While many try to separate the pagan goddess from the Christian saint the two overlap in interests and matronage.  Both goddess and saint favour poets, healers and smiths.  The saint, having been a slave dairy maid is also associated with cows.  But then again, the cow has always symbolised the fertility goddesses of the Celtic world since cattle was synonymous with abundance and wealth.

Both the goddess and saint are associated with holy wells and the healing of sacred springs.  In particular wells with the cure for the eye are sacred to both.  This is because Brigit is the Great Envisager.  If anyone knows about the ‘vision thing’ then Brigit is your woman! Or deity. Or both.

Additionally, both Brigits are associated with fire.  Indeed, there were nineteen priestesses of Brigit who tended an eternal flame.  When Abbess Brigit established her monastery around 500CE she also had nineteen nuns tending a flame.  Today, there is the remnant of the Fire Temple in the grounds of St. Brigit’s CoI Cathedral in Kildare Town.

Abundance, fertility in all its manifestations, inspiration, vision and prophecy, craft, poetry – all these were gifts from the goddess and her namesake Christian saint. At her smithy forge this dynamo of the Divine Feminine creates, remakes and reshapes all.

Both the goddess and the saint are celebrated as the beginning of Spring on 31st January until 2nd February. (The Celts rather like to feast over three days.)

You can join Irish Blessings Tours on a week long pilgrim tour February 2014.  It will include an international gathering of women and men who are exploring the ‘Brigit consciousness’ and how it is revisioning the 21st century. You will meet women’s spirituality authorities Mary Condren (“The Goddess and the Serpent”)  and Dolores Whelan (“ Ever Ancient, Ever New”). You will walk some of the sacred landscape of this island seeing where the Tuatha dé Danaan landed in Erin as well as  dolmens, holy wells, sweathouses and other ancient relics.

For more tour information email bee@irishblessingstours.

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The other magical sight was a solitary white horse in the pasture beside the  the first flowing of the Shannon river as it rises from ‘the pot.’   In the rain it was sheltering beside the hawthorn in full flower. This reminded me of the story of the fairy horse, or eoiche uisce, that is associated with a lough within the Cavan Burren forest.

There is a fairy horse legend associated with a nearby lough on the Cavan Burren that inspired me to write a poem. This poem of mine tells the tale of why you need to be wary of the water horse who is, of course, a fairy horse.

Cautionary Fairy Tale

Young women, beware handsome men

with slicked back watery hair, ken

their fetching grins that show a lot of teeth.

For once in your ever young lives

defer to those older and more wise

who can read the reality beneath.

Handsome men that go wandering lough side,

all snake hipped swagger in full lust cry,

need heeding . Fleet foot yourself away!

For once in your ever young lives

defer to those older and more wise.

Head for home without further delay!

Handsome men wandering lough side

often lure with kisses and love sighs,

tempting young women to get carried away.

Yet at least once in your young lives

defer to those older and more wise.

Don’t yield and be led well astray.

Handsome men with their slicked back, watery hair

have a habit of making young women care.

Don’t be fooled – he’ll have you at his call and his beck.

Please for once in your ever young lives

defer to those older and more wise.

That devill’ll shake your life clear off its track.

That handsome man will turn to faerie beast.

That stallion will seek you for his own mortal feast.

He’ll love you. He’ll lave you, but never’ll leave you.

So for Heaven’s sake of your ever young lives

would you not defer to those older and more wise

who’d save you from riding to your doom?

For the skin turned water horse has only one true enclave.

Tullygubban Lough will always be his current consort’s grave.

© Bee Smith 2011

Storytelling, poetry, music and good conversation are all part of our Betwixt & Between Walks with Bee (and Tony) as we walk the Fairy Ireland landscape of West Cavan, South Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo.  Charges are 30 euro per hour.  Book your walk by emailing bee@irishblessingstours.com.

Help us share the beauty and spiritual power of Ireland with others. Please click on one of the social networking buttons if you believe in fairies.

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Woodland walks are exceptionally good places to hunt for fairies. Gardens that are a bit wildish and left to nature rather than pruned and manicured may prove good hunting grounds.  Because fairies are of this world and the other betwixt and between places – shorelines, boundaries of all kinds, bridges- may be the place where you will connect.

I was asked this past week if I see fairies.  I don’t.  Although there was that night coming over the Bellavally Gap that Tony and I saw what we think was a will-of-the wisp.  But that might have been a  ghost instead.

I do feel fairy presence strongly.  I know people, usually people who are extremely visual in orientation and often artists, who in childhood saw fairies.  A musical child  of my acquaintance is sure that he heard fairy music one night in a field close to his very isolated home.

I have a close friend, Siobhán MacMahon of faerieshaman.com, who is a shaman and fairy doctor.  She explained to me once that fairies tend to show themselves to us in ways that are least threatening or most understandable to an individual.  For someone like me, who is quite an earthy soul, they tend to speak to me through animals showing up in incongruous settings. I’ll give you an example.

Now we live in the country and have two cats.  Mice get brought into the house as live toys at times. Tony, a Buddhist with a strong affinity to St. Francis of Assisi, has saved many a mouse to see another day.  One day one ran under our double bed.  Since I didn’t want it making a nest there he systematically emptied every stick of furniture from the room until only the bed was left.  He constructed a mouse proof ‘run’ to the front door.  So far, so good.  Now we just had to lift the bed up and tip it back and ‘herd’ the mouse down to the open front door.

During the procedure the bed wobbled and in fright the mouse ran back toward it and I lost the grip on my end. Down the bed went back into place.   We were back where we started with the mouse under the bed.  We both definitely saw the mouse flee back under the bed.  There was no other place in the room for it to hide or escape.  When we lifted the bed up again what walked out was…a spider.

So, a shape shifting mouse who defeats all rational explanation is almost by definition a fairy.

It could be a lizard on a rock or  frog crouched by the down spout. I’ve been buzzed by dragonflies on woodland walks Since both Tony and I are animal lovers it makes sense to connect with us through animal species. Because we feed the birds and native red squirrel we have developed a ‘give and take’ relationship with our local fairies, or the nature spirits if that feels more comfortable to you.

Which leads me to another requirement for fairy hunting.  Fairies are very familiar with the law of karma.  You do not just take what you want from nature and give nothing in return.  They are quite strict on this.   So have some cake, a crystal, some ribbon or a shiny coin to offer them.

They can be mischievous at times.  My view is that they are trying to get your attention so they pull your leg a little. I can’t explain it rationally but sometimes they just whisk things away. Once I was in a panic trying to find the spare set of keys that I keep for a friend. I looked in all the normal places and then completely random ones.  I was completely logical and systematic in my search  Eventually when I found them they were in the zip compartment of my hand bag – even though it had been emptied and checked many times.  Likewise, I’m currently missing my hair brush.  I have two – one for travel and one for daily use.  The daily use brush has gone missing from all the usual and random places.  It will turn up once they have decided it’s time to return it. Which I hope is soon as I really like it.

Irish Blessings Tours offers Betwixt & Between walks and fairy hunts in Northwest Ireland – West Cavan, Leitrim, Sligo and Fermanagh.   Come and smell the gorse flowers and spend silent time close to hollow trees and primeval rocks.  You never know what you might encounter.

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Walking connects our bodies to our spirits.  If you walk long enough all the endless internal chatter quiets down;  your breath deepens and becomes regular. Your eye will roam; you will notice but not judge what you observe.  With the body being in contact with a quieter mind the spirit begins to relax and expand.  We encounter inspiration on our pilgrim way – not just as we exercise our bodies and tone our lungs – but also in the mind and spirit.

Early Christian monks were called peregrini; this is where we get the word peregrinations.  These solitary spiritual seekers wandered abroad to places that were foreign as a way of opening their hearts and minds to the divine.  Australian  aboriginals walk their ancestral song lines to connect with their soul.  Europeans have also taken  spiritual walks. We just call them pilgrimage or a spiritual journey.

Ever since Chaucer the English speaking world has known that pilgrimages or spiritual tours are sociable events.  Our fellow travellers keep us from either getting too pious or overly fey. As anyone who has stayed in a large refugio on Spain’s Camino will tell you, fellow pilgrims snore and their personal hygiene may differ from one’s standards.  This, too, is good for the soul.

Those who set out on a spiritual journey may be more solitary, just like those  monks from the fifth century.  You may meet strangers who will enrich and deepen your spiritual life.  They may become anam cara – a friend of your soul.  You may pause and decide to stay in a spiritual house, monastery, or other centre for part of your spiritual journey.  These retreats are times of silence, meditation or disciplined spiritual practice whether this is yoga, Tai Chi or some form of art. My all-time  favourite ‘retreat’ was a spiritual writing weekend where we met in a Celtic roundhouse in Wales and camped.   We retreat from our ordinary life; yet the experience is more in line with a spiritual encounter with one’s soul.

Celtic spirituality, whether Christian or pagan, values nature as the way into spiritual revelation.  As John O’Donoghue writes in his book “Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World.”

The Celts were a nature people, the world of nature was both a presence and a companion. Nature nourished them; it was here that they felt their deepest belonging and affinity.

Walking in nature has always played a part in Irish pilgrimage tradition whether you climb Croagh Patrick or follow the pattern of steps and prayers around a holy well or on Lough Derg’s Station Island.   A pilgrimage exercises not just your body but also your mind and soul.

Irish Blessings Tours invites you to join their 2014 Tour celebrating the Feast of Brigit –“Spreading Brigit’s Mantle: Brigit’s Vision for the 21st Century” taking place here in Ireland from 30th January until 6th February.  You will experience workshops to deepen your understanding of Brigit’s vision as well as visit spiritual places here in Ireland that have be sanctified by thousands of years of Irish inhabitants praying, making ceremony and worshiping at these sacred places in nature.

Bring an open heart. Pack sturdy footwear.

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Central to the tour is spending three days – from 31^st January – 2^nd February- where we will be delegates at an international gathering at Brigit’s Garden in Rosscahill, Co. Galway. This Celtic themed garden dedicated to the spirit of Brigit is the ideal place for this Gathering .

The Gathering takes as its theme “Spreading Brigit’s Mantle: Brigit’s Vision for the 21^st Century.” Mary Condren, author of The Goddess and the Serpent will give a keynote address as well as launching her latest book. The gathering will offer facilitated workshops, community and an evening ceilidh over the course of the weekend.

The final four days of the tour will take us to sacred spaces – holy wells, cursing/blessing stones, fairy woodland, and dolmens as we head towards northwest Ireland where the Tuatha de Danaan, the fairy race from which the goddess Brigit sprang, first landed in Ireland.

We will end the tour by visiting Solas Bhríde in Kildare where the eternal flame that had burned for centuries was rekindled in 1992. We will visit both holy wells and the cathedral where you will need keen eyes to spot the Sheela-na-gig.

This tour will be of special interest to women and men who have an interest in the spiritual heritage, traditions and devotions that surround Ireland’s matron goddess and saint. Whether your interest is in pagan or Celtic Christian spirituality, we will visit places that have remained sacred to all spiritual traditions in this island.

Your guide, Bee Smith, is a a regular contributor and  former Sagewoman columnist and long-time Brigit devotee.  She is a published poet and is included in Goddess Ink’s anthology”Brigit: Sun of Womanhood”, editted by the late Patricia Monaghan and Michael McDermott.

Tour costs will include entrance fees, shared room, breakfast and evening meals.

For full tour itinerary and costs email bee@irishblessingstours.com

Watch the blog for regular updates and follow this event on our Facebook page.

The post Upcoming Tours– Spreading Brigit’s Mantle–30th January – 6th February 2014 appeared first on Irish Blessings Tours.

Irish Blessings Tours creatrix, Bee Smith  is a Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark trained tour guide. Her talks with walks will enhance your understanding of the ancient sites,  natural heritage, mythology and local history.  Storyteller and musician Tony Cuckson embellishes the walks with his beguiling Armagh accent and humour.

Allow poet, writer and storyteller Bee Smith to lead you on a fairy hunt in the magical places within the ancient Irish kingdom of Breifne. Bee’s tours will show you places where modern and mythic Ireland meet, sharing those ‘betwixt and between’ places of Tir na nÓg, the rainbow bridges between time and the timeless. No tour of Ireland is complete without that ‘tingle factor’ that this part of Ireland never fails to deliver.

We have tailored three walks varying from completely accessible to moderately challenging in the sacred landscape of West Cavan and south Fermanagh.

So come walking Betwixt & Between with Bee to places where the fairies still thrive, where you can feel the ancestors watching your back and feel peace dropping slowly upon your soul.

Pricing- €30 per hour

Book via email to bee@irishblessingstours.com or by phone 071 964 3936.

Payment should be made via PayPal upon receipt of confirming email or text message.

Groups up to eight people, children with focus welcome

Tour One

Seeking the Source at Shannon Pot

This one hour tour of the source of Ireland’s longest river, the Shannon, includes storytelling and music with Tony Cuckson. Meadows, fairy trees, story and song. This walk is completely accessible.

Tour Two

Crossover with Crom Cruich

This one hour tour at Holy Well near Belcoo includes a talk on the Celtic Spiritual Life as it transitioned from pagan to Christian.

Tour Three

The Ancestors at our Back

This walking tour of the Cavan Burren is a minimum two hours and includes the guide’s own poetry inspired by the landscape and the folklore associated with it. A half day could be easily spent exploring dolmens, cairns, wedge tombs and boulder formations.  A longer tour with a picnic  included can be negotiated.

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The route begins in Faughart, Co. Louth, alleged to be the birthplace of St. Brigid, the daughter of a nobleman and slave woman.  This iconic figure of the divine feminine has now become the leading ‘light’ inspiring a walking pilgrimage way that can be compared to Spain’s Camino, which starred in the Martin Sheen film, “The Way.”

Dolores Whelan, author of “Ever Ancient, Ever New” will facilitate this pilgrimage walk with Karen Ward.  The route will take pilgrims south from Faughart to Kildare, where as an abbess St. Brigid founded one of the most important monastic communities of the early Celtic Christian era.  As well as visiting these prominent Celtic Christian shrine the route will tread an ancient path passing the Hill of Tara before taking to Ireland’s Grand Canal at Maynooth.

This walking pilgrimage will allow participants to ponder your life’s soul journey, shed what you are ready to leave behind and to allow Brigid’s eternal flame to light up  and align your vision for your soul’s journey.

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Out in our garden I noticed that the mild winter had seemed to quell our hellebores. My ‘Christmas Rose’ has taken on a more North American identity and become a ‘Easter Rose’. It felt more like Spring in February.

The daffodils bravely shiver and trumpet the coming of spring.   It has dawned sunny and cold but without a frost this morning.  As I  write you this Easter greeting I look out a winter onto our garden and notice that the willow trees have sent forth catkins.

Living in this corner of Northwest Ireland in West Cavan, close to the boundaries of Leitrim and Fermanagh is a great blessing.  When Tony and I left England nearly thirteen years ago, leaving behind a business, job security and good friends, many thought we were mad, feckless or both.  Yet we have never regretted it.  To be able to live out in the country on a little acre of fertile peaty ground is like living on a diamond mine – but you rarely have to dig.  The fairies just toss jewels at you left and right.

I am daily mesmerised by  the every changing sky both day and night.  It is just past the full moon. In the absence of street lighting the soft LED effect of moonlight makes you want to go out and moon bath.  We have witnessed magenta sunrises over the Playbank on a winter dawn and equally spectacular sunsets in all seasons. In autumn we wake to see a bank of mist.

Before we moved here I came across a book by an Irishman called “ I Could Read the Sky.” It was about a passing culture or , more accurately, the effect of transplanting a countryman to an urban environment with its light pollution and tall buildings obscuring a good view of the sky.  Over our time hear I’ve learned the meaning of interpreting the signs in the sky.

When one feels blessed there is a deep connection to gratitude.  I wake up each morning grateful to have been guided to this very special corner of Northwest Ireland.  It doesn’t have a lot of interpretation centres, museums or heritage villages –  a few – and many open their doors at Easter.

What Northwest Ireland does have is pristine land that you can walk and if you listen to the land and look up to the sky you will be blessed with the most wonderful insights, inspiration and profound awe for the marvel of this good earth who deserves our respect and devotion.

The Celts, both pagan and Christian, knew that Spirit speaks to us through nature.   This is what is so distinctive about the Celtic Spiritual heritage. When I walk the glens and woodlands, the stony Cavan Burren, when I look into the Source at Shannon Pot, I am persuaded that Celtic Spirituality is a great legacy gift to us in our post-modern age of hurry and haste.

This Springtime may you be blessed with the promise of rebirth

where ever you are and whoever you may be.

May the birds carol and rejoice that we are all alive under one sky

May your spirit unfurl like a sunflower following the arc of light

And  may we all feel the blessing of this good earth

Irish Blessings Wishes you a Happy Easter and a Joyful Springtime

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Two American tourists arrive at the Marble Arch Caves gift shop. Marble Arch Caves is right on the Fermanagh Cavan boundary. Cuilcagh Mountain at its back is the the border.  When they are told that they are in the sterling zone the American tourists went rigid with panic that they are in Northern Ireland. A mild bickering match erupted between them with one accusing the other, “You told me we wouldn’t be going into Northern Ireland!” They immediately turned tail and fled to the carpark, presumably back into the Republic of Ireland.

Hearing this made me feel both mad and sad.  Having lived here for twelve years and travelled to Northern Ireland since 1980 I know that there is no reason not to come and discover the wonder of Northern Ireland. All those images you have of Northern Ireland from your television screens are things of the past.

The thing is if those fleeing tourists  headed east it would be inevitable that they would be weaving in and out of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. There is no visible border since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The only way you can tell whether your in one or the other is that the speed limits are in kilometres in the Republic and in miles in Northern Ireland. The same would be true of some of the westerly routes. Shops along the border use both sterling and euro and always know the daily exchange rate.

Although the actual anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in 10th April, here in the northern part Ireland we cannot help but thinking of how radically lives have changed since the peace process began  and the historic agreement struck.  There are no army foot patrols. The fortified police stations in border towns have been decommissioned. There are no Customs & Excise or passport controls.  Co-operation exists to an extent that the Marble Arch Caves became the very first cross border, international global geopark, an official UNESCO designation acknowledging the unique importance of this region to the world.  The geology that formed this land did not distinguish borders and the wealth of built and natural heritage in the Geopark is outstanding.

Because there was a light footfall in this region for thirty years or more we have incredible biodiversity and many rare species, sites of scientific interest.   We have rare bugs, moths, protected mammal.  We have blanket bogland. The Geopark has the largest ribbed moraine on earth shaping the landscape of the Cavan-Fermanagh border land.

People of good will have been working away at repairing the border rift since the Good Friday Agreement and to get more cross community interaction after the segregation imposed by the threat of violence. I belong to the Together One Voice Choir which meets in Derry, Omagh in Tyrone, Enniskillen in Fermanagh and Manorhamilton in Leitrim, which is in the Republic of Ireland. Last night we participated in the opening of an art exhibition featuring artwork from all over Ireland at the William Jefferson Clinton Centre in Enniskillen.  That centre was named for Bill Clinton as a measure of the gratitude toward the American president for brokering the deal that has improved lives immeasurably since 1998.

I’ve been travelling in Northern Ireland since 1980, even in the dark and troubled times.  I felt less threatened and vulnerable here than as a woman walking alone in most American cities.  And even having visited during the worst of modern times I still developed an abiding love for the land and people of Northern Ireland – their extravagant hospitality, the warmth of their welcome, their legendary Ulster fried breakfasts, the amazingly vitality in the land herself.

Northern Ireland is a safe travel destination. Sure aren’t all the G8 countries’ leaders meeting in Fermanagh this June? If it is safe enough for Obama you can bet it is safe enough for you.  But what Obama probably won’t have the opportunity is to travel about and see all that amazing natural habitat, the peat bogs and wildflowers,  the early Christian sites, the stone circles and dolmens, the castles and cairns.   He’ll be too busy. Which is a shame. But you can avail of this authentic slice of Ireland anytime.  Come and visit us.  This is a truly inspirational part of Ireland.

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Water we have in abundance in Northwest Ireland.  And I’m not talking about rain! Yes, we do have rainy weather, as do other parts of Ireland, but what we also have is Atlantic coastline in Sligo and North Leitrim,and hundreds of lakes in Fermanagh, Leitrim and Cavan.   The limestone landscape of this region also means that we have many sacred springs and holy wells. Cavan even has the distinction of having turloughs – disappearing and reappearing lakes!  Does that sound like magic?

The mountains that range the boundaries of Fermanagh, Cavan and Leitrim provide us with many spectacular waterfalls, many of which have a connection with ancient Irish legends.  Fermanagh’s Sillees River flows in two directions.  St. Brigit’s Waterfall near Glencar, in Sligo doesn’t fall down. She ‘falls’ up!

If you are in need of some wilderness – or even some wildishness get out in Nature and commune with the spirits.  Fairies have this reputation of being ‘fluffy.’  That they are not.  They can be mischievous, especially when they want to get your attention or sway you from being what I call a Fairy Agnostic.  There are plenty of people who sit on the fence about fairies.  They don’t want to say that they disbelieve because they don’t want to risk perhaps offending what they are not completely certain exists!

But fairies do exist – in nature – and they are shapeshifters.  Often they appear as moths, butterflies and dragonflies which we have in abundance.  They unleash themselves when we delight in wild orchids, cowslips and meadows that have never known a lashing with a herbicide.

But to contact the fairies you need to get close to them and what they certain like is the wildish terrain of Northwest Ireland.

Irish Blessings Tours can guide you to special fairy habitats in many places around Northwest Ireland.  If you are visiting Ireland and would like to do some fairy hunting, do contact us.  Our guiding rates are 30 euros and hour with special rates for half days and full days itineraries for groups up to eight people.

But if you aren’t able to get over to Northwest Ireland for the The Gathering 2013 then I think you deserve to treat yourself to one of Johnnie Lawson’s wonderfully relaxing videos filmed here in Northwest Ireland. Clear here for a taster Johnnie Lawson Relaxation.

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