Tag: Ireland

The Burren

The Burren

A large….very large…rock ‘told’ me that before people created sacred sites, all sites were sacred. Everywhere is sacred. The energy of people gathering in places adds to–or takes away–depending on their intention. There are special places where energy is concentrated; however, all places are sacred.

The rock ‘said’ this to me in reference to my sadness at not seeing more prehistoric monuments. I had been disappointed about this but the rock reminded me of the sacred that existed before humans ever recognized a place…so I can find the sacred and make the connection without there being those humans before me who have done so.

A nature walk through The Burren is never just a walk. The landscape seems especially alive and ready to share with those willing to listen. It reminded me that indeed all places are sacred.

Everywhere we walked there seemed to be very special. It was seriously sweet to walk through the nature trail at the national park. Green moss, gray stones….so quiet and peaceful and absolutely wild. Of course the visit was in February on a cold, gray day. I expect tourist season or a sunny weekend would bring many people out to enjoy the magic.

An excerpt from my journal reads, “The reason I love Appalachia is my connection to Ireland. If there is such a thing as past lives I must have left Ireland on a ship bound for America and ended up in the Appalachian Mountains. Perhaps that’s why I am drawn to those mountains. My heart opens here in Ireland. My wild spirit finally feels free, unlocked here in The Burren. This is a key to remember.”

At that time I had not set a course for the future. I had not decided to sell my home and move. Now, a year later, my home is for sale and I hope to move back to the Appalachian Mountains. I didn’t remember writing about the Ireland-Appalachian connection when I made my decision to look in that direction. I’m glad I left a ‘key’ to affirm my decision.

The Burren reminded me of Inis Mor a lot and the journey there, just months before, completely changed my life in ways that are still unfolding and even led to a new eBook that was just birthed. All of the beauty and wildness felt in The Burrren helped me open deeper to the wildness within myself. I think that’s what happens when we walk into the landscape and experience it as living rather than just space.


To purchase The Stone Hut visit Barnes and Noble online or click the link HERE to purchase through my publisher’s web site.

Irish Music and a Blessing

Irish Music and a Blessing

In remembering the last journey to Ireland my mind goes back to Hotel Doolin and the amazing music we experienced each night. One night in particular we were able to get a table adjoining the musicians table. Yes they have a table….they sit around it and play. The rest of us are just there to witness their magical circle of music.

My journal reminds me, “The music was transcendent tonight! Absolutely transcendent. I called in all of who I am and listened with my whole self. YIPPEE!”

I drifted off to sleep with the sweet sounds of Ireland echoing through the dream time.

We flew in to Dublin on a super-eclipse-blue moon that hadn’t happened since 1866. Every morning the moon was hanging over the ocean when the frost kissed the tender blades of green. She inspired me quite a bit and I wrote this about her: “She shines over us in her elliptical journey, from one horizon to the other, with soft light causing tides and other invisible stirrings in hearts and minds as we open to touch the Unseen. We breathe in her grace and carry her rhythms into our soul.”

The music and moon must have inspired my writing. February 5, 2018 as I wrote this blessing in my journal that morning:

“May the dawn find you at peace with the coming day.

May the beauty of the first flower of spring cause joy to burst forth with gladness.

May the cycles of coming and going of the moon ever remind you of the cycles of your own coming and going.

May the life that longs to live in you rise up like the Earth’s daily awakening

And guide you ever onward to your heart’s true calling.

May every breath that warms your lips be one of peace with your life.

May your life be the true expression of your soul’s brilliance.

And may you find friendship with all of creation so that you know you are never alone.”

With gratitude I embody this path of a pilgrim, seeking inspiration and wholeness wherever I find myself. I hope to ‘find myself’ in Ireland again…soon.

Reunion at the Pub

Reunion at the Pub

Today my friend Gabriela and I made the journey to a local pub….unfortunately it wasn’t in Ireland…but it was Irish. We celebrated the anniversary of our journey to the west coast of Ireland last year. A year ago we were packing to go….today we were both sharing how we miss Ireland every single day.

In the walk back through time via my journal, I read about Fanore Beach…”We hit the tide just right and could photograph the sky reflected in tidal pools. The rivulets reminded me of watery veins–and how the sea is in my blood…in all of our blood.”

We drove north afterwards and stopped by a store/post office. The clerk had a freshly made Brigid’s Cross. I commented on it and told her we planned our trip to coincide with Brigid’s Day. She gifted me with the cross. She said her sister made it and she would get another one. I was moved to tears as Brigid was such a powerful healing force when I visited Ireland months earlier. That cross still sits on my altar and reminds me of kindness and Ireland.

Later we visited the Poulnabrone Dolmen, a portal tomb from the Neolithic Period….4200 BC to 2900 BC. Being February, there were not many people. I wanted to play my new Irish whistle after photographing the site. It was very windy and a rain/sleet storm blew in quickly. Everyone left and I was there…alone but not really. I sensed a strong presence there. I stayed behind determined to offer music to those that rested there. The wind made playing very challenging but as I played with my heart, under sleet and heavy rain clouds, the rain stopped.

I watched as the sun split the clouds. The sky turned amazing blue and I was able to capture delicious images of the structure. In the photographs it appears as though the clouds are being pushed away from the top of the stone….a clearing of sorts. I felt it was a thank you for the music, or my attempt at music, and good intentions.

Several times while connecting with nature in Ireland, I had immediate experiences returned after I wished the spirits well. It felt as if the Shining Ones were right there, barely hidden by a thin veil. I wrote a message I heard from them in my journal, “You are one with us…Ta’ tu’ ar cheann linn.”

After Gabriela and I parted this afternoon, in Alabama, I realized that seeing her brought such joy and sadness….joy because she’s an awesome person and friend and she reminds me of Ireland and sadness because she reminds me of Ireland. It was a while before we saw each other after we returned last year. I felt the need to withdraw but never understood until today. I noticed I felt like I did when I was a child and left the Smoky Mountains….withdrawn, sad, didn’t want to leave …I had emotional pain every time I left those sacred mountains. It’s the same with Ireland. Today, as we sat in the Irish pub in Pensacola, all the great memories of our travels last February came back and I cherish them, even when remembering makes me miss Ireland even more.

I suspect each of us has a place or places that speak strongly to our hearts. The mountains of North Carolina have spoken to me since childhood. Celtic spirituality has spoken to me since my teenage years and has remained the basis of my deep connection to Nature and God. It lead me to Ireland.

It is my wish that everyone connect strongly with a place…a place they can visit and return to….maybe live in even….and allow that place to touch their hearts deeply, profoundly. When we open to connections such as this, we open to wholeness and a profound sense of being alive and at one with all life.

 

 

 

 

Remembering…Ireland

Remembering…Ireland

“I awake thinking it’s dawn. It is 7am according to the clock but when I pull back the curtains its the full brilliant moon hanging over the Atlantic Ocean that created the light creeping into my room.”

Twelve hours of sleep and I was ready to play with the wild energies of Ireland’s west coast. It’s been almost a year now and I am reading my journal from that deeply amazing pilgrimage. Each sentence brings back memories like friends rushing to give me warm embraces.

On that day, February 3, 2018, I awoke in Mary’s Meadow cottage in Doolin. My friend Gabriela and I rented it for five nights before we moved northward, up the west coast…the Wild Atlantic Way.

The silver light that morning called me through frosty temperatures and I grabbed my camera and tripod and quietly crept down the hall and into the fresh, pre-dawn air. The sun had another hour of slumber at that northern latitude.

It’s funny what catches my creative ‘eye’ when I go into photography mode. I always wait for the landscape to whisper…Check this out! Look at this. The light sure does reflect off of this nicely. All this was envisioning a 30 second exposure.

There were two horses in the pasture surrounding the cottage. They glanced through the darkness but stayed away probably wondering why the human would be out communing with frost and stars, grass and the ocean just down the hill. Actually, they probably didn’t think at all. Animals have the luxury of not allowing random thoughts to taint their experience of life.

“That golden orb seemed to slumber forever. Then clouds settled in the eastern horizon so only the reflection of light could be seen bouncing off the bottom of clouds.” I didn’t write how freaking cold it was…probably because my fingers were quite numb…but I remember.

After hot tea and breakfast, Gabriela and I drove to the Cliffs of Moher….Ireland’s most visited natural wonder. Gabriela opted for the nice visitor center while I explored the edges. I like edges…thresholds. There is a sense of finality with an edge, especially those along the sheer cliffs facing the Atlantic Ocean. They’ve been there for over 350 million years….I was there twice on that pilgrimage…or three times. I couldn’t get enough. But only because it was February and not the tourist season. Last year 1,580,010 people visited that place….so you won’t find me there during the tourist season.

We found many shops and cafes closed but the tradeoff for quiet moments with few people was worth it to me. On that first visit, while Gabriela was warming her toes and getting away from those dizzying heights, I was going beyond the official site along the muddy path. I walked a very long while, enjoyed time alone with a raven that sat on the cliff edge talking to me and then took off and flew…maybe it was the one that perched on the luggage rack as soon as we parked. I imagined myself as the raven, soaring over the amazing cliffs and ocean. I’m not certain what she was saying but I listened carefully and then headed back along the trail.

I was about half way back and remembered I had the car key….and my friend couldn’t get her wallet to buy tea or scones. Ugh…dang it!

We enjoyed the afternoon in Ennis, where Custy’s Traditional Music Shop is located. I wanted to add to my collection of traditional Irish instruments. Thank goodness for GPS and a nice Guarda who directed us once we were parked.

“The land of Ireland feels like home to me. Real home. It speaks to the part of my spirit that craves raw, elemental beauty. I feel free to be myself here.” I wrote that in my journal and still feel it as strongly now as I did then.

That’s what Ireland taught me in the two visits there….find the place where that raw, elemental energy hasn’t been tamed and go there. Immerse my life there. If it can’t be Ireland, then perhaps the wilder areas of western North Carolina. I’m ready.


A new eBook has been birthed. It was inspired by my first visit to Ireland, September 2017. I invite you to read it and journey through time and place with archetypal characters that remind us the journey to wholeness is worth doing, no matter the cost. A work of fiction….with a metaphysical flair. Purchase at my WEBSITE (click here) or soon to be in Barnes and Noble, Apple, Amazon, etc.

A Living Landscape

A Living Landscape

John O’Donohue often wrote or spoke about the Irish way of experiencing the landscape. Long ago the goddess Eriu, was sovereign over Her land. The modern name Eire evolved from the name of the goddess. So people of Ireland have a long history of living in sacred relationship with the landscape.

When I visited Ireland in September 2017 and again last February, I was amazed at how present the spirits of the land and sea were with me. I simply had to cast a thought or feeling out to nature and was immediately enveloped with a deep connection to the place. Since returning, I have puzzled over this phenomena.

For example, one of the places my friend and I stayed was a newer holiday home development. It was near Clifden on the west coast and on a small river. The energy felt ‘off’ there. Like something was amiss….not dangerous or seedy but like there was imbalance.

The morning after sleeping the only night there, I walked out along the edge of the forest overlooking the river. It snowed during the night so it was quite lovely. I took my newly purchased Low D Irish Whistle and stood along the woodland and played it with the intention of gratitude for the spirits there. As soon as I began I felt the energy shift and it was as if the spirits were peeking out from hiding places.

I kept playing with the same intention and started looking around and saw, buried beneath snow and brambles, trash from the construction that had been tossed over the edge. It was an obvious disconnection from the beauty and disrespect for the spirits of the land. With ease I sensed their appreciation for someone noticing and remembering them. I wept in the cold, freezing snow as I sensed the return flow of gratitude.

It wasn’t until I was finishing my newest book, The Stone Hut, I realized the answer to a question that haunted me since I first returned from Ireland. The question was this: How can I connect so effortlessly with the energies of nature in Ireland and here, in the United States, it’s like they are guarded, wary and often unwilling to connect. Understanding finally dawned as I watched John O’Donohue’s video, A Celtic Pilgrimage, for the ga-zillionth time.

Irish people have had a genuine love and appreciation for a living landscape that goes back literally ages. For some reason, the deep immersion of writing about ancient Ireland in my book and O’Donohue’s explanation helped me understand that in the US, the land here has been ‘conquered’ and put to use with little care or concern. It’s the anthesis of walking into a living landscape….it’s walking into open space and nothing more–empty space ready for development and building and conquering.

I suspect this is the fundamental problem with the US as we see the terrible darkness emerge from the collective unconscious of our foundation. We can blame a government administration but in reality I offer that the true difficulty lies in the way in which this country was began….conquering of sovereign, native people–with deep respect for the land–by invaders that declared themselves lord over every tree, animal, river, and rock.

No wonder the spirits of the land are hesitant to connect with humans. Centuries of two-legged domination would make the most beautiful of spirits wary…rightly so.

I have longed to return to Ireland, to live there along the west coast. The amazing spiritual energy is still very much intact–a rarity in this increasingly manic world. What I discovered, in writing The Stone Hut, was a call to wholeness within myself from which all relationships can be birthed. I don’t know if I’ll ever live there, but wherever I live I will be more conscious of what I bring to the living landscape and what I can do to cherish and protect it and all life there.

My first thought, in writing this blog, was it was a way to procrastinate the tedious process of formatting my book for E-book reading. While it began as that, it unfolded into something I have wanted to piece together and express for a very long time.

Look for my new e-book, The Stone Hut, coming very soon. It’s a story that crosses time and place set in ancient and modern-day Ireland. Archetypal characters take readers beyond the two characters to the realm of soul.