Colette O'Neill… Author, Publisher, photographer. Creator of Goddess Permaculture.
I am in Derry for the Vegan Festival and will be happy to report all to you on my return home. As you can see from the photos, home is very much in full bloom! Driving into Northern Ireland from the west of Ireland brings back memories of my youth, much of which involved “the […]
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“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold […]
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Work has continued unabated all this week. I managed to get a load of cardboard to begin mulching the problem bed over by the Lughnasadh Garden. Here I have laid the aboard and mulched with chipping from the garden shredder and laid another layer of cardboard. The progress is fairly rapid, with the exception that […]
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Fourteen years ago at the beginning of the Bealtaine Project, I had no contact with anyone in the US. My perception of American people was very much decided by all things Hollywood and the news broadcasts that informed me of all that was negative. It’s shocking how our view of the world lies in the […]
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Hawthorn is one of the sacred Ogham trees of Ireland. It goes by the name Huath in Irish, being the tree that symbolises Bealtaine, the merry month of May! This is also a wonderful, magical herb of abundant medicine. Hawthorn, or whitethorn, is easily identifiable during this time as her creamy blossoms brighten hedgerows, stone […]
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Morning at Bealtaine, infused with tasks and rituals as the hands on the clock move towards midday on this last Thursday of September. There was a full moon last night. This was the true Mabon or Equinox moon, casting light through the trees that surround the cottage, illuminating the landscape, lighting the way. The air […]
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Much of the day has been spent in the garden, working, head down, cutting back and meditating as I chop and drop. It’s been a long day and tiredness has forced me indoors. This is the first day of a seven day Juice Fast and, as always, my energy levels are high. Working hard enables […]
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The evening has drawn in without my noticing, a sure sign of Autumn quickening towards Samhain. I have walked the woodland gardens this evening and made a video. It’s so much easier to upload videos with my new laptop now that both phone and laptop are compatible. I have missed the regular writing I do […]
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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 […]
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