The beautiful, ethereal mountain that is Ben Bulben will give you a clue…
I travelled to Sligo, passing along the shores of Lough Gill, to collect a very special ring, that was made for me by gifted Silversmith, Mirjam Schiller at
My daughter, Cara, was driving, so we stopped by the shores of the Lough, made famous by W.B.Yeats in his poetry.
Birthdays come and go and I have enjoyed sixty of them, all in the month of October, near Samhain…so this, along with a second ring as yet unfinished, marked my sixty Summers on this precious, beautiful Earth.
I had deliberated for some time over what I should spend my birthday money on…have always loved silver and, very importantly, dearly wanted to place a much maligned symbol of the Goddess where I would always see it!
The story of the snakes being banished from Ireland represents a dark place in the history of this land…for it was the Goddess who was banned, to be replaced with an image dominated by Patriarchy… that of Virgin Mother Mary.The Great Goddess often had snakes as her symbol—sometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Crete—and they were worshiped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration.
Bealtaine Cottage encapsulates those two energies…birth and regeneration…of Mother Earth herself, in all her wild, unstoppable beauty.
Wildheart was the place I had to go…
The journey back was auspicious, in that we got lost.
And so, driving along a quiet road, we were led to an ancient Holy Well…much older than any religion…
Tobernalt Holy Well is a place of reflection and nurturing serenity.
It predates the advent of Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century.
Its importance as a meeting place and a sustainer of life predates even our Celtic ancestors.
Tobernalt is a natural spring well that established itself in a primeval forest.
It is situated at the South West corner of Lough Gill in the North Sligo Barony of Carbury.
This was where I blessed my ring, submerging it in the Spring Water that flowed from the hill, away into the mystical depths of Lough Gill and the Lake Isle of Inishfree.
