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 all the chipping come from the gardens, so pruning and shredding has to happen in conjunction with the mulching…and that takes quite some time!
These are the magnificent red dogwoods that I am pruning at the moment…providing lots of mulch.
The shredder is electric, second hand and the cheapest one on the market. It serves me well, but capacity is limited!
The Robin keeps me and Jack company as I work.
All the Laurel pruned last week is now laid as weed-suppressant mulch, as well as small mammal habitat. Goddess permaculture is about ALL LIFE!
This week has been both cold and wet, so the occasional sunshine is worth photographing…I keep my camera with me as much as possible.
The days are getting longer, with dark drawing down around 5.30pm.
The sap is rising in the plants, developing a depth of lovely colour!
Work in the tunnel continues, as I move from task to task in order to remain enthused with energy…small results are energising!
I walked down through the gardens this morning and took these photographs.
It was delightful to see the first catkins on the willow.
Heavy rain fell last night, so the pond was gushing!
Back up to the cottage to write this blog and upload some of the photographs. I have heaps more that I may put on a slideshow on YouTube.
Thank you for your continuing support…I will continue to happily share freely.
Blessings X Colette
Calendar and Midwinter Book
Special Offer! Purchase the Calendar together with the Bealtaine Cottage Guide to the Deep Midwinter for the special price of €23.00 The usual price is €30.00 Price includes postage to anywhere in the world!
€23.00
Calendar and Map
Special offer: Purchase the Calendar and Map together! Cost was €27.00…Special Offer €20.00! Price includes postage to anywhere in the world!
€20.00
SPECIAL OFFER! Reduced to clear… Bealtaine Cottage Calendar for 2019
Price includes postage and packing worldwide! The calendar hosts a page of colour photographs from Bealtaine Cottage for each month of the year. The months of the year are written in Celtic script…ie: May is Bealtaine, August is Lughnasadh and so on…many of you are already familiar with the Celtic Calendar. The pictures on each month also feature some added wisdom from Bealtaine Cottage and information on the ancient festivals of Celtic Ireland.
€9.95
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
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
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
“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
The youngest member of my little tribe was here, forming a focal point for us all as we gathered to celebrate.
She is displaying a love for the natural world in her wish to be carried around outside and shown the many aspects of the woodland sanctuary, engaging with me as I show her the trees and birds.
I venture out to collect a few necessities from town and on my way home am enchanted to pull over the car and embrace the quickening evening.
Mist is rolling in across the lough.
In the rush that is corporate Christmas, most people have not the time to stop and take in this ethereal beauty…I find myself alone in the blue twilight of an Irish evening in late December.
The days that follow a gathering are eerily silent.
I am reminded of my solitude.
This is a physical solitude, I remind myself, for I am immersed in many lives at Bealtaine Cottage.
Like the time of year, a reminder that days of quickening light lie ahead, when the light and sounds of Spring will make the quiet evenings something to look forward to.
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.
As the years here at Bealtaine Cottage have passed and the great work of planting so many hundreds of trees has changed the land and fortified the future, I have blogged and vlogged the journey to anyone who was interested.
It is difficult to keep up at times!
I have come to value the sincerity and genuine kindness of people, many of whom live in the United States.
I am amazed at the spirit of the real American women I have got to know, so hardworking and stoic, so resilient and kind…a force to be admired!
This morning I have stepped out to take these photographs for you as a sharing gift on your Thanksgiving Day.
The men of America who have found their way to Bealtaine Cottage proved surprisingly wonderful too…unlike the Hollywood macho nonsense so often portrayed as representative and so, so wrong!
From my perspective it takes a fully formed human being to show kindness, compassion and respect…qualities displayed again and again in those men who have made the journey.
I’m rambling, I know, but this little blog is simply to say, “I feel honoured to have met so many of you here and on YouTube, for you have opened my world and my mind!”
Blessings to each one of you for your love and support.
May your Thanksgiving be filled with love and laughter.
May the days to follow be filled with hope, for your optimism in the face of hardship is the true Spirit of America!
Blessings to you all XXX
Colette and Jack and all the life-force that is Bealtaine Cottage XXX
The virtual world of social media appears to be taking over much of what people refer to as “life!”
I challenge this assertion, for having spent the past few years on the most virulent form of social media, FaceBook, I have concluded that much of what passes for interaction is little more than soapbox spouting, increasingly dictatorial shouting at others and re-posting stuff!
That is not to say that there are many friends there, but I have made the decision to walk away from it.
To this end I’m no longer posting on the FB platform.
To elaborate on the above statement I must add that time management for me is a big concern these days, as I am continually trying to catch up with work in the gardens, writing, working around the cottage and somewhere, somewhere, trying desperately hard to have a life of my own in social terms…aspiring to that!
I hope you understand my choices…caught between a rock and a hard place really!
So, it’s back to basics, where it all began…the website here, Twitter (I keep this as a good source of up to date news!) and YouTube.
Bealtaine Cottage on YouTube…
I have, once again, over-stretched myself across social media platforms, as well as working every day in the gardens and continuing to refresh and update the interior of Bealtaine Cottage…and all my own work, unaided.
My main work should be focused on writing, as this is my income, but, more often than not, I allow my energies to flow in too many directions.
So, for the next month, I am away from social media, concentrating my efforts on this website and YouTube channel instead.
All the little finishing tasks that are outstanding in the cottage will, hopefully, get finished!
I managed to finally hand-sew the curtain for underneath the worktop in the kitchen and hang it.
This week has been spent working in the Lughnasadh Garden and tidying up around the upper woodland.
I even managed a trip into town and to the market…not often enough I think, for I do need to get out more as I am becoming too much of a recluse!
Of course it is hard to leave Bealtaine Cottage at present as the colours of Autumn are simply divine!
Often times I feel there is a constant pull from FaceBook and Twitter, but then this is the clever way both are set up…to keep drawing one back!
This website is my first love and will remain so, above all other aspects of the internet, for it is where so many discovered Bealtaine Cottage and fell in love with this land as I have done.
It is where I found community and support. It is also a safe place to post all my photographic work, on this website which hosts thousands of images of Bealtaine Cottage and Woodland Sanctuary.
It is a labour of love and devotion to Mother Earth, for sometimes I am at the computer for over an hour just uploading the images to the website…I don’t have internet, just a hotspot on my phone!
Much of social media is so fast-flowing that images get drowned in the tide of ‘stuff!’
All of the images I capture on camera add up to a tiny fraction of what I want to photograph.
These are then sifted down to what I upload onto this website.
I am on a daily quest to present the beauty of Mother Earth here at Bealtaine Cottage to the world.
So, for the next twenty eight days or so, a lunar month, I shall be posting here on my website and YouTube.
Morning at Bealtaine, infused with tasks and rituals as the hands on the clock move towards midday on this last Thursday of September.
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 remains still and warm, much the same as when I walked through the woodland gardens at twilight last night, making a video as I went.
The cottage is immersed in quiet contemplation as I write…yes, these walls are alive and incubate the vibrations of life within, so reflecting my mood.
In recent years we have rediscovered that truth as Quantum Physics has advanced in understanding our relationship with our world and universe.
Many of us seek endlessly for a meaning in life, a spiritual awakening.
The year is tipping towards an end as Samhain marks the beginning of the new year… 
There has been much change here at Bealtaine Cottage as the canopy of trees has merged to form what is now truly a woodland.
This evolution has happened at just the right moment in time as we have witnessed a terrifyingly hot summer and drought…the woodland gardens have come through the worst unscathed…no loss on anything!
Beauty now lies between the stones of the great circle. I have flowers to plant here and many, many happy memories of this visiting soul who decided to spend time with us here at Bealtaine.
And so the wheel turns…
Much of my holiday was spent walking, something I love about being in the city!
Rain had fallen in my absence and the Spring Well was refreshed enough to send water to the cottage down the hill…the tank in the loft is now full and filling!
I expected to see much more leaf drop, but as you can see for yourself here in these photos, the trees have come through unscathed!
The forecast for Autumn seems very much as it should be and may prove to be quite a spectacular colour show!
This website is now approaching two million views…wonderful to imagine all those who have stopped by and perhaps taken a little inspiration into their lives, shaking off the old paradigm of what a garden should be…
The gardens at Bealtaine are all dedicated to the Great Mother and thus are charged with her energy.
The energy of earth is healing, both of herself and all her life upon.
As I walked with Jack around the cottage I was stopped in my tracks by this image…that of a woodland cottage, for this year has seen the manifestation of my heart’s desire from fourteen years ago, that of a cottage in the woods.
Butterflies were out in force today, in time for the sweet flowers of the Buddleia!
I uploaded a video shot this morning showing some of the Butterflies feasting on the flowers!
I want to say a special “Thanks and Blessings,” to all of you who sent condolences for Beauty…such kindness and compassion, Bless you XXX
There is the beautiful month of Lughnasadh to enjoy and appreciate the changes as summer merges into Autumn.
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.
Evening descends.
The cottage stands silent on the little hill.
Jack, SammyBear and I head off down the cottage lane for a walk.
The clock salutes the hour of ten, as night begins its descent in the west of Ireland.
As we move towards Midsummer, the light holds sway.
I carry words in my head as we make the descent along the little lane, planted on either side with generous intent.
The words were spoken by a Native American many years ago, but are as relevant today as they were then…perhaps more so.
“Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life – that to the white man is an ‘unbroken wilderness.’
But for us there was no wilderness, nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly.
Our faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings.
For us, the world was full of beauty; for the other, it was a place to be endured until he went to another world.
But we were wise. We knew that man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard.”
We carry words and music in our heads, most of which seems trivial in reflection.
I have turned many of my favourite poems, quotes and words into mantras of meditation.
Some, like this one, become prayers.
They were wise.
Their wisdom makes our so-called civilisation appear trite in comparison.
As I climb the lane towards Bealtaine, the air is silent.
Birds have gone to roost.
Night is drawing in.
Bats have taken flight.
As Bealtaine Cottage prepares to celebrate it’s thirteenth Midsummer, the tide of life amidst it’s trees and woodland swells.
In this year of the feminine thirteen, I dedicate this sacred space Mother Earth, free from impoverishment of spirit and death…
the eternal return!