"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.
This Samhain season, the darkness around us seems especially heavy, almost impenetrable at times. Our individual worries and struggles flow together with the collective pain of a culture and a planet in peril. The temptation to surrender to that darkness, to allow it to swallow us whole, can be immense. There can absolutely be value in going to that place of surrender – but only if we do not stay there.
The nights grow longer, the wheel of the year turns toward the West. The time of the Bone Mother is here. Bone Mother. Cailleach Béara. Nicnevin. In Gaelige traditions, she is the dark bride the land becomes at Samhain. Here, the North wind is her breath. If Brighid is the flowing water and the bright dancing flame, the Cailleach Béara is the cold solidity of the Earth which holds our ancestors’ bones, the darkness of the womb and the grave.
Autumn roots are perfect medicines for the journey within that the dark half of the year calls us to. Soil, roots, and mycelia are the fascia of the Earth. Roots and myeclia carry chemical and electromagnetic information between trees and fungi and understory plants beneath the forest floor. The soil is the medium through which they run. Our own bodies are like the forest floor, just beneath the surface of our skin, the fascia relays messages.
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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