As footstep follows footstep with the building rhythm  my worries fall away, each step grounding me to the forest, as the chatter in my head quietens  I begin to feel as part of the forest as the trees, the deer or the sleeping owl.

The trees begin to thin out and I scramble over an old stone wall, the  path snakes downwards to a wide open deserted sandy beach. White clouds sail out above the crescent shaped bay like prayer flags.

I take off my shoes as I reach the beach letting the damp sand squelch between my toes, I gaze towards the horizon where the sea meets the sky and throw my arms out wide embracing it all.

Pulling my hair from my face I suddenly notice a figure walking along the shore. Their image  seems to shimmer slightly, but maybe it’s just the watering of my eyes in the sea breeze.  It is a woman and as she approachs closer there is something familiar about her and i feel a tangible energy – something ancient yet timeless.

As she smiles I stare into her blue grey eyes, she draws me close and embraces me and in that embrace I feel as i’ve i’m being held by the very source of all things. All worries slip away all attachments dissolve and i embrace that pure essence that lies within us all.  Her energy is god, goddess, source, mystery whichever name you give it – that spark which exists in every living and non living thing.

I instantly feel the connections lie between everything – that I am there inside the rock, in the white clouds above us, I am the fish in the deep ocean and the light of distant stars. I am capable of everything I want to achieve. I feel the satisfaction, the confidence and belonging it brings – of growing roots into a new depth all this in these brief moments.

Lifetimes exist in this moment,  for dreams about the past and the future take us away from the real magic that only unfolds in the here and now.

As she loosens her grip  I know who she is, she is one of the high ones, she is Brighid – incarnated into many lives and times in order to offer herself to us.  She who is many things to many people.  I oh so want to stay in those arms, living in this moment embraced by her. But as I stare into those blue grey eyes I know that she is me and that I am brighid.

As I am Brighid, you are Brighid as we are all born with her flame inside of us.  Hers is the fire which inflames our head, ignites our heart and warms our hands in our work.

We engage with the energies of Brighid as we create, and it is there that I feel what I felt on that beach. It is both a healing and inspirational place. She ignites me  in tending her flame of creativity, and in that space I give thanks.

* * *

Imbolc is her festival celbrating the first stirrings of spring. I’m offering an Imbolc workshop which is a day long honoring of Brighid – sharing stories, song, ritual and making a traditional Biddie doll. Click on this paragraph for more information. 

There’s an old tradition in Ireland of catching & killing a wren on today, St Stephens day. I remember my dad singing the song – he’s probably singing it today I’m just not there to hear it. In Irish wren ‘An Dreoilín’ means Druid’s bird, and represents the Holly King and the waning of the old year as the sun is reborn at Yule. While the wren was probably killed in a disguise of trying to stomp out pagan traditions the rituals live on today with Wren boys/Straw boys telling the tale in all their pagan finery!!

Click on the above image for the West Clare Wrenboys

The wren, the wren, the king of all birds
St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze.
Although he was little, his honor was great.
Jump up me lads and give us a treat.

We followed the wren three miles or more,
three miles or more, three miles or more.
Through hedges and ditches and heaps of snow
At six o’clock in the morn.

Dreoilín, Dreoilín, where is your nest?
It’s in the bush that I love best.
It’s in the bush, the holly tree,
Where all the boys do follow me.

As I went out to hunt and all
I met a wren upon the wall.
Up with me wattle and gave him a fall
And brought him here to show you all.

I have a little box under me arm.
A tuppence or penny will do it no harm
For we are the boys who came your way
To bring in the wren on St. Stephen’s Day.

Seemingly it was the wren’s song which betrayed St. Stephen in his hiding place and so he was stoned to death. The wren is caught and stoned to death and taken round the local houses collecting money. These days the Wren boys are ore likely to be dressed up carrying a fake bird in a cage singing carols and collecting for charity.

Click on the above for the The Wren Song  (An Dreoilín)

The Maimín Cajun Band from Conamara, fronted by Seán Monaghan sings An Dreoilín

on Shop Street, Galway recorded by TG4 Gaeilge

When I was little I used to think that the lights on the far shore of the Clyde were in fact the lights of Bethlehem. On nights towards Christmas I could be found in the back garden, with the dog, searching the night sky for a certain star in the East. The closest I probably came was the headlights of planes on their approach to Glasgow Airport.

Now living in the Appalachians of North Carolina I return to Scotland in my mind to the shores of a little windy little island off the West Coast. Iona is set between worlds of our reality and the other world. It is here the myth is set of Brighid who entwined the worlds of Paganism who embraced an ancient figure of Christ in the  form of Celtic Christianity.

In my mind my feet step carefully between rock pools reflecting the light of the waxing moon between the ancient outcrops of ancient green marble. So ancient it is cracked and fissured from many ice ages which have scraped over it maybe hundreds of miles thick. It is here that Brighid once walked on a Christmas Eve. Wrapped in her blue green mantle that little girl is who is a Pagan Goddess and both Christian Saint saint becomes Mary to the Gael.  Transported by angels to Bethlehem she is lifted high above the little island, over the darkening seas to Bethlehem where she is Muime-Chriosd (foster Mother) to the Newly born Christ.

‘In the story when Brighid is breastfeeding the Christ there was a reciprocal feeding going on, that somehow Christ is feeding her. As the milk is issuing from her breast to the Christ and is growing his body the light from Christ is going into her heart and in some ways the story ends with Brighid walking through the world carrying this light’*.

Brighid is a fire goddess and Fiontullach recalls that she walks into the world carrying his light, offering his light. Celtic Christianity explores Christ Consciousness through the spirituality of these islands, through the elements of nature in a cyclical path. Past the place of gods and goddesses hinting on to a place of ‘nearst’ where all gods become one. To that place of the beloved, to the great mystery to that energy beyond male and female.A Christianity which remains pure untainted by the Imperial Church of Rome.

So here is to Brighid, offering the light of Christ as incorporated by the Druids. Here’s to the peace of that Westerly Isle as it sits in it’s location cloaked in luminality, between the worlds.

* Taken from personal interview with Fiontullach, of the Ceile De Order.

Today is the shortest day. Here in the northern hemisphere the earths’ tilt takes us to our  furthest position from the sun. Last year in Scotland I watched the sun be born into a blood red sky. At this time of the year I enjoy the darkness, a place to hide and retreat and yet while our ancestors knew the importance of rest in this mid winter somehow our lives just get busier under the sick glow of electric lights.

My first year here in the Appalachians was knee deep in snow, haunted by the ghosts of winter solstice. Last year I headed back over the Atlantic to Scotland where  it was the coldest it’s been for the last 100 winters. I wandered the hills in awe of the hoar frost sculptures. This year I am hibernating in a winter retreat, speaking the ancient language of the trees.

The pine comes into it’s time just after the winter solstice. Druids used to light large bonfires of Scots pine at the winter solstice to celebrate the passing of the seasons, they decorated  glades  of Scots pines with lights and shiny objects and so as the tree was covered in stars it represented the return of the Divine Light. It’s very scent  is inspiring, uplifting, immediately soothing. Stepping into the presence of pines the scent of their  resin creates a magic stillness, evoking an ancient place.

While we might be celebrating that the sun is reborn yet it seems we are plunged into a darker darkness. The returning light is a fragile newborn. The ogham teaches us that, like from the very top of a pine, the pine offers us foresight,  seeing into the mysteries of the unknown. The pine is most powerful after the solstice when the solar energies begin to grow and the season of birth seems just around the corner.

Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange), County Meath, Ireland

At this time  the pine seems to guide the first creative energies of the new solar year to where the process of life awaits ignition. It stands sentinel as the energies of the year move forward to the birthing season of spring when natures clock starts ticking again. Like all that we dream for in these winter months they must be tended like this new born sun, they must be mothered and looked after, sing soft lullabies.  Care for them tenderly in meditation and intention, feed them with winter walks and inspiring reading.

More than anything I feel the deep pull of home. From across the ocean I can hear the song of my favorite places, offering their embracing silence. And so as the light blessed the stones atop of my favourite hill (or more likely they grey skies turned a brighter shade of grey) and the first rays shone down the long chamber of Brú na Bóinne (and those lucky drawers of the lottery got to be inside the chamber) I will replay its rising  set to the deafening embracing silence which I will forever hold in my heart.

Magical & cleansing bath: Take time for yourself. Run a bath adding pine needles or oil of pine to bath water. As you soak concentrate on allowing negativity to flow out from us into the water – which eventually goes down the plug hole. But make sure to take time to fill yourself with positive energy, meditate and spend time inspiring yourself  as the universal law dictates like attracts like.

Wishing you an inspired solstice.

“Your beloved and your friends were once strangers. Somehow at a particular time, they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. Now your life is unimaginable without them. Similarly, your identity and vision are composed of a certain constellation of ideas and feelings that surfaced from the depths of the distance within you. To lose these now would be to lose yourself.”             — John O’Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

This is Sue. She was trained as a working dog when she was young and spend a good part of her life taking care of the rabbits on a Scottish Estate. After my brother moved to Dubai she came to live with me for the remaining happy, non rabbit killing 6 years of her life.

Slowly and surely Sue became my Anam Cara. It’s a Gaelic phrase which translates as soul friend. My grumpy mornings were always cheered by the sight of a 16 years old Jack Russell jumping three foot in the air just delighted to be going out for a pee in the morning. How could I not be happy at that sight! Long walks became meditations in nature as we sat silently as an owl swooped overhead. Sue provided me with the focus into a world of spirituality where everything hosts a soul and dogs are human too, albeit non human people.

The brooch is inspired by Sue, off bounding on the scent of a rabbit or a bird, a tan flash through purple hues of heather.

I entwine a little pet hair amongst layers of sheep wool  (pet hair is too short to felt on it’s own) and then certain accents are highlighted by seed beads and embroidery. They are a keepsake for our soul friends who have moved on from this world and a celebration for those still wagging amongst us.

These brooches are made by commission, tailored specifically to your pet. They can be purchased by voucher, prices $30 -  I  will email a printable voucher (or posted). Please email me judelally@gmail.com

I’m always up for trying to make different kinds of hats and so when S needed help in trying to make a fascinator I’m up for it!

Fascinators to me have always seemed like silly things that perch on the side of someone’s head at weddings, or the Ascot races (ok someone did buy one of my mini top hats to go to the Kentucky derby). I love when people goo over my mini top hats – i’ve had someone buy one simply for its Victorianesque vibes, someone from a circus bought one, one went home with a woman who was planning a lion tamer outfit! So yes how to do my style of fascinator.

Wool. Wet felting – that’s where we started. I’m probably a sloppy felter. I welcome in the odd hole, or strange flap that appears as they always present themselves as needing interesting embellishments. I was glad to get into some felting again, the smell of wet wool as two mad dogs chased each other around the room.

So we layered and added hot water, and soap then more hot water, then some more. then mopped and squeezed, and rinsed and felted…and repeat several times.

We cut a pattern, of a leaf shape embellished a little with the sewing machine then sewed two pieces together then turned them inside out. Currently the hats look like droopy leaves that have just fallen off a tree and landed on your head but this is part one and next week we’ll work on the veil (I’m thinking branches or antlers) and try another version from buckram and fabric.

Our original inspiration

Some days living in another country is hard. It’s like I have one foot rooted in the West Coast of Scotland and the other in the Appalachians. My decision was one of choice  and I wasn’t forceably moved with half my family dying on the grueling boat ride here but still for me in my life it’s hard to be separated by such vast distances from family and friends. Days that start out feeling like this kinds take a downward spiral. I feed into it heart and soul as it’s got so much depth, there’s numerous friends to miss, family of course, an old life and of course the very landscape itself.

Yet yesterday I managed not to get sucked into the whirlpool – like the great swirling waters of Corryvrecken where the Cailleach washes her plaid at this time of year, shakes it dry and throws it over the landscape of Scotland. Rather than getting submerged in those waters I sat in the sun and watched the birds feed as I drank my coffee.  As we watched the already peaked fall leaves we decided to climb high and turned to Mount Mitchell.

Needle felted Rowan Ogham (Celtic tree alphabet)

The foliage thinned out as we gained altitude and I was so cheered by the gleaming red berries of the mountain Rowans (American Mountain Ash). Amazingly they were clustered together where i Scotland they are mainly solitary. They can’t help but cheer you up with their brightness and that the very same tree grows in Scotland. Just the sight of those bright red berries lifts your emotions, letting go of stress allowing a grounding, a healing and inner strength.

So amidst the photo taking and the bustle at the Mitchell view platform I found a few seconds silence, breathing in the mountain hair as I looked out of the ribbons of silhouetted mountain chains in these the most ancient on the planet.

I sent roots down through the soles of my feet, green curling roots digging down, down into the very hearts of the mountains and up, up bubbled the rejuvenating energy for the vast reserves of the planet, walking slowly down in silence one foot after another I felt a peace I hadn’t experienced in days.

Five pointed star of the Rowan Berry

And so i sat amoungst the Witchin trees, the Rowans, took a sprig of berries while giving thanks. This is a magical tree and spells were recorded on rowans staffs. The Druids honoured the Rowan, planting trees to protect stone circles and the ley lines which are linked to them. Here as we cycle twards all Hallows people would wear Rowans speigs into a hat, or clothes or make a necklace from dried berries so not to be transported to the land of faerie!

The bright red berries are collected by Druids and other in magical brews with mushrooms and herbs so to open he pathways to the Otherworlds within themselves. Yet they knew the toxicity levels and intimately knew the actions of such ingredients and the importance of how to ground themselves after such workings, to earth themselves.

And so with the help of Rowan I become grounded again and a thanks to the visitation of the apparition of Byron Ballard hand on one hip, the other pointing down…and ground, and ground!

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We had the first frost last night in the mountains. Apart from the obvious frozen white stuff there are several major signs:

* One is the amount of plants that Dan overnights in the bus so they can huddle around the wood stove

* The second is that a bed sheet is usually out in the garden over the lemon tree as fairing from Florida it can’t cope with the cold very well

* A third sign is often the sighting of a cycloped hunchback whose great eye illuminated the darkness: this is me in 15 layers heading out in to the darkness to gather kindling – head torch lighting the way. Muttering small curses and swearing to collect kindling while it’s warm and during daylight hours! But secretly I love it as often there’s the soft hoot of an owl or the yelp of a coyote telling you the night is alive.

I live in a valley looking up to tree topped hills. I miss my great vista in Scotland where at the first frost I could look out from my third storey  of an old sandstone tenemant as the frosty hills and probably a dusting of snow on the top of Ben Lomond.

Ben Lomond taken by Aldo36 on Flicker – Click on photo for original source

Daylight is dwindling and in a couple of weeks we loose more daylight and fall deeper into darkness. Some friends dread this time of year but personally I love it. I love the darkness, I wear it around me like a thick cloak. I can hide in it. It is a call to dream, to read to huddle around the wood stove and watch endless episode of the X Files! Last nights frost feels like the fingers of the Cailleach are stretching into our days, she is stirring I feel like I must prepare, prepare mentally for her coming.

Luckily in Asheville there is many rich offerings. Mother Grove offer a public Ancestor Vigil on Tue 10/25 from 7-10 pm as the Parish Hall of All Soul’s Episcopal Church and I’m offering an Ancestor Holder workshop tomorrow at Mother Grove 

Whatever you do – prepare, prepare as she is coming!!!!!

Click on the photo for some Cailleach info

It was my second year to gather up my wears, hitch up the horses and take the wagon to the next mountain over – to the annual gathering of the South East Women’s Herbal Conference. The mountains were glorious, the trees wearing their autumn splendor. The moon rose as we danced to drums and was still there to welcome us into the new day as we rose from dreams.

A wonderful weekend of meeting friends, making new ones and just enjoying the energy of so many wonderful women. While many of the visitors to the Celtic Soul booth had to hold onto the tent to keep it grounded we ourselves took the time to ground deep and tap into the unending reserves that our mother offers – and to let go of all the we carry which ultimately harms us. I learnt much from herb walks and talks – of the amazing magic of the adaptogens and the story of the ancient healing herbs. Our experience is what makes a festival – not whatever it says in books but life – how it is to experience it in circle with other women – our experiences and interactions with the sacred. I stepped in ceremony with Brook Medicine Eagle in a simple yet powerful ceremony and danced wildly to the sounds of Bangra – which with Scotland’s large Indian population made me feel strangely at home. But it was the sisters and the plants that grounded me – especially when I often feel torn away from a home across the ocean.

Fire Goddess

Full moon cauldron gathering

I’m sure i’m not the only person trying to eek out some time to let all this juicy knowledge digest. To just bask in all the experiences, the inspiration and the wise words over the weekend. They are all food for the soul – that fires the head, warms the heart and is carried out with the hands.

As we cycle to Samhain, to the Celtic new year. I want to sit with women and discuss what this means – what is our experience of what we’ve lost this year – some, good looses while some we grieve over. To welcome in the Crone although such encounters are terrifying yet can be powerful and expanding.

I look forward to evoking the Baba Yaga with the Mother Grove Goddess Temple and all the inspiration of  SEWHC will feed me throughout the winter months as we drop down into a deep root energy. In our bus in the woods winter is a time of being cocooned against the wonderful darkness with the wood stove burning and moonlight through the clear roof. I intend to dream, and read and of course make hats! Thanks you to all for making it such a wonderful, nurturing experience.

SEWHC 2010

The October giveaway is going to be a fleecy fox hat

To enter just share what you like most about Samhain/halloween and either subscribe to the blog of ‘like’ Celtic Soul on Facebook. I will ship internationally!

The Cailleach is the crone face of the triple goddess. While Brighid brings in the first light of spring at Imbolc as the energy of late summer begins to wane she faces west to the waters of the Atlantic. She returns to the great whirlpool of Corryvrecken (whirlpool of the plaid) and takes her mantle from her shoulders. As she washes out the rest of the season she rings her plaid dry and as she throws it out over the landscape of Scotland she invokes the first frost over the Scottish mountains.

With Samhain we begin our descent into darkness – some fear it some love it as the darkness is a place to hide. It’s a time to draw our inspirations and commit those things we wish to die – like the Cailleach who walks the land striking down any signs of life dead with her mighty staff.

Join me on the 23rd October at Mother Grove to create a Ancestor Holder with a guided meditation evoking the Cailleach, the death goddess and our most ancient ancestress.

Ancestor Holder Workshop. Cost $30, Location: Mother grove Goddess Temple, you can find directions here: http://www.mothergroveavl.org/directions.html

At this time of the year, more than any other we hold our ancestors dear. We call on them with collective memories, in prayers, with offerings.  As part of your ancestor veneration join me in an afternoon of creating an ancestor holder. We will use recycled fabrics and beads with special symbols, photos, jewelry, natural pieces – anything that is special or cherished.

These holders help in our focus of working with ancestors – they hold offerings, prayers, affirmations, celebrations, thanks, spells, wishes – however it works for you. We will begin the workshop with a guided meditation on the Cailleach Bheur (the blue hag of winter), and share a Bran Brack – a traditional Scottish divination cake!

The cost of the workshop is $30 – you will leave with a decorated fabric Ancestor Holder and a handout on Scottish Samhain. While all materials are provided please bring any personal item you’d like to use in the making or the decoration of your holder.

Please confirm if you’d like to attend this workshop by emailing me at judelally@gmail.com

Ages 15 and older.