The druid who took my eye: On hindsight, dreams & synchronicities

Imbas Dispatch #2

A Chairde, Friends,

I was cleaning up my website, going through old blogs when I came across a blog that I had named after a line in Irish poet, Paula Meehan’s poem, Well: “I know this path by magic not by sight”. The blog was written in the sticky tar of a dark night of the soul in early 2023. When I re-read it a year later, I could feel the swell of goosebumps chase across my back. I sifted through my dream journal recalling a “big” dream I had around this time, which as I discovered was a few weeks after the blog. I had never made the connection. The dream, in turn, was followed by a bewitching synchronicity five months later.

As I, future Jen, look back on this writing from past Jen, I am grateful that she stayed in the dark because it gifted her an otherworldly eye.

Let me recap the whole story… The blog, the dream, the synchronicity.

Art by Ulla Thynell

The Blog: 2nd March 2023, I know this path by magic not by sight

I write this from the space between. For a time I have been in the unknown. I feel like I don’t know who I am losing—what parts of me are crumbling—nor do I know who I am yet becoming.

A silver mist descended and lulled me into a slumber and when I awoke I was in the labyrinth. In a gnarling dark forest with its illusory shadows. I have yet to reach the centre, which in itself is only half the journey, if or rather when I’m to re-emerge.

Being in the void of the unknown feels nebulous, clumsy to express because we tend not to spend very long here, frantically scrambling to find our way out, any way out. Or we create another world on top of the labyrinth and climb up onto this. Smoothing its maze over with concrete, dusting off our hands, “best of luck to ya now”, but missing our opportunity to uncover new depths within ourselves. I’ve done this time again.  

I can’t say I’m happy here surrendering. I can feel an irritated body within a body clawing to get out. To escape from myself. But today I am brought solace reminded of our ancestors and their belief that all life begins in the dark. Our Universe began in the cosmic dark. We dream in the darkness of lidded eyes. It is in this place that all magic originates. Because it is a place of infinite possibilities.  

Our forebearers, the filí, the poet-seers and the draoithe, the druid magic-makers understood the prospects of the darkness. In our myths and native tracts, you see poets and druids described as dall. Dall means dark, obscure, or blind in Old Irish. You also see the use of caech, which means blind in one eye, hidden, veiled, mysterious.¹

This speaks to their trust that we must enter full or at least partial darkness to access magic. To receive imbas forosnai, the wisdom or knowledge that illuminates, the second sight. However long it takes to come.

The unknown gifts us with a separate sight beyond ordinary logic, and so we can only “know this path by magic”, not by regular sight. These words are taken from Irish poet, Paula Meehan’s mystical poem, Well:

Well by Paula Meehan

I know this path by magic not by sight.
Behind me on the hillside the cottage light
is like a star that’s gone astray. The moon
is waning fast, each blade of grass a rune
inscribed by hoarfrost. This path’s well worn.
I lug a bucket by bramble and blossoming blackthorn.
I know this path by magic not by sight.
Next morning when I come home quite unkempt
I cannot tell what happened at the well.
You spurn my explanation of a sex spell
cast by the spirit who guards the source
that boils deep in the belly of the earth,
even when I show you what lies strewn
in my bucket — a golden waning moon,
seven silver stars, our own porch light,
your face at the window staring into the dark.

(To witness Paula gloriously recite the poem herself, see Paula Meehan recites Well)

In my own bucket, I can dream of a golden waning moon and seven silver stars. Do I know what they mean? No. Not yet. But that’s the beauty of mystery. The beauty of the dark. So if you are in, or when you find yourself in the space between, listen for your soul’s whisper:

“I know this path by magic not by sight”.

The Dream: 29th March 2023, The Opal Eye

Moon Falls a Thousand Times by Naeemeh Naeemaei

The dream in brief:

A virus breaks out. I am offered drops for my eye by a white-robed druid. I refuse to take the drops and so the druid takes my right eye. There is no wound, just a perfectly smooth flap of skin where the eye once was. My whole concern in the dream was not that my eye was gone but what people would think when they saw that I only had one eye. No one seemed to notice, still, my ego flared. I go to the Well of the White Cow at the Hill of Tara. On impulse, I remove the flap of skin that was over my lost eye, peeling it back to reveal a new opal eye. Then both of my eyes turn to opals. I wake up.

The truth is in the feel of a dream. I knew this was a capital B, “big” dream. It showed a recurring theme for me of encountering an archetypal image from my lineage as an Irish person, in this case, the archetype of the magician in the form of a druid, who would offer me something from the Otherworld, a symbolic gift from the Unconscious, and I would refuse. A consequence would ensue and my ego become wrought with fear or in other dreams, obstinate.

I often have a consciousness in my dreams so I was aware of the magic of being one-eyed in the Irish tradition. I was also aware that I am a Murphy-O’Sullivan. My my mother’s family are O’Sullivan’s, an anglicisation of O'Súilleabháin in Gaeilge meaning one-eyed. Still, in the dream, all I was concerned about was what other people would think. The ego was the central character, her fear fuelling the dream until I was at the healing waters of the Well of the White Cow and I was able to move beyond fear and take my agency back, which gifted me my opal eyes.

There is so much I could say about the symbolism of this dream, the opal that derives from the Greek opállios, which means “to see a change in colour”, the ancestral connection with the druid and the O’Sullivans, but this post would get unwieldy… Most importantly, as with all charged dreams, I made the dream material creating an opal eye from a lump of quartz I found in the land and embossing foil. This photo was never meant for public consumption lol but sure no harm to jolt the ego. I sent this to a friend, doing my attempt at a David Bowie Goblin King voice, “Look into my opal eye”. It’s the wrong eye as well, it was my right eye that was taken ;-)

The Synchronicity: 8th July 2023, The One-Eyed Dog

Earlier in 2023, along with two dear friends, Sarah and

Regina de Búrca

(who writes the enthralling, Journey through the Tarot via Irish Herstory), I booked an intuitive tattoo ceremony with the extraordinarily gifted Pheobe, founder of Awen Soul. I had an idea for my tattoo inspired by megalithic art, but a day or two before our session, I shared my dream of the opal eye and the O’Sullivan symbolism with Phoebe. When I arrived at her studio down in Cork, Pheobe had intuited a mock-up of an opal eye, which I was astonished to see was the eye of my dream. Megalithic art went out the window and an opal eye went onto my right arm.

The following day, with what felt like a fresh shimmering tattoo, I was at St Gobnait’s Well in Ballyvourney with Sarah and Regina. A couple came along with a beautiful rare-breed white dog. As we looked closer, we were amazed to see that the dog had one eye. The couple told us that the dog had been born with one blind blue jewel-like eye that the vet had removed. This perked my ears. Then when we asked what the dog’s name was, the woman said “Suilley”... “You know, like, súil amháin, one-eyed because he’s an O’Sullivan”. What really struck me about this synchronicity is that it felt like a cosmic joke. I remember at the time when the couple and Suilley left, myself and Sarah and Regina joked that the fairies were playing tricks on us. After which, we heard the woman call back, “May all of your dreams come true”, and the man joked, “And I hope you survive them”.

Synchronicity is associated with the trickster nature of the Greek god Hermes, “With his winged sandals and cap of invisibility, Hermes brings the numinous power of the unconscious into the world of ordinary experience, carrying with it the capacity to catalyze synchronistic coincidences.”² Hermes reminds me of the enigmatic Manannán MacLir, the Gaelic sea god who is the divine chieftain of the Otherworld, negotiating the boundaries between the sea of the Unconscious and the land of consciousness. Manannán possesses powers like Hermes with his invisibility cloak. He is also the owner of the cranebag that holds all of the treasures of the Otherworld (perhaps like Hermes’ satchel).

Manannán MacLir giving the sword of light to the god, Lugh, by Maud Gonne

Manannán is described by anthropologist, Evans-Wentz as, “the greatest magician of the Tuatha Dé Danann, disguised as a being who can disappear in the twinkling of an eye whenever he wishes, and reappear unexpectedly”.³ As a shapeshifting trickster, Manannán aids and hinders, as the white-robed druid did in my dream. He aided me by offering me eye drops, which my ego refused, then hindered my ego by taking my right eye until I could uncover my opal eyes and “see a change in colour”. 

Three wells later, the synchronicity comes full circle. As I look down in my well bucket today, I see a floating opal eye blink back at me. I am once again reminded that,

“I know this path by magic not by sight”.

Le temple du mystère de la grotte by Bolesław Biegas

I would love to hear about your own experiences of synchronicity so please do share in the comments.

Mother Tongue Words

As is the theme of dreams, this month’s mother tongue words are:

Is mise aislingeach m'aislinge féin.

(“Is mish-eh ash-ling-ock ma-ash-ling-eh fayn”)⁴

I am the dreamer of my own dreams.

Finally, I have volunteered feminine embodiment coaching sessions in early May as part of an initiative to raise funds for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. This will launch in the next week. If you are interested in availing of coaching from me or another wonderful coach and donating to this profoundly important cause, please visit the School of Embodied Arts for more info.

Croí isteach,

Jen x

1. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, An Introduction to Early Irish Literature

2. Allan Combs, & Mark Holland, Synchronicity: Science, Myth and the Trickster

3. Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries

4. There are three regional dialects in Gaeilge: Ulster, Connacht and Munster. I use the Munster dialect here.