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.
When I was acutely ill withCOVID-19,one of the strangest and most troubling symptoms I experienced was the feeling that my lungs were made of hot, dried-out leather that was stretched too tightly. What I was most likely experiencing was the inflammation of the pleura -- the fascial tissue associated with the lungs. (The pleura arealso closely associated with the pericardium, the fascia that surrounds the heart.) One of the herbs that was most helpful to me at the time wasSolomon's Seal.
