Tending to Our Grief

 
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“Your soul is the priestess of memory, selecting, sifting, and ultimately gathering your vanishing days toward presence

― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom”

Yesterday was a Leap Day and here in the foothills of the Applachians we awoke to an unexpected blanket of snow.

We are in the time after Imbolc and approaching Spring Equinox and a day we only get to experience every four years. In Celtic culture although inheritances were passed through the motherline it was still a warring and patriachal culture and it was on a leap day (and sometimes the entire leap year) that women could ask men to marry them.

I have come to look upon leap days as a day of celebrating and practicing ways of resistance as it was a Goddess of social justice, Brighid, who originally gave this tradition and it was a leap year when i proposed to my husband and we had our handfasting on the banks of Loch Lomond.

This leap year leap day I was asked to hold a Keening Circle for some friends who have lost their Anam Cara, their soul friends. This was to be a circle in which we gently honored out grief and didn’t step into that void which grief can somehow shape-shift into.

 
Mama

Mama

 

We began by standing at the grave of a beloved knowing he was wrapped in layers of love, curled up as he was given back to the earth in curled up position in a ritual that honored his life. My Anam Cara, my little soul-friend with the big ears joined us in the circle.

We began with a gesture or ritual, as all meaningful things do in which the women brought a stone and they were invited to wrap the stone in layers of black silk ribbon or blood-red yarn.

As I wrapped my heart-shaped stone, bedrock from these lands in a heart shape peppered with garnet crystals I thought of how our individual grief was similar in that our grief built up steadily over the years as a love lived. Each strand of love in life is like a contour building upon the next, much like a landscape is created through all manner of geological processes. The life together creates a unique landscape and creates the map of your love and life with this beloved.

This love only turns to grief when you find yourself in this place you made together but this time alone. Here you're wrapped in a cloak of memories, perhaps the scent might be fading but the longing to reach out and touch, to comfort to just be together never leaves.

The women carried their stones as they tended to their grief, breathing into it, releasing it and breathing it in again in the same pattern that love is built, over and over. This wasn’t a circle to wail our grief but one to tend to it, to acknowledge how we live with it, how it changes and morphs for really grief is love.

After the songs and the singing, the women gathered together in circle again. They were invited to take their heart stones and to slowly unwrap them. The strands of wool and silk were complicated things, not in their technical wrappings but in the weave of their relationship. This unwrapping and unfurling wasn’t an easy gesture. It wasn’t a gesture of removing grief, it wasn’t stripping grief away as no one wanted to shed it or discard it, we were here to honor it. We were here together to honor the fact that it exists at all.

 
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Our beloveds stayed for a while in those three sacred days after death perhaps making sure each woman was ok before the had to leave for whatever awaits them in their new life. But as is the way with ancestors be they blood or bone ancestors there will always be a part of them peering over our shoulders, for your ancestors aren’t somewhere far and distant they are wrapped around you as tightly as a winters cloak.

The next article on keening explores this ancient practice as Cultural Activism

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Ancestral Mothers of Scotland Retreat 2020

 
 

- We currently have 2 places left on this retreat -

Keening Over the Bones. 18th - 25th July 2020. Isle of Eigg, Scotland

The theme of this years retreat is 'Keening Over the Bones'. Keening is an old Celtic way of lamenting death, a role carried out by the Keening woman. As a Cultural Activist, I dig into my Celtic heritage to bring practices like Keening into a modern setting to help us honor the deep grief many of us are experiencing for all that is going on in the world - from ecological destruction, climate devastation and the uncountable and overwhelming swell of social injustices. 

I merge the experience of keening with Joanna Macy’s spiral of the Work That Reconnects. Throughout our week we will explore each of these four phases - expressing our joy of living, honoring our pain, contacting future beings (for their advice) and then going forth and making our commitment to the world.

Expressing our joy might take the form of a dance on the beach at the edge of the ocean while honoring our pain will take the form of a Keening ceremony. A guided journey will be your invitation to to a Keening ceremony which honors our grief and an invitation for us to drop down into that grief. Keening can be a cathartic experience while our grief doesn't change the way we look at it changes.
A guided journey will be our invitation to ask your ancestors or the Ancestral Mothers for their advice and then we will conclude our time together on the island in a ceremony which weaves together all of our experiences over the week as well as your commitment to the world and a celebration of your role and the unique path you walk in the world. 

The Bones

The bones are the remnants of stories and lives long-lived. The retreat is an invitation to listen to the bones, to the wisdom of your ancestors knitted deep in your own bones. Your time on the island allows you to sink down into your relationship you will build with the land in a journey which can often be an externalization of your inner journey.

The early booking discount of $100 off is available until the end of the month 

Please get in touch here if you have any questions. Click on any of the photos to go to the main retreat page on my website. 

 
 

The Journey

There are many journeys on the Ancestral Mothers retreat - while the retreat itself can often be a life changing journey the physical journey is also an inspiring one.  
The first steps are often you answering an ancient calling and when our paths cross and you sign up for the retreat you get a free pass to all the Ancestral Mothers courses currently running. You'll most likely begin with the Ancestral Mothers Wheel of the Year course which introduces you to the figures of ancestral Wise Women, Amazons, Celtic Goddesses and pre-celtic ancient deities. 
On arriving in Glasgow the journey begins on the West Highland Railway a journey that takes you through  away from roads and towns as you cross across the wide and wild beauty of Rannoch moor. Watch the terrain change as we move into a mountainous realm and skirt the bottom of Ben Nevis, Scotlands highest mountain which even in July is likely to have a little snow on its peak. 
You'll travel over the Glennfinnian viaduct made famous by the harry Potter films. 
Once you arrive in Mallaig it's a one hour ferry ride over to the island and the chance to stand outside, feel the sea breeze and let it blow off any cobwebs or any other residue, watch the Isle of Skye pass as Eigg comes more into focus and also the chance to keep an eye out for dolphins, seabirds or even an orca.  
Once on Eigg your luggage will be taken to our accommodation, Glebe Barn as you have a chance to stretch your legs and take in your first impressions of the island.  

Sheela Na Gig

Our first visit to an Ancestral Mother will be your visit to a Sheela na Gig in the ruins of Kildonnan Chapel then we will wander down to Shell beach and perhaps find a cowrie shell as we keep a lookout for seals in the bay. 
 

Loch of the Big Women

You will hear the stories of the Big Women of the islands from the female warriors of the Queen of Moidart to Scatatch the female warrior from the neighboring isle of Skye. 
You will visit the Loch of the Big Women our biggest hike of the week where your have the invitation to submerge yourself under the water if your brave enough. 
This is a ritual which can help you focus on becoming a Carrier of the Stream, an initiation I use for women as we journey through menopause. 

You can read more abut this ritual here

Community

Our days together will begin by quite time in the mornings and one option will be to hang out in the sun room, which is a silent room which offers spectacular views over to the mainland. 
We will start each day after breakfast with a guided journey in which you'll meet one of the Ancestral Mother figures. 

Island Community
We will join the local singing group for an evening of song (if their schedule matches ours) and there will also be the option of touring a local  working croft (a unique form of farming found on the West coast of Scotland) We will get to meet their animals which includes a herd of Soay Sheep, a primitive Scottish breed of sheep. We will tour their kitchen garden - did you know you get palm trees in Scotland? As well as the ability to ask questions and really get an insiders view on a Scottish croft. There is also the option to visit the historic croft museum which is right next door. (Both activities depending on scheduling). 

The intention for the retreat is to build some community before we gather and so you will be invited to take my Ancestral Mothers of Scotland Wheel of the Year course for free as well as an online course on the Goddess Brighid and one on the Cailleach.

Reclaiming Menopause

 
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Blood ties

 

There have been a few moments in the last few days, weeks when I think about it and yes I have to admit months where I felt I was at breaking point. I just couldn’t take anymore. I draw little symbols in my journal to explain what was going on - flames, birds and mighty lightning bolts.

I admit that sometimes I can overlook what is staring me in the face - even if it’s part of myself trying to tell myself something. Reading over my journal I notice the symbols which regularly appear over the months as flick back over the weeks the penny drops as I make the connection and the the menopausal lightbulb goes off.

 
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The little sketched symbols - flames, birds and lightning are like an ancient language. Symbols which portray feelings, emotions - an attempt to make sense of them, to communicate them. If another woman stumbled into my cave would she feel at home there and be able to read my story on the walls? Might she make sense of the small ritual items might she feel a connection?

Those little symbols are something half the population of the world might be able to relate to at some point. I am not alone in my menopausal journey, I know I’m not alone in feeling that I am somehow losing a sense of self I have understood as ‘me’. Where is my community who honors this change? Who is at my side to reassure, initiate and make sense of all of this. Where are the stories, the traditions, the rituals and the ceremonies?

 
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No Blood Lost - a little ritual of red kelp, wool and stone

 

I have always aligned myself to the Bean Feasa tradition (the Irish Gaelic WIse Woman). In fact for a while I would claim it as my tradition (I am in fact far more Irish than Scottish). Yet this didn’t sit with me, I only know what I know of that tradition in books. And that’s ok. That linage still deeply inspires me in the symbolism of the gathering Bag. While those women had their own skills and ways of working I have mine.

My Gathering bag holds the magic and transformation of imagination and creativity and I draw on those old traditions and bring them into my world today as part of a Cultural Activism. My activism roots down into the tradition of the Bean Feasa and drawn upon ways of working which are much needed in our times - such as holding community keening circles to honor the grief we feel for the climate devastation and the unsurpassed injustices to women, animals and the land.

 
 
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Carrier of the Stream

My first wave of initiation (long before I actually realized what was going on) was being called by old ancestral energies who called me to the top of a far flung Hebridean island and invited me to submerge myself under the waters of a loch. I did question what I was doing but i did it anyway.

 
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Emerging from the Loch - An initiation unto myself

As parts of the word are devoured in fire flames of heat ripple through me. I am enraged at what is happening to the planet. I am not getting lost in who is to blame yet we do need to understand the roots of all the myriad of injustices of all the dominating power over structures - rather than the power with, the power shared.

I want to hear women’s stories of this initiation into themselves, this initiation with and for the planet. I want this change to matter, to mean something. I want to reclaim the stories and our menopausal experiences, I want to reclaim and embody this initiation and honor all that it offers. I want to explore all this creatively, to make art with sticks and stones, makes dolls that honor this sacred evolution.

I want to hold Menopause cafes where we drink herbal teas and discuss our relationship with those plants. I want to engage creatively with every feeling and insight. I want to breathe life and meaning into every experience I’m going through. I want to share the stories no longer told in our world - so lets share our passion - our grief, rage as we honor this ancient rite of menopause wherever you are on this journey


Links: Read the full article Carrier of a Stream

Active Hope. An Australian Fundraiser

 
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Each morning I make a commitment to turning up. Some days I just sit, others I write and some I sit with prayer beads in hand. The practice is simply in the turning up.

 
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This morning I looked down at my hands which hold a set of prayer beads. The stones are the color of Australia’s bedrock - hues of reds and burgundy with mustard and grey tones. Mookiate is a stone only found in Australia whose indigenous name means running water.

Mookiate is a stone which amplifies connection to ancestors. I’ve long thrown out and stone guide books and simply turned to listen to the stone instead. Whatever I’m working with I feel mookiate energizes that connection, helping make the introduction to ancestors, or perhaps moving your ear a little more in the right direction to hear those whisperings.

The devastation of Australia has been cataclysmic and overwhelming and those are the feelings from someone watching through a screen on the other side of the planet. It is not an isolated event or something that’s just an Australian problem. Climate devastation plays out in different ways around the globe. I am terrified to think what summer here in the Appalachians will bring with future hurricanes hitting ground further north and coming further inland.

A Deep Seated Grief

Many of you will have experienced the sensation of waking up and for a few seconds thinking there is something familiar, something missing. Then before you know it a whirlwind of emotions arrive and then you realize your going through the grieving process of losing a loved one. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this grief, this death through all that’s unfolding on the planet and the grief at millions upon millions of deaths.

I feel the panic rising, trying to get my head around the fact that I am living in times which have been depicted in sci-fi films and been projected onto screens for generations - and it is real. As I look out the window at favorite trees and familiar birds, forage for the new greens that are popping up and delight when the deer herd arrive. I think what if this was the land that was scorched and my home has been wiped out. By home i don’t just mean a human dwelling I mean birds gone, insects gone, snakes gone, mice gone, farm animals gone.

“The rainforests along the spine of the Great Dividing Range, between the Hunter River and southern Queensland, are remnants of Gondwana, the ancient supercontinent that broke up about 180 million years ago. Listening to the dawn chorus in these forests is literally an acoustic window back in time”
— Mark Graham, Ecologist
 
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Long-nosed potoroo, Potorous tridactylus

I’ve never visited Australia but my dad moved there when he was young, it took him six weeks to cross the oceans by boat - I remember hearing his story of the celebration evoking Posidon as they crossed the equator. There is a glass frame in my parent’s house with a display of dried flowers my dad brought back from New South Wales on the wall. It always caught my eyes as the plants were very different from the fauna of Scotland and I often wondered who fed on such flowers and grasses and what did they look like.

So I finally decided to look up those creatures and one is the long-nosed potoroo who feeds on truffles found in the roots of the eucalyptus tree. The little potoroo, at just 80cm long, is a keystones species. It distributes the fungi spores through its poop and carries out an essential role which keeps the whole landscape together and healthy. How many died in the fires? Ay that did will be easy prey to any predators that survived. Might it survive at all?

 
 

The first run of Brighid Altoid Altars are now sold out please click here to get in touch if you’d like to be on the list if I create a second collection

Active Hope

As we move over at the threshold between Winter Solstice and towards Imbolc traditions welcomes Brighid back into the world. To my ancestors this gave them hope at a dire time when food resources were running out. Today we find ourselves in dark times as climate devastation unleashes horrors on the planet. The hope Brighid offers isn’t one which is lost in daydreams of wishful thinking it is a hope whose qualities are rooted in justice and activism an active hope, one which exists in the here and now.

As we approach Imbolc I can think of no better figure to turn to than Brighid. This triple Goddess (made up of a triad of three sisters all called Brighid) is welcomed back to the world at this time of year. These three sisters are represented by many qualities including healing, creativity, and justice.

Brighid is a fire Goddess although her flame is one which never burns. She is said to have brought keening to Ireland when her mourning the death of her son. In all of the prayers said for Australia what if we each carried out an action - something seeded where we are in our own homes, in our community. Brighid is most definitely a Goddess of Justice and she can inspire us in our taking action and in helping us as we face our grief for all that is unfolding around the planet.

 
 

The proceeds of the first five sign ups to the ‘Folklore of Brighid’ course will be donated to Australian wildlife charities.

 
 

Community Keening Circle

If you're based around Asheville, NC I offer a free Community Keening Circle each month. The next circle will take place in February. Click here to sign up for my newsletter and be notified when the next circle is happening.

 
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Coming Back to Life - An Imbolc Day Retreat


Saturday 1st Feb. 10am - 7.30pm. Herb Mountain Farm, Weaverville (Near Asheville)

The festival of Imbolc welcomes Brighid back into the world. To my ancestors, Imbolc was a harsh time as they faced the reality of food resources running out yet today right now is extremely uncertain times in the world and I know I'm not alone in feeling anxiety, grief and worry to how the catastrophic changes to our climate are going to play out.

  • Joanna Macy's the Work that Reconnects 

  • Tap into the traditions from Celtic culture

  • Express our joy in living

  • A keening circle helps us honor the grief and pain we feel for all that is going on the world

  • Otherworld journey to ask your ancestors for their advice

  • Evening fire ceremony helps pull all of this together as we make our commitment to 'action' for the world.