What’s Involved

Shared teachings rooted in the ancient touch points of the Wheel of the Year. In Ireland, the ancient ones measured their cosmos in wheels, spirals, in the movement of the stars, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon. Our ancestors were deeply rooted in the land and the seasons and the cycles of the natural world. They marked these gateways with ritual and ceremony and bequeathed us with a calendar map that holds wisdom for us today as ancestors-in-training.

A screening of Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion – Poems of Máire Mhac an tSaoi. This riveting documentary directed by Paula Kehoe explores the life, work and sensual poetic imagination of Máire Mhac an tSaoi, one of Ireland’s greatest living poets. She helped revolutionise Irish poetry by drawing on a native tradition to express a passionate sensibility and taboo emotions, at a time when women’s voices were on the margins of Irish literature and society. The documentary also features the movement poetry of performance artist Maureen Fleming.
A live immersive listening experience with artists Kathy Scott (cultural activist, host, writer) and Brian Crosby (composer, musician, BellX1) with Leah Song (singer-songwriter, multi-instrumental musician, storyteller, poet, artist, activist) and Lily Henley of Rising Appalachia. Inspired by the ancient Irish tradition of the immram or wonder-voyage, this experience invokes the spirit of the land and evokes the mythos of place through symbols, sounds, scent and other soma-sensory explorations. This guided ritual infuses Irish cultural motifs with Bealtaine inspired images, words and phrases activated through the power of collective imagination.

Irish language workshops with teachers (múinteoirs) Joseph Jones, Siobhán Ní Chiobháin, Caoimhe Nic Giollarnáith and Paul Ferris with a focus on the season and stories of Bealtaine including the great fire of Uisneach, fairies and festival flower wreaths, traditional cake making and native place names.