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.
🌊 We drove to Waterford for the air con. Brigid met us at Tramore.
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Last week, Ireland decided to have actual summer. Thirty degrees. Proper heat, the kind we're categorically not built for. We don't have air conditioning in the house. We do have a €30 mini air conditioner from Amazon that makes a heroic amount of noise for very little cooling effect. What we also have is a car with functioning air con - so I did what any sensible person would do. I invented a reason to drive to Waterford. I had exam scripts to collect. This was true. It was also, I'll be honest, partly an excuse to sit in cool air for 45 minutes each way. My husband came willingly. We both felt significantly more human by the time we arrived. And on the way home, we stopped at Tramore. It was packed. It was a perfect Irish summer's day, which means half the country had the same idea. But we found our spot, kicked off our shoes, and walked to the water's edge. My husband, who has opinions about the temperature of the sea, did not moan once. This is because the water was, for once, genuinely not that cold. We spent an hour there. Nothing dramatic happened. No visions, no major realisations, no spiritual breakthroughs. Just the sea doing what the sea does - cooling things down, washing things off, making the world feel slightly more manageable. We both slept better that night than we had all week. That, for me, is Brigid's water aspect at work. Not the dramatic transformation of fire, but the quiet, consistent support of water. The thing that holds you while it gently reshapes you into something that fits a little better. This week's post is about exactly this - how to connect with Brigid in summer, when Imbolc feels far away and fire isn't necessarily what the season calls for. [Read it here] BrÃd libh Órlagh Check out the links below: ​Brigid's Forge School​ ​Website​ |
Hi, I'm Orlagh, of Brigid's Forge
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.
My mother grew up in rural Clare in the 1960s. And one of her fondest memories from childhood is the trip to Lahinch for Garland Sunday - the last Sunday of July, which in her memory was simply a great day out. The men would walk the seafront. The women came too - which was notable, she says, because most of the fairs and gatherings of the time were horse fairs or cattle fairs, places where women didn't usually go. Garland Sunday was different. It was for everyone. Children ran and played and...
My husband and I can't have children. This isn't something I talk about constantly, but it's part of my story and it's directly relevant to why Tailtiu matters to me - so here it is. When I first came across her, I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I was following the thread of Lúnasa back through the mythology, trying to understand what my ancestors were actually doing at this time of year. Tailtiu was there in the sources - the woman who cleared the plains of Ireland until it...
The August bank holiday is, in my house, taken seriously. Not in a spiritual performance sort of way. In a genuinely practical sort of way. I use it - and the few days around it - to take stock of where I am. How am I doing on the goals I set at the start of the year? Not to beat myself up about what hasn't happened, but to look honestly at what has - what's come in, what's still outstanding, what I've quietly abandoned without quite admitting it. The harvest metaphor is a useful one here....