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The Green Road and the Lower and Upper LakesKevin, like all Irish saints, had a strong streak of eremiticism and asceticism. He eventually left the community he had founded to live a short distance away as a hermit. He was close enough to come to the community's aid when needed, but far enough away to enjoy the solitude and to deeply immerse himself in prayer.
To take a longer virtual walk along this beautiful path, click here for a quicktime slide show video.
Kevin eventually went further down the Green Road to his hermitage at the Upper Lake, and according to his biographers, took the monster along with him when he moved. This interesting story must be read, like all medieval works, on not only a literal level, but also a metaphorical, allegorical, and tropological level. This is a story of a man who carefully examined his inner self, found the monsters lurking within the blackness, and then came to know them so much so that he carried them with him and kept them close to him wherever he went. The monsters that are unseen can do much more damage than those that are known and understood.
If you would like to get a better idea of the cell in its surroundings, click here for a quicktime slide show video. This side of the upper lake remains dark for six months out of every year. Symbolically, then, St. Kevin lived in his own darkness here. The monastic way is, at its heart, a journey of self-discovery, of coming to know the dark areas that keep us from ourselves and so keep us from God. The word "cell," means "church," and throughout Ireland, places with this word in it refer to churches. In this cell, St. Kevin often prayed with his arms outstretched in the form of the cross. This is a very painful was to pray, which the Irish ascetics learned to do for hours on end. During one such fervent period of prayer, St. Kevin had his arms outstretched when a blackbird perched on his hand and laid an egg. According to legend, St. Kevin remained in that position unmoved until the egg hatched, so as not to disturb nor damage the baby chick within the egg. On a literal level, it is difficult to believe this story, yet on a metaphorical level, the story is an allegory about stability,a story about perseverance in times of difficulty. It is a story about nourishing carefully and tenderly those fragile things in our lives that might break at any moment, but with love will bring forth new life.
To explore a later Celtic hermitage, visit my virtual tour of St. Finbarr's Hermitage in Gougane Barra. If you are interested in the eremitical life, you might also want to visit my virtual tour of the hermitage of Robert of Knaresborough, a twelfth-century English hermit.
Continue to the next page: Virtual Tour of Glendalough: St. Kevin's Desert Return to the Index of Celtic Monasticism
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Let's leave the monastic
city behind for the solitude of the Upper Lake, as Kevin did so many
years before us. 
Once outside the gates
of the monastic city, we walk the Green Road with St. Kevin. The Green
Road of asceticism was the path of many Irish monks; through fasting,
one's life may become as fertile and green as the foliage along this
road, and one may come closer to perfection. 
The path here is lush
and green, and dotted with waterfalls and steams.
The Green Road takes
us to the lower lake, where it is said that Kevin battled a monster.
Here he often stood for hours praying with his arms outstretched in
the form of a cross. 
St. Kevin had a hermitage
here on the beautiful upper lake. 
Here are remains of his
beehive cell. 
On the other side of
the upper lake, one can also find St. Kevin's bed, a tiny chamber no
more than three feet wide in which Kevin frequently slept. 
St. Kevin';s bed is not
the large hole here, but the smaller one to the left. His biographers
tell the story of an amorous woman who pursued him here, and Kevin knocked
her away to her death twenty feet below. This story is disturbing, and
clearly has misogynist elements. Yet, on an allegorical level, it is
the story of a man who has finally learned to shun all those things
which are tempting but only superficially beautiful, and finally come
under his own control. The upper lake is very lush with foliage which
almost reaches out to embrace you. Click here to see the 