Kildare

Ever since our celebrations for Là Fhèill Brìghde, Rosie's been desperate to visit Brigid's Well at Kildare, so while a few of our plans had to get put aside, Kildare was going to happen come hell or high water.

So on Wednesday (I'm skipping the museum for now because there's so much to get through...) we set off to Kildare. We headed to the town centre first and stopped to stretch our legs and have a spot of lunch. There's quite a lot to see in the centre, though given the kids we didn't do everything. I nipped in to the heritage centre and picked up a map of all the sites, and then we let the kids have a run around in a play park for a while. Our first stop after that was to the round tower, which is in the cathedral grounds:

It's originally sixth century, but was majorly rebuilt in the twelfth and I think the detail above the doorway there is a flame. The tower itself is the second-highest in Ireland, and the tallest one that you can still climb up (it was closed when we got there, though).

Also in the cathedral grounds is the remains of Brigid's Fire Temple, which is still used to light a fire on Lá Fhéile Bríde. When it's not home to a giant fire, it seems it acts as a shrine:

The kids decided they needed to add some offerings of their own, so they went to pick some flowers - buttercups and dandelions:

And I made some, too. Mr Seren wandered off around the graveyard, quietly being an atheist.

The cathedral itself pretty small, and full of Brigid's crosses up on the window ledges and hanging off the pews:

You can buy them from there for a good price, but at that point I didn't have any cash on me. I didn't feel comfortable taking too many photos because my camera beeps and the cathedral began to fill up with people as we were looking around, so it seemed a little intrusive. Back outside, near the entrance to the cathedral building, there's something called "Brigid's Kitchen," which was actually some sort of tomb. Built in the 14th century, it's empty now and you can go down and take a look. There's also some amazing gargoyles on the cathedral, although they don't beat the xenomorph at Paisley Abbey. Still, you can't bitch about gargoyles with cows:

There's a castle lurking in the town, and a fair few abbeys about the place, but we didn't venture that far. After lunch we went to the well (and thanks to my excellent map-reading skills from the leaflet I got from the heritage centre, we got a little lost along the way...). But we got there in the end, and the trip is so worth it. From what I understand, it's not the original well - that's on the roadside, but because the road is pretty narrow and there's no parking, it was eventually moved to the current site to prevent accidents and road blockages (the newer well gets its water from the same spring as the original, though). The guy at the heritage centre marked down the vague location of the original well on the map I took, but it's not very obvious and we didn't spot it - not that we really made much effort to find it.

But the current site is beautiful - it's set away from the road and it's all fenced off and lined with trees, so it's like going into a quiet garden. Once you've parked up you go alongside a shallow stream and then walk through an archway into the site itself, and there's a notice telling you what to do (if you're Catholic, I suppose...) just before you go through the arch:

The corn's very nearly ready in that field there...

After you've passed through the arch there's a small shrine to the left, with a polite notice asking for donations to help with the upkeep:

Further along and over to the right is the statue and larger shrine, which is separated off from the rest of the place by a shallow stream that you have to step or jump over to get across to the statue:

Off to one side there's a little archway where water from the well itself trickles along to join the stream, and then behind the archway there are several stations that lead up to the well, which is right at the end of the site:

In the left-hand corner, right at the back, there's a wishing tree that's covered in rags, socks, gloves, crosses, pieces of jewellery, and all other kinds of offerings:

We didn't leave anything at the tree ourselves, and I have to say it was looking a little worse for wear - if you're going to tie a clootie, leave some room for it to grow, mm'kay? And make sure it's easily biodegradable - some of these look like they're tied on a little too tightly, at that's not going to be good for the tree. There's a large cluster of baby socks on a couple of the branches, though, and you just know why they're there. It's heartbreaking to see, but at the same time it's almost comforting as well, because it's a way for people to express their grief, and maybe to hope and to heal. Just before we left a man and his son (I'd say about nine years old) came in, and they went straight to the tree. They obviously had some business to attend to.

When we arrived at the well there were a couple of families already there, and there were five or six kids running around splashing in the water. Tom and Rosie joined in and I went up to the well to make my prayers and offerings to Brigid. Just as I did at Newgrange, I made prayers for some people who asked me to, and I prayed for myself and my family, as well as Gaol Naofa. I gave my thanks and collected some of the water to take home with me, too, and just before I did I caught sight of a tiny wee fish darting about. It disappeared not long after that, but I took it as a good sign.

The kids were having a whale of a time and eventually, after doing my own thing, I wandered about taking photos and joined in. The kids came to have a look at the well and wanted to make offerings there, so I helped them do that. They went a little shy and tongue-tied, so I made a little prayer of thanks for them. Rosie in particular liked the well, and spent a fair amount of time contemplating life, the universe, and pretty much everything. Also probably trying to spot the wee fish:

Eventually the other families left - they seemed nice and the kids got on well with them, but I was glad when they went because it was nice to have a chance to just be there by ourselves. But even with the kids running riot the place still has that inherently peaceful and sacred feel to it. The kids splashing around seemed to be welcomed, rather than disrespectful; they were enjoying the place and it just seemed right and as it should be.

Rosie was mesmerised by the statue, and once the other folks had left she made some offerings there as well, then poured out a libation, and poured some more at the wishing tree and a hawthorn tree right by the stream inlet. She was determined not to leave anyone out, and then she set about righting some of the smaller statues that had been left, which had fallen over. She and Tom eventually began to get restless, so we made our farewells and went back to the car. We decided to take a little detour before heading back to the hotel, and ended up taking a drive through Glendalough, which is a beautiful place but it's difficult to stop and take photos when you're sandwiched between a logging lorry and a tiny car hellbent on tailgating you all the way along. Right at the top we found somewhere to park up safely, so we could take in some of the scenery:

This is an old pilgrimage route, apparently.

Then we headed into Dublin to get some dinner, and after we parked up I spotted a mural of the Táin:

Which is really long and I couldn't fit the whole thing in one go, unfortunately. But over dinner I ended up telling the kids about the Táin, and all about the scenes that are depicted in the mural, much to Tom's amusement and horror when it got to the part about Ferdiad's demise.

The next day we took the kids to a water park as a surprise, but before that Rosie begged to go back to the well. I promised her we'd definitely go back one day...

Cluttering up the place

One of the first things I did when we moved into the house we live in now – back in 2008 – was do all the nesting, the decorating, and the making the place ours. A lot of that involved a painting and wallpapering, getting out in the garden to give it a good overhaul, and taking the opportunity to splurge on furniture, and so on. The usual stuff.

The layout of the house meant that we could also finally find a decent spot for a huge bookshelf Mr Seren took a fancy to some years ago, when we moved into our first house together. It's an antique camel cart that's been adapted into a bookshelf, and it probably quite literally weighs a ton, and two houses later we finally had a place for it to sit, rather than having it dumped somewhere unceremoniously (in the porch of all places, in our previous house). We set it up in the kitchen-dining room, and I decided to dedicate one of the shelves as my shrine area. As the heart of the house, it seemed more appropriate to set it up in the kitchen than on the mantlepiece of the fireplace in the living room (and in a practical sense, the shelf was more out of the way from sticky fingers than the mantlepiece, so nothing would get broken).

Initially, I didn't have much to put on the shelf, so it looked quite sparse. I set it up like this:

But I found pretty quickly that most of the plants needed more light than the space could offer them, so a bit of rejigging was necessary (a few more unpacked boxes brought up more things to add, too). Over the years, though, I added more and more bits and pieces – gifts that were sent by wonderful friends, things I found as I went out and about, and some pieces I made myself as the fancy took me. Some of those ended up outside too, as I set up a shrine area up by the rowan tree I planted, with a 'pond,' a small cairn dedicated to my ancestors, space for offerings, some plants that relate to the festivals or my ancestors, some decorative pieces, and so on.

But inside, on my shelf, things have become rather cluttered over the years, and I've now ended up with this:

The plate at the front there is for offerings, and I've replaced the plaque from my granddad, that I originally put on there, because I realised wasn't sure what metal it's made from. I decided to remove it in case there was any iron in it – it seemed bad form. So I've replaced it with a small matchbox that used to belong to my grandparents, and which sat on a table of stuff for years. I loved the decoration on it as a kid, so when I found out that mum was going to dump it at a charity shop on my last visit to hers, I decided to 'rescue' it. There's the fossil I found one Midsummer at the beach, the hobhouse and the 'bile' candle holder I made, the Cryptic Crow that takes pride of place and represents Badb, and some protective charms like amber, red coral, rowan berries, and the rowan charms I've made over the years (that are more decorative than the ones I usually do):

I put the skull lights up for Samhainn one year. The kids insisted they should stay up.

You can't quite see it in the full-shelf picture, but just next to the dealbh Brìde we made this year, Rosie's put another one that she made all by herself out of pipe cleaner, sticky tape, feathers and some decorative charms that 'accidentally' came off some pen lids. Things keep mysteriously appearing on the shelf now that Rosie's tall enough to reach, and so long as things don't mysteriously disappear, that's OK by me. Occasionally she rearranges the cows because apparently they're busy having adventures, which are played out on the shelf, and if the kids had their way any empty space would would be overrun with rocks and shells from the beach. As it is, we've reached a compromise on that and their collection lives on one of the shelves below.

Last Samhainn I had the urge to make some more stuff for the shelf, and given the ancestral theme for the festival I'd been thinking about the kind of thing I could do that tied in with that, but in a way that fitted with the kind of iconography you find throughout the ages. A way of fitting in with the whole continuum, as it were. So I decided on a triskele from Newgrange, a picture of which (from the actual place) Rosie decided to have on her Wall of Wonder in her room:

So it's a little bespoke, but my little helper (Rosie) insisted it was finished the way it is. As I traced the swirls free-hand it provided a good focus for meditation and contemplation about things, and it got me in the mood for the festivities.

In my regular observances I only really make offerings at the shelf when the weather isn't suitable for doing that outdoors – I prefer to make offerings outside – although Rosie's taken to putting flowers like dandelions or daisies up there for Brìde. For festivals in particular I tend to perform the bulk of my observances at the shelf, since the focus of them is on the home and the household, but I also like to go outside then as well. It feeds kind of politer, going outside to greet the spirits of the place and make offerings of peace to them on their own turf, as it were, and I prefer to look for signs and omens outside than taking ogham (though I occasionally do that too). On a daily basis I prefer to look outside and see what the day might bring as I take a moment to offer up a prayer in the morning, rather than go to the shelf, although longer observances and saining are often done at the shelf.

A shrine isn't necessary, to me, but I do think it can help as a focus. It helps me articulate my beliefs and my relationship with the world around me. It's a microcosm, in that sense, and maintaining it, adding to it, helps to express how things change as well – seasonally, with decorations that reflect the time of year or the festival, and on a broader scale, too.

Out in the garden

Normally I would describe myself as an optimistic gardener. Which is to say: I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time so I just shove it in, chop it off, or pull it up and hope for the best. These days my particular style is also taking on a new element: hit and run gardening, because with continuing back/leg problems I can only do so much before the pain sets in, and I really can't go overboard otherwise I will likely completely knacker my back again. The optimism extends to the hope that I don't break myself as much as hoping that I don't balls up the poor plants. But I enjoy it, so it's worth it.

So bearing in mind my delicate disposition I'm not planning to do too much in the garden this year. After the storms of a few months or so ago there was quite a bit of damage to the flower bed at the top of the garden, and some of the plants have been blown over or squashed by a large pool liner (or...something) that blew into the flower bed thanks to high winds. There have been some casualties, but most of them will just need propping up, I hope. So far I haven't been able to get any garden canes, but I've been able to do a little tidying up and some much-needed pruning at least. Otherwise, the flower bed will just have to make do this year; serious weeding is not an option.

One thing I do want to do, though, is sort out my shrine area. When we moved here I expanded the flower bed so I could set about making a space that would provide a focal point for any devotions I might want to do out in the garden. I decided that it would be a good way to start working with the land and build a relationship with the spirits by making the space a bit less sterile and lifeless (the previous owners were not keen gardeners so it was even more neglected than it is now), and generally make it a nicer place to be. I'm the kind of person who likes to make their mark on a place, otherwise I don't feel settled.

I chose plants that I knew would attract insects, and ones that would smell nice, and some of them I chose for their associations with festivals (primroses, cowslips, blueberry - the closest I could get to a bilberry bush) or lore in general (a juniper and the rowan tree in particular). Others I put in for personal associations - a rose and a poppy (a namesake, for my granddad who was a professional gardener), and I also made a small cairn for my ancestors and put in a small pond (more like a puddle, but with the idea of having it as a sort of 'well'). Around it I've set some tasteful decorations, chosen by the kids, and made a space for offerings, and a bird box that I didn't have anywhere to hang; I thought it could act as a shelter for insects instead.

And that's all been well and good, but it's been a little neglected over the last year or so, and considering the fact that my optimistic gardening inevitably results in a tendency for overcrowding, it needs a bit of work. On the plus side, some of it is settling in nicely now:

Some of the casualties have solved the overcrowding, but it all still needs a bit of care. My daughter Rosie has decided that she wants to make a bee hive, and while we probably couldn't do one for bumblebees there are other kinds of bees we could try to accommodate along with butterflies and other insects. They seem simple enough to make, so hopefully we'll be able to find a suitable spot for it, and it seems like a good opportunity for the kids to get involved and help out. My future efforts are probably going to have to rely on willing minions, so I might as well start them young...

Meanwhile, there's vegetables to be getting on with. At the end of the harvest season last year I left some leeks in to see if they'd fill out over the winter. They did (and survived the incessant rain we've been having recently), and the kids and I harvested them yesterday afternoon:

And, while it wasn't raining, we put in some vegetables. This year I'm going to stick to the vegetables I've had the most success with - carrots, leeks and onions - and I'm experimenting with peas, too. The kids helped me put the peas and onions in:

This time I'm trying onion bulbs (rather than growing from seeds), a bog standard variety and some red onions; my neighbour insists that bulbs give better results, and certainly they'll probably grow quicker and I might manage to get two crops out of the growing season. As the kids were planting the bulbs and peas I suggested that we should encourage them to grow nice and big so the kids - evidently taking inspiration from calling the butter lumps to come - began yelling at the veg to GROW! COME ON, GROW! I'm not sure that counts as a proper tradishnal prayer and all that, but it was certainly sincere...

They decided that onions and peas were more than enough fun and went off to have a water fight, so I did the leeks and decided to try a couple of sprouts again. I'm leaving the carrots until I can get to the garden centre and get more compost, so I can freshen up the soil in the grow bags - it's probably a little exhausted by now. For the onion bags I've just put in a little organic feed and we'll see how that goes.

The leeks have all been used already, for a soup, and they smell fantastic - so much stronger than the ones you can buy from the supermarket. The kids and my husband have had a flu bug that's taking a long while for them to get over (I seem to have managed to avoid it, thankfully) and none of us have had much of an appetite recently, so there's plenty of veg in the fridge that needs using. A good soup hearty will do us good (even if it looks a bit like cat vomit...).

A general guide to getting started

So you've read the CR FAQ and the brand spanking new Gaol Naofa FAQ along with a few other bits and pieces (oh, I dunno, like my site? How about the rest of Gaol Naofa, too? All good places to look, if I do say so myself...). You think you've got the basics down, and you think this is the right kind of path for you. You want to start doing stuff, but...where do you start?

I thought perhaps putting out a few thoughts together on this might come in handy for the beginner (although I can only claim the following to be my opinion); things are better than when I was starting out, but I think it can all still be a little bewildering for those who are still trying figure things out. Getting into the swing of Gaelic Polytheist practice can be a bit of a jarring experience at first, because part of the process involves getting used to an entirely different take on day-to-day life. So the first bit of advice I'd give is: Go at your own pace. Do what you're comfortable with, and build on it as quickly or as slowly as you feel works for you.

The second bit of advice I'd give is: Step away from the Llewellyn-type books. Any neopagan books, really. Seriously. Modern pagan books on 'Celtic' paganisms may offer some ideas and easy answers, but they are all terrible as far as research is concerned - even the ones that are better than most. They are almost always aimed at a Wiccan or wiccanesque audience, which is not a bad thing if you're Wiccan or wiccanesque in belief and practice, but Celtic Reconstructionism doesn't come under that particular umbrella. In many respects, CR's outlook, approaches and beliefs are diametrically opposed to those of Wicca or Wiccan-derived paths. Ultimately, and perhaps most importantly, what you find in them has nothing to do with what you're now trying to put into practice, so it's kinda like looking to Catholicism in order to learn about being Mormon...Or whatever analogy fits best there...

The best place to start is with daily practices. Gaol Naofa has a good article on this, with some practical ideas, and I've given a few rambling ideas too, including a bit of rambling about the kind of sources you can look at to make your own prayers. It's good to get into the habit of making daily devotions because these can help you keep centred and connected. Prayers can be said anywhere - in the morning, over a coffee before you leave for work or school, before bed, during your morning run, or while you lie in bed mustering the will to get up and start the day. Even as you make your breakfast, lunch or dinner, clean the house; there are all kinds of different rites you can incorporate into your day. This article on Prayer in Gaelic Polytheism over at Gaol Naofa is especially helpful on the finer points of how and why we pray as Gaelic Polytheists, and it's well worth a read.

It can help to have your own space set aside for devotions. This can be a space for a candle, as well as a dish or plate for offerings and some items that represent the gods, spirits and ancestors, the three realms, and the place around you; things that articulate your beliefs and worldview, making a sort of microcosm, as it were. I have a shelf in my kitchen, which I see as a kind of central hearth for the home; the spiritual centre, if you will. I tend to make my offerings outside so rarely leave them on my shelf (or else I put them outside immediately after finishing ritual), but I focus a lot of my indoor devotions and rites there.

In addition to daily prayers, offerings (daily, weekly, or however frequently you feel is appropriate) can be a good practice to get into as well. Making offerings to the gods and ancestors is a good idea, but it's also important to build a relationship with the land spirits around you. Bioregionalism is a popular buzzword in the pagan community these days, and it's one that has a lot to offer the Celtic Reconstructionist. It's about trying to live in harmony with nature, and it's a process that begins at home; in doing so, it's a good way to start building a relationship with the nature spirits - even if you live in a very built up area.

You can honour the local spirits by making offerings to them, but you can also honour them in other ways, too, if these are possible: For example, buy local produce; look after your garden and try planting species that are native to your area, including ones that are attractive to bees, butterflies and all kinds of insects (or if you don't have a garden, try a window-planter, put out bird boxes and bug hotels, bird feeders and the like); grow your own fruit and vegetables - it's a good way to keep in touch with the seasonal cycles; feed the birds (a lot of folks incorporate these into their offerings, since a lot of different kinds of birds are commonly seen as Otherworldly agents); pick up rubbish as you find it in your area; and/or make an outdoor shrine for offerings and devotions. The general idea is to build a positive relationship with the land, and making offerings to the spirits, tending to the land and looking after it are all good ways of going about it. It's not always possible to do everything, for whatever reason, but you can do something.

Once you've got used to doing your daily observances, then it becomes easier to get on with adding a few more in. Ritual and prayer doesn't have to be lengthy and elaborate, and Gaelic Polytheism allows for the individual and individual groups to formulate their own liturgy so to a certain extent it can be built around your own needs. This is partly why there isn't an awful lot of liturgy out there, because a lot of folks prefer to find their own understanding and articulation of practice, and other people's words aren't necessarily helpful to your own circumstances. Having said that, it's probably fair to say that it's also partly to do with the fact that liturgy is a deeply personal element of practice and not everyone is comfortable with sharing such personal and meaningful material with strangers; that's a common view in the traditional cultures as well. So in spite of the fact that there may not be much out there, that's not to say that liturgy isn't important. It's just personal. There's nothing wrong with sharing liturgy, if you so wish, but there's no obligation to (there are some examples given in the Prayer in Gaelic Polytheism article if you want to take a look, though).

However you come to find your own words for prayer and ritual, looking to traditional sources is the best starting point. Since we are about tradition, that means we are focused on the kind of rituals and prayers that can be said again and again; repetition is important. Tradition is what gives us roots; it steadies us and gives us a solid foundation. By looking to traditional sources, by rooting our own practices in them, we might see ourselves walking in the footsteps of those who went before us; that is what tradition is about.

Archive: Sacred space

I've been very lax in posting recently. Bad Seren. Naughty. *Hangs head in shame.*

I'm sure you've all been waiting in trepidation for my next post...

Anyway, all is well in the world of Seren.

It's been a very creative week all round. I've been decorating the hallway (boring off-white, verging on the dreaded beige, but it's about as much as the narrow space can handle, and the kiddie-proof range of paints is fairly limited anyway...), finishing off the bedroom, putting up the curtains and rearranging the camel cart bookshelf in the kitchen to fit in all the bits of clutter that were left over in all the boxes from the garage. I've made one of the shelves into a mini-microcosm, with plants, bits from the sea and a few more bits and pieces that are personal to me for one reason or another:

The plants might have to be relocated because the ferns are beginning to suffer already, I think they need a bit more light so I'll try to find something more suitable for the space because I like the foliagedness of it all even if it's in a fairly dark spot.

The metal plaque at the front belonged to my granddad - the only thing I have that was directly from him. It's from when he worked for Alvis, and designed a tank called a Scorpion (which apparently my aunt named, because the gun bit could flip over), and the plaque lists all the tanks in the series. My mum gave everything else back to Alvis when he died, for their museum, and the only other keepsakes she kept were my gran's, so that's all I have. To the left is a fossilised sea urchin, and the cow on the right was given to me by a wonderful friend.

The 'wand' is some driftwood I picked up on our last trip to the beach, which I was going to use as the slatag Bride for my Là Fhèill Bhrìghde celebrations, but I've found the applewood wand that I was sent (along with the aforementioned cow) and I shall use that instead. Seeing as this bit of wood came ashore during the storms, perhaps it's more appropriate for the Cailleach, anyway.

The red votive in the middle was bought by a childhood friend many years ago (so I hope you're impressed it's still in one piece!), and the pomegranate filled with tumbled stones to the far left was from a very nice man called Nick who used to run a gem shop in my hometown. You'd go in and he'd always know exactly what you needed, even if you didn't, but sadly he got sick and had to close up. I don't know what happened to him after that...But it reminds me of my independence in a way, because I bought it after my parents split up and I was taken in by an old friend. It's come a long way with me.

So there are lots of bits and pieces that all mean something to me and represent something to me in some way or another - gods, spirits or ancestors. I'd like to get some more bits and pieces for it, especially something suitable for putting offerings and libations on, because that's why I really made the space in the first place. I usually make them outside, and I'm hoping to get a bird table soon to make those offerings a bit more discreet from prying eyes, but experience is showing that you either have to be very brave or utterly insane to venture outside sometimes (as the storms of the passed week have demonstrated), so it seems practical to have somewhere to keep them until they can go out. I used to have a quaich, but we lent it to an am-dram society for a production of Macbeth before we moved up here, and haven't seen it since.

Things are taking shape now and it's starting to feel like home, which is making me feel a whole lot better, much more settled. The only downside is, I'm rapidly running out of excuses to not invite the in-laws round for dinner...