ÁES dÁNA Incubator
mYTHICAL lEADERSHIP FOR Creative Souls
A 7-month Mentorship Programme
Samhain 2023 - Bealtaine 2024
16th October 2023-14th May 2024
For women who desire to bring Irish (Celtic) mythology to life through their art (all forms from visual art to writing and poetry to theatre to filmmaking), healing professions, creative industry—and pioneer a new wave of feminine leadership in the process.
“To say that I was reborn through the portal that is the Áes Dána Incubator, is insufficient. I am being reborn every day, every moment if I desire. I see life now in cycles, in spirals. Since embracing this process of continual change, my life has become infinitely more easeful. Living my life from this place of deep trust has resulted in me magnetizing the success that was always available to me. My life continues to unfold in the most beautiful and mysterious of ways.”
-Kelly Jeanne, Incubator Graduate, USA
The ÁES DÁNA
“Each person enters the world Called.”
This is a quote from James Hillman a pioneer of archetypal psychology. It is based on the belief that each one of us is born with a Calling. Before our soul enters our body and we are birthed into this world, a rare magical gem is buried inside of us that only we can gift to the world in our unparalleled way.
In Western mysticism, the Greeks called the art of bringing our rare magical gem into being, poiesis, the progenitor of the word, ‘poetry’. It means ‘to make’, ‘to bring forth’ that which is within us.
Our forebearers, the ancient Irish had their own expression of poiesis, imbas forosnai, which means ‘knowledge or wisdom that illuminates’. A fire in the head, the location of the Celtic soul, that brought forth a ‘light of foresight’; intuitions, spiritual illumination and prophecy, not only for the seer but in service to the community.
Early Irish society was structured around poiesis. The Áes Dána, the ‘People of Arts’ included the file, the poet-seer; the draí, the druid magic-maker; the brithem, the animist lawmaker. The Goddess was their patroness.
“Brigit the goddess whom the filí used to worship for very great and very splendid was her application to art.”
Take a moment to pause and feel into the prospect that your ancestors valued the people of the arts as essential to the lifeblood of the tuath, the tribe.
This incubator is about you being part of this lifeblood, devoting yourself to your Calling, and becoming the leader we need for these times.
Queen Meave and the Druid by Stephen Reid, 1904
This is for You If…
You are an artist (all forms), writer, poet, healing or holistic practitioner, creatrix or change-maker who is running a small business or creative enterprise, fully or on the side. You are ready to:
Bring the teachings of Irish (Celtic) mythology—your mythical ancestors—to life through your work and contribute to the evolution of Irish/Gaelic culture (this applies to women of Irish heritage across the world!)
Ditch ‘leaning in’ and create your own style of leadership by integrating your feminine and masculine powers.
Let go of your subjugated maiden, and embody the wise woman archetype—to become the Great Mother; the Sovereignty Goddess of your life.
Take your business out of your body and form an energetic partnership with it.
Tend to your economic witch wound and develop a healthier relationship with money.
Trust in the feminine mystery, in the void, in the Otherworld of infinite possibilities that brew for you as a feminine leader, but have not yet come into form.
Become a good ancestor, a custodian of our collective future.
This is NOT for you if…
You are looking for a business strategist. I will not advise you on the strategy or marketing of your business.
This is for the woman who desires to create a deeper partnership with her body, the feminine mystery through her Celtic roots, and her leadership capacity—as fuel for her creative life to flourish.
The Áes Dána Incubator is about your legacy.
I believe…
+Our creative businesses are a prototype for the world we desire to live in. Our creations can forge our vision for this world.
+We are not our businesses and our businesses are not us. Our businesses have their own energetic source and paths of becoming. They are separate to us.
+Celtic mythology is undervalued as is the arts, as is feminine leadership. Mythology must evolve for the times we are in but we need bodies to metabolise these teachings and bring them to life in a diversity of ways. There is no one way to do mythology and no one way to art, to do leadership, to do life.
+When we integrate our Sovereignty Goddess—our mature feminine, with our King—our mature masculine; we birth a new paradigm in leadership that generates plentifulness for our lives and for our communities.
+Our gifts of intuition, cyclic regeneration, and the art of the feminine mystery, are our most potent assets as feminine leaders.
+There is nothing more threatening to patriarchy than a coven of trailblazing feminine leaders.
“As entrepreneurs, we have the opportunity to agitate the current social, political, and economic order by experimenting with new business models that honor our values, our humanity, and the earth. As we bring feminine and feminist principles into our business practices, we give birth to a new economic paradigm.”
— Jennifer Armbrust, Proposals for the Feminine Economy
A King Gone Mad
Once upon a time, our ancestors taught a cosmology where masculine and feminine expressions—that are available to us no matter what gender identity we hold—were seen as necessary for a kingdom to thrive.
The King (masculine) would symbolically marry the Sovereignty Goddess (feminine) in a ritual called the banais ríghe, enacting a sacred contract between masculine and feminine powers. Between the tuath—the tribe or kingdom, and nature.
The leadership society needed.
But our King lost his way. Made mad with power. Reigning as patriarchy with poisonous rules that vilified the feminine. Rules that we are conditioned to perceive as ‘natural’.
That every day, asks us to betray our Sovereignty Goddess within.
The Mad King TELLS US…
+ Successful women leaders should ‘lean-in’ to masculine structures of power at the expense of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
+There is one ‘right’ way of knowing that is at the mercy of intellectualism and rationalisation. That disenchants us.
+Masculine expressions are superior. We must value mind over body; people over nature; doing over being; logic over intuition; linear growth over cyclic wisdom.
+The cost of being a feminine leader is so great, don’t even bother. (The most effective lie of patriarchy to maintain the status quo)
+The feminine mystery where the void, the unknown resides, is dangerous. We must exert control over our creative businesses and our lives at all times.
+We have to trade our power and compete against one another as women, to feel economically safe.
…And fundamentally, that the feminine is ‘unprofessional’
ÁES dáNA Rising
But there is another way, the way of the Áes Dána.
“Our past we have always with us. Our past we must always re-realize. And to do this we need people who can live in our cultural Dreamtime, people who go walkabout, creatively, within the old myths, people who go walkabout into the unknown.”
-John Moriarty, Dreamtime
Last year, during a feminine embodiment coaching session, I had a vision of the Dark Goddess. In her pelvic bowl, was a womb, a sacred incubator, in the form of a cave.
I saw a procession of women with flaming torches enter this cave where they began rubbing the walls. Their rubs revealed cave writing—messages specific to their businesses and lives that I could not see.
This is what my work is about. I don’t have the answers—YOU do. Because only you can embody the unique expression of the feminine leader you were born to be.
It’s not my job to give you the answers you already hold within you, it’s my job to guide you into the cave.
And what a privilege that is.
mEET jEN
I’m Jen from Ireland, Creatrix of Celtic Embodiment, a cutting-edge modality that fuses the ancient wisdom of Celtic Mythology with the emerging field of Feminine Embodiment Coaching to transform modern life for women, for you.
I am an award-winning Feminine Embodiment Coach, Celtic Mythologist, and Anthropologist, who loves to dabble in innovation. I’m also mother to two wondrous wildling sons.
Before life as a woman business owner, I worked in global justice and human rights for 14 years as a leader in global citizenship education and innovation across +400 staff in 20 countries.
I ‘leaned in’ to toxic masculinity, and I burned out. Over and over again.
And so, from the outset of life as an entrepreneur, I have been intentional in how I run my business as a prototype for the world I desire to live in.
Congruence is one of my core values. I have invested in multiple mentorships in feminist business, which if I’m honest, felt like the erotic edge for me but paid off in the most astounding of ways. And now, infused with my own unique expression and lived experiences, I can pass this wisdom on to my clients, and you can do the same for those you inspire and serve.
So together, we can weave a new tapestry for feminine leadership.
The ÁES dÁNA Speak
“Jen’s diverse life experiences, academic and research grounding, along with her experience as an embodiment coach gives the Incubator course an authenticity, depth, breadth and flexibility that is rare. As a visual artist with decades of experience, my immersion in working with Jen was life-enhancing and empowering. It opened portals to clarity, commitment and a renewed passion for my vocation as an artist. I was able to explore the question of leadership as an artist in the contemporary world with provocative curiosity. This course held space as I challenged so many of the murky, patriarchal and destructive paradigms rampant in the "art world". Developing an awareness of the crucial importance of embodiment practice woven into studio art practice is a gift of grounding for my work as an artist. It carries a sense of sovereignty that can not be fragmented, dismissed or compromised. This, for me, was the insight to the power of intuitive courage.”
-Irene,Incubator Graduate, USA
“Jen is a magical human being and such an amazing guide for these times. I have done all of her programmes, including the Áes Dána Incubator, and each one has changed my life in both subtle and very noticeable ways. So many of us with Irish/Celtic ancestry are scattered around the world and I personally felt very disconnected from my lineage. Being able to reconnect with my lineage, both through going deeper into my own ancestry and by connecting to my mythical ancestry has made me feel so much more rooted not only to the land that they came from, but also to the land that I am born from and living in. The stories and connections have the ability to heal parts of you that you didn't even realise needed healing, and connect you back to our shared humanity. For someone who walks between this world and the Otherworld, this has created so much more safety for me to feel more free and open to co-creating with the Otherworld, and watching how beautifully Jen does this is very inspiring. I also love that everything comes from the lens of embodiment. For someone who lived disembodied for almost 20 years from various traumas, I have found that every space that Jen holds has given me the safety to slowly come back into my body. So many spiritual teachers are taking people out of their bodies, and really coming back home to the wisdom of my body, and being able to feel my sensitivity has been life-changing. The added bonus is that every person that Jen attracts is also really magical and the sisterhood that has been formed with the women I have met through the Incubator and her other programmes has also healed deep sister wounds. Thank you Jen, I will be forever grateful for the vital role you have played in my journey. To any magical person considering joining I can say, follow your heart if it is saying yes, as your life will not be the same again.”
-Beth,Incubator Graduate, South Africa
“This program was so profound, so magical, months later I am still struggling to put words to it. The best way I can express the impact of this incubator is to say I am simply living it. I am embodying the Sovereignty Goddess in all aspects of my life. As tarot whiz Regina de Búrca, whom you will meet if you join the program, said to me in a powerful reading near the beginning of the journey, “Success is coming to you. There is no doubt about that. Your task right now is to become the person who is capable of receiving that success.”
What allowed me to follow the call toward the Áes Dána Incubator and ultimately relax into this experience was undoubtedly my love and respect for Jen Murphy and the Celtic School of Embodiment. Jen is thoughtful, present and committed to her students. She holds a solid masculine container through which the dynamic powers of the feminine can emerge. She is role modeling this integration of masculine and feminine every step of the way without it needing to be explicit. You think this is a feminine leadership program—and it is—but what that really means is that it teaches you how to be in union, in harmony, with the sacred feminine and masculine within yourself, and then how to be that in the world.
Deciding to work with Jen was one of the best choices I ever made. I’m not saying that lightly. In the past two years of our work together, I have revolutionized my relationship to myself and to the divine. Forget about Jen’s impeccable knowledge of Celtic mythology and the history of her country and people, Jen’s living example of feminine spirituality and leadership has been enough to guide me toward my own divinity and calling as a spiritual teacher. As a deeply feminine being, having access to those examples of feminine leaders and archetypes, both human and mythological, has been like coming home.”
-Kelly Jeanne,Incubator Graduate,USA
tHE cURRICULUM
The Áes Dána Incubator is a 7-month intensive 1-1 and group mentoring programme for an intimate coven of artists, writers, poets, healing and holistic practitioners, creatrixes and change-makers.
It is an online container so accessible wherever you call home.
I have devised a pioneering curriculum that you will metabolise through your body, to magnetise your own flavour of Áes Dána Leadership. This is my second iteration of this programme, which has been called “a work of art” by past participants.
There are six core modules underpinned by deep dives into body, lineage and leadership.
“When women work on reclaiming the lost part of themselves, they're also working on reclaiming the lost soul of the culture as well.”
— Maureen Murdock, The Heroine’s Journey
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Patriarchy’s wounded maiden can wreak havoc on your confidence as a leader. It’s time to embody the mature feminine—the wise woman archetype of the Great Mother.
Module themes include: The Rule of the Father; In Search of the Great Mother; The Destruction of the Great Mother; Irish Mother Goddesses; Collapsing Timelines with Maiden, Mother and Crone.
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Lean into feminine leadership, lean out of toxic masculinity. Integrate your masculine and feminine powers to become a new paradigm leader.
Module themes include: Who is the Sovereignty Goddess?; The Sacred Union; Irish Sovereignty Goddesses & Kings; Sovereignty Goddess Leadership Polarity Profile; Map Your Leadership Cycle.
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Your business is a separate entity to you. You are not your business and your business is not you. Learn to thrive with the co-creative ‘spirit’ of your business.
Module themes include: What is the Celtic Otherworld?; Meet the Spirit of Your Business; A Goddess Calls; Reciprocity with the Otherworld; Self-Devotion Contract; Spiral To-Do List
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The witch-hunting of women’s bodies, our feminine powers, and economic freedom; and the growth of capitalism as an ideology are inextricably linked. This ‘witch wound’ must be healed to claim and redistribute the wealth women are so worthy of.
Module themes include: Capitalism and the Myth of Meritocracy; The Witch-hunts & Women’s Wealth; Dispelling Money Myths; Proposals for the Feminine Economy; Values for Embodied Leadership
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We are obsessed with control. With the need to know. The need to anticipate every possible eventuality. The feminine mystery exists in the UN-known, in the void, the quantum field—a site of infinite possibilities for your desires, which you can bring to form through the art of magnetism.
Module themes include: Three Cauldrons of Calling; The Dark Goddess; Leading in the Dark; Embodied Boundaries; Permission to be Magic.
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The greatest tragedy of patriarchy is that women are conditioned to compete against one another to feel safe. And so, there is nothing more threatening to patriarchy than a coven of feminine leaders trailblazing new ways of leading our lives and communities.
The focus of this module is on supporting your integration process from all of the previous teachings and co-creating your next steps as a pioneering community of feminine leaders.
Guest Áes Dána
‘Art is Medicine’
with Dee Mulrooney
Dee Mulrooney is an Irish artist, performer and activist living and working in Berlin. Raised working-class in a small nation dominated by Catholicism and men, she now lives as a teacher, a mother, and an artist discovering the joy of playing with taboos and visions of female identity that would until all to recently have seen her locked away.
Birthing Bridget by Dee Mulrooney
Dee’s projects span visual art, film, storytelling and theatre. Her influences are a long list—basically any woman who ever did a damned thing worth doing. Dee will be facilitating an alchemical space to simmer in ‘art’ whatever this may be for you, as medicine.
“My art has become a home of sorts, a shelter, a place where I can truly express all the facets of my experience as a human, a woman walking this earth at this crucial time in our existence. Art is my medicine.”
Website: Dee Mulrooney
Instagram: @deemulrooney
‘The Artist’s Keen’
With Sarah Richardson
Sarah Richardson is a midwife, wisdom keeper and author of the book, WOMAN, who is dedicated to evolving the Bean Ghlúine, the traditional midwife customs of Ireland for our times. She is also a Bean Chaointe (Keening Woman), one of the powerful women on this land who is reviving the sacred art of the keen in her own otherworldly expression.
Sarah's passion is blending the worlds of medical and mystical together in divine union. Her work navigates the liminal space between birth and death, spirit and human, to guide women through rites of passage. She will be wayshowing our coven through a sacred keening ceremony to let go of any grief our inner-artist is holding so we can become more alive to our creative power.
Website: Sarah Richardson
Instagram: @sarahrichardson.ie
‘The Creideamh Sí (Fairy Faith) & the Rider Waite Tarot’
With Regina de Búrca
Regina de Búrca is a writer, editor, and Tarot reader. She was raised in a bookshop in County Mayo, where her fascination with the Irish language and mythology began. She was 17 when Stuart Kaplan of US Games gifted her a deck of Tarot cards and has been studying the Tarot since then. Regina is a Creativity Coach with an M.A. in Writing for Young People.
In 2021, Regina produced the first Irish language version of the Rider Waite Tarot deck. In this magical workshop, we will simmer in the fairy lore that inspired the production of the 1909 Rider Waite Tarot deck and how the belief in the Otherworld held by members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Pamela Colman Smith, A.E. Waite and W.B. Yeats influenced its creation.
Website: Irish Rider Waite Tarot
Instagram: @rdeburca
HOW IT WORKS
You will bring this curriculum to life through the core programme components:
1-1 COACHING INITIATION:
Private Áes Dána Leadership session
At the beginning of this journey, you will have a private 90-minute Áes Dána Leadership mentoring session with me, Jen. In this potent 1-1, we will craft embodied goals for our six months together so you feel anchored in this experience and clarity on what you so deeply desire from it.
MONTHLY LIVES:
We will meet weekly as a group with four live anchors per module each month:
1 x Leadership Masterclass
I will host a masterclass on each module so this combined with your course materials will ensure the theme becomes a living, breathing, actualised part of your leadership expression.
1 x Spotlight Session
In this session, you will receive professional mentorship from me to unravel tension you may be holding around a challenge in your leadership, business or life so you can get clarity and calibrate towards your desires. You will also benefit from the collective sagacity of this coven. We learn through resonance—group coaching is an immensely transformative container for women.
1 x Celtic Alchemy Lab
Get ready to create what has never existed before. This is an alchemical space to wonder, innovate and collaborate on how to bring mythical teachings to life in your creative work.
1 x Voice Connection Week
At the end of each month, I will open a group messaging platform so we can connect through voice messages across time zones for a number of working days. Here, you will receive mentorship from me, and relish in motivating and inspiring one another in real time.
Guest Áes Dána
As above, you will receive live workshops from three of Ireland’s most inspiring modern Áes Dána: Dee Mulrooney, Sarah Richardson, and Regina de Búrca.
1-1 COACHING THROUGHOUT:
Private Áes Dána Rising session
At our midway point, you will have a 90-minute 1-1 mentoring session with me where we will do an in-depth embodied analysis of your journey so far, and crystallise your path for the subsequent three-months.
Private Áes Dána Embodied session
At the end of the programme, we will have a 90-minute 1-1 celebration of you as an Áes Dána Leader embodied, so you feel wildly confident embarking on life beyond this container.
COURSE MATERIALS:
Curated Portal
You will have a private group portal where 24/7, you can access course materials, ask questions, and share reflections. I love design so you will receive a gorgeous suite of curriculum materials. And more importantly, I adore depth so rest assured, my teachings will nourish the bones of you.
You will have private access to this portal for one year.
Áes Dána Leadership NETWORK:
Certification & Celebration
This experience is about trailblazing the evolution of Irish (Celtic) mythology and feminine leadership. You are a feminine leader who has the agency and intuitive know-how to transform your life, the lives of those you serve, your communities, and our world.
In acknowledgement of this, you will receive a certificate of completion, along with an Áes Dána leader branded logo for your website.
You will also have the opportunity to join the Tír na mBan Leadership Network.
We will host a celebration online for you to observe, honour, and commemorate your journey and that of your Áes Dána Sisters.
Other supports:
Time Zone Flexibility
80% of my clients are outside of Ireland so depending on where individual women are located, I will ensure there are two time options available for the Spotlight Sessions as you won’t want to miss these live. These sessions will also be recorded as will the Leadership Masterclass and Celtic Alchemy Lab. Sessions will take place either morning or afternoon Irish Time.
Dedicated Support
I am committed to your journey, so you can always contact me outside of our 1-1s, group sessions, portal, and voice messaging, by email during working days.
expect an elixir of:
Celtic Mythology, lore and lineage rooted in the Irish tradition
Feminine Embodiment Coaching
Explorations with your body using feminine embodiment tools, somatic practices, and cyclic wisdom
Imaginal journeying and dreamwork
Magic and ritual
Processes for Innovation
Toolkits and frameworks that you can apply directly to your leadership, and use with your own clients if you desire
The medicine of an intimate coven of feminine leaders
In Summary…
… the core components of this programme are:
7-months of incubation
A comprehensive and transformational curriculum that will become part of your lifelong legacy
Bi-monthly alchemising 1-1 Celtic Embodiment coaching sessions with Jen
18 activating group intensives
6 weeks of group voice message mentorship
3 Guest Áes Dána workshops
The inevitable cycle of death and rebirth; of crumbling and uplevelling that comes with a dynamic container like this
A sisterhood of paradigm-shifters to commune, collaborate and celebrate with—your anam cairde, your ‘soul friends’
Certificate of completion, branded logo for your website, the opportunity to join the Tír na mBan Leadership Network
NEXT STEPS
16th October 2023-14th May 2024
Samhain-Bealtaine
This is an intimate leadership coven where you will receive intensive 1-1 and group support.
This programme is full. If however, it is calling you, you can sign up below to be added to the waitlist for the next iteration in 2024.
Partial Scholarship- NOW CLOSED.
I believe all women should have the opportunity to explore their mythical heritage, which is why I offer a variety of courses and ways to engage with this work.
For the Áes Dána Incubator, I have a partial scholarship (50% reduction in fees with payment plan options) available which you are invited to apply for if you sincerely require financial assistance to participate in this programme. Women from BIPOC and marginalised communities who have Irish heritage in Ireland or anywhere in the world, or who are from indigenous, minority, or new communities in Ireland are highly encouraged to apply. Closing date for applications is Monday, 31st July 2o23.
“Our job is not to comprehend or control everything, but to learn which story we are in and which of the many things calling out in the world is calling to us. Our job is to be fully alive in the life we have, to pick up the invisible thread of our own story and follow where it leads. Our job is to find the thread of our own dream and live it all the way to the end.”
― Michael Meade, Why the World Doesn't End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss
FAQS
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You, if you identify as a woman and are an artist, writer, poet, filmmaker… (all arts), healing or holistic practitioner, creatrix or change-maker, who is running a small business or creative enterprise, fully or on the side.
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80% of the women I work with are beyond Irish shores. Many women are of mixed heritage or ethnicity with ancestors from Ireland and the wider ‘Celtic Isles’. All that is needed is a desire to get intimate with your mythical lineage.
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This is a full-bodied hybrid of 1-1 and group mentoring where you will receive dedicated support from me. I am intentional in the women who will join this incubator to ensure you will have the opportunity to flourish.
Expect to dedicate c.12-15 hours per month to this process.
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Many of my clients live beyond Irish shores in different time zones. In the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and other European countries. Depending on where individual women are located, I will ensure there are two time options available for the Spotlight Sessions as you won’t want to miss these live. These sessions will also be recorded as will the Leadership Masterclass and the Celtic Alchemy Lab. Sessions will take place either morning or afternoon Irish Time.
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You can discover more here. I am a certified Feminine Embodiment Coach with a degree in Medieval Irish & Celtic Studies, and Anthropology. I hold a postgrad. and masters in the Anthropology of Development, which applies a critical lens to systems of oppression like capitalism. And a third-level qualification in Creativity and Innovation. I am trained in a number of holistic modalities.
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Please reach out to support@celticembodiment.com