifts. It is tough going for the next 4 – 6 weeks. Once more I am taught another lesson about nature. It has beautiful and gentle moments but nature also has incredible power to harm just as we say last night, what can I learn from it? I must learn to recognise that this river and this gentleness and beauty are part of the same nature and we must all learn to face the paradox of our own potential for greatness and destructive power too. But today we must rise up and feel part of nature even with all her tempestuousness and learn to live in harmony with her. It is just like family living, it will always test you.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 69

Good morning everyone and welcome to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. A wild, wet and windy May morning. Very unusual weather here at the foothills of the Galtee mountains, normally it is mild at this time of year. I noticed all the animals in a very joyful mood, dancing and bounding around in a playful manner. They say the animals see and feel good weather before we do and also when bad weather is approaching you see them gather and shelter and retreat into themselves. So I am going to talk to you this morning about “joy”, inspired by my animal friends. Joy is playful with their parents and children. Joy is light hearted like deer calves ballet dancing. Joy is lively like a stream flowing down the side of the mountains, spilling and splashing our rocks and willows but joy is also being one with the moment. Like our retriever Marley, fully stretched out in a patch of sunlight, or to see a bee buzzing busily around the fragrant flowers. The quiet and ultimate joy for me, my family and friends and all you out there is that inner joy radiating out from your heart to indicate all whose acquaintance you meet and greet. So for today I want you to radiate out joy to the world.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 68

Good morning everyone and welcome once more to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Another nice morning here, yesterday was a very busy day. We were on the road delivering to our Neighbour Food friends and a big thank you to my team and to the wonderful and friendly host people. It is a pleasure to work with you all.

Today I would like to talk to you about “lost friends”. As life moves along and stands still for no one, we lose great friends who leave a huge void in our lives. We lose some within the dark weight of the night, many of these friends we journey through life with, we holiday with them, we socialise with them and some we go on a very, very deep journey with deep, deep below time with, in that eternal weave where nothing unravels. It is always very difficult when we lose friends we love from the shelter of our hearts. I always pray during and after meditation for lost friends but I always celebrate the gifts that they have brought to my life. May we learn and grow from the pain of such loss and we wish them peace where spirituality can summon beauty from a wounded space. You may feel at this time that I am very melancholy but deep within my heart and soul I am very much at peace and I hope this is evident to all who know and encounter me.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other and keep smiling.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 67

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens on this beautiful May morning. Today, and around this time for a while, The Mindful Farmer is poignant, reminiscent and a little sad as it is the 10th anniversary of the passing of my Mum, Elizabeth, a great, kind, humble and beautiful woman and a very hard working farming woman, knew nature, the land, livestock, a wonderful pudding and sausage maker and a master cook. I lived by her side you could say for my first 12 years especially in the morning times and then I would go with my Dad in the afternoons. I learned so much from this great woman. On her mortuary card the words inscribed are “ you laboured hard for those you loved and left us to remember”. I got my love for plants and gardening from her also and a section of the gardens at Ballinwillin House Farm is devoted and styled to her dream. I hope and pray Ireland continues to breed pure bred “Irish Mothers” as I remember them totally dedicated to the family cause. It is another question I am asking you out there, is Ireland producing such mothers nowadays? It may be a very controversial  question but one I feel I have to ask. Sure all mothers love their homes and family and children - is it the same? My heart tells me no. It is obvious something has changed the way we would answer this question but is society and its trends and tail wagging the dog for future Ireland. Enough about that now or Mam will be giving out to me and sometime when you are all here on retreat I will tell you of the horrific ordeal I had to endure on Mams passing. I was at the vineyard in Hungary in another lock down, “the ash cloud” and couldn’t get a flight home but it is too long a story and one for later. For today and for all mothers who have passed I want to remember them in our prayers and for my own Mam. I just want to say I remember most of your words and deeds, your soothing leaning voice, you were the first sound before we could see, your nearness always filled the air and still does at Ballinwillin House. You nurtured and fostered us in your space, formed from the depths of your heart, you knew us inside out. We will always remember you.

Today is World Meditation Day so be sure and take time out on your own in peace and meditate for a while. I am really looking forward to next Monday, May 25th when you will be joining me on the 3 day Mindfulness Challenge. We are getting a fantastic response and it is not too late to join us on my Facebook Private Group. So that is it for today. Pray for all Mams. Pray also for an end to Covid 19. continue to bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 66

Good morning everyone once again and welcome to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Another beautiful May morning. As I was leaving my morning meditation my mind angled towards what I would be doing before Covid 19 at this time of the morning. I would be going towards the kitchen to help Miriam organise breakfast for our guests. That’s something I really miss at Ballinwillin House Farm – our wonderful guests every morning and we are really looking forward to having them all back once the new normality returns and it will. So what I would like to speak to you about this morning is hospitality, what we Irish once perfected but then it faded. That is my honest opinion, especially during Celtic Tiger times, OK you might say I am being OTT but am I? How many houses today can you walk into without prior announcement? Question answered I think. The hospitality I am going to talk to you about is what we do here at Ballinwillin House and what I was brought up with in West Limerick. The open house. Hospitality is love, it is openness to the unknown and the unfamiliar, it is being open to the complete stranger and to that what frightens us and to what we may not like. It is being prepared to accept people with different views and perceptions because as we all know, people differ in many ways. We can start all enthusiastic but sometimes it is difficult to remain open when we come up against our own insecurities and that is why the spirit of hospitality needs to be cherished, fostered and cultivated. It is well worth it in the long term because as we well know at Ballinwillin House, hospitality, as well as being challenging, is live giving to many great people. True hospitality reaches the inner depths of people and carries across continents. It can be the love that clothes people on their journey homeward. It surrounds them and will never leave their memory, yearning once more to return.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 65

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Great to speak to you all again on this beautiful May morning. Last evening when I was doing my final farm walk around before retiring I showed you a live video of a mother just after giving birth to a beautiful red deer calf and she was so protective just like any mother out there, just like you. I firmly believe that a child, or offspring of any species had that extra special bond with its mam. As I watched last evening the proud young mother I began to wonder what were her thoughts? Was she delighted with her new born baby, her blossom? Was she pleased that her babies destiny was sheltered at this peaceful evening time? Was she happy of the secret stillness around Ballinwillin House Farm as a nature reserve? Was she pleased with the tranquillity that a May evening brings, beneath the turmoil of the life we are all enduring during Covid 19. Then I think to myself may my eyes never lose sight of what I experienced on this farm and why and how I have been guided to be here and my sincere wish and prayer for you all out there today is that the light of the world we live in shine through and carry us all home, being true in everything er do, think, feel and say. Shine on, smile on.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 64

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Another beautiful morning. Yesterday as we travelled around on our garden tour we saw the first rose of summer, peace, just after blooming. A young rose just after being planted last year in place of an old mammy rose that died the circle of life. So today I think it is fitting that I talk to you about peace. It is often said that one act of peace can effect peace throughout the world, just as an act of violence can touch us all. Because we are what our actions are, while we are making peace we are becoming and being peaceful and when you see the beauty and the fragrance if this beautiful rose and how it softens your heart and leads and heals you into the days and weeks ahead, that is the wish I have for you all into the future. Think peace, think flowers, think plants, think roses and inhale their fragrance and perfume and you too will come up smelling of roses. I will take a different line from Patrick Pearse when he said “the beautiful of this world hath made me sad” and I understand the circumstance it was quoted in. But, for me “the beauty of this world hath made me glad”. Be careful out there today now that rules have changed about movement, stay with the old rules for as long as you can. Don’t forget to sign in for my Mindfulness session next Monday 25th May. In the meantime, continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 63

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. I was out earlier this morning moving deer to new pasture and it was a beautiful scene. Now we will be doing a garden tour as we usually do on our restful Sundays. So for the next few minutes find a comfortable seat and relax and maybe have a nice cup of tea or coffee and we will all go together on this mindful garden tour and admire the beauty of nature. When the tour is over I would like to talk to you about life today in our new world and living in our new world since Corona virus invaded our land. There is no doubt it is a challenge, a risk and an act of trust by everyone in our environment. Most of us grew up learning unconsciously that planning was a part of our future and our life. Be it at home or at school, the more prepared and careful you were the better you performed, and all this was true, but what is also true is that we can live in the here and now and if we live today fully it prepares us for a good tomorrow. It takes great courage to live today fully with all that is going on now and to fully experience today, its love, no regrets for yesterday and not planning too far ahead to tomorrow. To live fully in the now we must trust. It will be enough because we are exactly where we are supposed to be at this time. Living for the now, today can make us vulnerable but there is a prize – it also brings us great peace and serenity. When we surrender tomorrow in order to live for today we are happier and free. Now look at the garden and at this glowing day and beautiful plants and flowers and say and see what clothes could be more beautiful or sacred. Continue to pray, heal and bless each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 62

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Another beautiful day on the farm again. I was out in the fields earlier and we have about 20 baby red deer calves now. They are in full birth time now. It is this time of year I always diary the first calf, the first rose of summer, the first hay cut and so on. It is my nature diary really and my connection with Mother Nature and Mother Earth which runs very deep within my heart and soul and when I wish you good morning and a welcome to Ballinwillin House Farm, it is with a sincerity and meaning that I say so. It is important to notice what is going on around us and it gives us a clear message, when we are not noticing what is around us we are blind to nature. It has no magic for us, we are not fully alive, we are not fully living and very quickly cynicism can replace our sense of surprise. So from today onwards give ear to nature, give eye to nature – it will fill your heart and soul with wonder and excitement. Continue to pray, bless and heal each other and be careful not to lapse into complacency until we win this war against Corona Virus Covid 19.

God bless you all and have a mindful, beautiful day.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 61

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens on this beautiful morning. Yesterday was a very busy day on the farm and delivering orders to the Neighbour Food markets and I would like to say a huge thank you again to everyone that runs the markets because we would be fully closed without you all! I was thinking this morning on my rounds of the farm “what about the traveller who is not travelling now?”. In the past 20 years people were travelling huge distances across the world for business, for pleasure, for holidays, even for weekends away. But now how do we manage? Every time you leave home another road takes you into a world you were never in before. New strangers, new people, new places, but now when we are cocooning at home we might visit old places that know us well. But do we know much about these places that are so near to us? Are we afraid to visit the dark, strange space that is so easy to travel away from? During this time when we are not travelling, take time to discover more of your hidden life and the urgencies that desire to claim you. May you travel inward in an awakened manner. Do not waste any inner invitations that await you and that may transform your life and those around you. May you travel home to yourself refreshed and live your new life to its fullest. Return to yourself rich and free now that you can balance the gifts of days which you can call your own to yourself.

Continue to pray, heal and bless each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 60

Good morning everyone once more and welcome to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. Another beautiful morning here this morning following a very pleasant and fruitful day on the farm yesterday and then of course the celebration of new life with the birth of our first baby deer calf. It fills my heart with joy. I have been waiting for this moment since last year. The excitement of such a beautiful happening, the pure beauty and simplicity of nature, wild nature and its flow with the seasons, these calves are only born with the rhythm of nature. When the weather is warm the grass and growth and shelter are in total symphony so these beauties can blend in to their new home perfectly. Over the years we as farmers can go around in a whirl of frenzy, often trying to do many things at the same time or thinking one thing and doing another. This is no way to live or work. When you consider what nature expands to create such a beautiful creature like this, it is all in the balance of nature. Anything rushed or forced is not real or whole or even worth while. For such beautiful and wonderful happenings and birthings like this we need patience and time in nature. My hope and prayer for the rest of the month or so when more of these beauties are born, may they bring joy to the hearts of all who will visit to see them and their hearts (the visitors). Hear again the music in the last echoes of the neglected wonders of this world. My heart is so full of joy.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

Before I finish this morning and maybe I should finish with this quotation every morning:- “may I have the courage today to live the life that I would love, to postpone my dream no longer but to do at last what I came here for and waste my heart on fear no more”

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 59

Good morning everyone once again and welcome to Balllinwillin House Farm and Gardens on this beautiful morning. Listening to the news last evening gave me the topic for our conversation this morning. Water, this sacred source that we take for granted. As an island people we are surrounded by water. As a green island we get more than our fair share, yet last night they were talking about scarcity again. I always believed we should pay for water to gain its respect. On the farm we have our own organic wells and we are so thankful to God for that. In my childhood days, the well, the river, the ocean, all played a huge roll in my life. I often think about the persistence of the ocean, the courage of the river, always flowing and falling to the mouth of the ocean. I oftentimes believe that the river does what words would love to do. Keeping itself to itself no matter where it flows with rhythm and elegance, soothing until its music becomes audible. When we are blessing today let us bless the humility and supply of water, its innocence as it flows without thought or abandon, water vehicle and idiom of all the inner voyaging that keeps us alive. Blessed be the water. Blessed be our early mother. I have a huge and divine respect for all water and their wildness and beauty and our lifetime. I could talk and dream forever on the subject but for now continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 58

Good morning everyone and welcome to Ballinwillin House Farm. Today is day 58 in The Mindful Farmers daily diary. Day 58 of lock down on the farm. It is another beautiful morning on the farm and in the gardens. Yesterday I found to be a very gratifying and peaceful day with lots of chats with wonderful people and friends who could be classified as one and one within my heart and yours. Today I am going to talk to you about the heart and as you know, as we say in Ireland, “that person has heart” or “that person has great heart”. I believe the human heart is made for praise, thanksgiving and love. This singular command is engraved in our hearts and whether we really understand this or not matters little, whether we agree or disagree makes no difference. But we know deep down our only joy is in living with a full heart. I cannot understand or comprehend any other kind of heart. We all know that the heart is restless until it finds in thee. So dance my heart, your heart, and dance today and every day with joy. Before I finish today I will be commencing a 3 day Mindfulness Challenge which will begin on May 25th. Details will be announced on The Mindful Farmers Facebook page later in the week. Really looking forward to it. Now, continue to pray, bless and heal each other and let your heart soar.

Regards,

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 57

It is a lovely, bright fresh morning here on the farm but it is extremely cold. I always notice from living at the foothills of the beautiful Galtee mountain that around this time in May we always get a cold spell of weather and maybe it is Mother Natures way of reminding us that She is in charge and she will send the summer on her terms. This morning I am going to talk about who we are, the kind of people we are. This conversation was prompted by one of my followers yesterday. In my experience we learn who we really are at a very young age fostered in the home by parents, community and we also learn who we are from the way others acknowledge, accept and appreciate and believe in us. When we are acknowledged and affirmed our confidence grows. When we are accepted in spite of our limitations, we learn to see those limitations in perspective and not to be upset by them but rather rise above them. Our big challenge in life is to love others and respect others and to encourage them into living to their full potential and into growing to their full beauty. So when I say to you everyday to pray, bless and heal each other and be kind to each other you will do so eventually without even noticing. These beautiful practices will save the world.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 56

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Balllinwillin House Farm. As usual on a restful Sunday morning I will take you on the garden tour so relax and settle in for the next few minutes and try and give yourself more time today to be yourself. Today I am going to talk to you about mindfulness and how I began practising mindfulness and meditation as a child and recovering from a very serious and suspected brain injury. Thankfully all went well and I slowly recovered but there was a lot of trauma in that recovery, fear, worry and above all being beaten and bullied in school because I was seen to be different headgear and a helmet for approximately 12 months. How I dealt with it by meditating on the farm by the river under trees and by dreaming and praying and with the help of a very loving mother and father and work on the land and dreaming about the future, my future, as a farmer albeit in an arcutious route. Sometimes when you are very young love might not be enough and without work ethic, skill, knowledge, it can be a hindrance. Sometimes people can be deeply wounded for various reasons by violence, abuse, depression and many other issues and may need professional help. In my situation o was lucky. I relied on prayer, love and dreams. The reason I am explaining my situation is that it may help people out there and sometimes people don’t have the adequate resources or channels and may need professional help to deal with the messages that spring through their minds on a daily basis. My point here is that it is an essential part of caring to be able to recognise when outside help is need. So, be mindful and watchful of people around you who are near and dear to you, friends, aquaintences, be prepared to help people especially in light of the darkness into light situation. When we  meditate we help our mental well being and it leads us into being mindful which is an all day, every day state of mind. So today, I ask for you to search for peace, joy and love and if you are not finding it immediately, pray for it and it will come.  Have a lovely Sunday.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 55

Good morning once again and welcome back to Ballinwillin House Farm. This morning when I talk to you I want you to get as comfortable and relaxed as you can, possibly find a nice quiet place, plant your feet firmly on the ground and close your eyes if you wish to do so. Yesterday I received a lovely message from Cathy regarding my favourite place and the beautiful old yew tree, taxus baccata. If this graceful old tree could talk and tell us what it has seen, if it could only talk! But this tree lives a life just like ourselves, busy everyday growing and striving to stay alive as it is attacked from all sides and all elements. From the moment it falls onto the ground as a seed anywhere, it may live for 1000 years but it must compete every second for water, nutrients, light and space and fend off cold, heat, drought, flooding and a host of parasites and predators of all kinds - the list is endless.I think we have it easy so that is what this old tree is saying firstly is that our life, your life “aint so bad!”

But what I believe is most important is what this tree doesn’t say that is important to me. It is, and all these trees, are my sounding boards. What I mean here is that since I was a young boy my parents instilled in me the importance of confidentially and all through my life I believe if you are told something in confidence it must die with you. It is an inner respect. That is the most important message I feel when I face this tree everyday. But there are many more messages but I wont go into them today. But as I face this beauty now I thank it for supporting me and my family with beautiful oxygen for my lifetime.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 54

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm on day 54. yesterday was a very busy day delivering to the Neighour Food markets and meeting all the fabulous people involved both hosts and suppliers and delivering around to the markets with sustainable organic venison, wild boar and goat meat gives me great pleasure and feeling that we are delivering healthy organic food to people who order our food. It makes a big difference to us and our survival and the survival of our wonderful co-workers. Today I would like to talk to you about the beauty I saw on the roads yesterday. Trees, shrubs, flowers, rivers, animals in the fields. There is even beauty in the weeds if we take time to look closely at them. What we have learned during these 54 days is that we don’t have to do everything. We don’t have to be the fastest or the most efficient. We don’t have to win or even participate in the rat race. What we have a duty to be is ourselves, what we were uniquely created to be. We must learn what our gifts are and we must reach out to everybody with joy and love, blessings and healings. So we must never loose out on an opportunity to admire the beauty on this earth, Mother Earth. This beauty is Gods handwriting “so picture it!”.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other.

Warmest regards

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick

The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 53

Good morning everyone and welcome once again to Ballinwillin House Farm. I must confess that yesterday was the first day that I really felt stressed out and we all know now about the saga with RTÉ and Donegal fake news. Even though I have been practising mindfulness for over 50 years, when you are attacked and the family is attacked and the very core of who you are and what you have achieved with your business, it causes so much stress it could kill and this is not said lightly. At times yesterday my heart was pounding so much I had to go to the meditation garden several times, more than I could count to recover. I thought fake news was so far away it could never affect Ireland and that it was an American phenomenon but alas it is alive and well in Ireland. Now that is enough of that and I am healing and that is what I am going to speak to you about this morning. First I would like to thank all the people, there were hundreds, who called, text and supported us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Your support was huge and heart warming and we feel blessed with healing and support. When you receive a word of support it is like a circle of light drawn around you to protect, strengthen and heal you and you can feel yourself coming out and emerging from the trenches like a constant flow of emergence and the belief that healing is travelling through your body like the breath and following the breath it is peaceful. When we send healing to people we help them go beyond their present frontiers and their problems and a window opens presenting a bright blue sky. I urge you all to rediscover your power to heal. I know yesterday I was that soldier and I thank you all for digging me out of that dark trench.

Continue to pray,  bless and heal each other.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick