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The August 2017 eclipse season is upon us. Astrologer's view eclipses as doors closing (sometimes with a slam) and new windows of opportunity. During a solar and lunar eclipse season we encounter a period of shadow. Something is hidden. Then something is revealed. Weather can turn capricious. This summer I have had a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, this  month I suspect we will hear multiple thumps on the ground of our being. 

Which may fill you with fear. And I say, in the Northern Irish vernacular, "Catch yerself on!" Which is a less elegant, but more bracing, way of rephrasing Hemingway's "Courage is grace under pressure."

It is traditional to bake a Lammas loaf at this time of year, although many may wait to celebrate next weekend, closer to the cross-quarter day.  But there are harvests and harvests. Lammas or Lunasa as we have it in Ireland, is the time when there is a pause in the silage making and hay cutting. There are plenty of festivals around the country and in yesteryear this would be the time for fairs and all that they include - drinking, fighting, wooing, some horse trading.

From Ballycastle's Auld Lammas Fair up in Country Antrim where you can get your dulse and yellow man (a really hard candle that might extract your fillings) down to County Kerry where they crown the goat at Puck Fair, this was the pause for revelry. Many gatherings happened at holy wells and there are numerous accounts of priests having to ban nude bathing of both sexes (together, imagine!) at these sacred sites rededicated to the Virgin Mary.  There were 'faction fights' - supposedly playful, but often they got ugly. My local holy well was contaminated by blood spilt in it at a Lunasa fairy. (All is well; it has been renovated, re-dedicated and the local priest lifted the curse on it back in August 2014.)

It is Lunasa in a week's time. Here in Ireland the hints of autumn have come early. The billberries are already plump. My husband has cut down some rye grass for me to make harvest decorations. The rowan berries are already reddening.  Everything in nature feels a bit rushing the season, early, out of sync somehow. The actual weather has been bucking previous summer trends as well.  We have had long spells without heavy rain, only soft smatterings, more extended bursts of sunshine than unusual, but also warmer and more humid spells, with lots of oppressive low cloud. Which may not be so unusual since our celestial, astrological weather is pretty maverick right now, too. But this summer season has also felt like an extended dreamtime to me.

I know that in some places readers are drowning in record rainfall. My friend in Arizona has endured 50C/120F days with only water condensers to cool them down. The hot, humid NE USA means my friend with MS is very grateful for supermarkets that are open 24/7; she has to avoid the heat of the day to do shopping since that might trigger an episode.

You might not think an academic conference would be the best place to go and drink from the well of the Cailleach, to gather her cloak of belonging about yourself, to celebrate your motherline - but actually, it is the very best place as I found over this weekend's Full Moon. Over the course of the conference (July 6-9,2017) the themes of making visible the invisible, giving voice to those who have been silenced, and naming the nameless recurred again and again for me.

I have come reeling back from NUI Galway, fresh from the Motherlines conference instigated by MIRCI (Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement.) Back in the spring I was invited by Prof. Andrea O'Reilly to speak on a keynote panel with my presentation entitled "What My Mother Taught Me." But what a wealth of thought provoking feminist presentations to stretch one spiritually, intellectually, psychologically!

The long days and short nights bring a whirl of external activities. Shortly before Summer Solstice, on 18th June, was the feast of the goddess Danu, for whom I have a special devotion. I consider her the local goddess since it is said that her tribe, the Tuatha dé Danaan, landed in what became known as Erin, in the mountain bounding the parish I live in. I think of Danu as the Crone of Crones, the Grandmother Goddess over all. Over a period of spiritual discernment I perceived her as matron over what I call The Age of the Crone.

Slieve Anieran, or the Iron Mountain, overlooks Ballinagleragh and Drumshambo in County Leitrim, and it is atop this mountain it is said their ships of silver and gold landed. But they burnt their boats and stayed until they disappeared into the sídh after the Second Battle of Moytura when the Milesians defeated them. The Bronze Age had truly arrived I suppose. Perhaps this was when Danu's feast day was on the wane and Solstice celebrations came to the fore. The Grand Old Woman, the gift giver, began to be less valued. New gods and goddesses came to be worshipped.

Even wise women need wise women. Life likes to mix things up. Including messages. People are complex critters. If only they could be as straightforward as taming feral cats! To navigate life I have my council of crones.

I am that most fortunate of women who has collected and maintained connections with smart, savvy, talentd, empathic and compassionate women who are scattered across many continents. They come from varied life and professional experience.  Not all have grey hair yet. But what they share is the wisdom of the cailleach. Each has been to the brink, eyeballed the abyss, didn't blink, and come back to tell the tale.

Just in perfect timing for Bealtaine cross-quarter day, on our bank holiday weekend here in Ireland, the hawthorn blossomed in all its blushing beauty. I was over at Newgrange for Wise Woman Ireland Weekend. Walking along the lane that leads to the Brú, the air was heady and heavy with the blossom's scent.