Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Joyfulness)

I read into the air of the public space of the rosary, with no one to hear. 

I speak about what everyone knows, but does not know, in these spaces of the Irish Catholic maternal. Secretive stories performed in public, remaining unspoken.

How do we reorientate through shared air and filmic breath?

My body returns to its movement around the mysteries of the rosary behind the fake grotto of Lourdes in Dublin. If you can’t go to Lourdes, it will be brought to you. Each stay in Dublin, my feet trace the city towards the site of the rosary. Towards the Church of Mary Immaculate. The Irish Lourdes. My feet remember. My body pulls me there each day, from different parts of the city. I pass the bells of Christ Church Cathedral at the same time each day. The sound pulls me to take in the large sign Dublinia. My passage takes me through and beyond IMMA, set in the grounds of a former hospital. Here I often pause.

Pause.

Remember to breathe.

Pass the former stable buildings.

Pass the hospital Burial Ground.

Through the West Gateway.

I ask you to close your eyes again and listen to the filmic breaths from my repeated visits to this place. The filmic breath mirrors our breaths.

Pause.

Listen with your body.

Remember to breathe.

Listen to the air.

Listen to our breath.

I record myself speaking aloud the words of Theresa at sites of the rosary.

I record my mother reading the words of Theresa as we sit together at the dining room table.

I record my myself reading the words of Theresa as we sit together at the dining room table.

You smile.

A shared air holds over the dining room table. I smile. 

Your touch remains. 

The repetition is the same but different.

The air feels cold on my skin.

I cross the car park, which holds the life-size Lourdes grotto at its side. 

My movement is circular, moving around the entirety of the rosary way in Dublin, on each visit.

My voice held in the air. At moments lost.

Joyfulness

Sorrowful

Glorious

Luminous 

Listen to the air.

Annunciation

Visitation

Birth

A lady speaks into her mobile as she runs around the rosary way for the fifth time with her husky dog. Her words breathy as she passes me each time. I catch words in the air. “Oh god love him.”

Presentation

Finding

Children laugh in the distance. I remember a time when a whole P.E class where here from a local school. Bodies moving in quick succession around the rosary. 

Baptism 

A man tells a joke as he pauses in his prayers to the rosary. I smile.

Cana

Kingdom

These are the affective terrains of my maternal.

*******

Remember to breathe.

We move with the air of the Rosary Way again.

Transfiguration

Eucharist

Agony

My body feels sore from being locked in position to film in repetition for 15 second intervals at each stone part of the rosary. My body responds to the materiality of each of the twenty sculptures, each with its own porcelain ceramic panels portraying the mysteries of the Rosary in base-relief, by ceramicist, Helena Brennan. The artist was commissioned by the Oblates, over the years 2001 to 2004 and part funded by a grant from Dublin City Council. The Oblates Church of Mary Immaculate, which hides the Rosary Way, streaming a constant live video as part of church services TV.  Each sculpture has its own height and presence. Each visit, I film for an extended period of time, at each sculpture, repetitions of 15 seconds as the air determines. The act of filming feeling secretive, yet in public. 

Sourcing

Ladybirds cluster together against the wind on one of the base-reliefs. 

Crowning

Cross

The Rosary Way is enclosed by houses, different voices weave in and out of the air, once audible, then lost to the biting wind. I long to come back in the summer. My body insists on my movement onwards and around. My nose is frozen.

Walls abutt the rosary way. I am seen, but not seen. Heard, but not heard.

Resurrection

Ascension

The space is thick with stories and life. A chorus of bird songs fill the air. 

Spirit 

Assumption

Coronation 

I watch two men greet each other with joy in the car park, which I return to. They stay and talk to each other as I pause and sit on a bench. I have not yet left, but my body already longs to return. To visit again. 

Each filmic body responds to each mystery of the rosary and affect of the maternal.

The letter that is never delivered 

This is the within but not yet, ‘feminine-to-come’ I seek in the shared air of Irigaray.

This is our relation between mother and daughter, transgenerational, through the intimacy of another. Through your letter, Theresa. Our relation in London, holds your mother and your relation.’