Our brains are forming new neural pathways all the time. Which pathways they form depends on where we place our focus. We will explore the science of neuroplasticity: how and why brains change, and its implications for how we can change our experiences, our habits, and our perceptions. We will look at how serotonin encourages us to form new neural connections, and dopamine determines which pathways we prioritize. We will explore living medicines that can support this process including Psilocybe, Bacopa, and Damiana, and strategies for combining these herbs with simple rituals for shifting our focus in desirable directions.
The blooming of the Hawthorn marked the coming of Bealtaine, the old Irish festival of the fertility of the land. The thorny tree with its strange scent, its shimmering blossoms, and its berries that nourish the heart, was long seen as a gate between this world and the Otherworld, the realm of the Daoine Sidhe, the Faerie people. We will explore the connections between the myth, medicine, and magic of Hawthorn.
People around the world have always celebrated cycles that mark the journey of the Earth around the sun and the seasonal changes they bring. Marking time in this way connects people with their ancestors and with the living land.
In this class, Seán Pádraig O'Donoghue will talk about how he draws on traditions of both his Irish ancestors and his connections with the plants and animals around him to craft rituals to mark the seasons in Maine.
Have you ever felt like your mind was clouded by a heavy fog, and you just could not think clearly enough to do what you needed to do? In this class, we will look at how inflammation, chronic illness, and mental and emotional overwhelm contribute to “brain fog.” We will talk about herbs like Calamus, Hawthorn, Tulsi, Bacopa, and Schizandra that can help get us free of that fog, and when and how to engage each of them.
Blackbirds fill the branches of the Alders as Spring arrives in Ireland and Maine alike. The catkins, leaves, cones, bark, and twigs of this tree that grows by the water’s edge offer profound medicine for cleansing the waters of the body.
And in Irish tradition, the trees provide the “shelter of the heart” – a sanctuary for the wild bird of the spirit. We will explore the magic and medicine of Alder.
As we come into spring, it is time to shed what our bodies and our spirits hold onto from the long, dark months of winter. What once serves us no longer does.
In this class, we will talk about common plants like Dandelion and Nettles, long used to help the body clear out the metabolic residues of seasons past, and other allies that can help liven our minds and spirits as new life emerges around us.
There is a lot of talk about dopamine these days – most of it negative, and most of it lacking important context. We hear a lot about how the dopamine release connected with everything from social media to junk food to alcohol is driving indulgent and addictive behavior. The missing part of the story is the purpose dopamine serves in our nervous system: generating motivation, meaning, and pleasure. What if our problem is not that we like dopamine too much, but that we are experiencing a deficit of meaning, and reorienting rather than diminishing our dopamine response is the answer?
We are living in frightening and overwhelming times – but there is hope to be found in the wild world around us.
"Wild hope" is the hope that emerges when we let go of our certainty about what comes next and trust the process of life unfolding, the inherent creativity of the living world.
We can connect with wild hope by connecting with our wild kin – the animals, plants, and fungi who are our ancestors and our relations. They live in this same world...
Melting its way through the ice with its own internal heat, Eastern Skunk Cabbage is the first plant to emerge in the swamps of New England as spring approaches. Bears feast on the roots as they emerge from hibernation.
These same roots can be a profound medicine for us as well – helping to clear cold and damp from boggy lungs, and to address the roots of deep grief. Join Seán Pádraig O'Donoghue as he shares his personal experience of this Otherworldly harbinger of Spring.
Many of us live far from the places our ancestors called home, but hunger for authentic connection with the living world around us. In this class, Seán Pádraig O'Donoghue will share some of his own journey of rewilding his spirit through weaving together elements of the rituals and worldview of his Irish ancestors with his direct experience of connecting with the land and plants and animals of Maine. He will also offer guidance for how you can begin or deepen your own connection with the other-than-human world wherever you live and wherever your ancestors are from.
When my Irish ancestors were living under occupation, their language, their stories, and their history were outlawed. How did they keep their culture alive? The keepers of the seanchas, the old ways, gathered children under hedges and on the banks of streams to pass on the knowledge and fragments of an oral tradition reaching back to at least the Bronze Age. These gatherings were called Hedge Schools. We, too, live in a time when the language that speaks most deeply to our souls is forbidden. It is imperative that we remember the language, culture, etiquette, and stories of the wild.
Starting this March,Seán will be offering weekly live online classes exploring the ways we can connect with wild plants, ancestral traditions, and the land to heal ourselves, our community, and our world.
Sessions will be infused with Seán’s unique blend of science, history, folklore, magic, spirit, and poetry.
Classes will be held Sunday evenings at 7:00 EDT and Thursdays at Noon EDT.
Details about each webinar are on the registration page. Classes will be conducted via Zoom. Recordings will not be available at this time.
