… of an Irish mind.
Walking around holy wells and up sacred mountains was and is an important part of pre-Christian and Christian traditions in Ireland. Walking is a form of intentional prayer, a sacrifice of movement, a dedication of energy. Pilgrimages the world over in all faiths demand/require movement, the physicality of journeying mirroring the desire for spiritual movement, […]
MoreToday is the vernal equinox. It marks the juncture at which the earth starts to align an angle with the sun, which will bring some extra nurturing warmth and a stretch in light levels. Bringing the two factors conducive to more consistent plant growth into play. It is as such a feast day to the […]
MoreOk, we know the story; St Patrick the snake banisher with his possible Stockholm syndrome-induced love of the Irish, came back to his former hostage place and explained the holy trinity through this little plant, thus freeing us from our pagan ways of mutual respect, female deities and nature worship to a different system altogether […]
More‘Gan scaoll’ means ‘without panic’. Not a lot of that in modernity. The modern world built upon apprehension, fomo, hyper-vigilance and status anxiety. You can’t spell pandemic without p a n i c … but the way to survive it is with calm rationality and appropriate behaviour. Survival is not always running faster than the […]
MoreToday is the 1st of February. To some that means Lá Fhéile Bríde or a Christianised ‘Saint Brigid’s day’ and to others it is Imbolc. To everyone in Ireland it is the first of Spring – not having succumb to Roman invasion, we kept our birth of spring with the birth of lambs and the […]
MoreOur oldest traditions carry with them respect and appreciation for trees. Ireland to its first human dwellers was a deeply forested place. And trees are still deeply significant to the mythology and culture expression of the Irish psyche. Our national sport is played with hunks of ash tree and the proficiency with a Hurley is how Cúchullain […]
More‘Sharp’ is word that Irish people use to mean clever – you know “the sharpest tool in the tool box” sort of thing – or “not the sharpest tool”, as the case may be. A sharp tool is a sharpened tool – honed, worked upon, cared for, appreciated. One of my favourite seanfhocail is ‘Aithnigh cú […]
MoreThere is a great Irish saying ‘Bíonn dhá insint ar scéal agus dhá leagan déag ar amhrán – There are two versions to a story and twelve arrangements to a song’. As humans, we are the stories we tell ourselves – there is no getting away from it. It is hard wired into our brain […]
MoreBealtaine is both the month of May (Mí Bhealtaine) and a very specific day – the 1st of May – the day of protection. ‘Bealtaine’ translates as the bright fire; a festival of light, when the fires of purification were lit. An agricultural festival marking the start of summer and a return to farmable weather. […]
MoreThere was an old custom, particularly in county Cork and one or two other places around Ireland that May Eve (April 30th) was celebrated as “Nettlemas Night”; nettles may be gathered for making soup and the children would play stinging games with a wand of nettles – stinging their friends and passers-by. To that I […]
More
head afire 