Extreme weather conditions have struck once again here in Ireland.
Planting over eleven hundred trees over fourteen years has meant resilience for Bealtaine Cottage.
This continual onslaught of extreme weather is fast establishing itself as the new normal!
From the normally mild summers of Ireland and the UK, numerous locations in the Northern Hemisphere have witnessed their hottest weather ever recorded over the past two weeks!
This should be a wake-up call to plant…trees!
Only three months ago the country ground to a halt with severe snow storms and massive fall of snow in 48 hours!
Now we are experiencing a heatwave and severe drought which we haven’t had since 1976!
There was a hurricane here in Ireland last year and a massive six hour thunderstorm that did incredible damage.
The Irish Meteorological service, Met Éireann says there will be ‘practically nothing’ in terms of rainfall for the next ten days!
And so it continues unabated!
There has been less than 20mm of rain since May 1st with twelve days of sweltering heat and temps approaching 32c (90F) with no end in sight.
This is the third major record breaking weather story in just nine months – from autumn hurricanes to winter snow storms and now a summer drought!
Have you noticed the effect of this heatwave and drought here at Bealtaine Cottage? Many of you are familiar with the Bealtaine Project motto:
“Plant like your life depends upon it, for it does!” ~ Bealtaine Cottage
There has been some leaf drop, but overall the land is in good condition and is surviving the extreme conditions well!
As I write this I am aware of extreme rainfall and flooding in Japan.
It appears that the entire world is experiencing extreme weather.
However, what is happening is a taste of what lies ahead, for whatever we do there are consequences.
Did we not all learn that simple rule as children?
If we fail to look after, respect and maintain our home, then it will fall down around us. 
The earth is our home.
We have treated Mother Earth with disdainful arrogance!
There is a video on this subject uploaded today over on the Bealtaine Cottage YouTube channel…subscribe for further notifications.
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“A Cottage and Three Acres,” by Colette O’Neill
Please email Colette if you would like a particular inscription in your book. From a desolate cottage set in 3 acres of monoculture sadness, to a vibrant, thriving food forest of life…the journey back to Eden over 13 years… Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€25.00
In Search of The Goddess Rising
This is the second book in the Goddess Permaculture series from Colette O’Neill at Bealtaine Cottage, Ireland. In this book I explore the ancient landscape, mythology, literature and life around Bealtaine Cottage… in search of the Great Goddess. The price of the book includes all postage and packing to wherever you live in the world! Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€19.00
Bealtaine Cottage Guide to the Deep Midwinter
A little Yuletide book filled with colour photographs, recipes, reflections, lore, poetry and mirth to guide you through the wonderful days ahead. Fifty pages of sheer delight from Bealtaine Cottage to you. The book is fully bound and can be posted direct as a gift. Price includes P&P worldwide. Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€13.00
Special Offer
In Search of the Goddess Rising and The Bealtaine Cottage Guide to the Deep Midwinter…both books normally cost €32.00 but can be purchased together for for €28.00 which includes P&P Worldwide. Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€28.00
Magical Mythical Map of Bealtaine Cottage and Gardens
Beautiful map created by the artist David Gascoigne, especially for Bealtaine Cottage. The picture shows one side of the map…it is printed on both sides, see the photos on this page. The price includes all Postage and Packing to wherever you live in the world! Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.
€10.00
Thirteen years ago I made a decision to follow my heart and return to Ireland, with a mighty quest.
I wanted to prove the cynics and naysayers wrong.
I believed it was possible and doable to repair Mother Earth…at least a small part of her, whatever little piece I could afford to buy.
Now, thirteen years is a short time in the scheme of things and those who have looked at the before pictures are as amazed as I am at the speed, health and abundance of her recovery!
It is important to state here, for the record, that most people I knew, including friends and family, seen my quest as a form of madness that had taken hold of me in my post menopausal state!
During all of the thirteen years, as I wrote and photographed the unbelievable progress of this little bit of Mother Earth, I became aware that I was one of a small, but increasing band of strange people who had heard the call and got stuck in, doing, what seemed to others, a crazily mad thing!
I became used to the naysayers and the cynics.
I looked up occasionally from my ceaseless planting and sowing and saw people who talked the talk in fine measure, but stopped there!
You know who you are and I am eternally grateful for your love and support!
At this thirteen year junction, for it feels like a crossroads for sure, I have become increasingly aware of what lies ahead…and, as with my strong feelings to do what others scorned some thirteen years ago, I care little for what the response is to my words…they must be recorded!
The arrogance of man is shocking indeed!
To have been so certain in the face of their own destructive ways, that the greatest seed bank ever built and guaranteed to last for centuries, if not millennia, was brought to within a hair’s breath of destruction within a few short years of its completion, should be the wake-up call of wake-up calls!
Read the arrogance of certainty in this 
Now, we all know what 
The Doomsday Vault has not even survived its first ten years!
So this brings me to what I want to say…
Things are changing faster than anyone could have expected!
I have witnessed the longest drought ever this year here in the west of Ireland.
The water table dropped in early 
We are now entering a period of great change.
The Arrogance of Certainty seems ridiculous with hindsight, for nothing is certain anymore!
Man has chosen to try to outrun Nature in a feeble attempt to remain in charge!
I continue to sow and plant…one of many little Arks across the Earth…and plant out the little clocks that
I keep myself occupied in the world as I know it…the one where I weave wreathes from Willow and Dogwood…
The one where cruelty and chaos are not allowed entry!
You’ll understand my terror, for that’s why you’re here…to touch base with reality! 
Yes, this is reality…as it was meant to be and in the world most inhabit, is not! 
I have always chosen this reality, both as a child living in poverty and as a mother creating sanctuary for her children in London. 
I have always sought out Mother Earth, wherever she was hidden from view by retail parks and shopping centres, housing estates and suburbia. 
I chose this reality. 
I planted it, brought it forward, share it and allow it’s force to move out in waves of healing and peace.
We all choose our own realities and what we allow carelessly in or strive to keep out! 
The Lughnasadh Garden is another reality being birthed at Bealtaine. 
Just as wanton destruction is being justified all over this Sacred Earth, the need for creation is more necessary than ever in the history of what we laughingly refer to as “civilisation!”
Regardless of party/gender/colour or creed, politicians take us to war and care nothing for the protection of Mother Earth…and that in my view is unforgivable! 
As I approach my birthday and my 61st year, I am becoming convinced more and more of the need to keep one’s head down and continue to nurture and care for Mother Earth. 
It’s all I care to do, for there is much destruction and violence all around that has reached a point of insanity! 
I don’t know where to go from here, except to keep doing as I do and keep this website going…where, I do not know! 
It was James Lovelock who first suggested that there would be a very few countries which would escape the worst vagaries of the oncoming Climate Change… 
Much of our media remains silent about the problem and there hangs an eerie silence in the air around centres of political machinations. 
Our extractive mentality and the demand for higher profits combine to destroy our very own habitat..this is the truth of what’s happening worldwide…we cannot escape our acquisitive nature! 
We appear to be caught in a vicious circle of greed versus need…and we know which one of those two is winning! 
This is another Bank Holiday weekend here in Ireland and the pubs, takeaway food shops and restaurants are doing a roaring trade! 
Over 56 billion farmed animals are killed every year by humans. 
These shocking figures do not even include fish and other sea creatures whose deaths are so great they are only measured in tonnes…has anyone else noticed the scarcity of fish like Cod and Haddock in our supermarket deep freeze and the sly introduction of Pollack? 
Yes, fish stocks are in decline, as evidenced in the supermarket offerings! 
We are gobbling up our habitat at an alarming rate! 
Throughout the world, about 900 million trees are cut down annually, as of 2014. 
But, hold on, I hear you say…what was that you said about James Lovelock and…? 
Yes, that’s right, ” a lifeboat for humanity!” 
According to scientist James Lovelock, we are on the cusp of a global catastrophe that will make the present recession look trivial.
Lovelock is a former NASA chief scientist. 
James Lovelock invented the electron capture device (ECD) whch alerted the world to the depletion of the ozone layer…remember the aerosol crisis?
However, he is most famous for the Gaia hypothesis, now a theory, that the world is itself a living organism…and one I know to be true! 
Though his predictions for the world are dire, his predictions for Ireland are of some small comfort. Because of our proximity to the sea, our relatively high latitude and our low population density, we may be spared the worst excesses of global warming.
Personally I think there will be many places that will make the transition successfully, but the criteria for these places will be different according to geographical regions. 
How do any of the generation that will meet this head on prepare for the crisis? 
Well we can begin by practicing living with less, using less, consuming less and growing more…and build a new way of living with Mother Earth from there!
It continues to be developed at Bealtaine Cottage…
There follows a series of forty plus photographs taken here at Bealtaine Cottage in July 2016.
The Bealtaine Cottage Land Restoration Project was started in late 2004. 
It was a challenge for one woman with zero resources to restore what was deemed by the EU as “Poor Land”…a term I vehemently challenge! 
There is no such thing as “Poor Land” just ABUSED EARTH! 
As with all EU projects that entail putting Mother Earth first, there was zero funding for this! 
Not to be deterred…(I never am!) at the age of forty eight, I took on a mortgage to help buy this bereft, sad-looking little place, with the dream of returning it to Eden. 
I believe the Earth is sacred.
The rest of the story is told here in these photographs…
The greatest concern of our times is happening on a daily basis and affecting every one of us.
The gabbling media assault our senses with celebrity highs and lows, sport and highly edited titbits of what is happening internationally…all the while keeping away from any real conversation about the chaos that is the weather all around us and those dreaded words: Climate Change.
I would like to offer words of comfort and reassurance, but that’s not possible, for I live in the real world and events are happening too fast for me to be able to offer predictions that will reassure!
So, let me tell you about the people I hope to reach with this news…
If there is a Universal Consciousness…give it the name Goddess, God, Divine, Mother Earth…whatever you know it by…then that consciousness must surely want us to care as deeply for our planet as we care for ourselves.
New post just published on Bealtaine Cottage Good Life website…