Thank you for this gorgeous story and prompt. I love your storytelling so much. 🌊Best wishes for this year’s Voices of Celtic Wisdom journey! I was honored to teach in this course last year (on the Selkie tale & the immram) and am still working my way through everyone’s stunning offerings. 🙏🏼
Oh wow thanks a million Amanda & yes I remember you from VOCW and your glorious offering! 🤍 I love that you're still making your way through everyone's offerings I must do the same - I had all the intentions last year lol but there was so much... how great is that a feast of wonder and magic. Thank you for your incredibly kind words too, grá mór Xx
For sure! I’m grateful to be connected! Your work deeply inspires. As Celtic diaspora, I am always walking the edge of being deeply tied to our ancestral stories and ways and Lands and also deeply tied to the Land and wisdom of Turtle Island and in service to her First Nation peoples. I will always be a humble student of both and your wisdom is felt in this. Remembering my ancestral ways and land-based stories has been an incredible doorway to the healing and repair needed here.
It’s an exciting time to be alive and to be doing this remembering work and building bridges across the Earth! 🌊🦭🌊 I’m looking forward to working on my Cranebag for the new cycle!
So, so beautifully put Amanda thanks a million for this reflection. I love how you express how it's an exciting time to be alive when so much is communicated in the reverse with all of the collective pain we are experiencing, how can we continue to love this beautiful Great Mother with every beat of our being and build those bridges across the Earth. So looking forward to learning more from your wise soul 🤍🌀
Synchronicity here for me - herons have been on my mind and last week I took part in a paper lantern making workshop and made one shaped like a heron! Thank you for sharing about the cranebag - had never heard of it before. I am currently studying FECC with Jenna Ward, so common ground there too (which might be how I found your substack).
Oh wow what a beautiful synchronicity Hannah! Both crane and heron are the same word in Irish - corr - because cranes (despite being worshipped by our ancestors) became extinct on the island for a few hundred years but they recently returned to the boglands which feels incredibly auspicious. 🤍 That's amazing you're doing FECC with Jenna Ward, it's such important work for these times, I love hearing of this connection.
Thanks for your reply! I'm happy to hear that they have returned to the boglands.
I grew up in south-east England near the Thames, and the heron was the largest and most striking of local wildlife, when I'd spot them at the river's edge a few times a year. Recently, I saw one here in Iraq (where I'm living this year) and it was exactly the same kind I used to see at home (Grey Heron) which amazed me! Later I found out that they frequently migrate through here or spend winters here, and a few even breed in the Iraqi marshes.
(the download is for paid subscribers and I signed up so I could read it! It's beautiful and also mentions the Cranebag.)
I am seriously thinking about naming myself Hannah Heron as a pen-name (I've been looking for one as I want to distinguish my writing on embodiment and more personal stuff from my other work...) - it fits well with my publication's name "At the Water's Edge" and feels more resonant than others I've thought about. So if I go ahead with that, thank you for the idea :-)
Oh, love the idea of taking a cranebag with me into 2025 😊
Yay! Filled with all of your treasures Shelley & what you need and desire for a flourishing 2025 💚
Thank you for this gorgeous story and prompt. I love your storytelling so much. 🌊Best wishes for this year’s Voices of Celtic Wisdom journey! I was honored to teach in this course last year (on the Selkie tale & the immram) and am still working my way through everyone’s stunning offerings. 🙏🏼
Oh wow thanks a million Amanda & yes I remember you from VOCW and your glorious offering! 🤍 I love that you're still making your way through everyone's offerings I must do the same - I had all the intentions last year lol but there was so much... how great is that a feast of wonder and magic. Thank you for your incredibly kind words too, grá mór Xx
For sure! I’m grateful to be connected! Your work deeply inspires. As Celtic diaspora, I am always walking the edge of being deeply tied to our ancestral stories and ways and Lands and also deeply tied to the Land and wisdom of Turtle Island and in service to her First Nation peoples. I will always be a humble student of both and your wisdom is felt in this. Remembering my ancestral ways and land-based stories has been an incredible doorway to the healing and repair needed here.
It’s an exciting time to be alive and to be doing this remembering work and building bridges across the Earth! 🌊🦭🌊 I’m looking forward to working on my Cranebag for the new cycle!
So, so beautifully put Amanda thanks a million for this reflection. I love how you express how it's an exciting time to be alive when so much is communicated in the reverse with all of the collective pain we are experiencing, how can we continue to love this beautiful Great Mother with every beat of our being and build those bridges across the Earth. So looking forward to learning more from your wise soul 🤍🌀
Synchronicity here for me - herons have been on my mind and last week I took part in a paper lantern making workshop and made one shaped like a heron! Thank you for sharing about the cranebag - had never heard of it before. I am currently studying FECC with Jenna Ward, so common ground there too (which might be how I found your substack).
Oh wow what a beautiful synchronicity Hannah! Both crane and heron are the same word in Irish - corr - because cranes (despite being worshipped by our ancestors) became extinct on the island for a few hundred years but they recently returned to the boglands which feels incredibly auspicious. 🤍 That's amazing you're doing FECC with Jenna Ward, it's such important work for these times, I love hearing of this connection.
Thanks for your reply! I'm happy to hear that they have returned to the boglands.
I grew up in south-east England near the Thames, and the heron was the largest and most striking of local wildlife, when I'd spot them at the river's edge a few times a year. Recently, I saw one here in Iraq (where I'm living this year) and it was exactly the same kind I used to see at home (Grey Heron) which amazed me! Later I found out that they frequently migrate through here or spend winters here, and a few even breed in the Iraqi marshes.
Also, did you see Sharon Blackie's post about Old Crane Woman which came out very soon after yours: https://substack.com/home/post/p-152184113
(the download is for paid subscribers and I signed up so I could read it! It's beautiful and also mentions the Cranebag.)
I am seriously thinking about naming myself Hannah Heron as a pen-name (I've been looking for one as I want to distinguish my writing on embodiment and more personal stuff from my other work...) - it fits well with my publication's name "At the Water's Edge" and feels more resonant than others I've thought about. So if I go ahead with that, thank you for the idea :-)