A Chairde, Friends,

Greetings from a wild and wet Dublin, Áine and Lugh had better sort a few rays out for us during our Nine Days of Light: Celtic Solar Ritual that we begin this Saturday, 13th June.

This simple ritual brought its treasures for those who participated in 2025 so I’m excited for what 2026 holds for us all, especially with the lush Venus energy we are in this week, and Áine holds that Venusian principle within her.

I will start a Substack chat on Saturday for anyone who would like to do this together as a tuath.

Fairytale Céilí with Jonathon Huet

In the midst of our 9-day ritual, on Thursday, 18th June, we will have our fairytale céilí with guest storyteller, Jonathon Huet - - where Jonathon will share his wonderful telling of The Tale of Tuán mac Cairell. You can read more about Tuan here in your Mythic Ancestors eBook.

Jonathon works with the hermit archetype in his expression of Tuan, which is a potent energy for this solstice time, as a symbol of our inner lamp, illuminated by our star -our soul - to guide us across new thresholds and help us balance cycles of shining and retreating.

Date & Time:

Thursday, 18th June, 20:00-21:30 Irish Time.

What to Bring:

• A candle

• A journal and pen

• Comforts like a warm brew or a blanket, whatever you need to enter the realm of story

• A quiet, safe space where you feel comfortable to move with your eyes closed

• A yoga mat, rug or blanket to support your knees as you move, along with comfy clothes that allow a full range of movement

• An eye mask (optional) for those who prefer to move with covered eyes

• Good sound equipment to hear the narration and music clearly

• 90-minutes of dedicated time to tend to your inner-landscape

About Jonathon:

Jonathon Huet is a woodsman, Shamanic practitioner, naturalist and bushcraft instructor. He is a creative, professional storyteller and speaker who is trained in Bushcraft, Woodcraft and Expedition Leadership. Over the last 30 years he has researched and studied the folklore of the natural world running many workshops exploring the deep spiritual practices rooted in the sister islands of Britain and Ireland. His practice is based on full inclusivity working with trauma, mental health and wellbeing. For the past ten years he has trained with Caitlín Matthews and other teachers on the Walkers Between Worlds Shamanic Training Programme which has deepened his connection even further to nature and his ancestral lands.

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Hello Shining Ones,

Some of you will recall that last year, for the summer solstice, when Bealtaine’s energy reached its apex, we did a 9-day ritual to immerse in the solar energies of Áine and Lugh as Celtic symbols of the sun, our earth star.

This is an invitation to do the same for 2026, with our devotion beginning on Saturday, 13th June and ending on Sunday, 21st June.

If you are in the southern hemisphere, you can do the same ritual to honour the winter solstice.

In 2025, our collective devotion produced some lush fruits within our tuath, our kin group. For me personally, the Celtic Dream Oracle deck I have been working on for the past year came directly from this ritual, which I share more on below.

The solstice is a potent portal, one whose energies our ancestors amplified by building magnificent megalithic temples with midsummer alignments. (Mythical Ireland has a great resource on this, which you can read here).

Áine and Lugh

Áine and Lugh will be our otherworldly guides for these 9 days.

Áine is both a goddess and fairy queen. Her name means ‘brightness’, ‘lustre’, ‘glow’, ‘radiance’, ‘splendour’, ‘brilliance’, ‘wit’, or ‘glory’ in Old Irish, and as befits these fire-born qualities, she is said to have a sister called Grian, meaning ‘sun’. You can read her full mythic profile here:

Lugh’s name is thought to come from the proto-Celtic ‘bind by oath’ or ‘light’, a cognate of the Latin ‘lux’, also meaning ‘light’. He is the solar one who defeats his grandfather Balor of the Evil Eye, whose deathly eyeball symbolises the more dangerous, scorching aspects of the sun, which are everywhere in our striving, hyper-productive, always-on overculture. It’s no wonder so many of us suffer from ‘burn-out’.

You can read his full profile here:

Nine Days of Light Ritual

What you will need:

• A candle

• Journal and pen

• Whatever else you’d like to add to this ritual e.g. your favourite oracle cards

• The Alchemical Rooms Activation provided below

Days 1-3

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Here we are, another mythic ancestor beckoning us into her world. Today we will spend some time with Mis (“Mish”), who I have noticed coming through lately with clients, and in dreams.

As I type, I recall my own Mis dream from October 2022 — just a little warning, it is graphic, as is Mis herself.

Dreaming of Mis

Dream Title: ‘Pantry Mis Woman’

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A Chairde, Friends,

I was recently a guest on the mythical treasury that is the KnotWork Myth & Storytelling Podcast with my dear friend, .

Here, I shared a tale of the goddess, Arianrhod, the ‘Silver Wheel’, daughter of the great Welsh mother, Dôn. This comes from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, the great epic of Welsh mythology. It begins with King Math and his ‘virgin footholder’, Goewin, until we encounter Arianrhod in the middle of the myth, and then end with Blodeuwedd, ‘Flower Face’, who is transformed into an owl as a form of punishment, though in ways it liberates her from the daytime clutches of the men - Math and Gwydion - who create her.

One of the most potent motifs in this tale, is the casting of the three tynghedau by Arianrhod. A tynged is a ‘destiny’ or ‘fate’ or what in the Irish tradition is known as a geis or geas, a ‘taboo’ or ‘spell’ that prohibits the recipient from carrying out specific actions, or in the reverse, requires them to take these actions. More often than not, it is women who cast these spells.

This is a myth where women fight for and are punished for their sovereignty, and yet still, we feel the energy of their self-liberation, of holding onto the fortress under the moon.

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There’s more in the podcast on my own personal experience of Arianrhod:

• How stories choose their tellers - Jen had prepared a different tale entirely, and then this telling of Arianrhod insisted on being told

• Jen takes us on a beautiful tour of the moon’s monthly cycle as a map of our own becoming

• Arianrhod as living initiator: Jen maps the three refusals: name, arms, marriage - onto her own creative journey toward the Sunset Journal, a ritual practice rooted in beginning the day at dusk

• Reclaiming the night: Jen gives up the 5am productivity myth and discovers that creating by moonlight, as a confirmed night-owl, born just before the winter solstice is simply becoming more of her nature

Watch or Listen

To watch:

To Listen:

• On the Web

• On Apple

• On Spotify

More Episodes

This was my fourth time being on the podcast since 2022. If your ears are singing for more, you might enjoy:

• The Skerries Selkie: Reclaiming our Sealskins

• Bright And Obscure: Stories of the Irish Goddess Áine

• Fite Fuaite ‘Interwoven’: A story-weaving with the Cailleach, Hathor, Bóinn, Anahita, Sinend, Kali, the Mórrígan, Inanna, Mis, Sophia, Brigid, Baubo and Sheela na Gig

The Sunset Journal

On the latest podcast, I mention my upcoming self-care journal, The Sunset Journal on how to begin your day in the ancestral way. If you’re curious to learn more, you can read about this concept here:

And sign-up to the waitlist here. The published journal will be ready at Lughnasa.

The Sunset Journal

Croí isteach,

Jen x

Last night, we heard Arianrhod’s myth, the version passed down to us, and then had the opportunity to hear her own voice, herstory speak through our bodies as we moved in response to the tale.

If you’re planning to watch the replay, I’ve shared some guidance for our céilí below. This weekend’s new moon feels like an auspicious time to move with Arianrhod — I’ll be experiencing the céilí again myself, for a third time.

And if you desire to devote to Arianrhod, or even to work more intentionally with the moon, you also have this month’s ritual, ‘Arianrhod and the Silver Wheel’, where you will travel to Caer Arianrhod, the goddess’s fortress in the western sea, and surrender to Arianrhod’s guidance for your life at this time. Let her reveal to you what moon phase you are in, and how this can be an oracle for your path.

Some of what we explored in our céilí:

• The main body of Arianrhod’s story, which comes from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, the Welsh cycle of myths.

• Shame, the silencing of women’s voices, and cultural taboos like Arianrhod’s rejection of motherhood.

• The casting of the three tynghedau by Arianrhod. A ‘tynged’ is a destiny or fate or what in the Irish tradition is known as a ‘geis’ or ‘geas’, a taboo or spell that prohibits the recipient from carrying out specific actions, or in the reverse, requires them to take these actions. More often than not, it is women who cast these spells.

• The treachery of illusion and reclaiming our own sense of magic in our bodies.

For the replay

If you are watching the replay or revisiting our gathering, a reminder of what you will need:

• A candle (make sure to keep it in a safe place when moving)

• A journal and pen

• Comforts like a warm brew or a blanket, whatever you require to enter the realm of story

• A quiet, safe space where you feel comfortable to move with your eyes closed

• A yoga mat, rug or blanket to support your knees as you move, along with comfy clothes that allow a full range of movement

• An eye mask (optional) if you prefer to move with covered eyes

• Good sound equipment to hear the narration and music clearly

• You’ll also have a rest period after the movement part of the céilí so perhaps have a pillow and blanket at the ready

Playlist

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Today, I have a new guided meditation for you that comes from the night sky. As I’ve been devoting myself to my sunset journalling over the past while, I’ve reoriented my way of working with time, spending more of it immersed in lunar realms. Morning pages have become midnight pages, and I am deepening my connection with deities, or what we call here ‘mythic ancestors’, who guide us deep into the Dreaming. One of these ancestors is Arianrhod, the ‘Silver Wheel’, daughter of the great Welsh mother, Dôn. The constellation Corona Borealis, the ‘northern crown’, is often cited in modern sources as Caer Arianrhod, Arianrhod’s fortress at the edge of the Otherworld, which you will visit in this guided journey.

We will also explore the main body of Arianrhod’s story from the fourth branch of the Mabinogi in our Fairytale Céilí this Thursday, 14th.

And… has a new episode of the wondrous KnotWork Myth & Storytelling podcast coming out later this week, where I joined Marisa as her guest and we ended up down a synchronistic warren and then back up in the skies with Arianrhod and all things moon magic so keep an ear out for this (I’ll share when it’s live).

The Ritual

• As you will be journeying to Caer Arianrhod into the setting sun, the dawn of dusk, of twilight, of night, into lunar time, you might like to do this guided meditation as the sun sets or at night. We also have the Taurus new moon this weekend, which offers us a reset around our self-worth and what we embody. Perhaps Arianrhod will have some guidance for you here…

• Curate a lunar temenos, a sacred moon space for this journey in whatever way is meaningful for you.

• Have your journal handy to reflect upon the writing prompts below when you return from your time in Caer Arianrhod.

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Hello Shining Ones,

Oíche Bhealtaine, ‘May Eve’ is upon us! Perhaps you’re busy stuffing the keyholes of your doors with may flowers to keep the fairies out, although I imagine if you’re here, it’s probably the opposite! 😅

Your updated schedule for Bealtaine, May-July 2026 is shared below.

You may receive two emails from me with your new schedule (sorry!) because you also see paid membership content. Please save this email, this is specific to Founding Members. Thanks a million! ❤️‍🔥

🗝️ Library

A reminder of where everything is saved. There’s SO much in the archive now, I invite you to have a wee gander and feel into what you need at this Bealtaine threshold. Build a ritual for yourself with all of this magic, infusing it with your unique magic.

1. Imbas Dispatch: All Imbas Dispatch and Celtic Oracle newsletters are saved in this section called Celtic Symbols.

2. Celtic Creatives Toolkit: All your tools are saved in this section called The Ritualist.

3. Mythic Ancestor eBook: All of your mythic ancestor profiles (and the eBook) are saved in this section called Celtic Archetypes eBook.

4. Fairytale Céilí: You will find these in the Fairytale Céilí section.

5. Áes Dána Retreats: All past retreats and workshops can be found here.

6. Archive: If you’d like a single thread of every single post in The Celtic Creatives go to the Archive section.

If you use a desktop view of Substack, you’ll find all the sections I mention above as headings in the navigation bar (like you would a website).

If you use the mobile app, it’s harder to navigate but you can save your favourite posts, or use your mobile browser to see the desktop view, and bookmark or add a shortcut to your mobile home screen.

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Hello Shining Ones,

Oíche Bhealtaine, ‘May Eve’ is upon us! Perhaps you’re busy stuffing the keyholes of your doors with may flowers to keep the fairies out, although I imagine if you’re here, it’s probably the opposite! 😅

Your updated schedule for Bealtaine, May-July 2026 is shared below. Please do save or bookmark this post. Thanks a million.❤️‍🔥

🗝️ Library

A reminder of where everything is saved. There’s SO much in the archive now, I invite you to have a wee gander and feel into what you need at this Bealtaine threshold. Build a ritual for yourself with all of this magic, infusing it with your unique magic.

1. Imbas Dispatch: All Imbas Dispatch and Celtic Oracle newsletters are saved in this section called Celtic Symbols.

2. Celtic Creatives Toolkit: All your tools are saved in this section called The Ritualist.

3. Mythic Ancestor eBook: All of your mythic ancestor profiles (and the eBook) are saved in this section called Celtic Archetypes eBook.

4. Fairytale Céilí: You will find these in the Fairytale Céilí section.

5. Archive: If you’d like a single thread of every single post in The Celtic Creatives go to the Archive section.

If you use a desktop view of Substack, you’ll find all the sections I mention above as headings in the navigation bar (like you would a website).

If you use the mobile app, it’s harder to navigate but you can save your favourite posts, or use your mobile browser to see the desktop view, and bookmark or add a shortcut to your mobile home screen.

🕰️ Schedule

Instead of a PDF, I have decided to try something different for this schedule where you can register for our fairytale céilís using Luma so they’ll flow into your calendar. You’ll receive the Zoom link when you register. I’ve also included it below as a back-up.

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Today, we welcome in our mythic ancestor, Deichtire.

This quote inspired the title of this profile. It’s from Karina Tynan’s rousing retelling of the tale of Deichtire (“Dek-ter-ah”) or Dechtine (“Dek-tin-eh”), both ways of invoking her name are used in the mythology. I love the image of the bird belly, which we’ll come to soon.

Charioteer

Deichtire is the daughter of political strategist, Nessa and her lover Cathbad, the chief druid of the kingdom of the Ulaid, or modern-day Ulster, the northern province of Ireland. She is also sister to Conchobar Mac Nessa (‘Son of Nessa’), the king of the Ulaid. Deichtire’s beautiful name could possibly derive from deich meaning ‘ten’ and tire meaning ‘lands’ (tíre in modern Irish), so ‘Ten Lands’. Or its variation, Deichtine, again from deich meaning ‘ten’ and tine meaning ‘fire’, so ‘Ten Fires’.

She is said to be a skilled charioteer, driving the chariot of her brother, the king, in battle. Although chariots feature as a motif in Irish mythology especially in the Ulster cycle, the setting of Deichtire’s tale, where there are over a thousand mentions of the chariot, there is little archaeolgical evidence for the use of chariots in Old Ireland. And yet, they are highly valued in the myths.

From an archetypal perspective, we can see the chariot as a symbol of the individuating ego, as a vehicle which drives the libido, the lifeforce energy towards its destiny, or sometimes, destruction. Sallie Nichols describes ‘The Chariot’ card in the tarot as carrying the power of the pscyhe, of the soul, reminding us that motion is the essence of pysche, parts of our becoming are always in motion.

If we, like Deichtire, were to travel by chariot and witness the flow of the Irish landscape as we ride across the land, we must also remember that this same process is mirrored internally. There is an inner-chariot carrying us deep into ourselves that is always in motion, driving through a more otherworldly landscape.

Deichtire’s own journey is one of the chariot travelling inwards.

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A Chairde, Friends,

We find ourselves on the cusp of Bealtaine, the Irish word for the month of May, thought to derive from the old god Bel or Belenus, a pan-Celtic deity meaning ‘bright’ or ‘shining’, and the Gaeilge word tine, meaning ‘fire’. So ‘Bright Fire’. Or perhaps Bealtaine comes to us from béal meaning ‘mouth’ in Irish and again tine, ‘fire’, so ‘Mouth of Fire’. Either way, we are working with the element of fire, which archetypally means a heavenly dance between the generative and destructive power of our home-star, of the sun. Bealtaine is a time to learn how to dance in the flames. It marks the beginning of summer in Ireland.

We have travelled from the dark half of the year that began at Samhain, through the stirring of the land at Imbolc, and now we’re ready for full bloom at Bealtaine when the wheel (whose symbolism we explored in our last Imbas Dispatch) turns and oscillates towards the light half of the year. In the alchemical cycle, we have entered the Citrinitas, the ‘yellowing’ symbolised by solar consciousness, the rays of illumination, the ‘fire in the head’.

Bealtaine in essence is a time of arrival, a time to embody, dare, reveal, shine, collaborate, hold the energy of the bloom, which so many of us struggle to do. To dance in the flames unapologetically shining our bloom; and fittingly, one of the most well-known Bealtaine rituals I share below is a folk cure or rather protection against sunburn. We can shine without being burnt.

A Time of Arrival

Our human ancestors are said to have arrived on Irish shores at Bealtaine led by the file, the ‘poet-seer’, Amergin Glúingel (or sometimes Glúnmar, meaning ‘bright-kneed’ or ‘big-kneed’), who lands with his ‘host of druids’. Amergin himself means ‘the wonderfully conceived’. Before this time, the land was inhabited by the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ‘Tribe of the Goddess Danu’ and various otherworldly beings.

The triple goddess, Ériu, Banba and Fódhla, go on behalf of the Tuatha Dé Danann to meet these new arrivals, who have been prophesied, ‘long have soothsayers had knowledge of your coming’, they tell Amergin and his host. We see here how the sovereignty goddess figure acts as a political negotiator because it is she who determines who is worthy to be custodians of the land.

Amergin encounters each of the three goddesses at a different point in the journey he must take to the Hill of Uisneach, the sacred navel point of Ireland, the fifth dimension (which you can read more about here). When he arrives at Uisneach, Ériu is there waiting. She agrees to allow our ancestors to stay on the physical plain if they name the land after her, which of course comes to pass as we still hold the goddess’s name, Éire (we inherit the word ‘Ireland’ possibly from Éire combined with ‘land’, ‘Éire Land’). We are one of the few countries to be named after the goddess. Amergin is then set a challenge to calm the nine waves of the gods, which he does by invoking the spirit of Ériu, Banba and Fódhla, of the land herself.

The Tuatha Dé Danann then leave this upper world and enter sídhe, the Irish word for both the hollow hills and fairy mounds, and its inhabitants — the Otherworld essentially. In this way, the natural world becomes the dwelling place of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the deities themselves. The land is ensouled with the divine; it is divine. This division marked the end of an era when the supernatural was the undisputed master of the earth and ushered in a new period where deities and humans co-existed: our ancestors in the conscious realm of the upper world, the Tuatha Dé Danann below in the unseen domain of the unconscious, these realms continually interacting through the human psyche and the psyche of the land, our soul and Ériu’s soul.

The Tuatha Dé are rebirthed in Irish folklore as the daoine maithe, the ‘good people’, or the daoine uaisle, the ‘noble folk’ or ‘aristocracy’. This is what we call the fairies as it is taboo to say síog or sí (from Old Irish síd or sídhe), ‘fairy’ or ‘fairies’ in Irish. They descend from ancient deities embodying powerful archetypes; goddesses and gods who are the real ‘aristocracy’. This is why they are both respected and feared.

From a mythological perspective, this heralds a profound shift in consciousness, and speaks to the creative fluidity of the Irish psyche. It is at this threshold, the space between, where we receive imbas, the fire in the head, the gift of divine wisdom, when we learn how to dance in the flames as a portal between the ceantar, the waking reality, and the alltar, the dreamtime of the Otherworld.

Bealtaine Spells

Continuing on with fairy magic, a key time of year for piseógs is Bealtaine, especially Oíche Bhealtaine, ‘May Eve’ (30th April). A piseóg (often anglicised as pishogue) is a superstitious belief, charm or spell, the most common form of spellcasting in Ireland. Traditionally, they were used to protect against bad luck and to appease the fairies, but also to cast spells with malevolent intent. Below are some Bealtaine piseógs from our National Folklore Collection…

You can see in this one, fear of the changeling child:

Bealtaine is a potent time for love divination, this is a piseóg that can be done all year round:

This sharing of Bealtaine traditions speaks to intergenerational memory:

Not only does May dew make you beautiful (see ritual below), but it also helps you tie and untie knots.

Bealtaine Ritual

I share this every year because it’s a ritual I adore doing myself, it is usually done on May morning, but Bealtaine celebrations would likely have lasted for days if not weeks in Old Ireland. Technically Bealtaine is the midpoint between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice so feel free to do this as a regular seasonal ritual. I’ll begin with the riddle…

Before dawn, gather morning dew and wash your face with this natural elixir or if you want to go full throttle, roll around naked in it. You can collect your dew in a jar or soak a facecloth on the grass and smooth over your skin. The dew’s fusion of fire from sunbeams and the healing properties of water are thought to bestow beauty as well as protecting from sunburn, chapping and wrinkling of the skin for the summer ahead. To conserve the potency of the dew, it should not be washed off. Allow it to be dried by air, the ‘towel that was never woven nor spun’.

Wishing you every bright Bealtaine blessing!

Croí isteach,

Jen x

Sources:

Dúchas: National Folklore Collection

Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (translated by Myles Dillon), Gods and Heroes of the Celts

Marion Woodman, Dancing in the Flames: The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness

I’ll open with the words our seanchaí, carried forth at last night’s fairytale céilí - an Réalta Thuaidh, the North Star for our mythic ancestors, Fionn MacCumhaill and the tribe of Na Fianna:

This gathering felt as old as the rocks upon which Na Fianna once roamed, a portal to another time with wisdom and medicine for our times, remembering that the mythic realm is timeless. It exists as much now as it did eons ago for our ancestors. We just have to remember to live in kinship with it - to cultivate our ‘silver branch perception’.

And so, under today’s new moon arrives an invitation into the wild edges of memory, of ancestral place, of the lineage of the deer, of wild ways of being and wild ways of knowing, of imbas - divine illumination, and destiny.

Some of what we explored:

• The spirit of Na Fianna in kinship with the land.

• Fionn’s childhood apprenticeship with his druidess aunt, Bodhmall and her partner, Liath Luachra, who also acts as a foster-mother to Fionn and teaches him the arts of the warrior.

• An Bradán Feasa, the ‘Salmon of Knowledge’, as the ultimate symbol of wisdom.

• Allowing destiny to live out its course despite our ego agenda.

For the replay

If you are watching the replay or revisiting our gathering, a reminder of what you will need:

• A candle

• A journal and pen

• Comforts like a warm brew or a blanket, whatever you need to enter the realm of story

• A quiet, safe space where you feel comfortable to move with your eyes closed

• A yoga mat, rug or blanket to support your knees as you move, along with comfy clothes that allow a full range of movement

• An eye mask (optional) if you prefer to move with covered eyes

• Good sound equipment to hear the narration and music clearly

• You’ll also have a rest period after the movement part of this gathering so bring along whatever you need for this

Playlist

Connecting with Aoife

If you are in Scotland or travelling that way this summer, Aoife has a few beautiful in-person offerings coming up:

Pagan Camp: A gathering for ritual and learning in European traditional spiritualities

The Sheiling Collective series of events

Healing Across Waters | The Highland Welcome

Aoife’s Substack

Website

Instagram

Read more

A new week unfolds and I have an oracle to share, which I hope arrives as a synchronicity for you in some way. It’s the ‘Wheel’ card from my deck-in-progress, Celtic Dream Oracle: Ancient Symbols to Guide Your Modern Life.

I’ve been deep in the creative process tending to The Sunset Journal, so the movements of the sun, the moon, and of time, feel amplified for me. I’ve also been dreaming a lot about wheels like a dream I had the other week where a kindly poet man was teaching me how to work a wheel-like contraption I was very wobbly with. He kept encouraging me as he moved his own wheels, spinning flat on their side and yet carrying him along slightly above ground. We both witnessed the emergence of three giant black hares on our path; perhaps our wheels opened a portal. At the weekend, I had a dream of a silvery-white tower in my back garden that transformed into a windmill, its lunar wheel spinning through the night. It felt grounding to witness, like the mill wheel was bringing the tower out of the Otherworld and into life.

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The Wheel

Keywords:

Wheel, Phases of the Moon, Becoming

Suit:

Time

Symbol:

The hag-owl flies across the moon as the wheel of cosmic time turns, reminding us of the cycles in our own becoming.

Lore:

We are all familiar with the wheel; it exists in the mundanity of life. The spinning of bike or motor wheels propelling us to our destination, the ticking of the clock propelling us through our day. Yet, as everyday as it is, the wheel is also archetypal; it is in time and beyond time. Look up into the sky and see the fiery spinning wheel of the sun, its spokes the rays that reach Earth, threading your bones with warmth and giving you life. We see this mirrored in the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot, which, like the spinning wheel of many a myth and folktale, spins the threads of our destiny across this lifetime and even beyond, as the soul itself exists in time and beyond time.

‘Devotee of the Wheel’ is the meaning of the name Mug Roith, once the arch-druid of Ireland, who was given this name because he used ‘wheel-incantation’ to perform his divinations. Mug Roith is described as covering himself in the pelt of a hornless bull and wearing a bird’s headdress while rising up into the air incanting. Birds were symbols of soul to the filí (poet-seers) and draoithe (druids) who were said to wear the tuigen, a mantle made of bird skin and, or feathers. In the alltar, the Otherworld, we are told there exists an ancient tree where birds call each hour into form through their song. In the ceantar, this world, Irish folk memory tells us that on the first eve of the new moon, no one can see it, on the second night, birds can see it (being closer to the cosmos and cycles of time than we are), then on the third night, everyone can see it.

In Gaelic, one of the words for an owl is cailleach oíche, which means the ‘hag’ or ‘witch of the night’. This connects the owl to the primordial goddess, the Cailleach, the ‘Veiled One’ like the night itself. In Irish folklore, even the Cailleach herself does not know how old she is, and in the medieval triads, one of the great ages of Ireland is named as ‘the age of the Cailleach’. In the Welsh tradition of the Mabinogion, the mythical being Blodeuwedd, ‘Flower Face’, is transformed into an owl as a form of punishment, though in ways it liberates her from the daytime clutches of the men who created her.

In the same branch of the Mabinogion, we meet the goddess Arianrhod, whose name likely means ‘Silver Wheel’. She lives in Caer Arianrhod, her fortress in the sea, in the direction of the west, the Otherworld, the setting sun, under the wheel of night — the silver wheel of the moon. The moon itself is likely our earliest wheel of time. The 5,000 year old ‘Calendar Stone’ in the megalithic temple of Knowth in the Boyne Valley contains 29 circular symbols (circles, wheels and crescents) thought to represent the 29-day lunar month. The Greek mene meaning ‘moon’, and Latin mensis meaning ‘month’, along with mensura meaning ‘measurement’, give us the term menstrual cycle, reflecting how women’s bodies are a microcosm of the grand cosmic cycles.

When this card appears:

The silver wheel of the moon and indeed, the seasonal turnings in the wheel of the year are ever-present teachers in our own becoming.

This card asks you to consider what you are wholeheartedly devoted to in this season of life, or longing to devote yourself to? Where would you place this in the cycle of becoming?

Does it currently live under the balsamic moon, the initiation portal of Samhain, at the naked crossroads between death and rebirth? Or under the new moon, which like the winter solstice symbolises trust that new life will come, even though we are still deep in darkness? Or the crescent moon, the Imbolc phase of the cycle when we see the first buds of light emerge, incubating the promise of what's to come? Or the first quarter moon, the spring equinox when what we desire is half in dark, half in light, but we must devote fully to its becoming?

Is it under the waxing moon of Bealtaine, the mouth of fire bursting forth into passionate blossom? Or the full moon, the summer solstice where it reaches its peak of light, its full potential in this cycle? Or the disseminating moon, when the fruits of our trust and labour are revealed to us, a Lughnasa harvest? Or the last quarter moon, the autumn equinox, the mission now complete, light fallows before surrendering into the dark void to come?

Beneath wherever you land in this cycle, ask yourself - what is the gift of this turning of the wheel?

Ritual:

In Irish folk tradition, it is considered especially lucky to turn a silver coin over in your pocket under the new moon, exposing both sides to the energy of the moon’s rays causing the coin to flourish. The Irish word for money is airgead, the same word as ‘silver’, a colour of the moon.

If you do not know this already, find out what phase of the moon you were born under. When this phase next cycles around, source a silver-coloured coin (€1 & €2 coins are silver and gold in colour), place it in your pocket and turn it over, exposing it to the silvery spokes of the wheel of night.

Remind yourself that no matter where you are in life’s turning, abundance will always cycle back to you.

You are part of the great wheel of life, not separate from it. You are nature, you were born to flourish.

Croí isteach,

Jen x

Sources:

A History of Irish Magic by Sally North and James North.

Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Mythic Origins, Sovereignty and Liminality by Sharon Paice MacLeod.

Irish Superstitions by Dáithí Ó hÓgáin.

Math fab Mathonwy translated by Lady Charlotte Guest.

Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford.

Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess by Demetra George.

The Stars and the Stones: Ancient Art and Astronomy in Ireland by Martin Brennan.

Sources used in the collage:

Psyche and Cupid by Elihu Vedder.

A Chairde, Friends,

As we enter this final chapter in this year’s Imbolc story, I share today a guided journey with goddess and saint, Brigid. Soon Bealtaine will be upon us with the coming of May, so come stay here awhile with Brigid, let’s be present to the seasonal intelligence of Imbolc, the alchemical albedo, a time from which new possibilities for our lives can spring and be blessed by feminine wisdom.

Today, you will follow the fox, the sionnach, the maidrín rua - the ‘little red dog’ - to Brigid’s lands where you will be offered three gifts from the Otherworld to aid your own becoming. I have just come back to this practice after not doing it for a few weeks and am in awe of what has emerged for me this Imbolc.

Without giving too much of the experience away before you begin, while also being in the integrity of sharing, I was able to release a black, clouded ‘ailment’ from my childhood into Brigid’s well while having my little self hold my hand. The mantle I received was made of sunset at the bottom, which rose like a gradient into the realm of the moon, and the message I received about flourishing at this time was to devote myself to night, wholly and holy living my day at sunset as I continue my creative work on The Sunset Journal. The imbas I received about how Brigid would have me shine forth is that devotion to the silver wheel of the moon at night is what turns the sun to rise in the morning.

The Fox

As the fox is your guide, let me share something of Brigid’s connection to the ‘little red dog.’

There is an old folktale from the east of Ireland where a woodsman killed the King of Leinster’s pet fox believing it to be wild. Enraged, the king threw him into prison to await his certain doom leaving the man’s wife and children bereft.

When Brigid heard about the woodsman’s plight, she went out to the woods and called a wild fox to her. The fox responded to the voice of the saint, climbing on her lap and folding itself into her mantle.

Brigid then travelled with her red companion to the royal court where the fox followed all of Brigid’s bidding, performing wondrous tricks for the king until he agreed to take this fox as a pet in exchange for the woodsman’s life.

At the end of the tale, we are told that the fox was happy in the court for a time but when Brigid departed, the fortress felt like a prison. And so, while the king was away one day, the fox left its comfortable, domestic surroundings to go back into the wild in search of beloved Brigid, goddess and saint.

The Ritual

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Brightest of full moon blessings. With this Libra energy, we enter an auspicious moment to explore our retreat theme of Sovereignty & The Grail Mysteries, so do make space over the coming week if you can to explore these teachings.

We were ourselves blessed last night to have Tara Brading with us, offering an incredibly rich perspecti…

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Recently, I shared about Silver Branch Perception and the sea god, Manannán Mac Lir’s golden grail cup that breaks in three if falsehoods are uttered beneath it and reforms when truth is spoken. We explored this also this time last year in our Wisdom of the Inner Grail Fairytale Céilí.

There is someone, an ancestor I would love you to meet today if you haven’t yet crossed paths - someone who embodies this fír flathemon, this ‘prince’s truth’. She is not a king. Her name is Emer and she is mortal, like you and me.

Emer’s Riddles

Pronounced “Ee-mur” in modern Irish or “Eh-ver” in Old Irish, also Eimhir in Scottish Gaelic, this is a popular female name in Ireland that may mean ‘swift’. As you will see, Emer is gifted a swiftness of words. Emer is the most local ancestor to me. She is from the lands of Loughshinny (Loch Sionnaigh ‘Lake of the Fox’ in Irish) and Lusk (Lusca meaning ‘Cave’ in Irish) in north County Dublin.

Emer’s stories centre around the Irish saga, Táin Bó Cúailnge, ‘The Cattle-raid of Cooley’, about a conflict between Queen Medb of Connacht in the west of Ireland and Ulster in the north, led by the demigod Cú Chulainn, a young, fearsome warrior whose father is the solar god Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Emer takes Cú Chulainn as her husband. They fall madly in love and ‘did not depart from each other until they died.’ But it isn’t an easy marriage. Her husband has many lovers. Emer herself is mortal and her story is set in this waking world, but most of Cú Chulainn’s trysts take place in the Otherworld. He has a wild temper and is known to go into a frenzy that blurs his judgement, yet luckily for him, Emer is his counsel.

Here’s what the myth tells us about how they met:

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Hello Shining Ones,

A gentle reminder before the weekend that we have our Áes Dána Retreat online next week with a wondrous guest, a dear friend of mine, Tara Brading, with our theme of Sovereignty & The Grail Mysteries.

Tara will be with us for the first hour, inviting us into the mysteries of the grail. We’ll then have a short break, and I will guide us through a journalling ritual on bringing the symbolism of the grail to daily life through the 8th-century Irish mystical text, The Cauldron of Poesy.

Please do come live if you can, as it will be a richer experience for you.

About Tara

Tara Brading is a women’s educator, storyteller and songstress, focusing on uplifting nature-based feminine wisdom and ancestral teachings from Ireland and England. She’s been on a journey of remembering and reclamation for over ten years, honouring the earth based feminine wisdom left in her blood and bones.

She’s the creator of The Roundhouse, which is an online community that lovingly guides women into nature based feminine wisdom from the Irish traditions. She’s also the creator of Grail Priestess, a deep-dive programme that guides women into heartfelt connection with their English heritage. She also runs a variety of other courses, events and workshops that serve thousands of women every year.

She journeys to Ireland and England regularly for pilgrimage, and currently lives on the ancestral lands of the Ute and Arapaho people in the mountains of so-called Colorado (USA).

Gathering Details

We gather this Tuesday, 31st March, 19:30 Irish Time.

(The recording will be shared on Wednesday).

What to bring:

• An offering that symbolises what ‘sovereignty’ means to you. This could be a word, a piece of art (your own or someone who inspires you), a talisman, a trinket, an heirloom, a gift from nature etc.

• A candle.

• Journal and a pen. You might also like to bring drawing tools like colouring pencils, crayons, markers… to draw in response to our explorations.

• Anything that feels nourishing for you and your body e.g. a blanket and a warm cuppa.

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Your coracle has arrived, ready to take you to the 150 otherworldly islands which the mysterious woman in The Voyage of Bran tells us are west of Ireland, each twice or three times the size of this land. Sail now with Bran to Tír na mBan, the ‘Land of Women’, and you may reach there before the setting of the sun.

For the Replay

If you are watching the replay or revisiting our gathering, a reminder of what you will need:

• A candle

• A journal and pen

• Comforts like a warm brew or a blanket, whatever you need to enter the realm of story

• A quiet, safe space where you feel comfortable to move with your eyes closed

• A yoga mat, rug or blanket to support your knees as you move, along with comfy clothes that allow a full range of movement

• An eye mask (optional) if you prefer to move with covered eyes

• Good sound equipment to hear the narration and music clearly

• You’ll also have a rest period after the movement part of this gathering so bring along whatever you need for this

The Manuscripts

I have uploaded a PDF of the slide I shared with a few insights into how Imram Brain has been passed down to us.

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The equinox has arrived here in Ireland today and with it comes a question from me:

What if you began your day at sunset?

Five years ago, I began continuously asking myself this question. Then asking my clients and community, and anyone I thought might be interested: What would life look like if I believed that my day started at dusk, not dawn?

Beginning my day at sunset has become an almost daily ritual practice for me. I love how it reframes my day to begin with rest (even if disrupted at times), not activity, to begin with dreaming, not doing. Today, I share an oracle card from Celtic Dream Oracle: Ancient Symbols to Guide Your Modern Life, inspired by this, and also an announcement…

Working on the oracle deck has been a slow, lush tending, which I am continuing to devote myself to. I hope the project will be complete by the end of 2026. As always, following my night dreams, I have decided that something else will come first - The Sunset Journal. This will be a printed journal for anyone who feels inspired to cultivate a practice of beginning your day at sunset. It is infused with the wisdom of our ancestors but for contemporary life.

There is a lot of research on the healing benefits of evening journalling, and also on how our perception of time can lead to chronic stress and depression. We need disrupters here, and these ancestral teachings have helped me massively in what can feel like my own time-poor life as a creative, entrepreneur, mentor, student, mammy, wife, sister, daughter, friend, contributor to society, etc.

I am working with the gloriously talented Steph Sheahan, who is supporting me with the design of the journal ( and in doing so, holding me accountable lol). Steph and I met when we studied Jungian Psychology with Art Therapy together at Limerick School of Art and Design, so ours is a mercurial relationship, rich with magic. Steph is also a former client who knows my work intimately. You can discover more about Steph and her sublime body of work here.

The Sunset Journal will launch this summer with a small print run and ship worldwide, so if you are interested, you can sign up to the waitlist and I’ll reach out to you closer to the time.

Journal Waitlist

Now onto the oracle…

Sunset

Keywords:

Sunset, Lunar Consciousness, Tír na nÓg Time

Suit:

Time

Symbol:

The sun sets, journeying into the Otherworld, while holding a mirror to us in this liminal space and time, creating a portal to begin anew - to begin our day at sunset.

Lore:

We tend to think of time as scientific fact but time is also cultural, an expression of a peoples and how they relate to the world around them. This question: What if I began my day at sunset?, is inspired by our ancestors and how they likely began their day at sunset, not sunrise as we do today. A question that enthralled me sending me down through a warren of sources to understand more about our ancestors’ perception of time.

There is well-known Roman commentary from Julius Caesar on how the Celtic Gauls measured time not by the number of days, but by the number of nights. Instead of saying something is three days away, with this way of looking at time, it’s really three nights away, almost like how children get excited about how many sleeps, ‘Two more sleeps until Santa Claus comes.’ Caesar also says that the Celts honoured their birthdays, and the beginning of the year and its months beginning at night and then leading into day.

In Irish tradition, it’s thought that the ancestral year began with the onset of winter at Samhain, the month of November in Gaelic. We still celebrate this today with Oíche Shamhna, ‘Samhain Eve’ or what has become globally known as Halloween. Samhain marks our entry into the dark half of the year and is followed by the light half of the year at Bealtaine, the month of May in Irish. These great turnings of time were marked with fire, Bealtaine itself may mean, ‘Mouth of Fire’ or ‘Bright Fire’. The ritual Samhain fires were lit at sunset, whereas Bealtaine fires and rituals often flowed into the coming of the sun’s own fire at sunrise, again illuminating how darkness comes before light.

A unit of time is described in Irish mythology as ‘adaig ocus lá co lí’, meaning ‘night and day with colour (or brightness)’. It is the absence of the sun not its presence where time begins. In the myth, ‘The Settling of the Manor of Tara’ (Suidigud Tellaig Temra), we meet at sunset coming from the west, Trefuilngid, a supernatural druid-ancestor whose size is of such magnitude that you can see the sky and the sun between his legs. He says that he has come from the land of the setting sun, travelling into its rising, and that he, himself causes these movements of time.

Like in many sister mythologies, the soul upon death travels westwards across the sea into the setting sun, into night, to the Otherworld or Tír na nÓg - the land of timelessness and rebirth. As well as being the direction of the Otherworld, the west of the setting sun is the direction of knowledge. When Trefuilngid asks Fintan mac Bóchra, the file, the ‘poet-seer’ who lived for 5,500 years by shapeshifting into a one-eyed salmon, an eagle, and a hawk, about the energies of the directions, he says that from the west we receive:

The use of ‘her’ here is reflective of the land as the goddess. Ireland, Éire in Irish, is named after the goddess Ériu. As you can read, there are treasures to be uncovered in the direction of the setting sun. The bards of this island knew this well, as blindness, whether real or simulated, was an asset to see into the Otherworld. Our poet-seer ancestors created at night or in dark rooms, incubating their visions to ignite the fire in their head - the imbas that shoots like a fiery arrow through the darkness.

Attuning our energies to sunset, dusk, twilight and night, not only brings us closer to our ancestors but helps us cultivate a lunar consciousness. The moon invites us to relate to our own becoming as each night she appears robed in a different form moving through her cycles of birth, becoming, death, and resurrection. By beginning our day at sunset we are fed by her mysteries at night so that we arise full, our souls satiated at sunrise.

When this card appears:

What if you began your day at sunset? What if you entered your day through a portal of rest and receptivity, through the dreamtime? Or in whatever way this feels true for you. What would life look like from this place?

You are being asked to explore your perception of time. Get curious and play under the red fire of the setting sun, under the ever-changing robes of the blue moon, and cultivate your own ritual to begin your day at sunset.

Invocation:

At sunset, dusk, twilight or night, as part of your own sunset ritual, invoke:

This is inspired by the Song of Amergin, thought to be the first poem invoked in Ireland.

Croí isteach,

Jen x

Sources:

An Introduction to Early Irish Literature by Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin.

Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales by Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees.

Celtic Myth and Religion: A Study of Traditional Belief by Sharon Paice MacLeod.

The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade.

The Sacred Isle: Pre-Christian Religions in Ireland by Dáithí Ó hÓgáin.

The Settling of the Manor of Tara (Suidigud Tellaig Temra), translated by Richard Irvine Best.

This month, I will be entering my third trip around the sun on Substack, and so to celebrate, I wanted to offer my incredible members something special as a way of saying thank you, go raibh míle maith agaibh.

I dreamed into what this could be, and what emerged was The Bean Feasa’s House, a workshop I hosted last year looking for rene…

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What does the colour red symbolise for you? If I invite red to flow as a stream of consciousness, I see the setting sun, passion, fire, lust, jealousy, ripe apples, lips, tongues, blood, life, death, earth, alarm, red-hair, berries, flow, swirling silk… I could go on, what about you? Red is often described as the colour of life as we are made of it in blood, it is a bringer of life, but also a taker of life.

Red women feature in our mythology and so for this month, we will spend time with this image. As Irish folklorist Gearóid Ó Crualaoich says, ‘The red-haired woman has, in traditional perspective, the air of an otherworld figure.’1 We’ll explore a strange, enchanting tale of The Red Woman from the Fenian legends inspired by retellings of her story by Ella Young and Lady Augusta Gregory during the Celtic Revival and also, circle back to other goddesses we have worked with who embody the colour red.

The Red Goddess

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