A Porch in County Mayo: Reflections on Nature, Capitalism, and Coming Home

“The ache we try to fill with more can only be healed by coming home to ourselves, to each other, and to the living world that holds us.” - Mary Coughlin

Good morning from the Oak Tree House in County Mayo, Ireland.

I’m sitting on a small porch made of mossy oaken branches, sipping herbal tea that was gifted to me by Maeve at Attuned in Practice. Around me is a symphony of quiet sounds: birdsong, the gentle babble of a nearby stream, and the occasional cry of gulls drifting in from what I imagine must be Clew Bay.

The view before me is nothing short of spectacular.

A light blue sky stretches wide above the land, dotted with only a few wispy clouds. Below it, the earth is blanketed in lush greens and rusty browns—colors layered like a textured quilt spread gently across the landscape.

Everything here feels calm. Peaceful. Mutual.

The sun has already risen for the day, but just now she is cresting the small hill to the east of this little treehouse. The hill encircles us like a quiet guardian. Soon the sunlight will spill over its edge and warm this porch where I sit.

The Wi-Fi and cell service here are basically nonexistent, which, truth be told, feels like a blessing in disguise.

Today and tomorrow I plan to draw before we leave to return home.

Sitting here, I find myself thinking about the world beyond this quiet hillside.

I find myself thinking about how we humans have lost our way. How capitalism, in many ways, has become a scourge on our humanity—quietly appealing to and seducing our lesser nature. It pulls us into endless striving and accumulation, whispering that if we just buy a little more, achieve a little more, check off a few more boxes, we will finally feel whole.

But the checklist becomes the taskmaster. And so we buy things we don’t need to fill an ache in the soul that can never be satisfied that way.

That ache, I suspect, can only be healed by coming home.

Home to ourselves.
Home to each other.
Home to Mother Nature.

I remember during the early days of COVID when the world suddenly slowed. Streets emptied. Planes disappeared from the skies. The relentless machinery of our systems paused, if only briefly.

And something remarkable happened. Nature began to return. Even in my little urban neighborhood, life began to appear in ways I had not noticed before. I remember biking along the Neponset Trail one crisp morning when I encountered a deer standing quietly along the path.

We stopped and looked at one another.

I remember feeling astonished, mesmerized even, by her presence. There was a kind of mutual respect in that encounter, perhaps even reverence.

For a moment, it felt like the world remembered something ancient.

I long for those moments now.

Here in Ireland, I feel echoes of that remembering.

There are pockets of hustle and bustle for sure, in the villages and towns alive with conversation and commerce, but much of this country feels anchored in something older and steadier.

Expansive landscapes. Stone walls. Fields and sky and water. A quiet respect for the land.

It makes me wonder: Where do we go from here?

We are living in a time when greed and power seem to dominate so many of our systems—when we appear willing to sacrifice life itself, human and planetary, chasing a promise that dissolves the closer we come to it.

Sometimes I find myself wondering where such a path ultimately leads. Even the specter of global war looms quietly in the background of our collective imagination. And yet the truth is this: if humanity were to destroy itself in such a conflict, the earth would endure. Nature would adapt. Life would continue in ways we may never witness.

It is only mankind that would disappear.

For a long time, these realities have angered and frightened me. But here, sitting on this tiny porch in this tiny treehouse overlooking a most majestic landscape, those troubles feel very far away. At least for this moment. Soon I will fly back home and step again into the pace and pressure of the world we have built.

But for now, I sit.

Listening.
Watching.
Breathing.

And I offer a quiet prayer.

Mother Nature, please help me.
Restore me.
Maybe even bless me.

So that when I return home, I can rise again and do the good work, helping us remember a more loving and shared way of being.

• A way that brings us back to one another.

• A way that brings us back to the land.

• A way back to our best selves.

And perhaps it begins just like this—on a small porch in County Mayo, listening to birdsong and the quiet rush of a stream, remembering that we belong to this living world.

Closing Reflection

Perhaps this is the invitation nature extends to us again and again.

To pause long enough to remember that we belong here. To listen closely enough to hear what truly sustains life. And to return to our work and to one another with a little more humility, tenderness, and care.

If the world feels heavy right now, perhaps the first step is not to fix everything at once, but simply to come home again to the land, to our shared humanity, and to the quiet wisdom that has always been waiting for us there.

Take care and care well,
Mary