This Summer on my visit home to Ireland, my husband and I hired a camper van and headed out onto the small and windy roads of the beautiful Emerald Isle, for a 10-day pilgrimage to the sacred sites. Wondering about the best way to share this amazing experience with you, it felt most powerful to align the sites we visited during our trip to my Celtic Wheel of Life, taking you on an archetypal journey of birth, death and rebirth in relationship with the ancient sacred sites of Ireland.

Fascinated to understand more about my own indigenous Irish spirituality and ways of being in the world before the dawn of patriarchy (i.e. patriarchy being the destructive hierarchical system of male dominance whose key values are that of competition, acquisition and exploitation, and whose control still engulfs the planet to this day); the main focus of our pilgrimage was visiting the sites of our Neolithic or stone age ancestors – an era that predates the patriarchal system.

The Neolithic peoples were the builders of our most ancient and spectacular stone monuments and temples, dating from about 4000 – 6000 years ago (2000 – 4000 BCE). While the word “Celtic” is associated with most things anciently Irish and spiritual, the Indo-European Celtic races arrived to our shores after the Neolithic era, about 2500 years ago, at a time when the patriarchal system was spreading throughout the Indo-European world. With bronze and later iron, the Celts were a warrior culture, with established social hierarchies and extensive tribal warfare. While they incorporated the sacred sites and pantheon of Gods and Goddesses of the Neolithic into their mythology, the Celts were not the builders of these ancient monuments, nor the originators of this ancient cosmology. So who were our pre-patriarchal ancestors?

While we know much less about the Neolithic civilization that preceded the Celtic one (apart from the stone temples, megalithic artwork and many myths they left behind), what’s becoming clear is that our Irish Neolithic ancestors flourished in – what is referred to in other parts of Neolithic Europe and Asia, as – “The Great Mother Civilization.” According to Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutus, these “Great Mother” civilizations held the regenerative powers of the feminine in highest reverence, honouring the sacredness of life in the form of the immediate and all-encompassing Great Mother of the earth and cosmos. This stands in stark contrast to the later patriarchal worldview, especially those of the Abrahamic religions, whose main deity was a Father God – a more distant and disembodied deity residing in the sky (and most decidedly not in the earth), whose resultant civilization championed transactional over sacred relationships, and domination instead of working in harmony with life.

“According to the myriad images that have survived from the great span of the human prehistory on the Eurasian continents, it was the sovereign mystery and creative power of the female as a source of life that developed into the earliest religious experiences. The Great Mother Goddess, who gives birth to all creation out of the darkness of her womb, became a metaphor for Nature herself, the cosmic giver and taker of life, ever able to renew Herself within the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth.” – Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe

Remarkably, such “Great Mother” societies, which spread extensively throughout what Marija calls “Old Europe” and as far away as the Indus Valley in India, bore very little if no signs of violence, warfare or significant stratified or hierarchal structures. It may be astonishing for us to contemplate through the lens of our current patriarchal worldview, but as further evidence emerges, we’re beginning to understand that most of these Neolithic civilizations represented extensive times of peace, in some cases, archeologically documented periods of uninterupted peace for up to 1000 years.

Isn’t this the very medicine that our world needs right now: an understanding of how to live in peace? If we understood who our Neolithic ancestors were, what they valued, and how they saw the world, then could that change how we see ourselves and how we live today? Did they perhaps leave us such enduring structures in our landscape, to remind us of who we really are and how to live in balance with the earth, the cosmos, ourselves, and each other?

In my own exploration of these themes throughout the years, I have developed what I call the Celtic Wheel of Life (the word “Celtic” being used here as an easy and recognised identifier of something related to Irish culture and spirituality). This Celtic Wheel of Life is a map of our archetypal journey of birth, death and rebirth – a cyclic journey we are continually taking at all levels of our being, from the shortest experiential cycle of the breath, to the longest experiential cycle of our life, with the cycles of the day, month and seasons in between. By overlapping all these cycles and creating this map (below), we can better understand how to live more in rhythm with ourselves, with each other and with the natural world.

Celtic Wheel of Life 2.0 (Priestess Web) by Brenda Ryan

“It would seem that we who live in western society have lost our connection with the rhythm of the cosmos and lost our sense of place within the universe. We experience ourselves as rudderless and disconnected from the larger reality of life and our journey within it… The Celtic and pre-Celtic cultures understood time as seasons of energy that flow into and out of each other in a circular and spiral way… The wheel of the year, when explored in all its dimensions, creates a greater context in which to place the reality of our lives.” – Dolores Whelan, Ever Ancient Ever New: Celtic Spirituality in the 21st Century

And so, in alignment with the ancient Irish sacred sites, we will journey through the Celtic Wheel of Life, reconnecting ourselves with the inner seasons of our menstrual cycle, the outer seasons of our year, and the over-arching seasons of our lives and their associated rites of passage. We are about to embark on a transformative journey to weave ourselves back into the very rhythm and fabric of nature … To head out on a holy pilgrimage to reclaim our sense of place within the universe.

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Newgrange

Season: Winter Solstice (Mid Winter)

Rite of Passage: Conception

When heading out on a pilgrimage to the ancient sacred sites of Ireland, it’s hard to start anywhere else other than here: Newgrange, in the Boyne Valley, Co. Meath.

Newgrange or “Sí an Bhrú” in Irish, is one of our most ancient and sacred sites in Ireland. Built by our Neolithic ancestors over 5,200 years ago, this site predates Stonehenge as well as the Giza pyramid. Touted by the mainstream as a “passage tomb”, Newgrange is much more than what our current linear-minded patriarchal system can understand. This womb-shaped stone temple, its passage chamber aligned with the sunrise of the Winter Solstice, is not a tomb but: “A cathedral of Irish indigenous spirituality.” – Lar Dooley, Out of the Darkness: A Sacred Journey into the Origins of Indigenous Irish Spirituality

In fact, as Manchán Magan suggests, “The entranceways to passage tombs (more accurately referred to as ritual temples, as archeologists have found little evidence of entombment within them) represent vaginas into which the shaft of the male sun enters at dawn on significant days in the astral calendar. The sun sends its seeds through the birthing canal to fertilise the womb.” – Manchán Magan, Listen to the Land Speak

That we’ve been interpreting these monuments as “tombs”, tells us more about our current civilization than theirs. Living in a linear reality where to die is to fall off the end of that line into some kind of eternal mystery or oblivion, leaves us obsessed with death. However, our ancestors did not live according to this inorganic and unnatural law of the line. They lived in rhythm with the law of nature, and that law was and is cyclical. When these cycles move along through so-called time, they create, not a closed circle, but an ever-evolving spiral. And with that, let’s cast our eye upon the main entrance stone at Newgrange …

Sí an Bhrú (translated as Spirit Boundary or Womb of Spirit) has a powerful presence, amplified by its mesmerizing rock art both outside and inside. The dominant motif is that of the spiral, particularly the triple spiral, representing the cycle of birth, death and rebirth: the central precept of indigenous Irish spirituality, and indeed, indigenous culture in general. While the limited mainstream view is that this was a place where the dead were “worshipped”, the energy of Sí an Bhrú is most definitely that of Life. Eternal life. Life perpetually renewing itself on its wondrous spiral path.

The passage chamber at Newgrange is aligned with the sunrise at the Winter Solstice. Between the 20th – 23rd of December each year, the light of the rising sun enters the vaginal passageway and illuminates the womb within. The Winter Solstice marks the time of greatest darkness in our journey through the seasons. It corresponds to the depths of our menstruation during our monthly menstrual cycle, and the depths of our death and rebirth process in the cycle of our lives. It is at the very depths of this fertile void of darkness, our most deepest journey inward, where we can gain the greatest insight and guidance for our onward journey. Mid Winter, mid menstruation, and mid death and rebirth, all mark the point of our “True North”. These are the locations of our ultimate direction, because, as the ancients knew, everything begins in the deepest of the dark: a seed in the ground; a child in the womb; a core revelation received deep in meditation.

It is within the depths of our menstruation, the bio-spiritual death we experience each month, where we gain access to profound shamanic guidance for our onward journey. It is within the depths of Winter, amid our rest, hibernation and dreamtime, that we are most receptive to revelation and inspiration for the coming year. And it is within the depths of our death process where we dream a new life into existence and are conceived once more. The sunlight entering the darkest depths of the Newgrange womb chamber on the Winter Solstice represents these very moments of conception, whether our own conception, or conception of new ideas and ways of being. And that is why we begin our pilgrimage at Newgrange: the sacred womb of our indigenous Irish culture and the place from which creation begins.

Brigid’s Fire Temple & Holy Wells

Season: Imbolg (Start of Spring)

Rite of Passage: Birth

If you’re Irish, then you’ll know about Brigid! We make her Brigid’s crosses in school on her feast day on February 1st, and now, since 2023, she has her own public holiday (“Finding Brigid” RTE documentary). Brigid, while known more recently as Christian nun and saint, has her roots among our Neolithic ancestors who saw her as an aspect of the Great Mother who midwives us into the Spring season. The Goddess Brigid, from the Tuath Dé Danann (pronounced Too-ah Day Dan-ann) pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, awakens us from our deep shamanic dreaming of Winter with her fiery presence, and births us into the outer world amid her healing flowing waters. Goddess Brigid is ancient yet still very much with us.

It is Brigid that sets us forth on our path of rebirth at the Celtic festival of Imbolg (pronounced Im-bullug) – the start of Spring – the half way point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Brigid’s presence, whether saint from our early Celtic-Christian church in Ireland, or Goddess from the Great Mother era of the Neolithic, is dotted all around our Irish landscape.

The Spring season is associated with the sacred element of water: the waters of birth, growth and new beginnings. Brigid has holy wells all around Ireland, and these are very beautiful and powerful places to visit and connect with her healing waters. Here are some photos from her well in Co. Kildare …

“There are hundreds and even thousands of sacred water sources in Ireland that have long been regarded as bridges connecting humans with a realm beyond the physical and rational. They are sanctuaries within the landscape, threshold sites that for centuries, and even millennia, allowed us to step back from the hullaballoo of daily existence and gain access to something grander and otherworldly – something infinite and unknown.” – Manchán Magan, Listen to the Land Speak

My favourite Brigid’s well however, was over at the far side of Ireland, on the wild west coast of Co. Clare at Liscannor …

“… The water sources themselves were regarded as entrances to the mysterious female realm of life creation and nourishment. It is not far-fetched to imagine them as representative of vaginal portals into the womb of the mother goddess.” – Manchán Magan, Listen to the Land Speak

Boyne River

Season: Spring Equinox (Mid Spring)

Rite of Passage: Menarche

We have been reborn into the world through the sacred waters of the Great Mother, and now, moving forward in our journey with our childhood sense of curiousity and exploration, we are meandering our way through the landscape, learning and growing and finding our path.

The energies of mid Spring are associated with growth and the element of water that sustains this growing life. And here we find ourselves at the River Boyne. This mighty river winds its way through the Boyne Valley in Co. Meath, flowing past Newgrange, and sister sites of Knowth and Dowth. The river is actually a Goddess, named after Tuath Dé Danann Goddess Bóann, from the Neolithic era. She is the abundant flow of water that sustains this whole luscious valley that is so steeped in our most ancient cultural sites. “Bó” being the Irish word for cow, she is the Cow Goddess of our Neolithic ancestors, the one who nourishes us from her own body.

The river Boyne / Bóann has a powerful presence. As Brian and I stood by her banks, it was the first time I viscerally felt a river to actually be a Goddess. In those moments, enraptured by her greatness, I understood that this is what our indigenous ancestors felt: that their whole world is alive and animate, and here for sacred relationship.

Having traveled a lot in India, and it actually being the country where I met my husband (now that’s a whole different story: Visit my Book page for more!), I couldn’t help but make the connection between this mighty river called after a great cow goddess, and the Hindu culture’s supreme honour and respect for the sacred cow. Much is beginning to emerge about the connections between the Indo-European languages and cultures of the Celts and Hindus (cultures that came after the Neolithic era). Perhaps the River Boyne / Bóann was to our indigenous Irish ancestors, what the Ganges river is to the Hindus today.

This part of our journey corresponds to the energies of the Spring Equinox. The Spring Equinox is the halfway point between the Winter and Summer Solstices, and as such, is a time of equal light and dark, and a time of growing colour and fertility in our natural world. The energies of mid Spring are aligned with the rite of passage of puberty. For girls, this is the rite of passage of menarche or first blood: a time where we are becoming young women, and starting to have the ability to bare life within our own bodies. This is a special time when the sacred blood of our womb begins to flow forth as we commence the ancient spiral path of the menstrual cycle: our inbuilt feminine spiritual path of monthly initiation. “As a woman you are coded for power, and the journey to realizing the fullness and beauty of that power – your Wild Power – lies in the rhythm and change of your menstrual cycle.” – Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power

Our menstrual cycle is our monthly pilgrimage to the sacred sites within ourselves. It is our intimate holy spiral path of initiation. It is the hero’s journey encoded within our body, that we can choose to ignore, resist or traverse. In wiser times, we were supported by the elders and our entire society around us, to consciously traverse this powerful initiatory path of our sacred wombs. Unfortunately under our patriarchal conditioning, our menstrual cycle has been demonized, shamed and tabooed. If you would like to re-embrace your own feminine spiritual path within the temple of your own body and womb, then visit my resource-rich Menstrual Cycle webpage.

At the banks of the River Boyne / Bóann we pause and acknowledge our inner Maiden. As we face downstream, we release any childhood difficulties we may have had to meander on our way to who we are today, into these quickly flowing onward waters. As we turn to face upstream towards the oncoming flow, we receive the bountiful flow of inspiration, vision, resolve and playfulness that we had in our youth, feeling these vital energies return and amplify in our bodies, fueling our onward journey.

“Divine Mother, thank you for the blessing of being a woman. Please help me release all memories of the times this precious gift of the feminine has not been honoured. I now open into the knowing that I am beautiful, wise, and deeply sacred woman. I honour and appreciate myself.” – Seren Bertrand, Womb Awakening

Hill of Tara

Season: Bealtaine (Start of Summer)

Rite of Passage: Sexual Initiation

Bealtaine (pronounced Be-owl-tin-eh), is the halfway point between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, and marks the start of the Summer season. Translated from Irish as the “Mouth of Fire”, the energies of Bealtaine are all about the entrance into the full blossoming of the fiery Summer season. Spring is turning into Summer and the plants are turning from shoots into buds and flowers. On our monthly menstrual journey we are transitioning into our fertile ovulatory phase, moving from our own inner Spring to inner Summer. And in the journey of our lives, the Maiden is turning into Lover, via the rite of passage of sexual initiation. Bealtaine is a time of great festivity, with celebration centred on fertility, hand-fasting and sacred sexuality. Though not necessarily associated with Bealtaine, the Hill of Tara in Co. Meath has a lot of the Bealtaine feels!

The word “Tara” comes from the old Irish word “Teamhair”, meaning “a sanctuary or sacred space cut off for ceremony.” The Hill of Tara sacred site is extensive both geographically as well as historically and pre-historically. Its use spans from the Neolithic era up to Celtic times where it was the seat of the high kings of Ireland, up to 1000 years ago. It’s one of our most celebrated sacred sites, embracing layers of history and prehistory (could what came before “his” story perhaps be termed “herstory” instead of prehistory?!). What I found interesting at the Hill of Tara was the presence of both very powerful male and female energies.

At the centre of the main circular enclosure at the Hill of Tara is the “Lia Fáil” (pictured to the right above) – the great coronation stone used to inaugurate the King during more recent Celtic and early Christian times. It is also purported to be one of the four legendary treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann. It is a distinctly phallic structure with a powerful male presence.

Closeby, hidden within a graveyard adjacent to the hill, is an old weathered “Síle na Gig” (pronounced Shee-la Nah Gig), or “Faerie Woman of the Vulva”, carved on stone (pictured to the left above). These carved stone depictions of a woman opening her vulva wide open, appeared all over Ireland, as well as throughout the Celtic Isles about 1000 – 1200 AD (though they are found most profusely throughout Ireland). As you can see, the Síle na Gig at the Hill of Tara is now well worn, yet it carries a distinct healing feminine vibration. While their origins and meaning are somewhat mysterious, women are increasingly attracted to these Síles as symbols of the empowered feminine, and sometimes report powerful womb healings at these sites. There are some schools of thought that connect the Síle na Gigs with the Holy Grail conquests of the Middle Ages: the regenerative powers of the womb and the divine feminine, being the holy grail itself.

The Hill of Tara is considered by many in these more modern times, to be part of the Heart Chakra of the world, twinned with Glastonbury in England. The Hill of Tara’s energy definitely feels very magnetic, and attracted Brian and I to visit it many times throughout our pilgrimage. Looking out at these rolling green fields at the Hill of Tara, it’s not hard to imagine why this part of Ireland, or indeed any part of Ireland, would be considered the Heart Chakra of the world. Is this in fact, the true meaning behind the title “The Emerald Isle” given to this land: emerald being the colour of the heart chakra?

Bealtaine, similar to its opposite festival, Samhain, is a time when the veil between this world and the other are thin, making it an auspicious time to connect with the magic of the “Otherworld”. Hawthorns, also known as fairy trees, are considered to be one of the portals to this otherworld, and are held sacred in ancient Irish tradition. They bloom in a profusion of little white flowers during this month of Bealtaine (the month of May), and have many magical associations with this time of year. A wily old Hawthorn is anchored in at the edge of one of the main circular enclosures at The Hill of Tara, laden down with ribbon wishes made by people from all over the world who come here to visit. It’s a truly magical experience to come visit this gnarled old Hawthorn and witness all of humanity’s wishes blowing freely in the Irish breeze.

The Hill of Tara’s most ancient structure, the passage chamber photographed below, belongs to the Neolithic era. What I have to say to you now is, if you’ve come this far on our pilgrimage, and are still not convinced that our ancestors were honouring the female body and creating direct representations of it on the land, then this photo should leave you in little doubt …

Perhaps it’s a testament to the 2,000 – 3,000 years of patriarchal programing of shame and taboo attributed to the female body, that it hasn’t been obvious to us that our most celebrated world heritage sites, are not tombs, but glorious life-giving wombs with decorated vaginal passages and holy vulva entrance ways.

“Indigenous Irish spirituality was, and is, about respect for the sacred feminine.” – Lar Dooley, Out of the Darkness: A Sacred Journey into the Origins of Indigenous Irish Spirituality

May we reclaim the magic of our female body, the sacredness of our sexuality, the sanctity of our vulvas, and the generative power of our wombs.  

Grange Stone Circle

Season: Summer Solstice (Mid Summer)

Rite of Passage: Childbirth

Strictly speaking, we did not visit the Grange Stone Circle at Lough Gur during our 10-day road trip to the sacred sites, but instead, visited it a week or so beforehand with my family, as it’s literally only a few miles “over the road”, as we Irish say, from where I’m actually from. I only found out in the last few years that Ireland’s largest stone circle is located within a 30-minute drive from my home in Co. Limerick. And it’s been there for over 4000 years, funneling the sun rays of the Summer Solstice sunrise down this stone passageway and into the wide open circle for each of those years. Incredible …

The Summer Solstice marks the time of greatest light in our cycle of the seasons. It is the opposite pole to the Winter Solstice, and is a time when the earth herself is literally blooming with life at the peak of Summer. It is the energy equivalent of peak fertility or ovulation in our menstrual cycle (our own inner Summer), and the realm of the Mother, pregnant with life and birthing it out into the world. Inner Summer, outer Summer, and the Summer of our lives, all embody the energy of joy, creativity, abundance and celebration.

“In Irish its name is Loch Goir, goir being the genitive of gor, meaning ‘incubation’ or ‘hatching’. What this area represents is a region through which new energies are birthed into the world.” – Manchán Magan, Listen to the Land Speak

Áine, ancient goddess of the sun, moon and associated with the fertility of the earth, is connected with this whole area of Lough Gur. “Áine means ‘bright’, ‘brilliance’ and ‘delight’, which seems to suggest that all these sites were places where the radiance of the divine female energy is celebrated and enshrined.” – Manchán Magan, Listen to the Land Speak

Áine, like Brigid and Bóann, are part of the Tuath Dé Danann pantheon of Gods and Goddesses from the Neolithic, Great Mother era. The Tuath Dé Danann translates as the Tribe of Danu or the Tribe of Mother Earth. There is some thought that suggests that Áine and Danu are one and the same, both sharing the root word “an”, and both representing the Great Mother archetype in all her abundant, fertile, life-giving radiance. As a side note, I was intrigued to discover recently that at the same time that our Neolithic culture was thriving here in Ireland under the Tuath Dé Danann or Tribe of Danu, the Neolithic civilization of the Indus Valley all the way over there in India, had a Great Mother figure also called “Danu”. This connection is definitely something I wish to explore in more depth in future.

Meanwhile, we’ll give Irish writer, Manchán Magan, who has a special grá (love) for Lough Gur, the final words here on this sacred site: “This idea of seeing the landscape as a fertile, life-giving female is common in cultures in which indigenous wisdom still exists. In particular, the worship of topographical features that resemble the reproductive organs or elements of maternity in the landscape is a common trope of prehistoric cultures throughout the world… It’s clear that there’s been a significant shift away from this way of seeing the earth towards our current exploitative, destructive methods that never seek to ask the earth’s permission to engage with it, or to even attempt to work in harmony with it. It helps to bear all this in mind as we approach any once-sacred landscape such as Lough Gur.”

Loughcrew Cairns

Season: Lughnasa (Start of Autumn)

Rite of Passage: Menopause

As we cross the boundary from Summer into Autumn on our Celtic Wheel, we travel to Loughcrew in Co. Meath, or “Sliabh na Cailleach”, Hill of An Cailleach, as it is locally known. This is one of the wild and windswept homes of our indigenous Irish crone goddess, wise woman, or guardian spirit of the land – An Cailleach. And indeed, this hilltop is also home to the very origin of the Celtic Wheel of the Year itself.

Loughcrew is a phenomenal site, and standing atop this windswept hill in Co. Meath, it takes a while for its significance to truly dawn on you. This ancient site, predating Newgrange, is composed of a series of cairns or stone passage chamber wombs, both covered and now exposed, aligned with either the sunrise or sunset of each of the solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter days in between, creating a complete solar calendar of the year. These cairns have, at this one site, been accurately charting the entire annual solar calendar for between 5000 – 6000 years.

This was a captivating find for me, as I’ve been working with the Celtic Wheel of the Year and over-layering it with other corresponding rhythms and cycles of life for the last few years, creating the Celtic Wheel of Life.  And here at Loughcrew, is the very origin of the Wheel of the Year itself.

Lughnasa (pronounced Lu-na-sa) is the midway point between the Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox, and marks the start of the Autumn season. This is the start of the harvest, where the blossoming flowers of Summer are turning into the fruits that nourish and sustain us onwards through the Autumnal months ahead. It is the energy equivalent of transitioning into our premenstrual phase, our own inner Autumn, during our menstrual cycle. And Lughnasa represents the corresponding time in our lives where we transition into our early cronehood (sometimes called the Warrior phase), through the rite of passage of Menopause. At this time, the flowers of our motherhood phase turn to the fruits of wisdom gained through our life’s journey. This is a time of reflection and thanksgiving, ruled by the air element, where we reflect on the fruits of our own internal and external harvest so far this year, so far this menstrual month, or so far in our lives, and determine how to best move ahead with most wisdom.

“Cairn S”, as it is known, pictured below, has a now exposed stone passage chamber that’s aligned with the sunset at the cross-quarter days of Bealtaine and Lughnasa. This crow flying overhead, and the flock that came later at sunset, felt like the energy of An Cailleach, the wise crone herself, who is often associated with the crow.

As our pilgrimage coincided with the week or so after Lughnasa, we sat nested within the ancient womb of Cairn S which is aligned with the sunset on Lughnasa, and watched in awe as the sunset beams were still making their way into the now open passage chamber, and illuminating both our faces in its evening glow. It was a truly magical and otherworldly experience.

What a blessed journey we are indeed on.

Táimid Buíoch ~ We are Grateful

Loughcrew Cairns

Season: Autumn Equinox (Mid Autumn)

Rite of Passage: Loss

We remain atop the highest hill in Co. Meath – the awe-inspiring Loughcrew, or Sliabh na Cailleach – for the next part of our journey along the wheel. At the very peak of Loughcrew, is the largest Cairn, “Cairn T”, with a direct solar alignment with the Equinox sunrises. “Deep within the chamber of ‘Cairn T’, in Loughcrew, when we sit in peace and serenity, we enter, and are at peace in, the womb of the Cailleach.”- Lar Dooley, Out of the Darkness: A Sacred Journey into the Origins of Indigenous Irish Spirituality

Autumn Equinox marks the halfway point between the Summer and Winter Solstices, and is a time of balanced light and dark. From this point onward, we are entering a time of increased darkness and returning inward once more. Mid-Autumn is a time of letting go, when, like the trees shedding their leaves, the wild winds of release shake loose anything that no longer serves us, as we move ever closer to the Winter season. In the cycle of our life, the Autumn Equinox corresponds to our rite of passage of loss. Experiencing grief and loss is what can transition us from the early stage of our cronehood, or warrior woman, to the later phase of cronehold, or wise woman. Like the energies of mid Autumn, we are moving ever closer to the darker days of Winter and to death itself. Similarly, in our cycle of the month, we are stepping through that doorway in our late premenstrual phase, where we are getting ever closer to the required surrender into the menstrual phase or inner Winter of our cycle. In all these cases, we are experiencing the energies of release, surrendering to the ever-changing nature of reality, and reflecting on the wisdom we have gained along the way. There is an air of completion. The feeling that something is coming to an end. This is the realm of An Cailleach, our indigenous Irish crone goddess or ancient wise woman.

What wisdom have we gathered along our pilgrimage of the menstrual month, the pilgrimage of the seasonal year, the pilgrimage of our life? What do we need to surrender in order to move forward unencumbered towards the shamanic cave of menstruation, the dreamtime of Winter, and the death phase of our lives? What is it that is requiring completion at this time?

Brian and I wandered atop Loughcrew for hours. From it’s summit, you can see 18 out of Ireland’s 32 counties, all spread out below you in all directions. We ambled about this sacred land, communing with the great crone goddess of this hill and this land of Ireland, An Cailleach, and surveying the ever-changing moods of her ancient world around us. From morning to afternoon to evening, we observed the continuous movement of clouds, of sun light, of rain, ebbing and flowing across the land and sky scape. We reflected on the ephemeral nature of this world. How everything is constantly changing. And how letting go allows for this change to flow more smoothly in our lives.

As day turned into evening, a rainbow appeared in the sky, marking some kind of beautiful celestial completion. Our journey was coming to an end. All the strands of our pilgrimage were interweaving into a glorious arc of primal colours, perfectly framing An Cailleach’s majestic womb cairn atop Loughcrew.

Oweynagat Cave

Season: Samhain (Start of Winter)

Rite of Passage: Death

And then we find ourselves at the very end of our sacred journey, faced with this invitation …

There is “… a place beneath the ground in Co. Roscommon where the ‘sacred realm of the goddess still exists’ … a chamber of transformation beneath the ancient royal capital of Connacht.” – Manchán Magan, Listen to the Land Speak

Samhain (pronounced Sah-win), the midway point between the Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, marks the death of the old Celtic year and the beginning of Winter. It is a mystical time of transition, when the veils are thinnest between the worlds, creating a powerful doorway to connect with our ancestors and seek guidance from the Otherworld. This is the doorway we stand before, at Oweynagat cave: an intimidating invitation to descend into the darkness of the Otherworld.

Oweynagat is a cave in Co. Roscommon, in the west of Ireland, known from ancient times as the entrance into the world beyond this one, and the abode of the Crow Goddess, The Mórrígan. Oweynagat is the archetypal entrance into the realm of death, where we come face to face with the Dark Mother. In Ireland, The Mórrígan (translated from Irish as “The Great Queen”) was revered as one of the key goddesses in this birth, death and rebirth spiral of life. If Brigid is associated with birth/rebirth in Spring; Áine or Danu with the full blossoming of life in the Summer; An Cailleach with the release and surrender into wisdom at Autumn; then The Mórrígan is the aspect of the Great Mother associated with death and the shamanic dreamtime of the Winter season. 

The Mórrígan is analogous with Kali, the “destroyer” goddess in Hinduism (though she predates Vedic culture, and originated in the Neolithic Great Mother civilization of the Indus Valley). Both have been much maligned and greatly feared as death Goddesses. They have been feared so much in this current worldview, because we perceive death as the opposite to life. But death is not the opposite to life, but the opposite of birth. Death is a natural part of life. But to keep everything flowing and evolving in this physical world, energy does need to be transformed. There needs to be destruction to allow for renewal, and it is through the body of the Dark Mother that we are transformed in this way.

We did in fact finish our pilgrimage here at Oweynagat, but we could have just as easily started it here too. Death is the end, but it is also the beginning: an understanding that has been lost in our current Christianized linear perception of reality. In the time of our ancient ancestors, life was understand as ever renewing. Just like the moon waned, disappeared and reappeared as the waxing crescent; just as women bleed for 3 days then resurrected on the third or fourth day to journey towards peak fertility once more; just as the seasons passed through the height of Summer, into the dead of Winter, only to emerge once again into the early flourishings of Spring; so too it is for our human life cycle: we die but are reborn once more. Death is both the end and the start. Just like the Celtic festival of Samhain marks both the end of the year and the start of the next.

And so here we are, at the end and the beginning of our sacred journey: the passage of death. The Mórrígan’s entrance into the Otherworld at Oweynagat. While death is a part of life, in our eternal pilgrimage through the cycles of life, death is still a very mysterious and foreboding transition. And this is exactly what The Mórrígan’s cave feels like: mysterious and foreboding. There is that question you inevitably ponder: Are we ready for this journey into the deep dark unknown? Are we really going to do this?

It’s a beautiful thing to be on such a life journey with a partner that says these “Yeses” with you. Full hearty yeses, no matter what. So down we hunched, humbling ourselves to the Great Queen, crawling into her ominous hole in this sacred land, grappling in the dark along her damp cold floors and dripping wet walls. “Yes, we are here. We are supposed to be here. This is where we are meant to be. Thank you Dark Mother.” This is what I kept repeating to myself, as we descended into her moist dark womb. It helped me feel calm in the constriction and aligned to the will of this often misunderstood and misinterpreted mighty goddess of the transmutive darkness.

We had both, for some reason, expected the cave to open out into a vast cavern, but it did not. Instead, it opened a little beyond the immediate confined space, enough to hold a few people standing. We knew we had arrived when we saw offerings of crow feathers stuck lying in the thick brown mud of the cave floor. We turned off our head torches and sat in the cold, dark silence of the Great Queen’s womb for who knows how long. Just there in the dazzling darkness. Suspended amid the void. Surrendered to the vast spaciousness of Being. Held in the pitch dark womb of the Dark Mother. The one who loves us so much, she will take us into herself to be transmuted, composted, transformed, so that we may be reborn anew.

As timing would have it, perhaps you could say “divine timing”, I was in my menstrual flow, experiencing my own inner Winter, during this visit with the Dark Mother. Not yet in the revelatory stage of my menstruation that usually occurs around day 3 (a time corresponding to the revelatory energies of the Winter Solstice and the sacred site of Newgrange), but today at Oweynagat cave, I was experiencing the beginning stages of my own inner Winter – the energetic equivalent of death and surrender into the void. Because this is the mystery and profundity of menstruation: “Menstruation is a deeply shamanic experience of death and rebirth; we are releasing and rebirthing in one profound bio-spiritual journey.” – Seren Bertrand, Womb Awakening. And this is exactly what being deep in The Mórrígan’s cave felt like. As we both emerged, reborn, back out into the light of a Co. Roscommon evening, I realised, looking at our wet earth covered clothes and hands, that we’d just emerged from the menstruating womb of the Great Mother herself. Our Irish pilgrimage through the sacred cycle of birth, death and rebirth was complete, and we were smiling from ear to ear.

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Travelling around the country and visiting the sacred sites of Ireland together has been one of the best experiences of my life. I feel blessed in so many ways: Blessed to be Irish, with my blood and bones from this ancient land; Blessed to be able to do a pilgrimage like this with my wonderful husband whose idea this actually was in the first place; Blessed to be called back to my native indigenous spirituality and traversing its sacred spiral path. Thank you for coming along on this journey with us.

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In conclusion, what seems overwhelmingly obvious is that if we are to restore peace, balance and harmony to the earth, we need to return the sacred feminine values and cosmologies back into our worldview.

First, let’s be clear here, that when we talk about the patriarchy – the system of control and oppression dominant on our planet today – we are not talking about a system of men oppressing women, but a system of oppression of all people, men and woman, that has been going on for millennia. Let’s not forget that it is the men that this system of domination and conquest use as cannon fodder to fight their wars. However, the patriarchal system is constructed to the norms of the male body and the more “yang” values associated with the masculine principle, and in these ways, this system favours maleness. The patriarchal system values mechanical over regenerative systems, to the detriment of our whole entire species and planet. It is the male non-cyclical body that is seen as ideal; performing optimally in a linear and mechanical worldview. Indeed “his” is the body of God himself, the most powerful and divine being in the universe, and the so-called “Creator” of life (though never has it been, that life has been birthed through the body of a biological male!). 

Patriarchal indoctrination has polarized our current perception of reality into “light” and “dark”, directly equating to “good” and “bad” respectively. In a society that glorifies the light and literally demonizes the dark, we become severed from the “dark” or yin phases of all the natural cycles of life. Cut off from our natural rhythm, we are left stranded on the glaring cliff edge line of patriarchal linear reality. Not only that, but by demonizing the darkness, we vilify access to the deepest depths of our own knowing, of our own inner guidance. By valuing only the active male principle of “doing”, our society suffers greatly with the loss of the receptive female principle of “being”, resulting in a burnt out, frantic civilization with no inner guidance or matured wisdom. Without the feminine principle, we have all literally lost access to our own truth, our own inner compass, our “True North”. And that, my friends, makes a population prey to control and dominance – the exact reason why a controlling elite would work so hard to remove the feminine principle from our worldview.

But She is returning. She has been with us all this time, hidden within our bodies, within the earth, within the cosmos, and within the ancient sacred sites. Understanding the Neolithic Great Mother era can give us hope. It can inspire us. It can help us recalibrate to the True North of a new civilization.

In this journey onwards, it is crucial to realise that the Neolithic Great Mother era was not a matriarchy in terms of just a female version of the patriarchy. The civilization is better described as a matrifocal society, where the values of the mother and of life were held as central and sacred. This had the natural outcome of being a more peaceful and balanced society for all, where it was understood that both female and male had their role to play in the eternal ebbs and flows of life. In the words of Seren Bertrand, “The ancient ways were far more than a matriarchal goddess religion; it was a deeply embodied womb cosmology, practiced and honoured by the entire tribe – both men and women.”

We are getting to a point in our earth story where we need to transition to another way of being on this planet, lest we all perish. It is time for the death cult that is the patriarchy, to be churned back into the earth and composted by the Great Mother herself. “It is time to restore the ancient feminine cosmologies that honour the sacredness of life and help guide us to live in harmony with all of creation.” – Seren Bertrand, Womb Awakening

May the divine balance between male and female return once more to the earth. May “his” story be at an end, and “their” story be dawning. May both flow together in harmonious union, co-creating a new life-affirming era that flourishes in peace and beauty for all.

Is Éa ~ It Is So

Le Grá, Brenda

 💚

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Join my Women’s Circles

Together in sisterhood, we work with this Celtic Wheel of Life and the energy of these ancient Irish sacred sites in our Priestesses of the Spiral Path women’s circles. Deepen your journey with the rhythms and cycles of life by joining my women’s circles here in Austin, Texas or online via zoom. We gather on the Wednesdays closest to the Celtic festivals – the holy days of the solstices, equinoxes and the cross-quarter days in between – to embody the transformational gifts of each season as we journey through them together on this ancient spiral path. Visit my Women’s Circle page to RSVP for our latest gathering! You are also welcome to join my Facebook community: Priestesses of the Spiral Path

Rites of Passage Events

Passionate about the rise of the Divine Feminine and the return of our sacred rites of passage, I’ve been facilitating beautiful, meaningful and soulful gatherings celebrating sisterhood and honoring the traditional female rites of passage from menarche to motherhood to menopause (the blood mysteries), as well as baby showers, bachelorette parties and birthday celebrations. Visit my Rites of Passage page if you are interested in creating a special celebration or rite of passage event for yourself or a loved one.

Let’s Collaborate on Events, Retreats & Pilgrimages

I would love to co-create powerful, potent and transformative events and retreats both here in the US and in Ireland based on the Divine Feminine themes within the Celtic Wheel of Life. Email Me with your ideas!

Or Let’s Just Talk!

I’d also love to hear any thoughts, insights or feedback you may have on this blogpost, on this ever-evolving Celtic Wheel of Life, and on indigenous Irish spirituality in general. I am in the process of drafting a book based on these themes, so I very much welcome discussion and insight. I’m happy to discuss it more in-depth and share about it with your community too. Let’s Talk!

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References & Background Reading

Ever Ancient Ever New: Celtic Spirituality in the 21st Century, Dolores Whelan (Original Writing Ltd., 2011)

Goddesses of Ireland: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Women, Dr. Karen Ward and Bernie Sexton (Moon Mná, 2022)

If Women Rose Rooted: A Journey to Authenticity and Belonging, Sharon Blackie (September Publishing, 2016)

Ireland: A Sacred Journey, Michael Dames (Element Books, 2000)

Listen to the Land Speak: A Journey into the Wisdom of What Lies Beneath Us, Manchán Magan (Gill Books, 2022)

Out of the Darkness: A Sacred Journey into the Origins of Indigenous Irish Spirituality, Lar Dooley (self-published, 2020)

 The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas (Harper Collins, 1991)

The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul, Anne Baring (Archive Publishing UK, 2019)

The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth, Barbara Mor and Monica Sjoo (Harper One, 1987)

The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization, Marija Gimbutus (Harper & Row, 1989)

Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer (Hay House UK, 2017)

Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life, Azra Bertrand and Seren Bertrand (Bear & Company, 2017)

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