The Call.
"A call comes from within to wake up to explore new and unknown territories." (John O'Donohue)
We hear it when something ancient stirs inside us — a memory, a knowing.
Sometimes it’s the land itself that calls, offering healing.
Sometimes it’s the spirit of someone we are meant to meet — or a nature spirit whispering to our bones.
If I could, I would trace every thread of my DNA.
I already know some of the story: ancestors from Delft and Maastricht who crossed the seas to the Cape of Storms, weaving Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, and Boer blood into me.
I never knew an Ouma, Oma, or Grandma — but I know that somewhere along my mother’s line, Irish blood sings. My grandmother was born a Barwise. I never knew her name, but the whisper of Ireland was already deep in my bones.
And maybe, just maybe, Ireland had already begun calling me — long before I ever set foot on her shores.
It dawned on me only today: the call didn’t begin with a plane ticket or a map, or even when losing children to another country, or my best friend to the afterlife.
It began quietly, years ago, when I was gifted a book — Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World by John O’Donohue.
I didn’t realize it then, but those words - they seduced my soul. They planted a longing I couldn't name.
"May you listen to your longing to be free. May the frames of your belonging be generous enough for your dreams. May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in your heart. May you find a harmony between your soul and your life. May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted. May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time. May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within. May you never place walls between the light and yourself. May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging."
Those blessings wrapped themselves around me like invisible green tendrils — waiting.
Ireland didn’t wait for me to come find her. She found me.
She made space for my brokenness, for the scattered pieces of my soul.
She didn’t just heal me — she awakened me.
She sang to the barefoot girl from Cape Agulhas, to the purple-haired wonder-soaked woman I was always meant to be.
Ireland’s magic seeped into me — through misted windows, turf fires, sacred stones and wells, through the laughter of her people and the lilt of her hills.
Every morning, I opened the back door, breathing in the cold air, the scent of thyme and lavender, and the wet earth that halted my dream of a herb garden — and rooted something far deeper instead: belonging.
People asked me, "Why Ireland?"
I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.
I only know that some places are written into our bones long before we understand the language.
That some homes find you first.
I will always belong to two soul-places: Cape Agulhas and Ireland.
Two wild lands, two fierce loves.
One heart that now carries both.