A Chairde, Friends,
Some of you have been in touch about your plans to come to Ireland and, or the WISE Isles this year, and so I felt inspired for our creative ritual this month to share a meditation from the vaults, where you will journey to a sacred site.
This was inspired by a piece I wrote and invoked called, The Body is a Place:
The body is a place.
We all originated from the body of the Earth
from her sacred waters.
We are born of the Great Mother
Of her lakes
her rivers
her seas
her moon
The sun.
Earth is a body and a place
And so you are both
a body and a place.
We know that we inherit intergenerationally
through our bodies
Our DNA weaves us to the generations
who have come before
to their joy
to their trauma
and all in between.
We are sensual beings
and so we inherit the
sensory
sensual
felt sense memory
of the places
in which our ancestors lived
in their tuath, their tribe
In community
Generation after generation.
The timeline that connects us back
to our pre-Christian, pre-Celtic ancestors
who built the cosmic temple of Newgrange
at Sí an Bhrú
the mansion
the womb of the Goddess Bóinn
is but 100 grandmothers ago.
Feel into the closeness
of 100 grandmothers ago
in your body.
Feel the Áes Dána
the People of Arts
with the poet-seer
the File
the druid magic-maker
the Draoi.
Feel our women’s traditions
the Bean Feasa
the Woman of Otherworldly Knowledge
the Bean Ghlúine
the Woman of the Knee, the midwife
the Bean Chaointe
the Keening Woman.
All cailleacha, all natural witches
All of whom were attuned
to the mysticism of this land.
All who lived in reciprocity
with the Otherworld
with the sídhe
the dwelling place of the gods
and the gods themselves
the Tuatha Dé Danann.
Receiving wisdom
giving wisdom
receiving wisdom
giving wisdom.
And their memory
continues to give to you
but you must be open
to receiving it in your body.
Allow your body to become a place
where ancestral memory resides
where your mystical lineage
can weave on through your DNA
where you can travel
to the landscape of your ancestors
even if not physically in Ériu, in Ireland.
Earth is a body and a place
You are a body and a place
A place that remembers
A place that longs for you to explore.
In this practice, through your body, you will travel to a sacred site. This can be somewhere you have visited before or are familiar with. It can be related to a particular story, goddess, god, mythic or more than human being. A place where your ancestors lived.
You might desire to work intuitively and use a map and pendulum, or simply close your eyes and allow your finger to guide you to locate a sacred site on a map of Ireland or somewhere in the Celtic Isles (and beyond).
Or your place may be unknown to you before you begin. You don’t need to have a place in mind to do this practice.
Once you have felt into how to approach this practice, prepare your space for ritual.
Ritual is a conscious act or performance that transitions us from everyday life into a world of possibility, where the limitations of the every day can be renegotiated and transformed.
