"To learn to speak is to learn to say 'our river has its source in an Otherworld well,' and anything we say about the hills and anything we say about the stars is a way of saying 'A Hazel grows over the Otherworld well our river has its source in.'" ~John Moriarty
There is a well in the Otherworld, where all the waters of this world have their source, and where the Salmon of Wisdom dwells. To taste water and know that is has its source in that well is to remember that this world is alive. My life, my work, and my writing are dedicated to bringing the taste of those waters to all whose hearts seek their nourishment. Come, drink deeply.
Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue
Seán is a poet and herbalist living in western Maine in the shadow of a chain of mountains that stretch south to Georgia and north and east across the sea to Ireland and Scotland.
He guides individuals in finding better ways to connect with the living world along their journeys toward healing, insight, meaning, and liberation. With compassionate listening and deeply intuitive insights, Seán works with clients to identify the patterns they want to shift in their lives. Then, he shares perspectives and strategies with them for connecting with plants, ancestors, and the land as allies in transformation.
The first imperative of survival is to move away from what seems dangerous to us. We keep trying to move away from it unless and until our relationship to it changes. Civilization has sought to move us further from danger by walling off the outside world. Beyond the boundaries of the first cities were the wild beasts and the people the citizenry thought beastly because of their rejection of the wall that divided them from the wild. But when we lock away the wild, we also lock away our own wild nature, cursing our own bodies and the body of the world. In this way, we separate ourselves from the divine. And from each other.
Preparing to be on a panel on lingering symptoms of COVID-19 with a group of herbalists hosted by the Matthew Wood Institute of Herbalism, I looked back at what I wrote in March, just before I got sick myself. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is little I would change, but there are several things I would like to add, drawing from the lessons lived through my own illness and lessons learned through working with others with both confirmed and suspected COVID-19 infections.
St. John’s Wort is fading, giving way to Goldenrod. In the early mornings, Bears gorge on Blueberries in the fields up the road, while in the forest the Blueberry’s strange Otherworldly cousin, Ghost Pipe, blooms, and across the ocean in my ancestral homeland the hillsides are purple with Heather. Soon the Rowan will be laden with berries, both here and there. As summer dies slowly into autumn, the bright half of the year giving way to the dark, I mark the old holiday of Lughnassadh, festival of the first harvest.
Seán truly is a deep well. He has a way of listening and distilling such that a session with him is like having the heart of the world listening. His guidance has been for simple yet potent practices that have opened me into a profoundly deeper relationship with my own healing process and capacity. This is intimately intertwined with the potency of healing found in the earth around us, calling us all to a path of awakening.
Summer Starr
From the first moment I met Seán, I knew I could trust his guidance. I began studying drop-dose medicine with him, learning how to experience each plant toward my own deep healing. Seán is a pure channel of joy and a truly gifted herbalist. I feel forever grateful for all I have learned through him and for the ways in which I have healed my nervous system from old trauma. Seán is a teacher who truly understands the ways in which I learn.
Asaya Heart
Seán's work as a teacher and shamanic storyteller and herbalist is a beautiful gift for those who are blessed enough to be taught by him. I worked with him in Ireland and found his knowledge of Ireland and herbal lore and mythology to be truly profound. I would recommend him without hesitation!
Alan Cooke (Emmy Award winning filmmaker, philosopher, poet, and speaker)
I hold the most archaic values on earth... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.
~Gary Snyder
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