Musings

The heART of Ritual

Welcome to the MUSINGS room in our digital nest! Here you will find an extensive selection of articles, poetry, prose, videos, recipes, and tutorials that journey the natural cycles, seasons, elements, and archetypes in the Celtic Wheel of the Year, as well as our Irish indigenous festivals, folklore, and customs.

This is lovingly provided as a free community resource, however it is copyrighted content. As such, we respectfully ask that if you share this content outside of this dedicated space, either in whole, in part, or paraphrased, that you credit the author and source. Thank you.

Winter Masks and Seasonal Rituals among the Iroquois

"False Faces, among the Iroquois, are personifications of mythical beings who live in wild and isolated regions, on the edge of the known...

Mothers Night: The Ancient Pagan Origins of Santa?

An ancient winter festival which stems from at least the Iron Age is Mothers Night or Modraniht. This celebration took place on what is...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Fairy and Child' by Eugene Field

Oh, listen, little Dear-My-Soul, ⁠To the Fairy voices calling, For the moon is high in the misty sky ⁠And the honey dew is falling; To...

Blúiríní Béaloidis 09 - Christmas Customs & Traditions

For this month's edition of Blúiríní Béaloidis, hosts Claire Doohan and Jonny Dillon set out to take a critical look at traditional...

Irish Folklore: 'The Wise Wife and the Mermaid'

"There was supposed to be a Mermaid living in Lough Key. Long ago she could be seen sitting on a rock on the shore, every day, combing...

The Stigma and Taboo of having the gift of 'Fairy Sight'

For this article I wanted to open the door on the social pressures and, indeed, stigma, regarding reporting fairy encounters. Related to...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: Exerpt from 'The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems' by Robert Bly

'The candle is not lit To give light, but to testify to the night.' ~ Robert Bly, The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems

On Co-Weaving Community and Mental WellBEing

Throughout this year I've been reflecting on my practice of weaving containers, energetic architecture, and curating space, and given the...

Storytelling is an Emergency: An Ecological Reading of Scheherazade

“What is your emergency?” I asked my creative writing group of female high school students. “What if you only had time to tell one last...

Traditional Plants of the Winter Solstice

History shows that the seasonal botanicals gathered were those thriving in the landscape around us. For us here in Europe, symbolic...

On Disintegration

At times, our reference points will fall away, revealing a shimmering, pregnant, endarkened void. What we were so clear about just days...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Winter Cloak' by Joyce Rupp

This year I do not want the dark to leave me. I need its wrap of silent stillness, its cloak of long lasting embrace. Too much light has...

On the Path of Wholeness

I've been working alot with Hawthorn lately, the Celtic tree of Bealtaine. This old photo is of a West Cork Hawthorn, recorded just...

Wreaths, Cycles, and the Winter Solstice

Wreaths: (From the Middle English wrethe, a twisted garland or ring of leaves and flowers) have been used ceremonially for centuries to...

Cuetlaxochitl, Poinsettia: a Gift of Rebirth and Light from Mexico

Along with tamales, buñuelos, and champurrado, many of us bring the beauty of the elegant Flor de Noche Buena into our homes signals the...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'If She Had Been The Mistletoe', by Emily Dickinson

If she had been the Mistletoe And I had been the Rose— How gay upon your table My velvet life to close— Since I am of the Druid, And she...

Winter Trees as a Portal to Aliveness

There is something about the skeletal splendor of winter trees - so vascular, so axonal, so pulmonary - that fills the lung of life with...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'December' by Christopher Pearse Cranch

No more the scarlet maples flash and burn Their beacon-fires from hilltop and from plain; The meadow-grasses and the woodland fern In the...

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The heART of Ritual

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