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At the Waters of the Equinox
At the edge of the valley, the mountain rises in stone and shadow. At its foot the lake lies still, receiving the whole mountain into...


To Rise Like a Tide – On Resisting Hopelessness in a Time of Unmaking
It would be tempting, these days, to curl into the dark – to say the work is too great, the damage too deep, the hunger too vast. That we...


The Harrowing March of the O’Sullivan Beare
Along the rugged sweep of Bantry Bay, the land holds memory like stone. To the north rises the Beara Peninsula, to the south the long...


The Body of a River, The Body of a Human
The magical Esknamucky Waterfall. Photograph by Nigel Wheal A river is never still, even in its seeming quiet. Beneath its skin lies a...


The Arc of Fire, and 'Emotional Kintsugi'
In Ireland, we say that story is medicine. Our indigenous oral traditions do not treat story as unburdening, but as offering – something...


Beauty and the Shapeshifter
What does it mean to live in a world where beauty is everywhere and yet nowhere? Where our eyes are flooded with polished images, but our...


Reclaiming Enchantment After Exhaustion
There are times when the marrow of life feels spent. We arrive at the edge of our own strength and find only hollowness echoing back....


Lúnasa: Where Joy And Grief Share The Same Table
Joy and grief are not strangers at Lúnasa – they sit together at the same table, share the same bread, drink from the same cup. This...


The Path of Life and the Changing Year
One of the more interesting observations I have noticed when I write about the changing seasons and the turning of the year is how many...


When We Are No Place at All
"The middle-despite the common use of that word-is not halfway between here and there, beginning and end, birth and death, right and...


How to Recapture Your Imagination
Once upon a time, there was a kingdom under the grip of a spyglass. If you had the spyglass, you could see anything in the world. If you...


Spring, the Air Element, and the Silent Extinction of Words
Imbolc marks the first day of Spring in Ireland and the Celtic Wheel of the Year. The principal element of Spring is Air, and this...


Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'A Morning Offering', by John O'Donoghue
I bless the night that nourished my heart To set the ghosts of longing free Into the flow and figure of dream That went to harvest from...


Seeking to walk beautifully on the Earth - A talk from Irish writer and philosopher John Moriarty
Recorded in the early 1990's, this incredible recording gifts magical insights into the fertile ground that is the mind of the late great...


On Imaginal Cells and Trusting the Process
To better understand the opportunity hidden in today’s crises, consider the tale of another world in transition. Imagine you are a single...


Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Ancient Language', by Hannah Stephenson
If you stand at the edge of the forest and stare into it every tree at the edge will blow a little extra oxygen toward you It has been...


Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Sojourns in a Parallel World', by Denise Levertov
We live our lives of human passions, cruelties, dreams, concepts, crimes and the exercise of virtue in and beside a world devoid of our...


Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Learning from Trees', by Grace Butcher
If we could, like the trees, practice dying, do it every year just as something we do— like going on vacation or celebrating birthdays,...


Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'On Pain', by Kahlil Gibran
And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as...


Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Wild Geese', by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let...