I’ve always felt the steady rhythm of beads moving through your fingers comforting. They introduce a regularity, a heartbeat which calms my racing mind. From Catholic Rosary beads as a child or in later years rounds of mala beads provided this route yet neither fitted as they weren’t of my tradition. While I am only vaguely familiar with traditional Celtic prayer beads – the Paidirinean, I was drawn to create Celtic Soul Craft Prayer Beads.
...Sisterhood of the Antlers
Walking the path of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland with stories, art, and ritual
Jude Lally
Jude Lally is a forager of stories. You’ll find her out wandering the hills around Loch Lomond, reading the signs that guide her to stories in the land.
As a Cultural Activist, she draws upon the inspiration from old traditions to meet current needs.
She uses keening as a grief ritual, a cathartic ritual to express anger, fear, and despair for all that is unfolding within the great unraveling.
As a doll maker, she views this practice as one that stretches back to the first dolls which may have been fashioned from bones and stones and ancient stone figurines such as the Woman of Willendorf. She uses dolls as a way of holding and exploring our own story, and relationship to the land as well as ancestral figures.
She gained her MSc Masters Degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) and lives on the West Coast of Scotland on the banks of the River Clyde, near Loch Lomond. She is currently writing her first book, Path of the Ancestral Mothers.
Website: www.pathoftheancestralmothers.com
As a Cultural Activist, she draws upon the inspiration from old traditions to meet current needs.
She uses keening as a grief ritual, a cathartic ritual to express anger, fear, and despair for all that is unfolding within the great unraveling.
As a doll maker, she views this practice as one that stretches back to the first dolls which may have been fashioned from bones and stones and ancient stone figurines such as the Woman of Willendorf. She uses dolls as a way of holding and exploring our own story, and relationship to the land as well as ancestral figures.
She gained her MSc Masters Degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) and lives on the West Coast of Scotland on the banks of the River Clyde, near Loch Lomond. She is currently writing her first book, Path of the Ancestral Mothers.
Website: www.pathoftheancestralmothers.com
Dumb Supper
I value the snippets of Samhain my grandmother fed me - a crumpled aged piece of paper that described a rite for carrying out a Dumb Supper. It outlined laying out place settings for those ancestors recently departed with place names inviting them to the Samhain meal. One of the main roles of the Dumb Supper was to say goodbye to any relatives who had died but were still around, those relatives that were finding it hard to leave the living and fully cross over to the other side.
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The Hill of the Cailleach, Isle of Eigg, Scotland
When you look over the folklore of Scotland and Ireland you'll find that the cailleach is known by many names, this is because she was a localized deity. She was the cailleach of your loch, your mountain or moorland - this then gave her different qualities and animals and stories associated with her. I don't know all the different Cailleach's only the one I grew up and I know her by the animals, birds and plants of the Loch Lomond area and by the weather that sweeps in and different aspects of her can be seen throughout the seaons.
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We’re in an in between place right now, Imbolc has passed but it’s not quite Spring Equinox yet. One day it seems like full blown spring and then the next we’re plunged back into winter. Maybe you still haven’t thrown off some of the Imbolc layers which can see us feeling fragile and full of unease. Maybe part of that unease comes from a past down worry of our ancestors which is knitted into our bones, worries about food supplies running out and hungry mouths to feed. Maybe part of that unease is that many who are ill can’t say yes to another year of living and choose instead to make their journey to the next world.
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The hardest thing I did yesterday was to get out of bed. I could feel my shock in the election result in my body. It weighed me down, I couldn’t move fast. When I got out to the garden was surprised that the world seemed the same – the tree’s were in the same places and the sky hadn’t cracked open. I moved very slowly yesterday, glad for the little things – washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry and sweeping the porch, little things brought me back to life.
While on awaking I had the fragment of a dream ‘we are born for these times’ rang in my head to which I loudly replied no, I’m small, I’m tired and I’m overwhelmed. By lunchtime I really was tired and ready to back to bed.
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