Farewell My Steel Guitar

I’ve just sold my steel guitar. My Daddy bought it for me in Glenamaddy, County Galway. I’ve had it for 34 years and it’s only now i realise how much it has meant to me. In my youth when i could connect to little else in life other than god, about whom i was constantly misinformed and the touch of another human being, which i didn’t get a lot of, my guitar became such a friend. I struggled with it most of the time, just as i struggled with myself. But there were times when we soared together, and reminded one another of the love which is our essence, from whom we have come. Many years later I bought a spanish guitar, which i began to favour and play more. Eventually my steel guitar was left untouched on its stand, a nice piece of furniture gathering dust. To lighten my load and keep the energies of life flowing, i felt it was time for it to move on. In my ad i said it was waiting for a nice new home. It found its home in Kildare with someone who i feel will take good care of it.

In the midst of the financial transaction i forgot to wish it farewell. I had forgotten how much it meant to me. I went back to my hovering and suddenly, only an hour after it was gone, it hit me. All the memories came flooding back. I wept. All the emotions. I’m so sorry i didn’t say good bye to you, to say to you how much you have meant to me so, how you were such a friend all those years. How you allowed me to be me. How you were so willing, so open to unconditionally express all my cravings, my tensions, my music, my light. I say it to you now. I am so grateful to you for all you’ve given me, for all the times you allowed my light to shine, so beautifully.

After grieving your departure, i now realise how we both were a mirror for each other. It was one of your sisters i had played and enjoyed in Goodwins music shop, Dublin. Thats the guitar i wanted. But i could not override my fathers wish to use the opportunity to extend his business connections and deal with a music shop in a nearby village. And you came along, you a japanese copy of an american guitar, production of which ceased after the intervention of the courts. Similarly, I too was acquired through my fathers wish to extend his connections with a person in a nearby village and spent my youth copying all that i saw around me, which reluctantly and painfully slowly ceased after the intervention of many many difficult life experiences. Yet despite… no its not despite, its because of the unease in our births and upbringings, we both have learnt and grown a lot together. We have shown through it all that there is, at the core of all, nothing but unconditional love and we have revealed our willingness and openness to share this love with all. I am so grateful for all of it. I was not as aware until now how powerfully the energies of life exist in all things, animate and inanimate.

It is, i feel, very appropriate that you have departed. Your new companion has expressed his liking for you, has chosen you and not a relation. I have new space now to bring new energies into my life, let go of stagnancies and move on to a creative expression that is more truly me, not just a copy of something ive seen someplace or heard from somone.
I wish you well in your new home and send you all my love. Forever friends.