Winter Blessings

One of the most important things in my life is to live in synchronicity with the seasons.
I am always enjoying the moment. I know a lot of people who wish it was Summer all the time. I personally love every bit of every season this beautiful planet has to offer.
Living in synchronicity with the seasons enable us to feel the cycle of life, and live our lives according to it.

As we get closer to Midwinter, the waning circle of the Sun will come to a stop.

Winter is a time to rest. When all Nature goes to sleep, and if we can, we must slow down too. Make time to read, write, music, and creative projects.

 It is a time for survival for most species, and for our ancestors it was too.
The days getting shorter and shorter, colder and colder.
The pantries would be full of preserved food that would last through the winter. 

The harvest of the Summer and Autumn would be all they had. The convinience of the supermarkets has separated us from the rythm of Nature.

As the days get shorter and colder, we would find ourselves in the comfort of our home, of our hearth. Home is an important aspect of Winter as we will be spending more and more time in there.

With most of the trees being naked the landscape changes drastically. With this the evergreens, the trees and shrubs that for our ancestors would magically appear to resist the hard Winters, would take a great place in this season.

Trimmings of holly, ivy, and conifers would be brought into the houses to decorate, to celebrate the midwinter.

We're close to the solstice now... I can feel its changing energies. This is the turn of the year, when the waning cycle of the sun comes to a stop, and the days will start increasing again. But nevertheless, the Winter will remain here until the first thaw, and the coldest months are still to come...

Wishing you all a blessed Yuletide.

Sláinte 🌀

~ Sara Valentim

Hello, September!

The last time I wrote on this blog we had just entered the colourful season and the increasingly warm days.
I haven't written all Summer, and at times I haven't even logged on to facebook for days. The reasons for that I will keep private, I will just say that I didn't have a good Summer (and as a result is was hard to log in and see everyone having the summer of their lives), so that is one more reason why I couldn't wait for autumn to come and put this summer behind my back.
So recently I went back to being more active on facebook, but that was not a good thing. Facebook is, for most of us, addictive, and it's very bad for our mental health. It has been, though, a place that gave me the opportunity to meet beautiful people from around the globe. But that's it, usually very far from me. I hardly have the opportunity to meet any of these wonderful people and that makes me feel even more socially isolated.

So I decided it is time to focus on real life, and one of two things will happen: either I'll feel more isolated, or it'll give me the chance to seek and reach real people instead of facebook profiles.
I am, from today on taking a break from Facebook for a month - at least that is my goal.

So that's when I finally found the courage to write again, in this second of September.

September really is my favourite month of the year. For an active forager, it's the best time, for most of the Summer berries and greens are still out there, Autumn berries and fruits are just ripening, and all kinds of mushrooms are popping out of the ground everywhere!

Guelder Rose

According to the celtic calendar, we have entered the Autumn season since Lughnasadh, contrary to popular belief, the Equinox and Solstices are really the middle of the seasons, not the beggining. Samhain marks the beggining of the New year and Winter, and Imbolc the beggining of Spring, and so on. The cross-quarter festivals mark then the start of the seasons. It has been since Lughnasadh that I have been noticing the subtle, yet noticeable changes in Nature.

This time of the year, together with the beggining of Spring (from Imbolc to Ostara), are my favourite times of the year. They are times of Transition - one is from death to life, the other from life to death - both equally beautiful and important.

It is now that we notice the trees preparing themselves for winter sleep, focusing their energies on their roots to better survive the winter months and shedding their leaves. The swallows will soon leave for warmer places, and the land will go silent. 'Tis a beautiful sight to behold. The plants are all going to seed, securing next generations.

Hedge Garlic has gone to seed, and the seeds are now dry and falling.
This is a great time to save seeds from our native plants

One of my favourite shows in this time of the year has to do with heather.
I love heather for many reasons, not only is it a beautiful shrub, with medicinal properties (physical as well as metaphysical) it also puts up a beautiful show in the mountains.
Experiencing the Autumn in the mountains is something I am incrediby grateful for ever since I came to Ireland, and now I can observe it closely, from my window, as I am now in the highlands of Kerry (oops, need to write a blog post about that too).

Part of the mountains are covered in heather, in organic random patterns. For most of the year it is unnoticeable, but since Lughnasadh one can admire the changing colours of the mountains, thanks to heather. Around the beggining of August, the green foliage starts to turn brown, creating brown patterns in the green hillsides. Not long after, the flowers start to bloom, different species of heather with different shades of pink and lilac - and then is when you start to notice the change from brown, to lilac, to purple. It is a show given to us by Nature that most people ignore, or are too busy in their daily lives to notice the beauty of Nature.

I am wholeheartedly thankful for being able to experience it every year. The mountains are always changing colours and soon they will be partly covered in white (another show I can't wait to see from up close!).

Brightest Autumnal Blessings to all my dear friends <3

A Year in Emerald Island

Today I'm celebrating a year I came to Ireland. It was a special day that I will forever remember and cherish.

Here's a very brief summary of my year in photos!

(late) Spring '13

Admiring the beauty of the bluebell woods, during one of my daily cyclings

Me and Mr Oak, in a sunny Spring day

Bluebell woods

Ross Castle

Summer '13

Foxgloves marked Killarney's landscape in the Summer

My first chicken of the woods

Dingle Peninsula

A quick visit to the Cliffs of Moher in late Summer

Autumn '13

Mushrooms, mushrooms everywhere! (honey mushrooms in this case)

Winter '13

The fisrt day of snow in Kerry

Carrauntoohil

Uragh Stone Circle in the beautiful Beara Peninsula

Scarlet Elf cups sprinkled the forest red in late Winter/ early Spring

The last days of snow

Also the strongest snowfalls

(early) Spring '14

The first hawthorn leaves

I am truly thankful for all what this land has shown me and taught me, and I'm ready for more! 

~Blessings~

Sara Terrwyn Valentim

The Paps of Anu

In this blog post I'm going to tell you about a very special sacred place.
It is described by many pagans as the most sacred place in Ireland. And I am very lucky to live very close to it - The Paps of Anu and The City. It is situated in the eastern part of Co. Kerry, about 15 minutes drive from where I live.

Dhá Chioch Anann or The Paps of Anu, as seen from The City

They are two mountains of equal size resembling the breasts of a woman, with cairns at their peaks. These pre-historic structures, still unexcavated, probably contain miniature passage graves or burial cists, and give the perfect finish as nipples in the top of the breasts.
They were believed to be the breasts of the goddess Anu, or Danu, the mother goddess of Ireland, and the Tuatha de Dannan. This reinforced the belief that earth is the body of the goddess, and Nature is therefore, sacred.
Down by the Paps of Anu is Cathair Crobh Dearg, The City of Shrone, known locally as simply "The City". It is said to have been the first place to be populated in Ireland. It is strongly associated with May Day (Beltaine), and cerimonies are still held in The City today in the first of May. Unfortunately, as for every pagan traditions, it has been taken by christianity, and is now a place of worship for christians. Pagan celebrations are still held in the city, as far as I know.

The holy well and the Paps in the background

There isn't much of the city left today, but remainings of the thick stone wall, a holy well and a cross-inscribed stone altar can still be seen. Dan Cronin, who wrote "In The Shadow of the Paps", a grand book about the city and the paps I still yet have to read, said once:

When you stand in the middle of the Cathair you get great feeling of satisfaction that you’re standing here on one of the most ancient places on earth where religious ceremonies of one kind or another have been enacted for the past six or seven thousand years, without a break…Tell me another place you’ll find that. You’ll find them, all right…but they’re long since broken, the sequence is broken. But not at Cromlech Cathair Crobh Dearg…There is no place in Western Europe more ancient, functioning the same length of time, as Cromlech Cathair Crobh Dearg.

Cross-inscribed stones

I have dedicated this past Winter exploring Sared Ireland. It is a good time of the year to do so, as there are very few edibles to forage for, and outdoors activities are limited. Plus it is the dark time of the year, the time when we honour our ancestors, so it felt just right to visit all these ancient sites. Most of them were stone circles, and I shall gather them in another post, I just thought the Paps deserved a post of its own :)

I hoped you liked it! 

Blessings,

Sara Terrwyn Valentim