"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.
Traditionally in Ireland, on the morning of Beltaine, the old celebration of the Earth’s ecstasy, when the Hawthorn was in bloom, dew shimmering on its blossoms with the splendor of the fine raiments of the Gentry, people would tie ribbons to the tree with prayers for abundance, and hang cloths from its branches that would be saved for use as bandages. But the thorns of the Hawthorn suggested the wrath that would be visited upon any who dared to damage it.
Hawthorn stands at the boundaries of darkness and light, death and rebirth, fear and ecstasy, this world and the Otherworld. In Ireland it grows along the edges of the last remnants of ancient Oak and Yew forests, beside sacred wells, and atop the “Hollow Hills” beneath which the Daoine Sidhe, the faery people, sleep. In this season of pandemic, it brings profound medicine.
We have mistaken balance for a static state, an absence of chaos, an imposed order, and so we have made our lives and our society rigid and precarious. But rigidity always gives way to flow. Every dam breaks in time – and when it does, after the deluge floods forests and fields, the soil left behind grows richer and seeds awaken. True balance is fluid in nature.
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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