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.
What I thought I was doing when I started
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I want to tell you something about how this all began for me. I moved to England at twenty-two. I grew up Irish Catholic — properly Irish Catholic, which is its own very specific thing, shaped by history and survival and a particular fierce relationship with certain figures and practices that don't translate neatly anywhere else. When I walked into a Catholic church in England, I didn't quite recognise what I found. Same name. Different texture. The things that had meant something to me growing up didn't carry the same charge. So I did what curious people do. I started asking questions. Not about my faith — not exactly. About the Irish version. Where it had come from. What was Catholic and what was older than Catholic. What we had kept without knowing why we were keeping it. That question took me into Irish mythology. Irish mythology took me into the older layers under the Catholic surface. And eventually, a long time later, I ended up here — running a program about Brigid for women who are finding their way between traditions. I did not see any of that coming when I started. This week's post is about beginnings — what they actually look like, why they rarely feel significant in the moment, and why that's completely fine. [Read it here ] If you're at a beginning yourself — curious, restless, not quite sure what you're looking for — the post is for you. So is the program, when you're ready. Bríd libh Órlagh Check out the links below: 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.
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...
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...
I want to be honest with you about something. The path I walked was not the most efficient one. It was not guided, not structured, and not supported in any meaningful sense. It was just me, stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other, refusing to give up on finding something that actually fit. That stubbornness is core to who I am. It makes me very good at some things and very difficult at others. It also meant that when there was no clear way forward, I made one anyway — slowly,...