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People sometimes ask me what my spiritual practice actually looks like, day to day. They expect something elaborate. They're usually surprised. Sacred showers. That's where I start. There's nothing mystical about the act itself — it's hot water, soap, and about eight minutes before the day gets going. But I've learned to use that time deliberately. To arrive in the day rather than collapse into it. To set something like an intention before everything else starts demanding my attention. I touch the earth most days. Feet on grass, hands in soil if there's any nearby. Not because it sounds nice, but because I've learned that I genuinely function better when I do it. Something settles. Something that was scattered comes back together. And yes — I ask Brigid for help with work problems. Technical ones, specifically. She's a goddess of the forge, of craft and skill and fire. She has opinions about workmanship. She's been known to help. I also choose who I work for very carefully now. That's in this week's post — including the time I had to leave a job because the values mismatch got too loud to ignore. The Guided Path starts in two weeks. This post is the last one before we begin, and there are still places in the founding cohort. If you've been sitting on the fence, I'd love to hear from you. Bríd libh Órlagh Check out the links below: Website |
I'm dedicated to helping women in particular develop their spiritual path in life. I'm focused heavily on Brigid in Ireland, although not all my followers are! I teach, speak, coach and mentor people to help them along their own individual path, based on what lore we have, but also allowing for each individual path to develop as it needs to.
have climbed Croagh Patrick. Once. In 2001, I think, or thereabouts. It took about three hours up and considerably less time down, partly because my knees had opinions about the descent that I couldn't ignore. It was a college weekend away...) It's a remarkable experience. I won't pretend otherwise. Standing at the top of a mountain on the west coast of Ireland, with the islands of Clew Bay laid out below you, is genuinely moving - whether you're doing it for Patrick, for the pre-Christian...
For a long time, I had a problem I couldn't solve. My relationship with Brigid was growing. My Catholic upbringing wasn't going anywhere - not because I was still practising in any conventional sense, but because it's in me, in the way that anything you're raised inside is in you. And I couldn't work out how to hold both things at once. I've written about this conflict recently - the specific discomfort of being a pagan Catholic, of loving figures who belong to a tradition you've also had...
I want to be honest with you about something, because I think it might be useful. The last few months have been hard. I've been struggling with anxiety - properly struggling, not just the background hum that most of us carry, but the kind that makes the ordinary things feel effortful and the future feel unreliable. I'm getting professional help, and that matters. But alongside that, I've been going to the sea more than usual. On the rougher days - the ones where everything felt loud and sharp...