Imbas Dispatches #2: The druid who took my eye

On Hindsight, Dreams & Synchronicities

A Chairde, Friends,

I was cleaning up my website, going through old blogs when I came across a blog that I had named after a line in Irish poet, Paula Meehan’s poem, Well: “I know this path by magic not by sight”. The blog was written in the sticky tar of a dark night of the soul in early 2023. When I re-read it a year later, I could feel the swell of goosebumps chase across my back. I sifted through my dream journal recalling a “big” dream I had around this time, which as I discovered was a few weeks after the blog. I had never made the connection. The dream, in turn, was followed by a bewitching synchronicity five months later.

As I, future Jen, look back on this writing from past Jen, I am grateful that she stayed in the dark because it gifted her an otherworldly eye.

Let me recap the whole story… The blog, the dream, the synchronicity.

Art by Ulla Thynell

The Blog: 2nd March 2023, I know this path by magic not by sight

I write this from the space between. For a time I have been in the unknown. I feel like I don’t know who I am losing—what parts of me are crumbling—nor do I know who I am yet becoming.

A silver mist descended and lulled me into a slumber and when I awoke I was in the labyrinth. In a gnarling dark forest with its illusory shadows. I have yet to reach the centre, which in itself is only half the journey, if or rather when I’m to re-emerge.

Being in the void of the unknown feels nebulous, clumsy to express because we tend not to spend very long here, frantically scrambling to find our way out, any way out. Or we create another world on top of the labyrinth and climb up onto this. Smoothing its maze over with concrete, dusting off our hands, “best of luck to ya now”, but missing our opportunity to uncover new depths within ourselves. I’ve done this time again.  

I can’t say I’m happy here surrendering. I can feel an irritated body within a body clawing to get out. To escape from myself. But today I am brought solace reminded of our ancestors and their belief that all life begins in the dark. Our Universe began in the cosmic dark. We dream in the darkness of lidded eyes. It is in this place that all magic originates. Because it is a place of infinite possibilities.  

Our forebearers, the filí, the poet-seers and the draoithe, the druid magic-makers understood the prospects of the darkness. In our myths and native tracts, you see poets and druids described as dall. Dall means dark, obscure, or blind in Old Irish. You also see the use of caech, which means blind in one eye, hidden, veiled, mysterious.

This speaks to their trust that we must enter full or at least partial darkness to access magic. To receive imbas forosnai, the wisdom or knowledge that illuminates, the second sight. However long it takes to come.

The unknown gifts us with a separate sight beyond ordinary logic, and so we can only “know this path by magic”, not by regular sight. These words are taken from Irish poet, Paula Meehan’s mystical poem, Well:

Well by Paula Meehan

I know this path by magic not by sight.
Behind me on the hillside the cottage light
is like a star that’s gone astray. The moon
is waning fast, each blade of grass a rune
inscribed by hoarfrost. This path’s well worn.
I lug a bucket by bramble and blossoming blackthorn.
I know this path by magic not by sight.
Next morning when I come home quite unkempt
I cannot tell what happened at the well.
You spurn my explanation of a sex spell
cast by the spirit who guards the source
that boils deep in the belly of the earth,
even when I show you what lies strewn
in my bucket — a golden waning moon,
seven silver stars, our own porch light,
your face at the window staring into the dark.

(To witness Paula gloriously recite the poem herself, see Paula Meehan recites Well)

In my own bucket, I can dream of a golden waning moon and seven silver stars. Do I know what they mean? No. Not yet. But that’s the beauty of mystery. The beauty of the dark. So if you are in, or when you find yourself in the space between, listen for your soul’s whisper:

“I know this path by magic not by sight”.

The Dream: 29th March 2023, The Opal Eye

Moon Falls a Thousand Times by Naeemeh Naeemaei

The dream in brief:

A virus breaks out. I am offered drops for my eye by a white-robed druid. I refuse to take the drops and so the druid takes my right eye. There is no wound, just a perfectly smooth flap of skin where the eye once was. My whole concern in the dream was not that my eye was gone but what people would think when they saw that I only had one eye. No one seemed to notice, still, my ego flared. I go to the Well of the White Cow at the Hill of Tara. On impulse, I remove the flap of skin that was over my lost eye, peeling it back to reveal a new opal eye. Then both of my eyes turn to opals. I wake up.

The truth is in the feel of a dream. I knew this was a capital B, “big” dream. It showed a recurring theme for me of encountering an archetypal image from my lineage as an Irish person, in this case, the archetype of the magician in the form of a druid, who would offer me something from the Otherworld, a symbolic gift from the Unconscious, and I would refuse. A consequence would ensue and my ego become wrought with fear or in other dreams, obstinate.

I often have a consciousness in my dreams so I was aware of the magic of being one-eyed in the Irish tradition. I was also aware that I am a Murphy-O’Sullivan. My my mother’s family are O’Sullivan’s, an anglicisation of O'Súilleabháin in Gaeilge meaning one-eyed. Still, in the dream, all I was concerned about was what other people would think. The ego was the central character, her fear fuelling the dream until I was at the healing waters of the Well of the White Cow and I was able to move beyond fear and take my agency back, which gifted me my opal eyes.

There is so much I could say about the symbolism of this dream, the opal that derives from the Greek opállios, which means “to see a change in colour”, the ancestral connection with the druid and the O’Sullivans, but this post would get unwieldy… Most importantly, as with all charged dreams, I made the dream material creating an opal eye from a lump of quartz I found in the land and embossing foil.

The Synchronicity: 8th July 2023, The One-Eyed Dog

Earlier in 2023, along with two dear friends, Sarah and Regina de Búrca (who writes the enthralling,Journey through the Tarot via Irish Herstory), I booked an intuitive tattoo ceremony with the extraordinarily gifted Pheobe, founder of Awen Soul. I had an idea for my tattoo inspired by megalithic art, but a day or two before our session, I shared my dream of the opal eye and the O’Sullivan symbolism with Phoebe. When I arrived at her studio down in Cork, Pheobe had intuited a mock-up of an opal eye, which I was astonished to see was the eye of my dream. Megalithic art went out the window and an opal eye went onto my right arm.

The following day, with what felt like a fresh shimmering tattoo, I was at St Gobnait’s Well in Ballyvourney with Sarah and Regina. A couple came along with a beautiful rare-breed white dog. As we looked closer, we were amazed to see that the dog had one eye. The couple told us that the dog had been born with one blind blue jewel-like eye that the vet had removed. This perked my ears. Then when we asked what the dog’s name was, the woman said “Suilley”... “You know, like, súil amháin, one-eyed because he’s an O’Sullivan”. What really struck me about this synchronicity is that it felt like a cosmic joke. I remember at the time when the couple and Suilley left, myself and Sarah and Regina joked that the fairies were playing tricks on us. After which, we heard the woman call back, “May all of your dreams come true”, and the man joked, “And I hope you survive them”.

Synchronicity is associated with the trickster nature of the Greek god Hermes, “With his winged sandals and cap of invisibility, Hermes brings the numinous power of the unconscious into the world of ordinary experience, carrying with it the capacity to catalyze synchronistic coincidences.” Hermes reminds me of the enigmatic Manannán MacLir, the Gaelic sea god who is the divine chieftain of the Otherworld, negotiating the boundaries between the sea of the Unconscious and the land of consciousness. Manannán possesses powers like Hermes with his invisibility cloak. He is also the owner of the cranebag that holds all of the treasures of the Otherworld (perhaps like Hermes’ satchel).

Manannán MacLir giving the sword of light to the god, Lugh, by Maud Gonne

Manannán is described by anthropologist, Evans-Wentz as, “the greatest magician of the Tuatha Dé Danann, disguised as a being who can disappear in the twinkling of an eye whenever he wishes, and reappear unexpectedly”. As a shapeshifting trickster, Manannán aids and hinders, as the white-robed druid did in my dream. He aided me by offering me eye drops, which my ego refused, then hindered my ego by taking my right eye until I could uncover my opal eyes and “see a change in colour”. 

Three wells later, the synchronicity comes full circle. As I look down in my well bucket today, I see a floating opal eye blink back at me. I am once again reminded that,

“I know this path by magic not by sight”.

Croí isteach,

Jen x

Sources:

Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, An Introduction to Early Irish Literature

Allan Combs, & Mark Holland, Synchronicity: Science, Myth and the Trickster

Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries

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Imbas Dispatches #1: Fedelm The Prophetess

A Tale About an Irish Poet-Seer

A Chairde, Friends,

Today, I share my first Imbas Dispatch monthly newsletter. Imbas is an Old Irish word for poetic inspiration. It was also a ritual, Imbas forosnai, meaning ‘knowledge that illuminates’ practised by our ancestors the ancient filí of Ireland, the poet-seers. A poet-seer would journey into the Celtic Otherworld, deep into the realm of the Unconscious and remain there until the fire in their head was ignited with the wisdom they sought.

Like the filí, I’d love to put a sign on my office door, “Do not disturb. In the Otherworld. Make your own dinner. I could be back in three minutes or three days, who knows”, to curb the interruptions of daily family life. Yet, in a moment of undisturbed imbas a few months ago, I did have an otherworldly visitor fan the flame in my head, her name is Fedelm. She appears in Irish mythology as the poet-seer of the kingdom of Connacht in the west of Ireland. Through active imagination, dropping Fedelm’s stories into my body, and her visiting my dreams, I was able to co-create this retelling with her, ‘Fedelm The Prophetess’.1

I recently shared this as a visual story in the wonderful Trailblazery’s Hedge School, I include some of the images below. As we approach International Women’s Day, it feels pertinent to honour Fedelm as a Creative Ancestor.

Fedelm The Prophetess

Let us begin to weave words together. I, with my white bronze weaver’s beam that is grooved with a gold inlay. On each groove hangs a thread that makes up the infinite tales of human destiny. My thread spells my name, “Fedelm”, meaning prophetess, to see, to know. I am a file, a poet-seer, an oracle in ways, less well known of course than the famous Oracle of Delphi. Really, I am not famous at all except to a small yield of scholars and Celtic Studies enthusiasts. But you know, I hold no hard feelings for who or what stories are remembered, what mythologies are revered. I’ve had millennia of practice shrugging this off and truth be told, I will always bow my head in recognition to the women who held the Oracle at Delphi and to their power to channel the Olympian god, Apollo. To channel his light, his prophecies, his poetry, his healing arts, rapturously shaking his wreath as I shake my beam. 

In my time, there were many of us oracles on Inis Fáil, the ‘Isle of Destiny’ that we now call Ireland, and across the Celtic Isles. Not a ten a penny mind you, but enough. We were the Áes Dána, the ‘People of the Arts’, the many-skilled ones. The ensoulment of our bloodlines, our myths, our poetic divination, our respective crafts, was not a random mystic occurrence, it happened by combining two complementary forces — education and magic. We honed these forces moving through seven grades of learning over 20 years that were infused with magical practices like imbas forosnai, ‘wisdom that illuminates’, the gift of prophecy, for apprenticing your life to creativity is in essence prophetic, you have to learn to see with an otherworldly eye what can be brought into form in partnership with the spirit of creation itself, with nature.

The Druids: Bringing in the Mistletoe by Hornel and Henry

Like Pythia at Delphi, I too learned to channel the immortals. I claim my descent from my patron, Goddess Brigid and from the lineage of Lugh, our shining Apollo. A god who owes his life to the forgotten druidess, Biróg. Tossed into the sea at the behest of his grandfather, Balor of the Evil Eye, Biróg’s wrinkled claws caught baby Lugh before he gulped his last breath and she sent him then by way of the galloping waves to safe fosterage with the god of the sea, Manannán Mac Lir. Lugh flourished on Manannán’s otherworldly plain of delights but as he grew so did his holy ache to return to the mainland, to Inis Fáil, for he had his own destiny to fulfill. He left his beloved foster-father and went to the place where all of the ancient roads of Ireland met, to the Kingdom of Tara. 

Art inspired by John William Goddard

Approaching Tara with his band of warriors, Lugh asked the gatekeeper to announce their arrival. The keeper responded, “Who should I announce?”

“I am Lugh Lámhfhada, Lugh of the Long Arm”.

“What art do you practice?”, enquired the gatekeeper, “for no one without an art enters Tara.”

“I am a master builder”, Lugh declared.

“We don’t need you so, we already have a builder”, responded the keeper.

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I am a smith.”

“We already have a smith.”

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I am a brazier." 

“We already have the best of those who tend to the hearth.”

Determined, Lugh pressed on. 

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I am a cupbearer.”

“We already have the most honeyed of pourers.”

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I am a healer.”

“We already have a physician of leechcraft”, the keeper sighed. 

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I  am a champion warrior.”

“We already have a celebrated hero.” 

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I am a harper.”

“We already have a harper, chosen for mastering the sweet music of the fairymounds.” 

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I am a poet-seer.”

“We already have a poet, a scholar of the lore, and a historian”, the keeper shook her head.

“Ask me again then gatekeeper, for I am a wizard.”

“We already have wizards. We are many in our druids and magical powers.”

Finally, Lugh persuaded the gatekeeper: “Go and ask your king if he has a single soul who possesses all of these arts and if he has I will not enter Tara.”

The gatekeeper croaked, “Are you telling me that you are samildánach, the many-killed one?”

“Go and ask your king”, urged Lugh.

The gatekeeper went into the royal house and whispered in the ear of the king, Nuada of the Tuatha Dé Danann, “A young warrior has come to Tara looking for hospitality, he is the rarity we seek, he is samildánach, skilled in all of the arts.”

With this, the gates to Tara opened along with arms of the king for long had the Áes Dána prophesied Lugh’s coming. He was given the most coveted chair after the royal throne, the Sage’s Seat, for he was now the high poet of Inis Fáil. 

Such is the value that we, your ancestors placed on the arts. Myth loves to exaggerate to get its point across but the bottom line was, no one could enter the royal capital of Tara who was not devoted to their craft. Not many of us are samildánach, Lugh is a god after all, but we are all creative. Whether you are awake to it yet or not, Lugh’s light flows through your veins intermingling with the flame of Brigid, the fire of inspiration in the head, the home of the Celtic soul. 

Lugh and Brigid were of the same stock, of Ireland’s supernatural race, the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ‘Tribe of the Goddess Danu’, our Great Mother. Lugh was there when Brigid birthed the art of the keen over the corpse of her cherished son, Ruadán. From her grief, Brigid created this Irish ritual of mourning that has been a source of great comfort generation after generation on this island. She too was samildánach, a triple goddess skilled in a triplicity of talents. 

A goddess of poiesis, the art of soul-making through poetry and storytelling, she was worshiped by us poet-seers. A goddess of smithcraft, Brigid turned the dark, craggy, raw materials of the underworld of imagination, into tools and treasures that transformed life for the better and brought delight and wonder to others. A goddess of leechcraft, Brigid midwifed the pangs of birth as we entered the world, the pangs of life as we lived in this world, and the pangs of death as we left the world. Every time we created in life, Brigid helped us to midwife our creation into being, and to keen whatever inner-destruction it caused in the process, as death is so often an inevitable part of birth. When a mother is born, the maiden within her dies, death and life in the same push. 

The tale that I, Fedelm, am most known for is one that brought woeful death, the great Irish saga, Táin Bó Cualigne, ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’. I’m not sure how ‘great’ it was for us womenfolk being at the mercy of a Christian scribe’s quill. But I am part of this story so it will never escape me. In it, I appear wearing a speckled mantle fastened around me with a gold pin, a red-embroidered tunic and shoes with gold fastenings. My yellow hair was in three tresses, two wound upward on my head, and a third hanging down my back, brushing my calves. In my eyes, there were triple irises. I rode a chariot drawn by two black horses wielding my weaver’s beam. 

On the road, I met Queen Medb of Connacht and her army who were moving east to do battle. She appeared to me not in her original divine form as a goddess of sovereignty, but as a glory hunter, a woman gone rogue defying the sensibilities of the early church, a woman who doesn’t know her place in the new religion. Medb asked of me:

“What is your name?”

I tell her, “I am Fedelm, poet-seer of Connacht.”

“Where have you come from?”

“From learning verse and vision in Alba [Scotland].”

“Have you imbas forosnai, the light of foresight?”

“Yes, I have.” 

“Look for me then and see what will become of my warriors.”

So, I looked for my queen as she wished.  

“Fedelem, prophetess, what do you see for us?”

I answered, “I see it crimson, I see it red.” 

For all I saw was blood. I told Medb not to fight, you can’t win as a woman when a patriarch is writing your story. 

Art inspired by John Collier

I can look for you now, yes you reading these words to see, to prophesise on your behalf. But the truth is, parts of you know who or what has narrated your life story, other parts remain unconscious but that is your journey, it is the gift that will enable you to continuously unfurl into the stories that your craft is here to tell. Old worn-out stories will die, new creative stories will live. I see your bright thread hang here on my beam beside all of the threads of your ancestors.

The doors to Tara have opened for you, take a deep breath and cross the threshold into your creative lineage. 

Croí isteach,

Jen x

*This retelling draws upon two Irish myths: Cath Maige Tuired and Táin Bó Cuailnge.

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Strange Solstice Seeds

“The making of soul-stuff calls for dreaming, fantasying, imagining. To live psychologically means to imagine things; to be in touch with soul means to live in sensuous connection with fantasy.”

James Hillman

The last time I wrote to you, I was writing winter letters to my grandmother who is long passed, now I’m writing love letters to the universe in the form of strange seeds.

As we build towards Samhain’s climax at the Winter Solstice, we enter the dreaming time, the longest night of the year here in the northern hemisphere. This week, in the Áes Dána Incubator, inspired by Yumi Sakugawa’s numinous companion, ‘Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe’, we planted some strange seeds in little pots filled with dark soil.

We then journeyed to meet the Spéirbhean, the “Sky Woman”, an Irish goddess archetype who traditionally held our aislingí, our dreams and visions. We released into a grail of tears our dreams not yet lived, and the dreams of our ancestors that they never got to live in their lifetimes. Inviting the Spéirbhean to become a patroness for our strange seeds. Some we hope will sprout in time for Imbolc and perhaps come into full bloom by the Summer Solstice, other seeds will have their own timelines, their own agendas that only retrospect can show us.

As Yumi encourages, we will send our strange seeds telepathic messages to help them grow and chant the song of the Sky Woman:

“Is mise aislingeach m'aislinge féin,

I am the dreamer of my own dreams.

Tá muinín agam as m'aislingí,

I trust in my dreams.”

What strange seeds might you plant in the dark soil of this dreaming season?

Upcoming Offerings

Voices of Celtic Wisdom is a four-month course is intended to be a deep and rich exploration of ‘Celtic’ ways and culture across Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, providing nutrients to feed your own sense of connection and belonging. It features:

• 19 Workshops with Guest Teachers (including myself teaching about the Celtic Otherworld)

• 3 Crafting Classes with wonderful Craft Teachers

• A beautiful bundle posted to you with specially gathered materials from Scotland, England and Ireland for making your crafts

• 1 Live Sound Journey

• 3 Community Calls with founders Hanna Leigh and Lana Lanaia

• A moderated community-sharing forum (not Facebook)

Gift Cards

This year, I have gift cards available for my self-guided courses if you fancy gifting your loved one a magical present this season.

Looking to 2024

As we close 2023, I feel an acute awareness of how this year has felt like one long Samhain for me. Last January, I had a year-ahead reading with my wonderful friend Regina de Búrca of the Irish Rider Waite Tarot where the Four of Swords emerged as my card for the year, so no surprises there! I did as Clarissa Pinkola Estés urges and:

“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.”

Life has brought me on many winding trails into the shadowlands over the years. Once we reemerge back out of the woods for a time, our daimon, our soul’s guide, grows restless, eager to hoodwink us into the next phase of our becoming, and back in we go.

In I went in 2023 and back out again I am coming in 2024.

I feel that the next phase of my becoming is in Brigid’s hands. I created this image yesterday inspired by the art of John Everett Millais and Ella Young’s poetry of Brigid as Venus, our morning and evening star, our flame of delight!

She is fanning the flame within me and I will return to you early in 2024 with what I hope will be an enchanting new offering for you all.

In the meantime, I leave you with love, grá, gratitude, buíochas, and importantly, peace, síocháin.

For Peace

As the horror and brutality of war rages on in Gaza, I’ll end here with this poem, ‘For Peace’ by Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue.

As the fever of day calms towards twilight,
May all that is strained in us come to ease.

May we pray for all who suffered violence today,
May an unexpected serenity surprise them.

For those who risk their lives each day for peace,
May their hearts glimpse providence at the heart of history.

That those who make riches from violence and war,
Might hear in their dreams the cries of the lost.

That we might see through our fear of each other,
A new vision to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.

That those who enjoy the privilege of peace,
Might not forget their tormented brothers and sisters.

That the wolf might lie down with the lamb,
That our swords be beaten into ploughshares.

And no hurt or harm be done,
Anywhere along the holy mountain.

A Letter Writing Ritual

Art by Johannes Rosierse

“You have a touch in letter writing that is beyond me. Something unexpected, like coming round a corner in a rose garden and finding it still daylight.”

Virginia Woolf

Recently, I found a letter posted on 21st June 1999, the summer solstice in the last year of that decade, that I sent to my grandmother, Frances O’Sullivan, my gorgeous “Gran”. I was a teenager at the time away without my family studying Gaeilge/Irish in the Gaeltacht in Co. Donegal. This was my third summer to go away to study Irish and so I was used to the experience by this stage.

As my eyes fall upon my own writing, it’s curious to read now 24 years later what was happening in my inner landscape… how I was feeling, the small little revelations I was having about the language, an experience of a “blind date” that made me laugh so much I was nearly sick, something I have no recollection of now (it must have been a school sketch or show we put on)!

I also shared about my outer landscape, about the Bean an Tí, the “Woman of the House” and her small children who were the age that my own children are now. How they were bilingual and adorable. The Céilí’s, the dances each night and the craic of losing the run of ourselves, swinging one other so hard that we’d take flight during The Siege of Ennis (one of the dances).

These letters were given to me after my Gran passed 15 years ago, they were found among others that I wrote in a treasured box she kept. She is now a well and wise ancestor who I feel as deeply connected to as when she was alive. And so this winter, I am continuing to write to her sharing about my inner and outer landscapes.

Letter Writing Ritual

This is an invitation to write a letter to a well and wise ancestor or a mythic ancestor this Samhain. For example, you might like to write to the Cailleach, the Gaelic Goddess, our Seanmháthair Naofa, our Sacred Grandmother, who is deeply associated with these winter months in Ireland/Éire, the Isle of Man/Ellan Vannin and Scotland/Alba. Or whoever calls to you at this time, listen and you’ll hear them whisper.

The Tradition by Julia Jeffrey

Open up your ritual space before you write, light a candle to honour the flame of your lineage, both clan and mythic ancestors.

Remember, when you handwrite, you are literally shaping your words with your body. Your handwriting is utterly unique to you, and so as you write in ways you create and recreate yourself.

Share with your ancestor about what’s happening in your inner landscape, your world of thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and intuitions.

Then share about your outer landscape, what is happening beyond your window in the world? How does the outer world relate back to your inner world?

Write with free abandon in full honesty so as not to lie to yourself or to your ancestor.

What guidance would you welcome in a return letter from your ancestor? This may come to you in the form of a dream, a synchronicity, an intuitive spark - a mirroring back to you.

If ever there’s been a time to remember our global interconnectedness, it is now. Let the Goddess be your guide.

The Otherworld by Tijana

Once you have written your letter, you can place it in an envelope, even address it if you like, allow the spell of your imagination to work its wonder.

Then place your letter on your altar, or a sacred space, or you can write a series of letters and continually wrap them in string. You will know what to do. They are your keepsakes.

In time, reopen your letter and journal in response to the guidance that did come to pass. Perhaps at the Winter Solstice or Imbolc or whatever season you find yourself in.

“She is ideas, feelings, urges, and memory. She has been lost and half-forgotten for a long, long time. She is the source, the light, the night, the dark and daybreak… She is the one we leave home to look for. She is the one we come home to.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Voices of Celtic Wisdom

I am thrilled that I will be joining the teaching team of Voices of Celtic Wisdom. This is a 4-month programme exploring living threads of the earth-based cultures of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales with song, story, lore and hands-on crafting workshops.

Other teachers include Dolores Whelan, Manda Scott, Angharad Wynne, Tara Brading, Mary McLaughlin, Danu Forest, Dougie MacKay, Seoras Macpherson… and more wondrous souls.

The programme runs from 30th November 2023 to 25th March 2024. I’ve included the link below if you’d like to take a gander…

Weaving the Bones

Greetings from a Samhain morn in Ireland. We are transitioning through astrological Samhain into this dark, feminine season; into the dreamtime. A season to ask:

What is ready to winter in my life?

Where do I desire regeneration?

Or indeed, to reflect upon:

What is ready to winter within me?

What aspects of ego-consciousness, persona or shadow are no longer in service to your life? And also:

What can I regenerate within me?

Jung coined ‘Shadow’ to articulate the unconscious aspects of ourselves, which the ego has rejected, repressed, or never recognised. These aspects can be both “bad”, and also, “good”, a source of regeneration. As Marion Woodman says:

“Our shadow may contain the best of ourselves.”

Jung believed that when we work on our personal shadow we are less susceptible to the collective shadow, to the overculture. Given the painful times we are in collectively, the soft shadows of Samhain can serve as an invitation to winter in this contemplation and to do so with self-compassion and love.

In the Irish farming calendar, Samhain in the month of November would have seen our ancestors focus inward, bringing animals in from pasture to keep them safe and warm, while also remaining somewhat outward repairing hedges, ditches and drains.

And so, in tandem with this seasonal wisdom, we can tend to our inner hearth while also bearing witness to the storms that rage outside.

I share links below to two bone-nourishing rituals to support you during this season. I plan to share more rituals soon with a series of Winter Letters I am writing…

A Ritual of the Hearth

Beginning Your Day at Sunset

Art by Josie Wren

Fite Fuaite, Interwoven

Recently, I was privileged to be a third-time guest on my dear friend Marisa Goudy’s mystical Knotwork Storytelling podcast.

Here, I share a story Fite Fuaite, Interwoven: Weaving the Bones, which weaves tales of the Cailleach as the Great Mother, with Irish goddesses and their Sisters across a number of mythical traditions.

Listening to this tale you will meet the Cailleach along with:

If ever there’s been a time to remember our global interconnectedness, it is now. Let the Goddess be your guide.

This Samhain, I would love to offer you 25% off my self-guided courses including my highly popular co-creations with the wonderful, Sarah Richardson. Please use the code: SAMHAIN25. This offer is available for Mí na Samhna, the month of November.

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Mythical Disrupter

Sheela na Gig by Thomas Sheridan

For 16 years, I worked in global justice and human rights, I’m still involved as a volunteer on the board of an Irish civil society organisation. And so, I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the idea of human “progress” and “development”. I even ended up doing a masters in the ‘anthropology of development’ to peek beneath the rug or indeed, pull the rug from under myself with all of the lies I had learned from our overculture in the name of progress.

I share this because it’s relevant to how we perceive our ancestors and our mythical heritage.

Of course, development brings its benefits but when understood only as progress in one direction, it becomes a systemic lie, one which we all seem to have to work towards at the expense of our mental health, our bodies, and life around us.

A Comet’s Journey by J.J. Grandville

Development is essentially a Western notion that has no equivalent in many languages. It is not natural or universalistic and does not appear in all cultures. In ways, it is a practice by which the existence and destinies of non-conforming Western societies are formed through Eurocentric ways of imagining and perceiving the world.

This impression of development creates a false polarity between the traditional and the modern whereby the modern is glorified as the universal goal and any deviation is relegated to the primitive, of being stuck in the past.

Sun and Moon by Ernst Steiner

A culture’s mythology is often located within the traditional sphere. And where you have an othering of the mythic or folkloric beliefs of a peoples like in Ireland under colonial rule, the obsession with modernisation can intensify because we have to be seen to be progressing, to be rational, to be intellectual, to lose our “backwardness”. It’s a survival tactic.

A consequence of this is that our mythology loses its power, and we fall out of our enchantment with the world.

Art by Pantovola

So why am I sharing this today?

Well because, I want you to know that mythology can be a form of resistance against the fallacies of our overculture. Indeed, this is one of the roles I believe it is now meant to serve. Mythology isn’t simply a wander through traditional fantasy, nor is it static or meant to remain in the past, it is meant to evolve and it is essential to our times. As Jung once said,

‘Enchantment is the oldest form of medicine’.

Mythology is a gateway to enchantment. It doesn’t need to kill itself worrying about progress because mythology is timeless just like your soul is. And like your soul, it is also called to be in service to the times we are born into.

So as you begin another week, another day, another hour, another minute, remember that your soul is timeless and by being on this path, you are breathing life back into our mythology. You, my love, are a mythical disrupter.

To Hold it All by Sarah Brokke

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Sacrifice of the Goddess

Demeter Mourning for Persephone by Evelyn de Morgan

In Ireland, it is the Goddess Tailtiu, foster-mother of the shining sun God Lugh who is said to have first cleared the plains to prepare the land for tilling. With her supernatural might, Tailtiu felled great forests to make way for our transition to agriculture.

When her feat was complete, she lay down and died of exhaustion.

Lugh, grief-stricken honoured Tailtiu’s dying wish by creating Óenach Tailten. These were Olympic-style games on the land which she had cleared to celebrate her grand endeavours and the harvest season that became known as Lughnasa.

Óenach means 'reunion' or 'popular assembly' symbolising the games, races and tournaments that were part of these Tailteann festivities. Lugh himself led the inaugural contests of horse racing and warrior combat.

The Tailteann games were celebrating during Lughnasa until the 1770s and then experienced a short revival in the 1920s following the War of Independence.

Photo from the Tailteann Games in 1924

An excerpt from the Dinshenchas, the ancient Lore of Places about Tailtiu:

"Her heart burst in her body from the strain beneath her royal vest; not wholesome, truly, is a face like the coal, for the sake of woods or pride of timber.

Long was the sorrow, long the weariness of Tailtiu, in sickness after heavy toil; the men of the island of Ériu [Éire, Ireland] to whom she was in bondage came to receive her last behest.”

The Lady and the Green Man Mask by Robert Gould

Here, we can see an allusion to the death of a Great Mother, the Goddess of Vegetation and the Harvest presented in a way that was necessary for human evolution as the rising masculine consciousness symbolised by Lugh, was now the way forward.

It’s interesting to draw parallels here in the Irish mythical context with the idea that the evolution of agriculture and control of nature's resources led to the emergence of private property and gave rise to the overthrow of any lingering matricentric structures. 

A beautiful friend of mine recently brought me back some sheaves of wheat from Teltown in honour of Tailtiu. She collected these early one morning as two hares, symbols of our mythical ancestors, lept through the fields.

While participating in a live storytelling session where we were encouraged to make as we listened, with a sheaf, I wove these rough and wild, ‘Tailtiu Prayer Beads’ using the kernels, some stalk and a peacock feather. In the rhythm of my threads, I felt all that is woven into Tailtiu’s sacrifice.  

This is an invitation to weave your own ‘Goddess Beads’ this Lughnasa season to acknowledge the Great Mother and the endless sacrifices she has made on our behalf. And as we can see in her climate revolt, she is not passive but raging in sacrifice. She has had enough. As have many of us.

Women have forever been weavers of human fate and so with each bead you thread for the goddess, be present to the possibility of a new destiny we can weave together, perhaps one on the loom of the Great Mother.

Upcoming Offerings

Calling Creative Feminine Leaders!

I I have taken the harvest season off to celebrate, restore, and reflect on what I have learned and who I am becoming. I will be back in September and as we descend into Samhain, will begin my Áes Dána Incubator mythical leadership programme.

This 7-month training is rooted in the reclamation of the Celtic mythic feminine for our time, and I need women who will go walkabout into the cultural dreamtime with me and the beautiful tuath that has formed. Is it you?

If these burning times are demonstrating anything to us it’s that, it’s time to step forth.🔥

Lughnasa Love Discount 💚

A gentle reminder that until the new moon on 16th August, you can avail of 25% off my Self-Guided Courses including the Celtic Woman’s Voyage year-long programme and my collaborations with mystical midwife, Sarah Richardson.

Code: LUGHNASA25

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A Dream of Sinéad

Faith by Jeanie Tomanek

My dreamworld and all that surfaces from its abyssal waters is one, if not the, most crucial guides in my life. Dreams rolled in like a thick foggy presence since early childhood. A density that for a long time seemed more curse than blessing. My dreams are my truthtellers showing me the truth of my life through symbols. Symbols that I then have to spend time deciphering. My dreams force me to do the work.

As many of you will know, the dreamscape is something I incorporate into my work as like the Otherworld, dreams can emerge from the sea of the collective unconscious. I go back to university in Ireland this September to study dream more intensely with Jungian psychology and art therapy. I rarely share a dream before working with it – be that through writing, drawing, art, making, imaginal journeying, moving as the dream, or exploring it through analysis. This takes time and I like to metabolise before sharing if at all. But today, I share a dream with you I had last Friday night.

I share it because it featured Sinéad O’Connor, our beloved Banríon who passed away last week. It is a sorrow-stricken and painful time in Ireland as we honour Sinéad who used her voice and art to fight so courageously to expose the horrors of Irish society. She did so with relentless soul, understanding inherently that without the nigredo, we can have no alchemy, we can’t transform. And Ireland desperately needed and still needs to transform.

Sinéad O’Connor by Daniel Baxter

So the dream goes…

‘In the dream, I was creating three huge sculptures of Sinéad O’Connor’s head and shoulders. The first sculpture of Sinéad was silver, the second was gold, the third was red-gold. These were positioned high on a hill. When I came back down to the foot of the hill, I saw a huge shopfront there. Its glass was clear and encased in lovely sage green wood. It looked like a bookshop. When I looked through the glass, I saw that the shop was split into two levels. There was a ground floor and an upper floor. The left side of the shop on both levels was filled with hundreds of women who were dressed like Little Bo-Beep from the nursery rhyme. When I looked to the right side of the shop, on both levels I saw hundreds of men wearing suits. The Suits were speaking tyrannously at the Little Bo-Beeps who mumbled passively and laughed nervously in response. I then noticed a big “Closed” sign on the door and the dream voice said to me, “You can never go in there again.” I wake up.’

I will brew in the broth of this dream but there are bubbles boiling to the surface. The creation of the sculptures of Sinéad positioned high on the hill are symbolic of her being a personal icon and particularly during my formative years in the grimness of 1990s Ireland. I went to the same secondary school as Sinéad did for a time years after her, and so, she was in ways, a school symbol for the rebel many of us longed to be and tried to express. Some time ago I was asked to create a vision board of my feminist heroes and I printed, cut out and glued a picture of Sinéad front and centre, which felt symbolic as teenage me despite being awestruck by her had no real notion of the profundity of her courage.

I read in the Irish media recently,

‘Sinéad O'Connor was everything Official Ireland didn't want women to be, and we loved her for it.’

From ‘Troy’ by Sinéad O’Connor

The dream is oversimplified in terms of gender, we know the Little Bo-Beeps and Suits are not simply women and men. Yet, it shows a patriarchal presentation of ‘power over’ and the expectation of women and marginalised communities to be passive recipients of ‘authority’. In her life, Sinéad was consistent in questioning - who is the ‘authority’? Who holds the power? Who says so? How did they come to hold this privilege? Is this power over or power with?

I also feel a charge in that Little Bo-Beep is a maiden. As women, we often get locked in eternal maidenhood, in a prison where we can’t evolve into the Great Mother or crone of our lives. We’re not allowed to age, to evolve in wisdom. The scrutiny of women’s ageing is a form of cultural control and to a terrorising level for any woman in the spotlight like Sinéad. As Naomi Wolf said in the Beauty Myth:

‘The beauty myth is not about women at all. It is about men's institutions and institutional power.’

Sinéad O’Connor was never passive in her maiden expression. In her memoir, Rememberings, she shares the story of her decision to shave off her hair in response to her record label executive who:  

‘…announced he’d like me to stop cutting my hair short and start dressing like a girl. He was disapproving of my recent attempt at a (very short) Mohawk. He said himself and Chris would like me to wear short skirts with boots and perhaps some feminine accessories such as earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and other noisy items one couldn’t possibly wear close to a microphone.’

After the deed was done, her head shaved in defiance, she says:

‘Me? I loved it. I looked like an alien. Looked like Star Trek. Didn’t matter what I wore now.’

Edra: Queen of Pentacles as the Great Mother by Barbara Walker

Sinéad never went into the shop of my dream in fact, she was always the one pulling us out of it. Some of us would falter like a lost sheep and wander back in, and she’d pull us out again. But she did much more than that, she sought to demolish the shop altogether.

Let me tell you, I’ve been the Little Bo-Beep many times in my life and I’ve also stood for long periods outside looking in with despair. I will never be as courageous as Sinéad O’Connor and I will be forever grateful to her for the permission she gave Mná na hÉireann to be our bold and brave selves. Because being on the outside can be terrifying.

I’ve often wondered when standing outside, what got me here? And it’s only recently that I’ve realised when all of the veils of illusion I hold finally burn away - if they ever do, it’s that part of me that’s left, the essence of my being, my soul that puts me there and like the dream voice says, “You can never go in there again.” It’s the part of me that lives through the belief that reclaiming and evolving the mythic feminine for our times is a powerful form of resistance and disruption from our patriarchal and capitalist overculture.

Like Sinéad, we have to use our creativity, our art, our diversity, and our voices to stand together in the truth of who we really are and who we are called to be. We have to give ourselves permission to evolve.  

Together, we can demolish the shop so that all we see is Sinéad’s silver, gold and red-gold wonder shining down on us and perhaps giving us a wink of approval, or three! ❤️

The Hell Fire Club. Source Viator.

A song that I have been moving, shaking, weeping to, and finding resilience within the past few days is Troy. This is my favourite Sinéad O’Connor song. It’s a masterpiece. And so, I wanted to share the video with you if you haven’t seen it or desire to revisit. 

The building that explodes in the video is called the Hell Fire Club on Montpellier Hill, a haunt well known to most Dubliners as it peers in its eery eminence over our city. It was originally an old hunting lodge built by William Connolly in 1725. Following his death it became a club for wealthy Dublin men who dabbled in the dark arts. The devil himself with his cloven hooves is said to have been a frequenter of the Hell Fire Club. In 2016, archaeologists discovered a 5,000-year-old passage tomb on the site. It was long held in folk memory that stones from the ancient cairn was used to build the club itself, which resulted in all kinds of supernatural happenings.

It’s a symbolic video on so many levels. FEEL the feminine, the Great Mother, Sinéad O’Connor, roar.

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We all have a Mythical Lineage

Eve (The Dreaming) by Jana Heidersdorf

We all have a mythical lineage. Or many mythical lineages. We all descend from ancestors who were storytellers. Whose mythology told the story of their people—their story, which is now our story to evolve as inherent in these ancestral myths is wisdom we so desperately need for our times. As Jung said, we must:

“…dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress.”

But what happens when we are severed from our mythical traditions? How do we dream the myth onwards? How do we go walkabout in the cultural dreamtime to regenerate our mythical lineage in service to our lives, our families, our communities, and our world?

Well first, we must understand that this severance is a problem. A problem that together we can seek to solve. As the fairytale always tells us, each one of us holds the golden key.

The Golden Key by John Bauer

Mythological Displacement

Before I founded my business, the Celtic School of Embodiment, I worked for 14 years in global justice and human rights. During this time, I met many people who were experiencing ‘displacement’ either within their own country’s borders as an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) or across an international border, as a refugee. Displacement is the coerced movement of people from their home territories due to life-threatening factors like natural disasters, climate-induced disasters, war, persecution, corruption and human rights violations.

Displacement forces people to flee their homes, often that of their ancestors, and in consequence, causes immense psychological and bodily trauma. In addition to the wounding of the life-threatening event itself, displacement ruptures peoples’ connections to the cultural psyche and their mythological roots; the stories of their people. In the West where we have succumbed to the plague of rationalisation, the loss of our native myths may not seem as grave as the loss of life. It’s not. And yet, it has serious ramifications, which I believe we are only starting to see particularly in countries with a history of settler colonisation.

Myth is not primitive nor is it fabrication nor is it children’s stories. There is no singular purpose to myth, but in most cultures, myth facilitates the conditions for people to engage in the sociocultural, natural, and supernatural worlds that surround them and illustrates through story a range of effects that individual action can have on these multiple worlds. It can contribute to a person’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Myth and place are often inextricably linked. Myth helps people anchor in their physical and metaphysical place in the world. Not that this needs to be static. Any romanticised notion of ‘pristine’ mythology that is void of an agenda and has been isolated from interactions with other peoples and cultures, is a fallacy.[1] Myth is fluid and should flow with the times.

Still, we are living in an epoch of mythological displacement. In a time when people are displaced or have been moved away from their mythical lineage. I believe that this is detrimental to our wellbeing and I see from the women I work with, how this is amplified when we are not living on the land of our ancestors. While some of us like myself may live in the places where our forebears were born and died, many more do not. Sometimes that is by choice, and other times it is due to factors outside of our control like ancestral migration, colonisation and displacement. Yet for all of us, the felt sense memory of our ancestral home remains buried in our bodies. Just as the old bone woman haunted Gobnait (you can find this tale here) from beneath the top waters so too does ancestral memory haunt us from the unconscious, begging for our attention.

Amžinybė (Eternity) by M. K. Čiurlionis

A History of Displacement

For a small country, Ireland has a colossal legacy of displacement. Numbers vary but the Irish Diaspora is around 70 million people. Of these, 36 million are in America. The remainder are in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and small populations in Continental Europe and Central and South America.[2] A historical catalyst to this was the Irish Famine, An Górta Mór, ‘The Great Hunger’, which was the greatest social disaster in 19th century Europe. Over 2 million people, a quarter of the population either died or emigrated. Ireland was under the rule of the British government at the time whose policies premised on racism, classism, and structural violence did not provide an adequate response, it failed the Irish people.

There were aid efforts within Ireland, Britain, and across the world. One donation that is remembered with reverence within Irish cultural memory is that of the Choctaw Nation who gave $170 to relieve famine suffering. This generosity came from a people who at the time were experiencing ethnic cleansing and forced displacement by the American government led by a Scots-Irish descendant, President Andrew Jackson. To take action to ease the suffering of another peoples amidst the horror of their own suffering was a profound act of human solidarity. In the Choctaw myth of emergence, the people are said to have emerged into this world from a mother mound, Nanih Waiya, ‘Leaning Hill’. In Irish tradition, the Áes Sídhe, the ‘People of the Mound’, our supernatural ancestors and otherworldly beings emerge from the fairy mounds, the hallow hills, and the Otherworld to interact with our world. Like in these instances where land and myth are interwoven, the displacement of peoples from their ancestral homes can be spiritually devastating.

Kindred Spirits sculpture in Midleton, Co. Cork honouring the contribution made by the Choctaw to starving Irish people in 1847

Subtle Displacement

Mythological displacement does not only happen with the forced movement of people, it can occur in more seemingly subtle ways. One example of this is the displacement of a native language with a non-native tongue. We see this with Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic), the Irish language and English. Every placename in Ireland tells a story. When you read Irish mythology, you will find long passages telling the story of how a placename came to be. Yet the history of place is complex in Ireland because our placenames are no longer in our mother-tongue, they were anglicised. This not only displaced the majority of the population from our language but also from our deeper sense of place and ancestry on our land.

To provide an example, a town near where I live is called 'Ardee'. Its meaning is hidden in its anglicised form. The Gaeilge for Ardee is ‘Baile Átha Fhirdhia’ which translates as 'The Townland of the Ford of Ferdia'.  The story of this place is about a devastating duel at a ford between two warriors, Cú Chulainn (Koo Chul-an) and Ferdia (Fer-dee-ah), both of whom trained under the talented warrior woman, Scáthach (Scah-hock) on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Not only were Cú Chulainn and Ferdia brothers in arms but some believe, potentially lovers. You can know none of this when you know the town only as 'Ardee'. Like how modern branding works, this is an incredibly effective tactic of  assimilation.

Scáthach by PJ Lynch

Capitalist Displacement

Culture is a natural phenomenon across all human societies but culture itself is not natural, it is learned. Culture's mode of communication is predominantly symbolic. Different cultures share information in different ways, but they do so through symbols. These symbols could be the likes of words, gestures, behaviours, actions, and objects that are all inferred with meaning by a given culture. From birth, as you grow, you absorb these symbols and learn how to speak your culture fluently. Capitalism also behaves like a culture. It is not natural, it is constructed. Capitalism diffuses its own series of cultural symbols through the image of global brands (think Apple) that mass media then manipulates us into consuming through influencers. In capitalist spirituality, deities are celebrities, sites of worship are stores or anywhere we can consume, and our votive offering is money.

With capitalism, comes the idea of ‘development’, the lie of eternal progress that we all seem to be working towards. Some countries are ‘developed’ so better, others are not so worse. Development is a Western notion that has no equivalent in many languages. It is not natural or universalistic and does not appear in all cultures. Rather, it is a practice by which the existence and destinies of non-Western societies are formed via a Eurocentric mode of imagining and perceiving the world.[3] This impression of development creates a false polarity between the traditional and the modern, a deception whereby indigenous peoples are often characterised as primitive, having existed without history until the arrival of Europeans.[4]

The idea of modernisation has been propagated with such force globally that it is glorified as a universal goal and any deviation is subsumed under a negative, ‘traditional’ classification. Mythology exists within the traditional. It is not modern and so is perceived as less than. Where you have a racialisation or othering of the mythic or folkloric beliefs of a peoples like in Ireland under British rule, the obsession with modernisation intensifies because we have to be seen to be progressing, to be rational, to be intellectual, to lose our backwardness. It’s a survival tactic. A consequence of this is that our mythology loses its power, and we fall out of our enchantment with the world. Writing over one hundred years ago, German Sociologist Max Weber warned: 

“As intellectualism suppresses belief in magic, the world’s processes become disenchanted, lose their magical significance, and henceforth simply ‘are’ and ‘happen’ but no longer signify anything.”

Dancing Fairies by August Malmström

White Supremacy Displacement

Capitalism’s greatest lover is white supremacy culture, an ideology that creates a hierarchy of imagined racialised value, where like modernisation, whiteness or white culture is the desired result; white middle and owning class to be specific. It constructs who is of value and human, and who is not in the name of profit, power and ‘progress’ at all costs.[5] This is a sinister form of colonisation, of ‘power over’ as it displaces us from ourselves, our hearts, our bodies, our spirits, one another, and nature.

In White Supremacy Culture – Still Here, Tema Okun and colleagues at dRworks articulate how white supremacy culture violates the humanity, ways of knowing, ancestral land and livelihoods of indigenous people, while exoticising, romanticising and culturally appropriating the wisdom and customs held within these communities. Indigenous people often maintain historical continuity with pre-colonial culture and form non-dominant groups within society.[6] We see this in Ireland with the Traveller (Mincéirí) community who have been vilified, ostracised and forced to ‘settle’, a form of displacement, by the Irish government, as Ireland upon independence used much of the same institutional structures imposed by the British Empire.

Even in our education system, which mirrors the British system and was formed in collusion with yet another colonial power, the Catholic Church, our mythology is taught as imaginary tales for children. Okun stresses how academia defines the “classics” as Greek and Roman, white and male. ‘Classic’ conjures the image of the highest possible quality—forever—and in this way gives superiority to a particular way of knowing so that Greek and Roman becomes the mythology of the West. These mythologies do, of course, speak to archetypal patterns that appear cross-culturally and are fundamental to understanding the Western Psyche as are their many Egyptian roots. But we have access to a rich broth of other mystery traditions, some of which have been relegated to the margins for not conforming to this model of classic. Why not have this, and more please?  

“Looking back behind the modern severance of spirit from nature, we can find an important source of Western culture in the myths, art, music, folklore and traditions of pre-Christian Ireland. This material is as important for understanding ourselves as Egyptian, Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian influences.”

Sylvia Brinton Perera, The Irish Bull God

Irish mythology does not equate to whiteness. Irish bodies come in a gorgeous spectrum of colours and diverse lineages. This extends beyond our small island to our Diaspora, where for example, it is estimated that 38% of African Americans have Irish Ancestry.[7] This fills me with hope for our mythology as our diversity can fuel innovation and creativity. My work is my way of weaving a new tapestry for our mythical lineage but we need many diverse threads!

Women in Biskra Weaving the Burnoose by Frederick Arthur Bridgman

The Legacy of Mythological Displacement

I work predominantly with women who are first-generation Irish, or of Irish or wider ‘Celtic’ heritage. 80% of the women who cross my threshold live beyond Irish shores. I see this legacy of mythological displacement everywhere in my work. Common themes that emerge from my clients and community are:

• Feeling disconnected from their lineage(s)

• Feeling like they don’t know where they belong

• Identifying as biracial or multiracial and navigating multiple lineages

• Holding shame about not knowing more about their mythological heritage

• Carrying intergenerational grief and trauma

• Being haunted by the ghost of ancestral loss that they cannot make sense of

• Seeking and, or, potentially appropriating from other cultures, or fear of doing so

• Being a settler on the stolen land of indigenous peoples

A Remedy for Mythological Displacement

So, what’s the remedy? How do we travel the road from mythological displacement to finding our way home? I don’t live in your body so it would be remiss for me to dictate a solution to the complexities of mythological displacement. That acknowledged, in my experience, there are three standing stones that generate the soulful conditions for you to (re)discover your own location for home within your lineage.

The Wild Swans by Jackie Morris

1. Become Intimate with Your Mythical Family

You are not simply your life and your life simply you, there are spiritual forces that arise from the collective unconscious—your mythical kinsfolk—who are naturally invested in your life. Who conspire to guide you to self-actualisation, to fulfil your life’s Calling. This cannot happen without reciprocity—you have to be interested in them to see their interest in you.

Tend to the archetypes that your ancestors brought to life to shape their world and the native faces they bequeathed these archetypes—the goddesses, gods, and mythical beings of Irish mythology. This is your mythical family. If you hold multiple lineages, invite your full family in, all lines. Jung believed that ancestral experience remained alive within the sea of the collective unconscious. Myth is one of the most powerful ways we can access this unconscious so that we can learn from our mythical and human ancestors. What would they wish for us to know?

In this way, myth is always evolving and can serve to illuminate the foresight we need for our lives, our families, our communities, and our world. We are living in an unprecedented era of crisis as our planet revolts through climate change against the toxicity of our relationship with it, which I believe mythological displacement exacerbates. Deepening your relationship with your mythical family is deepening your relationship to Mother Earth. We have to dream with our mythical ancestors and allow these visions to be of service. 

2. Unveil your Divine Feminine Heritage

When we venture into the Otherworld of our mythical lineages, we see how the ‘original’ sources are often tainted with a patriarchal hand as is the case with Irish mythology and its Christian scribes. We have to lift the veil in search of the feminine, to excavate her from the ashes of mythological memory. It is no coincidence that the domination and subjugation of nature and the feminine are killing our planet. And so, when we find the feminine in our myths, we must allow her wisdom to metabolise through our bodies so we can inhabit her more fully. We must welcome the full spectrum of the feminine into our lives so that we ourselves can become more alive. She has been missing and we are dying without her. Rest assured there is no shortage of big feminine energies in Irish mythology. We have much to work with.

3. Partner with Your Body

You could go and read books on Irish or Celtic mythology and the feminine, which are still few and far between, we desperately need many more. Yet for me, what is missing entirely from experiences of myth and the feminine in the Irish and Celtic context, is the body. To paraphrase Marion Woodman, we can only hear our authentic voice when we discover and love the goddess lost within our rejected body. And so let me repeat what I said above, it is no coincidence that the domination and subjugation of nature and the feminine—and the body—are killing our planet. We have rejected all three. We have displaced all three. When you drop the stories of your mythical ancestors into your body and allow them to coarse through the veins of your own life stories, this is where the magic, the re-enchantment happens.

Samhain by Wendy Andrews

I Feel Like I’ve Come Home

What happens when you become your own custodian of these three standing stones? It may sound like a cliche but the most common response I hear is, “I feel like I’ve finally come home.” This is frequently accompanied by:

• Deeper acceptance and love of self

• Honouring your Irish or wider Celtic lineage, and other lineages from an embodied and internally resourced place

• Rootedness in your own sense of what it means to belong in this world

• Release from ancestral grief and trauma

• Confidence to engage in cross-cultural relationships in celebration of our human diversity and our interconnectedness

• Trust to reimagine your lineage(s) free from dogma and make your own poiesis with this in service to others and these times
  

And when you stir feminine stock into this broth, women are energised with personal:

• Sovereignty: A stepping forth into life as an embodied expression of power within, as a sovereign woman

• Sensual Aliveness: A cultivation of your external senses, along with the nebulous world of your internal felt senses as a gateway to living a full-flavoured enchanted life

• Becoming: An implosion of creative lifeforce. Surrendering to cyclic rhythms and embracing all seasons in acceptance of your ever-unfolding unto life

  ‘“O Brigit!” said Ogma, “before you go tie a knot of remembrance in the fringe of your mantle so that you may always remember this place—and tell us, too, by what name we shall call this place?” “Ye shall call it the White Island,” said Brigit, “and its other name shall be the Island of Destiny, and its other name shall be Ireland.”  Then Ogma tied a knot of remembrance in the fringe of Brigit’s Mantle.’

  - Ella Young, Celtic Wonder Tales

You remember the knot in your mantle, I know you do.

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References

[1] Wolf, E.R. (1982) Europe and the People Without History. University of California Press

[2] Irish Emigration Patterns and Citizens Abroad 2017, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland

[3] Tucker, V. (1992). The Myth of Development: A Critique of a Eurocentric Discourse. In Munck, R. & Hearn, D. (eds). Critical Development Theory: Contributions to a New Paradigm. London: Zed Books

[4] Sahlins, M. (1999). What is Anthropological Enlightenment? Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century. In Sahlins, M. (eds.) Culture and Practice: Selected Essays. Zone Books: New York

[5] Okun, T. (2021) White Supremacy Culture – Still Here. whitesupremacyculture.info

[6] United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

[7] African American Irish Diaspora Network

Goddess Gobnait & Her Nine White Deer

Beehaloed by Lea Bradovich

Gobnait (Gub-nitch), once a living Saint and a pre-Christian goddess. A Sister-Saint of Brigid, the holy woman and goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft. Both are venerated at Imbolc, the awakening time, both women lived in the 5th and 6th centuries. This was an era of monumental change in Ireland. Christianity had arrived on our shores threatening what we now call ‘Pagan’ spirituality, the native cult, the Old Ways. In these early days, there was a fluidity between the old and new cults as both Gobnait and Brigid in Goddess and human form attest to. Yet, over time with Christianity, patriarchy, the rule of the father, had the opportunity to deepen its presence and seep into every cultural crevice in Ireland, separating us from the Spiral, the original image of the Great Mother.

This is my retelling of Gobnait’s experience.

Gold plaque embossed with winged Bee Goddess from Camiros, Rhodes, 7th century BCE

Gobnait Speaks:

A child of The Piracy born from the loins of a sea-raiding father, I was without a mother lost in the swell of a man’s world. I was loved in ways, in the way one loves a possession. Something you own, perhaps even something you treasure. Until its shine dulls, and your fondness dulls with it.

As Woman, I never belonged to my father’s crew. I grafted like the men around me until my skeleton shook. To my shame, I raided with them. I plundered, I burned villages to ash, numbing my shrieking heart in trade for recognition. But the recognition never came. At least not in the ways it did for my pirate brothers. 

I longed for a mother. For my physical mother who hung like a rhythmic ghost over the waves. For Máthair, ‘Mother of All’, who was just as ghostly. An apparition, a rubbing of fingers and thumb, I’d try to grasp her with my full hands for they told me she used to be everywhere. Once worshipped as the Spiral. In every tuath, every tribe. Máthair and her tomb womb of birth, life, death, and rebirth.

If she was so venerated. Where was she now? Why had she abandoned me? I resigned myself that she was but an old bone woman who haunted me from beneath the top waters. A make-believe story I wished had never fallen into my ears. For hope was like sepsis infecting my numbness. I could not risk the thaw.

Each new moon cycled into form, and I bled alone, away from the crew. With my blood, came imbas forosnai, the prophecy, the sight that illuminates. In my maiden bleeds, I would return on the waxing days and share my visions. Warning of a failed raid, of looming misfortune, of losing our own good men.

The imbas rattled some of The Piracy, not least those who remembered the Old Ways. But my father dismissed it as women’s nonsense, of the natural hysterics that I was born to express, and my mother before me, her mother before her. Raids failed, misfortune came, men died. And yet my voice never grew in power. Only their glares of disdain.

Then the white deer came.

In the chaos of a mainland raid, I fled The Piracy, sprinting until my legs were taken from under me, I tumbled into the druid of the forest, an old oak. My face dizzy in its roots, I looked up and saw the white deer, a fleeting shadow. I had no way of apprehending the later significance of this otherworldly beast. How could I, for I was still a child of The Piracy.

I dragged myself upright back into my feet and began the voyage west to Inis Oírr, the eastern island. My father would not seek me there for there was no raiding to be had. As I rowed into its limestone shores, I wondered if he cared that I had disappeared. Did it matter?

Early on Inis Oírr, I found myself ill with a guilt-ridden yearning for The Piracy. Captive to the grief for that which is known. As I grieved, a ripping wind keened in my ears and tore shreds of flesh off my bones, pulling skin away piece by piece into the bitter air. There was a pleasure in this pain. I felt a slow unearthing like the island was trying to pare me back to who I was before. To the someone I was in a time before I knew myself.

Flesh fell and fresh germination saw me curate a sanctuary on the island. Not many came but those who did flickered with light. On this wild isle, they had a soft lumination to them. A tender hand on the shoulder, a sharing of lore, a wink of the eye. I was not used to land-living folk or indeed to women at all. I started to feel a connection weave, a white thread forming.

At night, I dreamed of someone calling my name, Gobnait. The sea whispered through the wattle walls:

“Gobnait, Gobnait, Gobnait, A Stór,

Queen of Honey, Lady of Smithcraft,

Nine White Deer, Ninefold Priestesses,

A Daughter of the Spiral.”

It got louder and louder until the dream flowed out of the Otherworld into this physical realm. I dreamed while awake. A woman stood before me. They would later say it was an angel that appeared to me. And she was. An otherworldly woman from Tír na Ban, the Land of Women. Cloaked in a white mantle, her hair spilt down her breast in a raven glow. Eyes of pale amber, she had a foxglove blush on each snowy cheek. Her lips were Parthian red as she gently spoke my name, “Gobnait.”

Then offered me a silver branch of apple blossom, which bore apples while in bloom. I took a silver apple and broke its skin with my teeth. To my wonder, it wasn’t juice that flowed but a sweet honey elixir. The angel told me that despite my finding a sanctuary on Inis Oírr, this was not my home. I was to travel back to the mainland and whence I fell upon the plain where nine white deer grazed, this would be my place of resurrection.

I had no idea what she meant by “my place of resurrection”, but I knew in the pulse of a vein, I had to answer her Call. And so, I travelled. I saw three white deer, six white deer, but never nine. I spent time in many tuaths, in holy places, still as soon as I felt settled, the nine deer would whisper once more and I would be gone. I trusted, I had no choice, I was ravenous for home.

Black Madonna from The Secret Life of Bees by G. Stoughton

The nine whispers became nine wisps of silver mist that I chased across the land until I climbed down the hill into Baile Bhuirne, the ‘Town of the Beloved’. It was here I saw them. Nine white deer, each with a silver spiral on its hind. As I drew closer their necks guided their noble faces to meet my gaze.

“Máthair”, I gasped.

“Máthair”, I cried.

“Máthair”, I wept falling to my knees.

I could feel the spiral activate within me, spinning in my mind, my heart, my womb. A triple spiral. Spinning as Máthair, as birth, life, death; rebirth, life, death. I was reborn. There was no logic here, only a love-induced surrender and my knowing that I was a Daughter of the Spiral. I had always been a Daughter of the Spiral. I just had to find my way home.

As Máthair moved within me, the silver spirals on the deer hinds began to swirl. And before my soaking eyes, each of the nine deer shapeshifted into a woman wearing a white mantle. I recognised one of these women as the angel. They walked towards me, across the footplains of The Beloved and wrapped a violet cloak around my shaking frame. Surrounded by my Sisters I heard myself sob, “This is my place of resurrection.”

Me squinting with all the light around St Gobnait’s shrine in beautiful Ballyvourney

And it was, for I was home both within and without. I apprenticed myself to these women who would become my ninefold priestesses. I (re)learned the Old Ways of Máthair, of working with the Spiral to serve my tuath and my times. I rooted in the lineage that had always been waiting for me. Our community burst into the land and the people flourished. They called me Queen of Honey and Lady of Smithcraft. I with my healing bees and my moulding the nectar of earth, her ore for smithing.

As one of the elders, a file poet-seer once told me, “When you die Gobnait your soul will travel through time in the form of a bee.” If you are reading these words, perhaps it has come to pass.

I found my place of resurrection.

Will you find yours?

---

Áes Dána Incubator

If you are looking to find your place of resurrection, come join my Mythical Leadership programme for women who desire to bring Celtic mythology to life through their art (all forms), writing, poetry, healing professions, creative industry—and pioneer a new wave of feminine leadership in the process.

We begin in September 2023.

Weekly Digest: The Number 9; The White Cow; Women, Smiths and Druids

A round-up of my weekly musings on social media for those who missed, who desire to revisit, or wish to avoid the social media vortex!

The Magic of Nine

Photo: Phenomenal sand art by Waterford-based artist Manu @manuartireland 🌊

Thrice the sacred triple, nine is a mystical number in Celtic mythology. The nine tresses of the Morrígan (that I shared as a mythical arts practice a few weeks ago) unbraid themselves and flow outwards to other sacred nines:

🌬Nine waves that the Tuatha Dé Danann cast into a storm to stop the Milesians, our human ancestors, from first landing upon Irish shores

🌬Nine hazel trees that drop their hazelnuts into the Well of Segais where salmon swallow them whole and wisdom bubbles. This wisdom is liberated into the land by the Goddess Bóinn, who becomes the River Boyne and similarly, the story of Connla's Well liberated by the Goddess Sinend, the River Shannon

🌬Nine white deer, the symbol of Gobnait, obscure sister saint of Brigid, and her place of resurrection, where she becomes a woman unto herself

🌬Nine generations of birthing pangs that horse goddess Macha with her dying breath spell-casts upon the men of Ulster

🌬Nine Morgens of the Isle of Avalon who were skilled priestesses in astronomy, astrology, mathematics, healing, music, herbal lore, and shapeshifting

No doubt there are many more, which I would love you to share from the Irish/Gaelic/Celtic traditions and beyond from other cultures like the nine muses in Greek tradition - nine women who protected the arts. 🖤

The way of the White Cow

Today, you are invited to access a free guided practice for creativity called the Way of the White Cow.

This practice is designed to support your creative process—no matter what it is you are desiring to create.

It is inspired by the arcane symbol of the Goddess or holy woman as the White Cow that connects many ancient cultures. From the bovine energies of Hathor in Egypt to White Buffalo Calf Woman in Lakota tradition, to Bóinn, the Morrígan and Brigid in Ireland who you will meet in this experience, and others like fairy Goddess Flidhais and her magical cow, Maol.

Everything I create including the Way of the White Cow, I create in partnership with the Otherworld. You might call this Spirit, Goddess, God, the Beloved, the Universe... For me, it is the Otherworld of my mythical lineage as an Irish woman.

This is integral to how I bring the formless—a spark of inspiration—into form.

I did not know what the Way of the White Cow practice was going to ‘look like’. I trusted and followed the intuitive river gushing through me. And of course, I curated the conditions for this flow, which is what you can do today if you feel the impulse.

“Creation is often its own explanation. It is not always logical or well-behaved: it flowers in multitudes. Why not remain alert to the possibility that the spiritual realm, for want of a better term, might be, in the words of novelist Angela Carter, an ‘unexplored country, a brave new world’?”

-Jennifer Higgie, The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World

If you are in my newsletter community, you will have received this practice already. If not, you can sign-up here:

Women, Smiths and Druids

Art by HHEINGE

In a recent podcast, I shared about Gobnait who was a Christian Saint and likely an Old Celtic Goddess in Ireland. Gobnait is deeply associated with bees and smithing – a Queen of Honey and Lady of Smithcraft. She is almost like a Sister-Saint of Brigid, who too was a holy woman and goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft.

🔥“Brigit woman of smithcraft, from whose names almost all of the Irish used to call, Brigit a goddess. Brigit, then, 'a fiery arrow'."🔥

- From Sanas Cormaic, a 9th-century text.

Both women are venerated at Imbolc, the awakening time, both lived in the 5th and 6th centuries. This was an era of monumental change in Ireland. Christianity had arrived on our shores threatening what we now call ‘Pagan’ spirituality, the native worship, the Old Ways. Over time with Christianity, patriarchy, the rule of the father, had the opportunity to deepen its presence and seep into every cultural crevice.

The association of both Gobnait and Brigid with smithing is significant. To have feminine deities of smithcraft is not all that common. This was at a time when metals were considered to be the embryos of the Great Mother, of Earth. So, to transform ore into objects was magic manifest. A smith was a magic-maker. 🪄

We can see how threatening this was to Christianity in an old prayer called ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate’ from the early medieval period, which asks for protection against:

🔥“fri brichta] ban ocus goband ocus druád.”🔥

Which means:

🔥“Against spells of women, and smiths, and druids." 🔥

Sometimes translated as:

🔥“Against spells of witches, and smiths, and wizards.”🔥

So today, let’s honour Gobnait and Brigid and women, witches, smiths, druids and wizards – for the magic we gift to our disenchanted world! 🐍

Weekly Digest: Boundaries and The Wilds

A round-up of my weekly musings on social media for those who missed, who desire to revisit, or wish to avoid the social media vortex!

Desire-full Boundaries

This is an excerpt from my desire-full boundaries mythical movement practice. Here, the story of Deichtire who is a shapeshifting warrior princess in our mythical tradition is invited to meet with the body’s natural intelligence to support the embodiment of boundaries that are fuelled – not by what we don’t want – but by what we desire.🔥

A client shared a sublime image with me recently of her desire-full boundaries experience. Her body showed her the image of a luminous star. She was at the centre point of the star, which felt enlivening and spacious (her core desire). At each point of the star were her desires for various aspects of her life – career, love, friendship, family etc. Guarding the star, holding its boundaries was a Sovereign Priestess like Deichtire.

Feeling this support from her mythical ancestors and her body, made this boundary feel lush and empowering to hold. ⭐️

This practice is available in my Desire-full Boundaries with Deichtire on-demand course.

The Wilds

I have been walking this land my entire life. This may conjure up an image of me roaming the misty hills of Ireland since childhood, of being at one with the wilds. And I did roam the land but I didn’t grow up on the land. I grew up in a different kind of wilds, in a working-class area of north Dublin where my folks still live. I was reading recently that 15% of young people where I grew up have the opportunity to go to college in comparison to 99% of young people in affluent Dublin suburbs – this made my eyes pop and blood boil.

An incredible outlet that I discovered when I was nine – was scouting. I joined the year they permitted girls in for the first time (another eye-popper) and remained involved until my mid-twenties as a leader. This fostered in me a chest-imploding love for nature, an exhilaration for Ireland, Éire's beauty, a deep respect and reverence for the land – and most importantly, wonder. I was enchanted.

I’m always reminded that even beneath the concrete of the estate I grew up in, nature was determined to burst through the cracks and weed into my heart. Nature wasn’t out there. It still isn’t. It’s within. My body is nature.

So even when we don’t get to live in the circumstances that we desire, it isn’t a ‘less than’, put your hand on that concrete and beneath it, feel her pulse meet with the pulse of your veins. Allow her to flow through you and remind yourself of your own innate wildness - and of your devotion to her. 🌿🤍

Weekly Digest: Anam Cara, Queen of Honey, and The Celtic Wheel

A round-up of my weekly musings on social media for those who missed, who desire to revisit, or wish to avoid the social media vortex!

Anam Cara - Your Soul Companion

Venus and Pegasus by Bolesław Biegas, 1925

✨"Each person enters the world Called."✨

This is a quote from James Hillman who pioneered 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.

To help us tend to this gem or what Hillman refers to as the acorn, we are gifted what the Greeks called a 'daimon' or ‘daemon’, the Romans called a 'genius', the Christians called a 'guardian angel', across First Nations peoples there are many names like your 'spirit', your 'animal soul', your 'breath soul'...

In Ireland, writing in the 9th century, Saint Óengus who is said to have spent much time as a hermit communing with angels, recorded a story of Goddess Brigid in her saintly form where to her young foster son, she exclaims:

✨"Anyone without an Anam Cara is a body without a head."✨

Anam Cara ("An-im Car-rah") translates as 'Soul Friend.' It is often misinterpreted in English as soulmate. This concept was popularised by John O'Donohue's sublime book, 'Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World' where he anchors anam cara in the Irish Christian tradition. He believed that an anam cara was a 'teacher, companion or spiritual guide.' This person was a living person, a live friend, but for O'Donohue, Jesus Christ was also an anam cara.

And so, perhaps the anam cara is an older concept on this island than we imagine. It is our Greek daimon. The Irish or Gaelic soul companion who remembers who we were before we knew ourselves. Who will never stop guiding us to our Calling even when we are lost in the overculture. As Hillman stresses:

"A calling may be postponed, avoided, or intermittently missed. It may also possess you completely. Whatever; eventually it will out. It makes its claim. The daimon [or anam cara] does not go away."

Today, I honour the Anam Cara within me – and within you. 🕯️

Queen of Honey and Lady of Smithcraft

In this podcast episode for Bealtaine, I felt guided to share my retelling of the Celtic Saint and Goddess, Gobnait and her Nine White Deer.

*This is a tale of individuation, of a woman’s painful but beautiful becoming

*Of Gobnait who lived around Brigid’s time and who too was a Saint and likely a pre-Christian Goddess

*You’ll meet an otherworldly angel with a prophecy of nine white deer who guided Gobnait to her “place of resurrection”, and perhaps this season of Bealtaine, find yours

You can listen here on this website or on Spotify.

The Celtic Wheel

And so it is. We find ourselves unfolding into the season of Bealtaine.

We have moved from the dark half of the year that began at Samhain, through the awakening of the land at Imbolc, to the gorse bright bloom of Bealtaine, as the wheel has turned and oscillated towards the light half of the year. Can you remember or sense the dreams you planted - intentionally or floating in your subconscious - in Samhain time? Which one(s) feels ripe to move out into the world?

🌻What gifts can I share with the world?

🌼What risks might I take?

🌷How might I ripen towards my desires?

Mythical Arts Practice: The Morrígan’s Tresses

The Mythical Arts

Today, I share a nourishing, enlivening and powerful mythical arts practice with you.

So what do I mean by the ‘mythical arts’?

Well firstly, art can be an embodiment process, an experience of the body. Art is often infused by fios, the Irish word for otherworldly knowledge or wisdom gained through divine inspiration in relationship with the Otherworld, or imbas the light of foresight - but it is brought into form through the body.

Secondly, the mythical arts is any way that we breathe life into our mythology through our creative expression. This could be storytelling, poetry, written word, drawing, painting, crafting, sculpting, song, music, movement, dance, theatre, photography, film-making, herbalism, gardening… I could go on and on.

In fact, for the mythical arts practice I’ll be sharing with you today, I don’t know what category it falls into. Crafting perhaps… it doesn’t matter. The mythical arts is about allowing your fios to flow through you into form. Whatever form looks like to you.

You do not need to be an ‘artist’, you simply need to be your own Bean Feasa, the wise woman or Duine Feasa the wise person who embraces their fios and allows it to flow.

Tresses of the Morrígan

I call this practice ‘The Morrígan’s Tresses’, which came from my leadership programme, the Sovereignty Goddess Incubator. The Morrígan or Morrigan is an embodiment of the dark feminine in the Irish mythical tradition. Creation and death, life-giving, life-taking, are dual aspects of the Great Mother of birth, life, death, and rebirth. As a descendant of this Great Mother energy, the Morrígan is an expression of the darker, necessary aspects of the human experience.

Like the Hindu Goddess Kali, she is a destroyer often destroying what needs to die within ourselves so that we can become more alive. And like the Sumerian Goddess Inanna, she bestows kingship through her strategy, sexual potency, magical shapeshifting and seership as a goddess of sovereignty and war.

In one of her core myths, Cath Maige Tuired, we encounter the Morrígan at a ford in the River Unshin in Co. Sligo. It is Samhain when the veil between worlds is thinnest. The Great Goddess straddles this liminal time with one foot on the river bank to the south, one foot on the bank to the north, her vulva present over the water’s roaring flow. Nine loose tresses fall from her head. It is here that herself and the Dagda, the great god of the Tuatha Dé Danann lie together. So that this place becomes known as the ‘Bed of the Couple', and later, as the ‘Ford of Destruction’ - again fertility and destruction, life and death at play together.

The Number Nine

This image of the Morrígan’s nine loose tresses became a source of fios for me. Thrice the sacred triple, nine is a mystical number in Celtic mythology. The nine tresses of the Morrígan unbraid themselves and flow outwards to other sacred nines:

🌀Nine waves that the Tuatha Dé Danann cast into a storm to stop the Milesians, our human ancestors, from first landing upon Irish shores

🌀Nine hazel trees that drop their hazelnuts into the Well of Segais where salmon swallow them whole and wisdom bubbles. This wisdom is liberated into the land by the Goddess Bóinn, who becomes the River Boyne and similarly, the story of Connla's Well liberated by the Goddess Sinend, the River Shannon

🌀Nine white deer, the symbol of Gobnait, obscure sister saint of Brigid, and her place of resurrection, where she becomes a woman unto herself 

🌀Nine generations of birthing pangs that horse goddess Macha with her dying breath spell-casts upon the men of Ulster

🌀Nine Morgens of the Isle of Avalon who were skilled priestesses in astronomy, astrology, mathematics, healing, music, herbal lore, and shapeshifting

I have no doubt there are many more.

Your Nine Braids

And so, you will create your nine tresses of the Morrígan in honour of the Goddess and all of these sacred symbols of nine. You will braid them together with incantation as healing threads. Some say the Morrígan is the mother of Goddess Brigid, and like you would weave a Brigid's cross for protection, here will weave:

1. Three braids of Gratitude for this journey of life, of your own becoming

2. Three braids of Desire for your life

3. Three braids of Reciprocity for the gifts will you bring in service to our world

Femme Se Paignant ­ (Woman Combing Her Hair) by Edgar Degas, 1887-1890

What You Will Need

•  A stick. I sourced mine from Dún na Rí, King's Court, a beautiful ancient forest in Co. Cavan. I set out with the intention to ask the land for the gift of a stick for this project. I found a lovely mossy one, which I then washed and varnished. You could paint the stick if you desire using acrylic paint so it will last. Or you could purchase a wooden dowel. For me, I love the perfection in the stick's natural winding texture

• Three balls of wool or yarn

• A strong twine for hanging. I used threaded wire from the local florist

Sacred Steps

Once you have your bits and pieces:

1. Take your ball of wool and cut 27 threads of wool measuring about 60cm in length

2. Repeat for your second ball of wool, then for your third ball of wool

3. Once you have your threads ready, take time to prepare the energy of your space. I got on all fours so my head, heart and womb were level. I began breathing and moving myself into this sacred space. I smudged the threads with the dreaming herb of mugwort

4. Divine each of your bundles of 27 threads into 3 x smaller bundles of nine threads. So if you can imagine, you’ll have three bundles of nine threads for your first ball of wool, three for your second ball of wool, three for your third ball of wool - 9 bundles of 9 threads ready for braiding (stay with me 😍)

5. Then once you are ready, fold your threads in half and loop each of your bundles of nine threads onto your stick. I tied my stick down to keep it still while doing this

6. For each tress, you'll now have 18 threads as they've doubled over

7. What I did then is divide my 18 threads into three bundles of six which I braided together 

8. As you go, do not concern yourself with perfection. The Morrígan's tresses are not perfect. This is an embodied experience of creative magic not an exercise to get something 'right'

The Magic Begins

Now the magic begins!

Work intuitively, no need to have everything written out beforehand. Feel into your body and ask yourself:

What are my three Gratitudes?

For each gratitude, thread a braid and invoke out loud your gratitude as you braid. For example, I chanted:

“Máthair, táim buíoch as...”

“Great Mother, I am grateful for...”

If you can, close your eyes as you braid and feel the wool weave through your hands and the sound of your invocation bind the tresses together.

I found myself crying doing this and so I wove my tears into my braids. It felt profoundly moving. Go as you are.

Then once complete, ask:

What are my three Desires?

Continue braiding.

And finally,

What three gifts will I share in service to this world?

We all have gifts to bring. A core tenet of Irish mythology is reciprocity with the Otherworld and so in a way, we have due diligence to share our gifts with the world.

Complete your nine Morrígan tresses. Offer a bow, a nod, a hand on heart, a gesture to the Great Goddess and these sacred symbols of nine. Sit with your braids for a time. It's a moving experience.

And when the time feels right, add your twine or wire and hang your Morrígan's Tresses somewhere you can meet with them regularly. Take your braids in your hand as you walk by, stroke them, tend to them, feel their magic – your magic.

Betrothing Your Sovereignty Goddess & King

The mythical imagination of the ancient Irish understood that every person carries feminine and masculine expressions within themselves, regardless of gender. Unfortunately, in our patriarchal modern world, the feminine expression is often lost or disregarded. And yet, it is through a reconciliation of these polarities that balance and abundance is nourished in the world.

But before we can restore this outer balance, it is imperative that first, we restore it within ourselves.

Betrothing Your Sovereignty Goddess & King is a three-part, online workshop series open to people of all genders that will explore these concepts in-depth and guide you towards reconciling and uniting the feminine and masculine principles within yourself.

Tristan and Isolde by John Duncan, 1912

A Sacred Union

Many ancient and indigenous belief systems recognise that the union of feminine and masculine is sacred. In Taoism, yin and yang represent the feminine and masculine aspects of life. When they converge, they produce qi, the primal life force that flows through all living beings. More contemporary Jungian depth psychology teaches of the masterpiece that is formed through the integration of anima (feminine) and animus (masculine).

In ancient Irish cosmology, the marriage of feminine and masculine was essential for life to flourish. This marriage manifested in the sacred union of the Sovereignty Goddess and the King, whose partnership brought abundance to the land. Without it, “Deathly plagues would spread, Wildlife would perish, Milk would dry up, [and] The harvest would fail”.

Life would become a Wasteland.

But when these forces came together through love and mutual respect there was a time of great plenty. 

The Accolade by Edmund Leighton,1901

Cauldrons of Creativity

In Irish and Welsh mythologies, the cauldron is a powerful symbol of creation, rebirth, and nourishment. In Betrothing Your Sovereignty Goddess and King, we use the cauldron as a framework for our workshops.

Over three events, my Anam Cara and collaborator Sarah Richardson, a Bean Ghlúine (Midwife) and Bean Caointe (Keening Woman), and myself, will guide you through three cauldrons (or containers) that will help you to reclaim parts of your inner feminine and masculine expressions, so you too can flourish.

Together, Sarah and I invite you to sit around our cauldron and share in the potions that brew for you.

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse, 1886

In In these workshops, you will meet the many faces of the divine feminine and masculine in Irish cosmology, journey into the Celtic Otherworld through the eyes of the Sovereignty Goddess, and learn about the ancient ritual that wed her and a worthy King. You will even create your own talisman that symbolises the betrothal of the feminine and masculine powers within yourself.

Drink with us of this knowledge and let the magical elixir awaken you to the potentiality of your feminine and masculine powers.

Pleasure with Deer Goddess Flidhais

It's been a crisp entry to March so it's hard to believe the Spring Equinox is almost upon us in Ireland. Soon longer days will spill out across the land. This is the season to practice the art of devotion. Of devotion to our desires. The Celtic Wheel spins and asks of us:

What am I devoting myself to?

What discipline does this require?

Discipline comes from the Latin disciplina which means “instruction, training, practice” from the root, discere; “to learn, to acquire”. And so, discipline here is not uncompromising rigour (we’ve had enough of that) but rather a commitment to ourselves to attend to our dreams.

“Art is born in attention.”

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Pleasure is our ally here. Because pleasure helps us feel worthy of our dreams. Pleasure expands the possibilities for our dreams.

But what, exactly, is pleasure? And how do we go about cultivating it?

Pleasure Truths and Lies

For many women, pleasure is an elusive feeling. Next to the duties and responsibilities of life, it can seem unimportant and even frivolous. And for some of us, pleasure is associated with shame. In our patriarchal, capitalist societies, we are often told that pleasure is lazy, greedy, and selfish. That it has to be earned. And so our worthiness is called into question.

But these pleasure lies could not be further from the truth.

Pleasure is our divine right. It lives in the body, and is accessible to us all, even amidst pain. When we learn to unlock that pleasure and let it move through us, we can discover our truest desires.

Art: The Moon by Erin Kelso

Embodied Decisions, Embodied Desires

It’s not always easy to know what we really desire and what we think we should desire. For instance, we might think we want a certain type of success, but is that actually what brings us joy? Or is that what our status-obsessed world tells us we should want? Cultivating pleasure can help us answer these questions.

Because when  we  invite  pleasure  into  our lives,  we  begin  to  make  decisions  differently: decisions based on abundance and hope, rather than scarcity and fear; decisions based on what feels good in our bodies, rather than what looks good to other people.

Pleasure With Flidhais

To help you luxuriate in pleasure, I am now offering Pleasure with Flidhais. In this powerful self-guided mini-course, you will learn to cast off patriarchy’s pleasure lies and enliven the pleasure current inherent in your body.

Throughout your journey, you will be guided by the Deer Goddess Flidhais, whose unapologetic embrace of her sensual desires is a mythic inspiration to all women.

“I know this path by magic not by sight”

I write this from the space between. For a time I have been in the unknown. I feel like I don’t know who I am losing—what parts of me are crumbling—nor do I know who I am yet becoming.

A silver mist descended and lulled me into a slumber and when I awoke I was in the labyrinth. In a gnarling dark forest with its illusory shadows. I have yet to reach the centre, which in itself is only half the journey, if or rather when I’m to re-emerge.

Being in the void of the unknown feels nebulous, clumsy almost to express because we tend not to spend very long here, frantically scrambling to find our way out—any way out. Or we create another world on top of the labyrinth and climb up onto this. Smoothing its maze over with concrete, dusting off our hands, good luck! but missing our opportunity to uncover new depths within ourselves. I’ve done this time again.  

I can’t say I’m happy here surrendering. I can feel an irritated body within a body clawing to get out. To escape from myself. But today I am brought solace reminded of our ancestors and their belief that all life begins in the dark. Our Universe began in the cosmic dark. We dream in the darkness of lidded eyes. It is in this place that all magic originates. Because it is a place of infinite possibilities.  

Our forebearers, the filí, the poet-seers and the draoithe, the druid magic-makers understood the prospects of the darkness. You see in our myths and native tracts, poets and druids described as ‘dall’. Dall means 'dark', 'obscure', or 'blind' in Old Irish. You also see the use of the words 'caech', which means 'blind in one eye', 'hidden', 'veiled', 'mysterious', and its variation, 'goll'.

This speaks to their trust that we must enter full or at least partial darkness to access magic. To receive imbas forosnai—the wisdom or knowledge that illuminates, the second sight. However long it takes to come.

Art: La llamada (The Call) by Remedios Varo, 1961

The unknown gifts us with a separate sight beyond ordinary logic, and so we can only “know this path by magic”, not by regular sight. These words are taken from Irish poet, Paula Meehan’s mystical poem, Well:

Well

I know this path by magic not by sight.
Behind me on the hillside the cottage light
is like a star that’s gone astray. The moon
is waning fast, each blade of grass a rune
inscribed by hoarfrost. This path’s well worn.
I lug a bucket by bramble and blossoming blackthorn.
I know this path by magic not by sight.
Next morning when I come home quite unkempt
I cannot tell what happened at the well.
You spurn my explanation of a sex spell
cast by the spirit who guards the source
that boils deep in the belly of the earth,
even when I show you what lies strewn
in my bucket — a golden waning moon,
seven silver stars, our own porch light,
your face at the window staring into the dark.

Art: Moon Falls a Thousand Times by Naeemeh Naeemaei

In my own bucket, I can dream of a golden waning moon and seven silver stars.

Do I know what they mean? No. Not yet.

But that’s the beauty of mystery. The beauty of the dark.  

So if you are in, or when you find yourself in the space between, listen for your soul’s whisper:

“I know this path by magic not by sight.”

Mythical Leadership Podcast

I was recently invited back on one of my favourite podcasts, the School of Embodied Arts Podcast with Jenna Ward. Jenna and her phenomenal body of work have been a huge expander for me in recent years.

Our conversation was rooted in this question:

For leaders shifting away from the cultural norms of leadership obsession with “more” “bigger” and “eternal summer/growth”, who can we look to for guidance?

In response, we explored:

🌀How I came to (re)vision leadership through my background as a Feminine Embodiment Coach, Mythologist and Anthropologist

🌀We unpack the current masculine overculture and why it keeps many leaders in their maiden energy

🌀I share Celtic myths, stories and wisdom to reimagine what leadership could look like for modern coaches, creatives and leaders

🌀We touch on the different archetypes we might be playing out as a leader (often unconsciously)

🌀Women, wealth, witches and modern stewardship of money

It’s a rich convo!

Sacred Site Ritual

When was the last time you felt rooted in the land of your mythical or human ancestors?

What about in your body? When was the last time you luxuriated in its senses, tasted its desires, listened to its music, moved with its rhythms?

Perhaps this feels recent, or a time ago.

Just like the earth, your body is a place. And just like any place, it is shaped by the mythical and ancestral DNA that tells its story.

When you reconnect to your body, you also reconnect to the land that birthed your lineage and the wisdom it holds. 

The Mound of Hostages (Duma na nGiall) at the Hill of Tara, a 5,000-year-old passage tomb and ritual complex. It was used as a site to bury and honour our ancestors for over 1,500 years. It is aligned to the sunrise on Imbolc and Samhain.

Reconnecting with Your Ancient Home

For many of us, our relationship to ancestral land is complex. While some of us may live in the places where our forebears were born and died, many more do not. Sometimes that is by choice, and other times it is due to factors outside of our control, such as ancestral migration, colonisation, displacement, and war.

Yet for all of us, the memory of our ancestral home is deeply embedded in our body, passed down through our DNA.

Art: Gate to Paradise by Wilhelm Bernatzik, 1906

The Body is a Place

To many indigenous peoples the world over, the earth has been a manifestation of the divine feminine. The same is true for the people of this land, of Ériu, of Ireland. Our ancestors lived in reciprocity with nature and the feminine as an expression of the Otherworld. The Brehon Laws, the native law tracts of Ireland, evidence this.

But in our modern, capitalist societies, we are encouraged to think of the earth as a means of extraction and exploitation. Our bodies are similarly relegated to sites of production and consumption.

But the body is also a place. It was birthed from the earth and it will return to the earth. When we begin to see our bodies as beautiful places to be explored and enjoyed, we can begin to view the earth as our ancestors did.

Sacred Site Ritual

Many of my clients beyond Irish shores have experienced this connection to body and place in profound ways. And so, I’ve decided to share my Sacred Site Ritual as a self-guided mini-course.

In Sacred Site Ritual, you will reconnect with your body and your ancestral home. Here’s a sneak peek of what’s in store:

• Reflect on how your Body is a Place and what this means for exploring and honouring your body

• Learn how Story Sits in Places and how Irish placenames tell the mythical stories of their creation

• Do your own research into the insular Celtic lands’ many sacred sites, such as Neolithic portal tombs, Megalithic standing stones, and ancient royal capitals

• Journey to the Otherworld in the Sacred Site Visualisation and delve into a place that houses the wisdom of your ancestors

“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Once the soul awakens, the search begins, and you can never go back.”

John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

Awakening to Brigid’s Time

Another threshold time is upon us as next week we will enter Imbolc, the season of awakening in the northern hemisphere.

Imbolc (“Imbulk”) or Imbolg in Old Irish means ‘in the belly’ (bolg is 'belly' in Gaeilge, the Irish language) and is thought to refer to the pregnancy of ewes during this time, marking the beginning of lambing season. Another interpretation is that Imbolc derives from Imfholc, which means 'in the cleanse' (folc is 'wash' or 'cleanse' in Gaeilge).

We are moving away from the dreaming time of the Winter Solstice and awakening with the land as life unfurls to a lengthening of days and the promise of the lighter half of the year to come at Bealtaine. And so, Imbolc encourages you to ignite these questions in your body:

What possibilities are emerging for me?

How might I fuel my creative fire?

Like all of the cross-quarter or earth days in the Celtic Calendar (Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine, and Lughnasa), Imbolc is a fire festival. Most notably associated with Brigid (also Brighid, Brigit, Bridget, Bríg, Bríd, Breda, Bridie, Bride) and her perpetual flame.

Imbolc is Brigid’s time.

In Irish mythology, Brigid or Bríg (“Breej”) is a Goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She is the first woman to keen in Ireland over the death of her son Rúadán. Keening is a traditional form of lamenting, of wailing over the dead as a rite of passage. It is a truly embodied expression of grief. The ancient text poignantly tells us:

"She screamed loudly and finally wept. This was the first time that weeping and loud screaming were heard in Ireland. And she was thus the Bríg that had devised a whistling to signal by night."

And so here we get a felt sense, we can almost hear the original sound of our sacred keen passed down intergenerationally on this island - “a whistling to signal by night.”

Brigid is also referenced in a 9th century text called Sanas Cormaic (Cormac's Glossary) as a triple Goddess—Brigit of the Filí (the poet-seers), Brigit of Leechcraft (the art of healing), and Brigit of Smithcraft:

"Brigit—a poetess, daughter of the Dagda. This is Brigit the female sage, or woman of wisdom, Brigit the goddess whom the filí used to worship for very great and very splendid was her application to art. Therefore they used to call her goddess of poets whose sisters were Brigit, the female physician (woman of leechcraft), Brigit woman of smithcraft, from whose names almost all of the Irish used to call, Brigit a goddess. Brigit, then, 'a fiery arrow'."

This tells us her status was profoundly powerful as the filí ("fil-ee") were members of the Aes Dána ("Aysh Dawna"), the 'People of the Arts', the most highly revered group in early Irish society, and she their patron.

To have a feminine deity of smithcraft is not common. This is at a time when metals were considered to be the embryos of Mother Earth. So, to transform ore into objects was magic manifest.

To this day, Brigid is associated with healing and as a sacred midwife. You'll see Brigid's crosses in maternity hospitals in Ireland.

Birthing Bridget by Dee Mulrooney

Then of course, we have Brigid, the Saint. Today, there are many interpretations of this dynamic woman. Traditionally, it was believed that the Church Christianised the ancient Goddess as a modus operandi of conversion. The Saint herself is said to have been born in 451 CE just at the time of the coming of Christianity to Ireland. Some believe that this saintly Brigid was the Goddess incarnate.

"Brigid, who is for the Irish the most excellent saint, just as the pagan Brigit was the most excellent goddess."

Marie-Louise Sjoestedt, Celtic Gods and Heroes, 1940

Brigid by Courtney Davis projected on to the General Post Office, GPO, in Dublin city centre as part of the Herstory campaign.

For the first time in Ireland this year, we will celebrate our awakening to Imbolc with a public holiday on 1st February in honour of our Brigid (this will officially fall on Bank Holiday Monday, 6th). This feels like an immense moment of reclamation and recognition for the feminine on this land. The flame of the Goddess burns bright in our hearts. ❤️‍🔥

If you are on Irish soil, there are many events scheduled to honour Brigid, you can discover more here. For all, this is a short blog I wrote last year on Making Crosses on Brigid’s Eve.

It is said that Brigid was born on a threshold, her mother had one foot in the homestead, one foot on the land, and so I’m wishing you the brightest of blessings as you take Brigid’s hand and cross this threshold into the awakening time.

Women’s Christmas - Nollaig na mBan

Under the Sky by Tetsuhiro Wakabayashi

Today, 6th of January, many women across Ireland will pause to celebrate Women’s Christmas. Known in Gaeilge as Nollaig na mBan (“Null-ig na Mawn”), this holiday honours the hard work of Irish women throughout the Christmas season and year.

Traditionally, it was a time when gender roles were reversed. Men took over the household duties while women met each other for tea, a slice of currant cake, a chat and a well-deserved break!

Merry Aunties by Inge Löök

Rituals of Cleansing and Death

Nollaig na mBan is as much a celebration of women’s hard work as it is a reminder that women sacrifice so much that is taken for granted.

A common phrase associated with the holiday is, “Nollaig na mBan, Nollaig gan mhaith”, which essentially means Women’s Christmas is without the good stuff.

This is in reference to the lack of feasting that takes place at this time. Women’s Christmas did not experience the same excess as Christmas Day.

But women took their own spin on this with magic and ritual.

It was said that all the well water in Ireland would turn into wine at midnight on Women’s Christmas. No one was permitted to go out to observe this phenomenon or sample the well water, or they would be met with terrible luck.

A common cleansing ritual involved mothers rubbing the tails of herrings across the eyes of their children to give them immunity against disease. In the epoch of a global pandemic, this symbolism feels potent as Nollaig na mBan honours the ways that women keep their communities safe during times of pestilence.

In another tradition, women made “cakes” of clay or mud, into which were placed candles named after each member of the family. The order in which these candles went out predicted the order in which the family members would die. In a version of this, family members would light their own candles and place them in the window as a symbol of protection. In this way, Nollaig na mBan not only protects the family from death but acknowledges death’s natural place in the cycle of life.

Art by Jackie Morris

Reclaiming Rest

Of course, Irish women - women everywhere - deserve more than one day of rest. But Nollaig na mBan shouldn’t be seen as a singular day when women are given the day off. Rather, it is a jumping-off point that we can reclaim and reimagine for the times we are in.

Rest looks different to different bodies. For me, rest can mean:

• Acceptance. When I can let go and invite peace into my body - even momentarily.

• Rest is giving myself permission to catch my breath.

• Rest is my presence. When I have not left my body to travel back into the mullings of the past or unknowns of the future.

• Rest is feeling alive to my senses. Sight. Smell. Sound. Taste. Touch.

• Rest is my boundaries. Embodying the structures that allow me to surrender. To trust.

• Rest is when I enter a mythical portal of story or art. When I am lost in absorption.

• Rest is plugging into our Great Mother, this land, Ériu, and feeling her charge.

And so, as we celebrate this tradition, asking your body now:

Body- what does rest look like for me?

Giving yourself permission to follow through on the impulse today and honour your body’s innate wisdom.

Rest love, rest.

Skywatcher by Susan Seddon Boulet

In the Spirit of Women

In the spirit of celebrating women’s contribution, I wish to share the work of a few close friends of mine in Ireland who are working to reclaim and reimagine the mythos of this land through their own unique expression.

• The magical midwife Sarah Richardson who is working to revive our Bean Ghlúine (‘Woman of the Knees’), the Irish midwife, and Bean Chaointe (‘Crying/Keening Woman’) traditions, and has just launched her book WOMAN.

• The enchanting Regina de Búrca who took on the immense feat of translating the Rider Waite Tarot to Gaeilge, our native tongue and has undertaken research into the correlation between the tarot and the Creideamh Sí, the ‘Fairy Faith’.

• The Bean Feasa Aisling Jackson - our holistic menstrual educator in the west of Ireland who has a talent for uncovering womb wisdom in the Irish language.

• The courageous Dee Mulrooney - a phenomenal mythopoetic Irish artist who in her own words has discovered the “joy of playing with taboos and visions of female identity that would until all too recently have seen her locked away.”

• The trailblazing Nadine McCarthy whose fusion of radical leadership with the ancient wisdom of this land is creating a new global vision for Ireland.

Tailtiu by Dee Mulrooney

Song of the Banshee Online Immersion

Finally, myself and Sarah Richardson are hosting an online Song of the Banshee immersion. Here, we will explore the feminine mythos of the Bean Sídhe (“Banshee”), the woman of the Otherworld and supernatural death messenger in the Irish tradition through the lens of reclaiming our voices.

This will take place on Friday, 13th January 2023. Full details are available here.