…flit into my head as I walk the woodland sanctuary, for it is here that I feel able to simply be, unaware of even myself!
I imagine this is the same for most people, for it is in this state of unawareness that the creative mind begins to flow evenly, unstoppable.
It was in walking among the trees yesterday that thoughts began to emerge about writing and where it all began for me in earnest.
It was of course here at Bealtaine Cottage where I found “a room of ones own,” as Virginia Woolf referred to the creative space.
However it’s not just about space, but time also.
Here I have more time to simply be.
My brother Hugh understands the importance of creative space.
Hugh lives a solitary, happy life, in a small cottage without electricity, where he writes poetry and creates from hedgerow wood and excavated Bog Oak.
Although Hugh had never seen any of the images unearthed by Professor Marija Gimbutas, as she carried out her archaeological work in Old Europe, he was moved by the forces around his little cottage to carve this strikingly similar Bird Goddess image into an Ash walking stick for me. 
Much of the creativity I am immersed in is governed and directed on a deeply magical level by Mother Earth too.
I use the word “magical,” for what I cannot rationally explain.
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!
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:
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!
The stories of shape-shifting can be found in many cultures throughout the world, but none so prominently as that found in Celtic culture.
Within the near area of Bealtaine Cottage can be found a wealth of ancient history many thousands of years old.
The Tuatha Dé Danann, the people of the Goddess Danu, were one of the great ancient tribes of Ireland.
These people who appeared to “land on top of a mountain”, Sliabh an Iarainn, a great brooding mass of sandstone rock and thin soil, visible from Bealtaine Cottage.
The ancient manuscript ‘The Annals of the Four Masters’, records that the Tuatha Dé Danann ruled Ireland from 1897 B.C. to 1700 B.C.
The Tuatha Dé Danann were eventually consigned to mythology, disappearing from the face of the Earth, but going underground, emerging later as ‘Aes sidhe’ (the people of the mound – fairy mounds)., now referred to simply as the Sidhe.
The people are known as “The Sidhe” or people of the mounds, or “The Lordly Ones” or “The Good People”.
Once consigned to the underworld the Tuatha Dé Danann engaged their powers of shape-shifting, emerging in many forms, even that of apparent human form.
In Irish mythology, we come across a number of stories about shape-shifting beings.
These shape-shifters are often goddesses, gods, magicians, witches, fairies and other supernatural creatures.
Shape-shifting is an important aspect of understanding the complexities of the influence of the Sidhe in contemporary Ireland, as it is believed this magic is employed to allow the Otherworld to communicate with humans.
A poem in the Lebor Gabála Érenn says of the arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann:
“the truth was not known beneath the sky of stars,
Colette O’Neill is a writer and photographer living at Bealtaine Cottage in the west of Ireland.
Are we part of the consciousness of Mother Earth?
I believe we shape the beauty around us with both our physical selves and our conscious minds.
We often hear the statement, ‘seeing is believing.’
I say, believing is seeing.
Belief in the sentient being that is Mother Earth has formed a major part of the energy that has manifested here.
From the very first time I saw this place I envisioned a cottage in the woods, surrounded by the music of Nature and the beauty of life.
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
“Man has drawn artificial lines on the chest of the Mother Earth, which have no significance, except for the sake of war and clashes between countries. The soil seems to be the same, the trees the same, the grass the same, and the fragrance of the air, the smell of the earth the same.”
Bread and circuses, but we all know and recognise real life.
It has a colour and fragrance all of its own.
If you would like to support the work of Bealtaine Cottage, completely dependent on people who value what I do, here’s how…
Another five days.
Bealtaine.
The beginning of Summer.
This Bealtaine is the celebration of thirteen years of the Bealtaine project.
A project once considered the silly dream of a ridiculous woman.
Against all financial advice it was conceived and against all horticultural wisdom it was planned.
Planned, planted and grown!
This land is both resilient and regenerative…it can grow abundance without me.
I am now free to observe and delight, potter and sit, all the while simply ensuring the gentle maintenance of the edges and paths, free to harvest and raise plants for the Potager Beds which provide some of my food and much of my pleasure.
I have embarked on writing my second book, happy with the good reception of the first, 
I recently read this quote by W. H. Murray and found it to be true to my experience at Bealtaine Cottage over the past thirteen years…
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. “
Wise words…live your life!
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