MUSINGS FROM THE OTHERWORLD
Strange Solstice Seeds
The last time I wrote to you, I was writing winter letters to my grandmother who is long passed, now I’m writing love letters to the universe in the form of strange seeds.
“The making of soul-stuff calls for dreaming, fantasying, imagining. To live psychologically means to imagine things; to be in touch with soul means to live in sensuous connection with fantasy.”
James Hillman
The last time I wrote to you, I was writing winter letters to my grandmother who is long passed, now I’m writing love letters to the universe in the form of strange seeds.
As we build towards Samhain’s climax at the Winter Solstice, we enter the dreaming time, the longest night of the year here in the northern hemisphere. This week, in the Áes Dána Incubator, inspired by Yumi Sakugawa’s numinous companion, ‘Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe’, we planted some strange seeds in little pots filled with dark soil.
We then journeyed to meet the Spéirbhean, the “Sky Woman”, an Irish goddess archetype who traditionally held our aislingí, our dreams and visions. We released into a grail of tears our dreams not yet lived, and the dreams of our ancestors that they never got to live in their lifetimes. Inviting the Spéirbhean to become a patroness for our strange seeds. Some we hope will sprout in time for Imbolc and perhaps come into full bloom by the Summer Solstice, other seeds will have their own timelines, their own agendas that only retrospect can show us.
As Yumi encourages, we will send our strange seeds telepathic messages to help them grow and chant the song of the Sky Woman:
“Is mise aislingeach m'aislinge féin,
I am the dreamer of my own dreams.
Tá muinín agam as m'aislingí,
I trust in my dreams.”
What strange seeds might you plant in the dark soil of this dreaming season?
Upcoming Offerings
Voices of Celtic Wisdom is a four-month course is intended to be a deep and rich exploration of ‘Celtic’ ways and culture across Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, providing nutrients to feed your own sense of connection and belonging. It features:
19 Workshops with Guest Teachers (including myself teaching about the Celtic Otherworld)
3 Crafting Classes with wonderful Craft Teachers
A beautiful bundle posted to you with specially gathered materials from Scotland, England and Ireland for making your crafts
1 Live Sound Journey
3 Community Calls with founders Hanna Leigh and Lana Lanaia
A moderated community-sharing forum (not Facebook)
Looking to 2024
As we close 2023, I feel an acute awareness of how this year has felt like one long Samhain for me. Last January, I had a year-ahead reading with my wonderful friend Regina de Búrca of the Irish Rider Waite Tarot where the Four of Swords emerged as my card for the year, so no surprises there! I did as Clarissa Pinkola Estés urges and:
“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.”
Life has brought me on many winding trails into the shadowlands over the years. Once we reemerge back out of the woods for a time, our daimon, our soul’s guide, grows restless, eager to hoodwink us into the next phase of our becoming, and back in we go.
In I went in 2023 and back out again I am coming in 2024.
I feel that the next phase of my becoming is in Brigid’s hands. I created this image yesterday inspired by the art of John Everett Millais and Ella Young’s poetry of Brigid as Venus, our morning and evening star, our flame of delight!
She is fanning the flame within me and I will return to you early in 2024 with what I hope will be an enchanting new offering for you all.
In the meantime, I leave you with love, grá, gratitude, buíochas, and importantly, peace, síocháin.
For Peace
As the horror and brutality of war rages on in Gaza, I’ll end here with this poem, ‘For Peace’ by Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue.
As the fever of day calms towards twilight,
May all that is strained in us come to ease.
May we pray for all who suffered violence today,
May an unexpected serenity surprise them.
For those who risk their lives each day for peace,
May their hearts glimpse providence at the heart of history.
That those who make riches from violence and war,
Might hear in their dreams the cries of the lost.
That we might see through our fear of each other,
A new vision to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.
That those who enjoy the privilege of peace,
Might not forget their tormented brothers and sisters.
That the wolf might lie down with the lamb,
That our swords be beaten into ploughshares.
And no hurt or harm be done,
Anywhere along the holy mountain.
Solstice Blessings from the Breast of the Goddess
At Newgrange, the masculine sun enters the vulva of the goddess penetrating the birth canal with light until it reaches her womb. There, the dreaming remains of our ancestors would have been regenerated with the life of the sun. The goddess’s tomb womb an intermediary between life and death.
Art: The Birth of the Milky Way by Peter Paul Rubens, c.1637
Solstice Blessings!
The winter solstice is almost upon us in the northern hemisphere. The Gaeilge for the winter solstice is grianstad an gheimhridh, which translates as ‘winter sun stop’. This reflects the potency of this time to take a personal, collective and cosmic solar pause no matter where in the world you are; north or south.
We’ve reached the pinnacle of Samhain, the darkest night of the year is coming. We’ve ruptured as death has enveloped the land and for some of us, our internal landscapes.
As we transition now into the dreamtime, the winter solstice appeals to us to ask:
What holy longing calls to me?
What is dreaming through me?
Dreaming in the Tomb Womb
The site most associated with this time of year in Ireland is Newgrange in Brú na Bóinne, Co. Meath. Built c.5,000 years ago, this passage grave and ritual complex is hundreds of years older than the pyramids at Giza and Stonehenge. It was hidden for 4,000 years buried under a mound of earth.
What's phenomenal about Newgrange is that it is aligned to the winter solstice. So that for a few days either side of the shortest day and longest night of the year, a ray of light from the rising sun enters through the roofbox and flows into the 19-metre passageway until it reaches the back of the body-shaped cruciform chamber. There, it softly illuminates a white carved basin stone and the famous orthostat with the triple spiral.
The lightshow lasts 17 minutes.
The solstice marks the seasonal turning point from the death of winter and the natural world, to a return to life with the promise of longer days.
In Newgrange, the masculine sun enters the vulva of the goddess penetrating the birth canal with light until it reaches her womb. There, the dreaming remains of our ancestors would have been regenerated with the life of the sun. The goddess’s tomb womb an intermediary between life and death.
"For the rest of the year the interior of the temple was in darkness. The ritual enacted must have been one of the sun fertilizing the ‘body’ of the earth and so awakening her after her winter sleep to the renewed cycle of life."
-Anne Baring & Jules Cashford
Milky Goddess
Bóinn by Jim Fitzpatrick
Irish astronomer and journalist Anthony Murphy of Mythical Ireland points out how Newgrange’s land, Brú na Bóinne in Gaeilge, is most often interpreted as Brú ("Brew") meaning 'palace' or 'mansion', but it can also mean ‘belly’ or ‘womb’ in Old Irish.
Bóinne (“Boy-nyah") derives from the River Boyne whose banks Newgrange rests into. The river is named after the Goddess Bóinn ("Bow-in"). The river is the goddess.
Bóinn’s name means ‘White Cow’, Bó Fhionn. So in this way, Newgrange could mean the ‘Womb of the White Cow’.
Indeed, Bóinn’s lover the Dagda (“Dawg-da”), the father figure of Ireland’s supernatural race, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and their son, the love god, Óengus (“Aengus”) are said to reside there.
The Irish for Milky Way is Bealach na Bó Finne – the ‘Way of the White Cow’.
This gifts us divine symbolism to work with at this time of year. To release our dreams into the cosmos and nourish them in the milky breast of the goddess Bóinn.
"The flowing breast is the essential image of trust in the universe. Even the faintest pattern of stars was once seen as iridescent drops of milk streaming from the breast of the Mother Goddess: the galaxy that came to be called the Milky Way."
-Anne Baring & Jules Cashford
And so, hear the voice of Goddess Bóinn ask you now:
What holy longing calls to you?
What is dreaming through you?
Can you gift these cherished dreams of yours to Bóinn to bathe in her milky bath of stars?
And enter 2023, feeling this numinous connection to your mythical lineage. To feel supported in and nourished by the milky breast of the goddess.