Friends, depending on where you live, you might be well acquainted with the other world.

Here in Ireland, pretty much everyone knows it or has heard of it.

It's the place where fairies, the she, elemental beings, live and share with us.

It's a layer we live with.

It's always among us, but it's not present in the

visible, apparent way that we're used to. It is a literal expression of the dimension where these

different beings live in different but overlaid landscapes. So I just want to make that clear.

There's a real recognition of the

existence of this layer of reality here in Ireland, especially rural Ireland, and plenty of

other places in the world. The beings there, the substance, the constitutive forces there, will they make up the world we live in?

And whether there's the recognition, as I said, of it being real or of it being metaphorical

or maybe something in between, the notion is that it expresses power that can remake and even change the course

of the world.

Maybe it'll just intrude every once in a while in a scary, annoying, or fantastical way.

Our proximity to that other world and its forces and powers and substance, which is always near,

always present, gives us access to a kind of strength. Here's how novelist Arandati-Roy

talks about an other world in a political sense. She writes, another world is not only possible. She is on her way. Maybe many of us

won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear

her breathing. Now, the concept of the other world is a world that is not only on the way,

but is already here.

It's always here. We don't need to wait. We only need to discover, rediscover, and create a pathway in.

That said, most of us only go looking for it out of urgent necessity. When we find ourselves in a world that

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