Your keening doll will most likely hold the same intentions that some of your most ancient foremothers placed into their dolls, hopes and intentions, sorrows and prayers. While we have many stone and clay figurines which survived, there was thousands upon thousands of bone and fur, blood and bone, twig and stone creations which didn’t survive. Perhaps part of their magic was that they were scattered by rain, and dispersed by the wind.
Read More
This is a story for Subscribers, the story of a rather wild Scottish cat, who heard the call of the great Storm Cat as he left this world for new adventures
It was almost Christmas and folks were planning to begin cooking all manner of fish pies (and whatever else you cook with fish, I don’t know I’m a veggie), but the skies darkened as a great storm began to roar, which made it way too dangerous to go out to sea.
Mowzer was a clever cat and decided it was best to stay indoors when the storm cat growled. But as the storm roared the people couldn’t get their boats out to sea and soon they had eaten all their vegetables from their storm ravaged gardens and had nothing left.
Tom and Mouwzer decide to go fishing and face the great storm cat, but as they leave the small gap in the harbour wall Mowzer feels sorry for the great storm cat as it doesn’t have a warm range to sit by nor anyone to pour it cream, and so she begins to sing.
Short story shorter - as Tom draws in the fishing nets, Mouzer realises that while the great Storm Cat has been gently playing with them, she won’t let them return home - as so she begins to purr, louder and louder and the storm cat bends a head down to hear the purring. With the storm cat entranced Tom steers that boat home and back into the harbour.
While that’s Mouzels story, there is another cat story I want to tell. This cat is called Jude, and Jude was a rather wild Scottish cat. When he was wee he somehow got stuck under floorboards for two whole weeks. Jude ended up in a cat and dog home, and got rescued by some nice people. In his youth he’d head out prowling most nights, and liked nothing better than a good fight. He was most satisfied when he’d come home in the early hours, looking a little worse for wear, and perhaps a scratch or two on his nose, and a cut on his ear.
But by the time Jude got to about 18, 19 he was a very old man. He spend a whole year and a half thoroughly enjoying being old. He’d no longer lacerate your hand if you tried to scratch him behind the ear, and he began to even enjoy it. He took lots of naps, would eat just a little bit of the smorgasbord of cat food and treats that his human left out for him, and then if the weather was right he amble into the garden and sit in the sun.
Two nights ago we had a big storm, the storm cat had come to visit. It lashed at the land and towns with great clawed paws, crashing down trees, and overhead wires. This was the night that Jude heard the call of the great storm cat, but his story wasn’t like Mowzers, to tame the storm cat, Jude’s story was to join the storm cat. And so that night it was time for Jude to leave the kind people, and his wee old body, and journey on to travel with the storm cat.
When next storm comes around, I’ll watch the skies for a great black paw with a little white, and know he’s out there, playing with the storm cat.
Goodnight old man.
THE RAFFLE IS NOW CLOSED AND THE WINNER HAS BEEN NOTIFIED. I HAVE NOTIFIED EVERYONE WHO DONATED WHO WILL RECEIVE AN INVITATION TO THE KEENING CIRCLE EVENT IN SEPTEMBER .
I’m sure like me you might well feel helpless watching the horror play out in Gaza. I don’t know what t do, but I can offer a raffle and a community space to share our grief.
I’m sure, like me, you might feel helpless watching the horror play out in Gaza. While I feel helpless, I can offer a raffle and support people who have a long track record of working in Gaza. I can offer a space where we can come together to both share and express our grief.
The raffle launches today, Friday 1st August and closes on Thursday 7th August at UK time 9pm. After the raffle ends I will send an email with details about the online Keening Circle which will take place on Saturday 14th September at 7-9pm UK time.
16,000 children have died in Gaza, with the total death toll now surpassing 60,000. This grim milestone comes as Israel continues to attack aid seekers amid famine conditions in Gaza, with at least 147 deaths directly attributed to starvation.(Al Jazeera - click here for link ).
60,000 lives have been lost lost. I can’t help but think of all those lives cut short. The books that will never get written, the artists and community workers who will never inspire change. The carers and the culture shapers, the innovative ideas, the art, the tech innovators, the inventions , all these dreams which have died with the dead.
The Keening Doll
The raffle if for the doll pictured above. She is inspired by the ancient keeners, the women who helped the community move through their grief, tending to those who were dying as well as guiding the soul of the deceased home.
Doll is made from wool through needlefelting
Stands 38 cm (15 inches) tall and 20 cm (8 inches) wide
Mixed up-cycled fabrics - wool and synthetic materials
Embellishments - twig and shell headdress, driftwood staff and shell, stone with drilled hole as necklace
Online keening Circle
Grief was never meant to be experienced alone and do for every ticket purchased you’ll receive and invitation (after the raffle ends) for an online gathering - a place to share our grief and an opportunity to sit with that grief, to share your story (if you wish) as well as an invitation to move and voice your grief.
Support
Tickets can be purchased through Paypal via the link below. All money raised will be donated to Action Against Hunger
Action Against Hunger is a UK based charity who have worked in Gaza since 2005
Reached over 900,000 people in Gaza (nearly half of them children)
Over the past year, their teams have delivered clean water, fresh food, hygiene kits, shelter items, and sanitation services to internally displaced and vulnerable populations.
They have constructed latrines, installed handwashing facilities, and carried out solid waste removal to help prevent malnutrition and disease.
‘While only limited aid, primarily food parcels, hygiene kits, and minimal water, is currently permitted into Gaza, we continue to procure and preposition supplies, support local partners and work with trusted contractors in the Strip’.
Read more about how Action for Hunger are working in Gaza here
Raffle tickets are priced at £15 (USD $20) Every penny raised in this raffle (apart from any fees Paypal might charge) and the posting of the doll to the raffle winner will be donated to Action Against Hunger.
The total amount raised will be shared
I’ll gather the Email addresses of those who purchase a raffle ticket to share the Keening Circle Zoom link. After the Zoom event in September this list will be deleted.
On the Gather the Keeners Retreat on the Isle of Eigg we walk an ancient coffin road, the route that the coffin would have been carried, over the few miles to the cemetery at Kildonnan. In this ancient old roofless church sits a Sheela na Gig, protected from the elements by a glass plate as she looks out to a congregation of tall (healing) weeds swaying in the breeze as a chorus of bees and insects collecting pollen sing old hymns to the earth.
Read More
The blessing of the fabric lies in the threads of the tweed. Woven together in their own magic of the warp and the weft. Threads which cab hold imagination, words and intention. Each thread different yet woven into the whole to create the cloth.
Read More
Tigh nam Bodach - The Shrine of the Cailleach
There’s a little shrine in a remote Scottish valley whose ritual stretches back past living memory into the mists of time.
The story told is that the Cailleach, her husband Bodach and daughter Nighean were passing through this glen when the weather turned bad. The local folks, who were spending the summer in the glen grazing their cattle welcomed them all in as is the way with Celtic hospitality.
The families of the area relied on her astute wisdom of country lore and she was treated with the utmost respect. To them, she was regarded as a diety. By her acute perception of the ways of the world and life, both mortal and immortal, she became central to their daily existence. Their food and health depended on her benevolence.
The Cailleach of Glen Lyon, contained in Perthsire folk tales
When it was time to leave the people began to worry as the Cailleach had become so central to their lives and the Cailleach herself understood this and so constructed a wee shieling (a Norse word meaning little dwelling), simlar to the summer dwellings the women and children lived in throughout the summer months. The Cailleach took three stones out of the near-by stream, explaining that if they tended to this little family by putting the stones out at Beltane then they could look after the glen, the people themselves ensuring that all were healthy and that the land remained fertile. At Samhain she instructed that the stones were to be returned to the shrine for the winter months.
No one knows when this ritual began and although the little shrine is rebuild every decade or so this age old ritual is still performed every Beltane and Samhain.
The doll, the Antler and the Eye Shaped Stone
It had been a wonderfully bright day the day I visited the Shrine. It was late may, and so the little sheiling had been opened in that age old ritual and Glen Lyon, Scotland’s longest glen was filled with bluebells and the sounds of lambs.
Yet on arriving at the Shrine clouds quickly gathered, the sky turned dark and there was 20 minutues of torrential rain. I had taken some photos of my little Cailleach doll beside the stones before heading over and spending some time by the stream.
Felted Cailleach doll by Jude Lally beside the ‘Cailleach’ stone
I felt drawn to putting my hands in the cold fast flowing waters and took out a stone, whose rings of mica shimmered like a great eye. After heading back to the shrine the doll was gone. I searched everywhere and could not find her – for I didn’t want to leave anything behind in this remote place.
In my experience, this Old Crone has quite the sense of humor – much like the 20 minute rainstorm that stopped the minute we left the Shrine and started heading back on the track.
As we were passing a big black peaty bog my eye was drawn to something white. As I peered in I saw an antler, it looked pretty old as it had a few gnaw marks which resembled an ancient pictorial langauge.
I leaned in to pick up the antler but then thought maybe it should just stay where it was, then an image of the Old Crone came to mind cackling, nstructing me to take the antler, for it was her swap for the doll.
Recreation of a shieling at Highland Folk park, Scotland
When I think back to Glen Cailleach and the women who spent their summers in the shielings I picture their evenings, singing and telling stories. I imagine their ritual of gathering at the end of summer when it was time to pack up and take the herd back down to their homes. I see them gathered around the stones, each women giving thanks to the Cailleach, whispering their gratitudes as did their mothers and their mothers before them.
Click on the image above to listen to Julie Fowlis sing Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach, A Shieling Bothie on the Braes of Rannoch.
These keening dolls are made as a connection to your stories of grief and transition. They are a symbolic connection with the keening woman and the rituas she performed. They are a reminder of grief, and that its a radical act today to engage with grief and not, as our culture encourages, to sweep it away and not talk about it.
Read MoreJoin us for a week-long retreat on the Scottish Isle of Eigg, where we draw inspiration from the traditions of the Keening Woman. Immerse yourself in a journey of art and ritual, as we honor and explore themes of grief.
Read More
I am kin with the olive-green fingers of moss, and the sea-green lichen
I am daughter of the Old Woman of the Land. She who brings the land into winter. She who strikes down life - for without death there can be no rebirth
Read More
Sunday 4th Feb 7-8.30 PM UK / 2 -3.30 US Eastern
Join me on Sunday 4th February for the launch of the 'The Keening Women’ Scottish retreat and Imbolc gathering. Both focus on the Hebrides, the islands off Scotland's west coast which are also known as the Isles of Brighid.
The retreat takes place on the Hebridean Isle of Eigg, also known as the Isle of the Big Women. It is a retreat inspired by re-envisaging keening and how we can use it today to become more familiar with grief, in what Francis Weller calls a grief-phobic and death-denying culture.
Weaving Our Grief - The retreat offers grief rituals such as ‘Weaving our grief’ where we will use wool and natural objects to share the story of our grief.
A Keening Circle - A keening circle offers a musical journey, an invitation to bring the voice into grief work, and an opportunity to set deep intentions of transformation.
Your keening doll is made with intention and allows you to explore your grief in several ways. From ‘laying down the bones’ your intention for your doll to symbol making on her body. Details such as pockets and bags offer pouches for stones and small natural objects found on the beach. Your doll can help honor ancestors and acknowledge the grief you carry for all that is unraveling in the world.
Summer in Scotland experiences long lingering twilights after the sun has set. This feels like a magical time when the land is bathed in a quality of light that highlights the figures in the landscape. This is a time when many stories were born out of.
Trance Dance - A dance between the worlds to honor ancestors and ask the wise ones of this land for their wisdom.
Spiritual Senses - Our engagement with the land offers a honing of our spiritual senses - to connect to the story behind the story.
Stories of the Ancestral Mothers - I’ll share stories of the island as well as stories of the ‘Big Women’ as we visit sacred sites.
Brighid’s cross in the Hebrides
I don’t think of Imbolc as just one or three days, I think of Imbolc stretching from mid-Jan to mid-February and out till it overlaps with the edges of Spring Equinox. While we welcome Brighid back into the world Imbolc can be a deep and dark time. In northern latitudes, we often have the strongest winter weather still to face. It can be a time when people feel the weight of the world on their shoulders - from debt and job worries to wider worries of war and the breakdown of climate systems.
Creating a paper Brighid’s cross is a way to consider those worries - by drawing and writing and representing them on paper. We will use them as a form of prayer, or a small gesture of ritual.
In honoring Brighid as a Goddess of the thresholds of life and death, I’ll play an old chant that was sung at the edge of the ocean, intended to guide souls home to the otherworld. The song mimics the call of the Oystercatcher, who has been called the servant of Brighid.
Space for prayer - Bring your paper Brighid’s cross (you will receive instructions)
Space to Honor Grief - With a Brighid’s Chant Which Guides the Soul Home
Exploring Brighid in the Land - Healing well + Beehive Cells dedicated to Brighid
A guided meditation which takes you to visit a Hebridean beach with white quartz sands and green blue seas.
We’ll visit some sites in the landscape such as a healing well dedicated to Brighid and a Beehive cell.
