Anam Cara

One of the most beautiful stories in the Irish tradition on the theme of the ebb and flow of presence and absence is the story of Midhir and Etain. The fairy prince Midhir fell in love with Etain. His wife, Fuamnach, was furious, and with the help of a Druid changed Etain into a butterfly, and she raised a storm that buffeted the butterfly for seven years up and down the country. One day, a gust of wind blew her into the palace of Aengus the god of love. Even in butterfly form, he recognized her, but he was not able to remove the spell. She did manage to change into a woman from dusk until dawn. He had a garden with the most beautiful flowers, and he put invisible walls around her so that she could enjoy the garden. But Fuamnach found out and sent a storm that buffeted Etain around the country again. Meanwhile, Midhir was not able to bear her absence. He searched every corner of the land for her. One day, she was blown in through the window of the king’s palace. She fell into a goblet of wine that the queen was drinking. After nine months, she was born again as the king’s daughter and again was named Etain. She grew up to be a very beautiful woman, and the High King took her for his wife. Midhir came to the great assembly at Tara and recognized her again, but she did not remember him. Beating the High King at a game of chess, all he asked was that he would receive one kiss from Etain. After meeting Midhir, Etain began to dream of her former life. Little by little, she began to recall all she had forgotten and she pined and fretted for Midhir. On the evening that he was to return for the kiss, Tara was armed against him like a forest of steel. Magically, he appeared in the midst of the banqueting hall and he embraced Etain. The alarm was raised. The king and his army rushed out after them but there was no sign of them in front of the castle. They all looked up to see two white swans encircling the starry sky over the palace.

The structure of this story is fascinating in what it reveals about the longing that lingers so potently at the heart of absence. When they fall in love, they create a unique space with each other, a special echo in each other’s hearts. The intensity of this claim on each other sets the whole direction of the story from this point on. Once she is changed into a butterfly and driven away, Midhir is haunted by her absence. His life becomes one long search for her, who awakened his heart and then vanished. Her metamorphosis as a new child of the king erases her memory of him. But the longing at the heart of the absence he feels ensures that his power of recognition stays alert and patient. He finds her in a totally unexpected place and in the most extreme form of otherness, namely, in the form of a completely different person. Yet he still recognizes her. After the initial encounter, her absent former life begins to return in dream. This becomes an intense and exclusive longing. Transformed finally into swan shape, they are now united as graceful artists of the air; the sweet irony here is that this was precisely the element which had so tortured Etain and ensured her demented absence and separation from her lover. Now air is the element of their escape and unification.

The Longing for Real Presence

The deeper the intimacy and belonging, the more acute the sense of absence will be. It seems that real intimacy brings us in from the bleakness of exile. Intimacy is belonging. We come in from the distance and grow warm at the hearth of the friend’s soul. Now there are places within us that are no longer simply our own. Rather they are inhabited with the taste and colour of the friend’s presence. When the friend departs, the inner house of belonging falls to ruins; this is why absence holds such acute presence and poignancy. True belonging alters and re-creates your identity. When that belonging is fractured or lost, something of our deepest self departs. To open yourself is to risk losing yourself. Emily Dickinson says:

Absence disembodies

so does Death

hiding individuals from the Earth.

Absence hides the one you love. You desire to be with the beloved, to see her, hear her, rest in her presence. But she is hidden from your eyes though not hidden from your heart. Letters and photographs are no longer objects of joy to raise your heart; now they are filled with pathos. You find yourself in places you were together, and your heart is seared with absence.