Just like our other major pre-Christian Irish festivals, Bealtaine doesn’t occur on a fixed date as the Georgian calendar we use today wasn’t adopted in Ireland (as part of the British Empire) until September 2nd 1752. The precise date & time of Bealtaine was calculated according to the movements of celestial objects as being the exact mid point between the Spring Equinox & the Summer Solstice. The stars & planets don’t move in accordance with the Gregorian calendar! This year, as it often is, it’s today, May 5th.
For me, it’s a anti-colonial position, a very important one, to observe our ancient festivals when they were originally intended to be observed & which they can still be observed now 1000s upon 1000s of years later.
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Bealtaine is the beginning of summer in Ireland, the use of the word ‘’summer’’ there should be taken with a mountain of salt here for those who are not from or who have never been to Ireland in the summer time! Our summers are not like yours! However, it’s ours.
It was, & still is, a fire festival with large communal bonfires associated with much celebration, partying, music, feasting with spring crops & foraged food, dancing as well as no small amount of ritual.
Homes are decorated with branches & flowers, cattle & perhaps other animals, were driven between two fires to ensure fertility & abundance for the coming summer. A Bealtaine bush, often a hawthorn, was & still is decorated, much like we decorate Christmas trees now, with flowers & shells (keep it biodegradable!). Dairy products such as milk, cream & butter were offered, it is seen as a time of fecundity & fertility, & who doesn’t like a bit of fecundity!
Bealtaine is also the Gaeilge (native Irish language) word for the whole month of May, so the energy of the celebrations were not necessarily confined to one day or night.
May your summer, or winter if you’re on the other side of our earth spinning through space, be filled with a growing inner peace, a contentment with what we enjoy & a hope that, should we tend to her with sufficient care, the earth will continue to provide.
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#Bealtaine #Gaelic #Prechristian #folklore #pagan summer
Good news for family members of the 796 children & babies believed to be buried at the site, this may make identifying remains more likely.
#Tuam #motherandbabyhomes #forensicscience #Ireland
In 1945 Dr James Deeny, State chief medical advisor, found in Bessborough: “Every baby had some purulent infection of the skin and all had green diarrhoea, carefully covered up.”
Link 👇🏼
#motherandbabyhomes #Census #Ireland #Cork #Bessborough
I'm reflecting on my Irishness today on the 110th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, a series of events that ultimately led to the liberation of part of our island from British colonial rule 5 years later, a colonisation that first began in 1169.
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At the time, the population of our tiny island was just 3 million people & the cost of the Rising was huge; 16 leaders executed, nearly 500 dead, 1000s injured & 1000s interred in prison camps under martial law but, most importantly, the spirit of the Irish people seeking independence from Britain remained unbroken, as it hadn't been throughout the course of so many other rebellions & risings over the previous 800 or so years.
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I notice that those in the Americas & other parts of the world often forget that we were Britain's first colony - most colonisation techniques were tried on us first - the theft of land as well as language, relationship, spirituality, culture, custom, legal system, & deliberate starvation leading to the death or immigration of 25% of our people; the almost complete loss of autonomy & sovereignty.
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We are still in recovery.
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I'm reflecting on my Irishness today, what it means to me to be Irish. I took a DNA test several years ago & it showed that my DNA is 97% Irish, the rest is Icelandic & Norwegian; those pesky vikingers!
Irishness in my much younger years was heavily influenced by a surface level flag waving driven by a strong anger related to our colonisation, but underneath that anger was a deep, deep, grief for the destruction & loss of the vast richness of what we used to be, what we could have been & the injustice of what should not have been. In order for grief to emerge from underneath anger it must be safe to express itself, it must feel like there is less to defend & protect itself from, it must then allow itself be vulnerable.
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We are still in recovery.
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Continued in the comments.....
A recent post of mine on LinkedIn attracted 39,000 views in less than two days, consequently with a lot of people visiting my profile page it seems like a good time to direct those visiting my profile pages to my website, should you be interested in further information about me and/or my work.
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It's been a long & varied 37 year journey in counselling, therapy, personal & community development that's seen me work, both in-person & online, on 4 continents & in many countries, with my areas of expertise & current interest being:
- adult intimate relationships, both individually & with those in relationship, with a specific expertise over the last 16 years in consensually non-monogamous relationships
- sexuality & sexual health over the lifespan
- reproductive rights
- survivors of sexual violence, including survivors of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation)
- recovery from religion/cults
- trauma, both personal & collective with a strong focus on the ancestral contexts from which we come
- survivors of institutional abuse, particularly in Ireland's 'mother & baby' institutions & adoption
- women in their menopause transition years (45-55) specifically focusing on menopause related physiological & psychological changes & their impact on relationships & sexuality.
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Feel free to visit the website for more information &, if interested in one to one, relationship support, clinical supervision or talks, presentations or workshops email [email protected].
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#relationships #relationship #therapy #therapist #psychotherapy #reproductiverights #motherandbabyhomes #ireland #irish #trauma #FGM #recovery #recoveryfromreligion
Among professionally trained & qualified therapists, psychologists & other mental health professionals it's generally agreed that in order for the therapeutic relationship to do it's job, for the client to be able to relax into a space where they feel totally, fully & completely listened to, heard, & emotionally held, the relationship needs to 'be about' the client not the therapist.
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What I mean by ''about'' is that the relationship in all forms, the focus, the attention, the conversation revolves solely around the client & their thoughts, experiences, & emotions. At no time should the client wonder if the therapist is OK, for example, or if what they are saying either pleases or disappoints the therapist. This is the essence of deep presence. It is in this space that the client will, ideally, feel free to unravel & to reveal themselves to the therapist but more importantly to themselves.
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While the Greek maxim 'know thyself' is often trotted out without much deep consideration, I'm confident after 37 years of work in the field of counselling, therapy, personal & community development, & 20 more years of life on top of that, that it is the foundation upon which ALL growth & development does, or does not!, happen. Only when we know ourselves can we then know what we are bringing, or not, to all our relationships whether with friends, lovers, family, work, & to life itself. Then, once we know what we are & are not we can learn, inquire, grow as a result.
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If a client is distracted by their therapist's life or imagined life, in any context, their gaze is shifted from themselves to the therapist & while it might be many things, therapy it is not.
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Did you know I provide clinical supervision to fellow professionally trained practitioners? I do! Check out the one-to-one sessions page at or email [email protected] for more info.
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#therapy #therapist #knowthyself #counselling #professionalstandards #ethics
‘’To love is to accept a soul entirely, not wishing that the person was otherwise, nor hoping for change, nor clinging to some ideal past. To love is to cherish the individual standing before you presently; charms, quirks, and all. To love is to give someone a piece of your heart that you will never, ever reclaim.’’
Richelle E. Goodrich
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Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss - Antonio Canova, 1793, marble. The Louvre Museum, Paris.
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#love #art #poetry #relationship #relationships
Since I learned I shared my birthday with #internationalwomensday, aged 19 I think!, it’s never been about ‘girly nights out’ for me, it’s always been deeply rooted in equality, justice, fairness, freedom & revolution, exactly where it began with striking female garment workers in New York in 1857.
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Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise
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#IWD #breithlasona #felizcumpleaños #happybirthday
‘’Maybe Eve was never meant to be our warning. Maybe she was meant to be our model.
Own your wanting.
Eat the apple.
Let it burn.’’
Glennon Doyle in Untamed.
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#Art: ‘And you will be like God’ - #LizDarling
Watercolor, gouache, graphite, colored pencil & collage on Arches paper, 2014
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#InternationalWomensDay
#IWD
#woman
Gaillimh, tá tú álainn…
Excerpt from Galway by Mary Devenport O’Neill
I know a town tormented by the sea,
And there time goes slow
That the people see it flow
And watch it drowsily…..
And their tall houses crumble away.
This town is eaten through with memory
Of pride and thick red Spanish wine and gold
And a great come and go;
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#Galway Gaillimh #Ireland #Home #Éire
