It’s then that January comes to mind. The time when people are expected to completely up end their lives after the festivities of December. The heaviness, the slow compression of the days, the long dark mornings that linger as the evening approaches. It is a month that asks me to endure, to carry, to feel the weight of what the world offers without mercy. It asks me to hold grief and frustration quietly, alongside small moments of comfort. My body remembers January, how it holds tension, how it braces for the weight of the world. The mind, the senses, the heart — they all feel the accumulation, the pressure that never seems to relent. And yet, even in the middle of this heaviness, there is preparation, slow and unseen. My belly carries it, waiting, readying, sustaining itself for what is about to come.

February arrives, bringing light, a soft warmth, a return. Imbolg whispers that life stirs beneath the frost, that growth is already happening beneath the stillness. Hope is gestating quietly, like a lamb in the ewe, like a seed beneath the soil. In the middle of this reflection comes Brigid. The goddess, the saint, the living presence in both forms. Na Croiseanna Bríde, the making of crosses, the act of blessing the house and hearth, the rituals that carry care and intention. To make these crosses is to honor the life we carry quietly, to recognize the hope we hold in our bodies, the dreams that dwell in the soft, unseen spaces of the belly. To bless is to protect, to recognize the value of what is in motion inside us, to acknowledge the unseen growth that waits for the right moment. It is in these small, careful gestures — arranging, blessing, remembering — that we return to ourselves, that we hold space for what is sacred, what is fragile, and what is ready to emerge. And then I return, slowly, to the land and the language. Editing the video, gathering the images, observing the shimmer of light on waves and leaves, I felt what I carry in my belly, the full weight and gift of my own attachment to this place. The language uplifts me, revivifies me, reminds me of who I am and how I perceive the world. The words, the rhythms, the sound and shape of thought — they are a living thread that ties me to this land, that flows through me, through my senses, through my imagination. But the language cannot exist apart from the land. The rivers, the soil, the skies, the mountains — they cradle the language, nourish it, give it form. And in turn, the language gives shape and meaning to the land, speaks it into life, makes it ours in ways that are deep and enduring. I feel it in my belly, in my senses, in my posture, in the way I move through the world. It is inseparable. The land and the language are one, and in carrying them, I am full, I am grounded, I am awake. This is what I can carry. What I do carry. What I hold and honor, what I protect and nurture: the land and the language / an tírdhreach agus an teanga.

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It became the place I visited my grief — intentionally, almost tenderly, like pressing a bruise to be sure it still remembers. To wake from the nightmare and see its still all true. Most of all to have my heart held and my diaphragm primed so I could in fact release my sobs.

The uilleann pipes felt like the only sound vast enough to hold what lived inside me then. The bellows under the arm, the breath through leather, the ancient cry of it — sharp, honest, searing. It helped that my father loved this instrument, he was a drummer and had said if he had picked up another instrument it would be Uilleann Pipes.

Davy’s rendition of Caoineadh Cú Chulainn was other wordly- it hurt, but it was a truthful hurt. A fire I sat beside because it was the only warmth grief offered. I sat by this fire often enough to one day write lyrics for this air.

Most mornings I drove the coast road to work in Spiddal wrapped in silence or shock. The grief lived in my mouth like salt. (To this day I still have struggles with my mouth and tongue.) The car became like an altar — the only place I could fall apart and still arrive somewhere. A sacred place to hold my pain.

Then, when my body could bear something other than keening, I began to let the radio speak to me.

Marty Whelan’s morning show on Lyric FM became a soft landing for me— a voice that asked nothing of me. It was just music. Just morning. He has a sunny voice. Like my Isaac did- even his anme meant laughter.

Before that, I lived mostly inside songs that made me cry — Lianne La Havas especially — her voice was like water pushing against stone. She cracked me open when I was too numb to start. That’s why I bought a guitar, My first birthday after Isaac died. I remember deciding I would do it alone.

The first tiny thought of singing, of songwriting, came like a shy animal. Something in me was trying to live.

And then one morning — Marty played Woodbrook, a stunning song by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin.

It filled the car with lightness and curiousity it was devastating.

I cried again, but differently. Less like drowning — more like a controlled release.

Like the old medieval bleedings — not punishment, but remedy — letting the body survive itself.

Woodbrook carried hope, but she was hope with teeth —

soft-skinned, but biting, pulling me toward a future I didn’t yet know how to want.

Because hope after death is its own kind of grief.

To feel even a flicker of it is to admit the world keeps turning,

even when yours has stopped.

It frightened me — the thought of surviving.

There was guilt in that — survivor guilt, ordinary guilt,

the guilt of stepping one inch beyond the love that made you.

And still, something in me leaned toward it —

like riverwater reluctant but obedient to the sea.

So this poem I will share honors this confusion and curiousity-

my love still lives between Spillane’s lament and O’Súilleabháin’s movement.

Between the bellows-breath and the stream.

Where love is both honeyed and searing.

Where memory clings, and the body tries — trembling — to go on.

If you want to feel the poem the way it was born:

listen to Caoineadh Cú Chulainn first — sit by the wound, the ancient fire,

then Woodbrook, and feel how grief begins to move.

Between them is where my love lived.

Between them is where this poem came from.

Where she — and I — still linger.

My Love

My love lives between the world’s of

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and Davy Spillane

In pockets of memory

Journey’s such as ‘Woodbrook’ and

‘Caoineadh Cú Chulainn’.

My love dances me dizzyingly

resembling fingers that

Flit like hummingbirds on ebony and

Ivory keys

Or like elbows that squeeze solo breaths

From a leather lung

Sometimes full of sweetness

Honey searing pain, sticky, tasty

And unyielding

Almost addictive, she clings

With her scents of blossoms since withered

Cursed empty promises

Yet between the bellow breaths and complex harmonies

My love lingers.

When he lay in his dream state in Milford hospice I bargained with echoes of my feet threading the linoleum flooring. The days around his death were hot and bright, the kind of weather that makes the world look almost celebratory. I remember feeling betrayed by the sunlight. How could the sky stay blue when everything in me was collapsing? Days before I had been teaching in a summer camp- little children singing ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ to end the week for their parents and guardians. Such a joyful song, lulling me into a false confidence. Until I was leaning against a wall in a corridor facing a doctor who seemed to exaggerate each word- ‘Isaac’s not doing well.’ Her slight wince in the corner of her eyes I only understood later when walking to the funeral parlour.

Summer does not pause for grief. It has too much work to do for winter.

Oh the wintering- what a much needed and yet torturous sister.

And as Autumn crept toward its darker edge, I began my daily journey to my teaching job in Spiddal. I moved through those first days in a fog so thick I could hear my own heartbeat only after compulsive crying at the wheel.

Driving toward Connemara, toward a version of my life that no longer fit, felt like walking back into a house after a fire. The shape was the same, but nothing inside was intact. How would I face each child or colleague? Who would I be now? Where would my smile and bright eyes reside? How would I make room for something I had loved so long?

And then came the ritual.

I didn’t choose it.

It was compulsion in thought and deed. It was a spell, a covenant and a whisper all at once. Every morning I stopped my car in Furbo at the quay beside Pádraicín’s, pulled to the shoreline by something older and larger than logic. I couldn’t explain it, except to note that I couldn’t step into my day unless I first stood before the Atlantic.

And so I did.

Those mornings were not poetic or gentle. They were brutal. The winds were wild that year—gale-force, sideways, tearing at everything soft. The kind of wind that doesn’t blow around you, but through you. I stood there and let her take me apart. I needed it. I needed something to meet the force of the pain inside me. Sometimes I would climb on the wall face her or turn my back to her and brace for the impact. She kept her promises. She burned my skin- finger tips, cheeks, eyelids or hair follicles on my head. She had no mercy- she pulled my hair as if trying to remove my widow crown. I indulged her and often I walked close to the sea and indulged her too- letting her icy fingers claw my feet and ankles.

I did it.

I did it because the pain helped remind me I was alive.

Somehow it was the only real time my body didn’t feel trapped in a glass box in a time loop in the hospice. In those cruel moments I knew I was here now breathing, feeling.

Inside her raging embrace, I felt my numbness crack. My cheeks burned raw. Salt spray slapped my skin. The cold bit deep into my bones until I felt more present than I’d felt in weeks. It was as if the wild gales of that quay had appointed herself guardian of my grief—refusing to let me go silent, refusing to let me disappear into the shock that threatened to swallow me.

Some days, I swear she dragged me by my coat as if she was trying to pull the grief straight out of my sinews.

Other days she held me upright when my own legs forgot how.

I submitted to her completely.

It wasn’t surrender in the weak sense.

It was surrender like kneeling before something sacred and terrible.

The Atlantic did not soothe me. She did not console me.

She met me—fury for fury, curse for curse as she swallowed my ugliest screams.

And in that violent contact, something inside me stayed tethered to the world. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t understand how time kept moving. I didn’t understand how I was supposed to keep breathing when Isaac wasn’t. That shock lived in me like a second pulse, thudding under my skin. A borrowed heart causing havoc.

But the wind understood shock.

The sea understood suffering.

They didn’t ask me to be okay.

They didn’t ask me to perform or make sense.

They just tore at me, provoking anger and rage until I felt alive enough to walk into the day.

Epilogue:

The days passed, and summer came again and the winds softened but the love was engrained and Furbo and her wild companions became my sisters. Now we cry when we greet and then we breathe -

together.

Raging Seas

Elemental alchemy

As wind and sea meet

Both raging and swirling around my tired limbs

Icy fingers gripping my ankles

My shoulders pulled back

wailing stealing my attention

Breath out of step

Heart out of rhyme

-For a moment, we all freeze.

My eyes close

Drawing me back to my internal room

Sand losing her shape beneath me

feeling a fall I

reach out for my irascible sister

to appease her temper

She whips behind me

suddenly

-I am steady again.

My eyes unfurl slowly

I ken my feet

Lost in the Atlantic waters

Screaming wet gales

Upon my cheeks

my hair my tornado crown

unfettered

Inconstant

-Queens of the mist.

Night is where it finds me.

Not grief — but the remembering.

That sharp, electric fear that used to live beside Isaac’s bed, humming through the walls, waiting for alarms, tubes, sudden breaths that sounded wrong. Now it stills itself by day in my heart and bangs on those chambers at night.

Most of the worst moments of my life happened after dark.

And my body has trained diligently for it.

So now, in my somewhat settled and peaceful life, when the world goes to bed, something in me wakes up — like a guard who never got told the war was over.

It’s not a memory.

It’s not even a story iv retold myself.

It’s just my nervous system whispering, stay awake, stay alert, stay ready,

because once upon a time, love demanded that of me. When I try to over look it and reassure myself it screams irrational threats- and flashes red!

As I lie down to sleep, and a shock of anxiety rises like a tide with no moon to guide it.

My heart beats loud.

My chest feels tight.

My mind starts scanning the horizon of nothing.

Not because I believe something bad is coming — although it is screaming at me that there is-

but because my body remembers every night it almost did.

Many one nights occurred during the length of Isaac’s battle with cancer - many nights where he aspirated food in his lungs or choked. Or his body rejected treatments or the chemo decided to take more than the agreed price.

Those shocking unnatural threats witness at 35 are so damaging. The deep like gas into your fascia, linger and harden.

They make even a gentle stretch almost impossible. A breath in a chore!

Writing is the only place where the fear loosens its grip.

On the page I can spill it out slowly, in small breaths,

never more than I can hold, never more than my system can bear.

I write the truth in fragments.

I let it be messy, unpolished, half-prayer, half-memory.

I let the ink take the weight my body has carried for too long.

Some nights I write only a line.

Some nights just a word.

But each one is a thread I’m tugging loose from the tangle inside me.

I’m teaching my body a new language.

Teaching the night that it doesn’t have to be danger anymore. I don’t know yet if I am winning. I have begun to dream in Irish which I take as a positive omen. Yet the scariest nights can follow the sweetest dream in my native tongue. This is like waves in a raging ocean. Unforgiving and selfish.

Teaching myself that this darkness is not the same darkness I survived is a complex covenant.

I’m still grieving, yes.

But I’m also healing in quiet, almost invisible ways. Making deals with the ink on the page and swapping clear page for unseen unconscious revelations.

I play with the secrets.

Agreeing to try to learn that I don’t have to stay braced for impact.

Learning that safety grows slowly, like morning light —

soft at first, but steady.

And maybe this is my work now:

to hold the night gently,

and let it hold me back.

I watch Al Pacino movies,

study the glint, the charm in the crease of his eyes,

the way his lips alchemise into a familiar smile.

I watch Al Pacino movies,

observe his style, the leather jacket, I imagine the scent of

Patchouli oil and the pitch of its motion.

I misplace my breath,

joining in his emotions - storms

of joy or hurricanes of misery.

The silent roar with his daughter

The ardent torture of his exhale,

the loss of sentience as his soul forsakes him –

for her evolution, a Sicilian altocumulus.

In this moment-

I am no longer an occupier

of my avatar. I am stillness-

I am grief, woven into a quilt,

heavy and deceptively

nurturing. I sit as the credits roll,

thirteen years beyond the

wailing - bedside,

making sounds I still don’t-

recognise, and I don’t know

if I ever will.

When the hint of silver in

my dad’s eyes dimmed,

when his smile became a

mangled

tilt

of his jaw

beneath a mask

that breathed for him

as numbers

fell -

on

a

Saturday

in

January.

I watch Al Pacino movies,

I track his eyes, his smile, so familiar,

even the lean of his chin. His love,

joy and anger a balm. Messages in a bottle-

amongst the pearls of the sea -

and as I am tossed, I peer at my reflection and-

I see the charm of Pacino,

the love, and the alchemy-

I see Paul

.

It was a dark, cold night. The rain was so harsh as I fought my way against driving winds. Surviving and working in London was taking most of my energy as a single mom, and I had finally managed to remove myself from a dangerous relationship. The complexities of domestic abuse cast shadows no matter your address, and so I found myself booking therapy thinking my ex would attend. It started out as a “ Couples Therapy” of which I attended, he didn’t. Thank God! I had dashed from bus stop to tube station, and darted my way to a doorway in a part of London I was unfamiliar with. I was brought inside and after a few moments I was called into a room with a lady name Katherine. She was Scottish. I liked her instantly. We talked and I am sure I was incoherent, my thoughts and speech were racing. I made a comment about something that had happened to me. Something I had failed to earmark as having major importance. Katherine asked me to pause and said that she would pop that moment into a little box, pop it up high on an imaginary shelf, and would come back to it. I thought little of its significance and I carried on. As we came close to the end of the session she asked me if we could take down the ‘box’ from earlier and look into what had come up. I agreed.

I glowered with the rage for almost a full week. As Thursday came around again and I made my way back to the tube station to begin my pilgrimage I felt scared, my anger had given way to sadness. On the way home from that second session, I bought myself a journal to help me identify and separate my feelings from my ex’s. It was Katherine’s suggestion. It turned out she had years of experience working as a counsellor for victims of domestic abuse. She knew the signs! I began to look forward to my weekly meeting with myself in that chair very quickly. In between each session I wrote poems, songs, and angry letters. I romanced myself with tales of the good, the progress my son was making and even how much I enjoyed my job and my new friends. Early on in my therapy he did ask to join me, I brought it up with Katherine and she said it would be best to continue on my own for my six sessions and that we could discuss at the final session if I would like to set up couples therapy.

Session six came and I decided I didn’t need couples therapy after all. I didn’t get an easy clean break but, I kept writing my journal. I kept accessing new supports, struggling along, one difficult step at a time. Friends advice became invaluable. They modelled what safety looked like. I began writing more poetry. I started a piece once upon a time that began as a rejection of being pulled and dragged about which eventually was edited so heavily only this year for international women’s day that it became an ode to my inner child warrior. I give you my poem,

She

      I.

The mystery of my inner child astounds me

A lover of a cliff edge, with an angel on her shoulder

Pulled back from dismal ends by her rebellion

She builds paths over marshlands to avoid being swallowed

Biting her nails in her solitude, waiting for her cocoon,

To melt away the brokenness.

Twisting in the darkness

she calls on the voices of na mná draoithe

she has become a tapestry in reverse, and she is unravelling the old messages

Facing enmity with fierceness

This damsel, this fairy queen,

Faoi gheasa ag na crainn

Will be heralded by the winds of Éire

the Phoenix her spirit animal

she will burn to ash and rise again in full regalia

she will hold her wings out in splendour

recalling the gifts stolen from her over time

the gales will ferry her roar to the heavens, her tale will whip and burn,  

                                             II.

She is weaving in communion with the saints of the Magdalene mists,

With máthair Éire, is na bandéithe

waxing and waning with the moon

Their energy synergising, and claiming new life

shapeshifting like sister Morrigan,

ag dícheadal

She is me, she is you

She is sister she is mother

She is Muslim, she is traveller

She is immigrant , she is other

She is warrior beside you

Crying for peace

She is holding your hand

She is bearing her teeth

She is here for a long life

Or a love gone too soon

She is a waddling toddler

Or a spark in the womb

She is grandmother oak,

Goddess river Shannon

She is wind in the leaves

Or a wise old salmon

She’s the element you favour

When emotions are high

She is the sliver of silver

That falls from your eye

She’s all she is everywhere

So do not despair

She’s the enemy, the friend

She’s the fight we all share.

Finally if you need help reach out, Life can really be so beautitful if you can make it out of the dense fog xx

This photo was taken in December 2017, only a few months after the loss of my husband Isaac. Behind me are the beautiful windows of the Guildhall. A poignantly historic building which has seen much terror and much restoration.

So what was I doing in Derry December 2017 and why does Derry and the Guildhall inspire me so much?

Firstly I should say I have a son and that first Christmas after Isaac passed I didn’t want to decorate the house. However at the same time I didn’t want my son to suffer. I also couldn’t sit still. Grief was clawing me and scratching me in ways I didn’t want to admit. So movement was my tool of denial. So I hopped online and did some research and booked us a trip where we stayed in Belfast in the Crowne Plaza with all her Christmas wonder, and then to Derry for a few nights and back to Belfast again and home. Belfast is a beautiful city too and we loved being tourists and experiencing different things like the Titanic museum and shoe shopping. One thing me and my now grown son still have in common anyway! But as we took our leave of the grandness of the Plaza and urban jungle something began to stir in me.

As we began to nudge closer to the Sperrin’s I started to harass my son to take photos. I had never seen such snowcapped winterish mountains in my life and I wanted to just stop and stand there. The white blanket on the landscape was magical. Everything was covered. We drove passed The Ponderosa the highest pub in Ireland and vowed to come back. It was absolutely glorious. I felt small again, insignificant and somehow I needed that. Not to be in control of medicines, hospital visits, fighting with doctors or speaking to funeral directors. No walking into banks to close his accounts crying because someone is playing his favourite Ed Sheeran song outside the branch. This was glorious, the silence of snow and mightiness of the Sperrin’s.

It was just a warm up. My heart had been so tense in my chest for months that I needed this warm up God knew! We landed into Derry and got settled in the hotel. A few side eyes from my son as we had booked a less fancy hotel (note taken for next time lol). We headed off to explore and did a walking tour of the walls. I really recommend everyone do that. There is something so profound having a native of the city share their story. The next day we did a bit more exploring and I made time to visit the Guildhall. What a beautiful place. A profound space. There was this main room seen in the photo and the windows were absolutely stunning. However the tour guide explained how this building had suffered multiple tragedies throughout her life.

In 1908 she had been almost completely destroyed by a fire. Left standing was a rear quarter and her tower and in 1912 she was rebuilt. The organ present in the building was installed in 1914. However this building was a major focus during the troubles. The tour guide told me of the glass windows being destroyed due to bombs. In fact this building was so badly damaged in 1972 it took 1.7 million to rebuild her and repair her and she was not opened again until 1977. Five years. She has a grand history, hosting council meetings, plays, The Saville Enquiry into the troubles from 1998-2005. She was again privy to a major restoration project in 2010 which was completed in 2013 and cost 8 million.

When I visited in 2017 she was shining in her glory. However shadows of the past remained as protective clear sheets cover the windows from outside trigger a reminder of past hurt and pain. This doesn’t take away one bit from the gloriousness of these windows which were restored. Or the epic quality of her restoration.

I feel like the Guildhall myself in so many ways. PTSD has a way of crushing if you don’t invest in yourself and take time to restore yourself. The strength of the Guildhall and her beauty and her intense light give me so much courage even more as days pass. A powerful reminder that terrible troubles can come, that all can seem lost, that only the tower can remain and yet new life can be instilled in her again with proper guidance, expertise and care.

Today I felt a burst of light in my chest, a huge wave of gratitude for Derry city, for the Peace bridge, for the Guildhall, and most importantly for the people. I will return again to share more about the beauty and courage of Derry and her people. How they impact my grief story and my heart. Today I focus on how the Guildhall and the photo above teach me that we can recover, we can improve bit by bit, even slowly in stages. We don’t have to do it all at once and we don’t have to do it alone.

Grá mór

Amanda

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How are you all doing? So today I am doing my own reflection on this episode. Believe it or not the requests for me to speak is really something I didn't expect.

So what is coming up for me has been my personal journey about trying to create and maintain a morning routine. This episode I touch on habits that were created in the past and how that disconnected me from my body's call in the mornings to start the day right. I also speak on my thoughts in the impact this has on our body stress, cortisol and also some ideas we can use to build a better pathway to starting our day right.

I have a Q&A below where I would love to hear your suggestions for guests or topics. I will link the song in the intro below if you wish to listen it is my single 'We'll get used to it"

Have a blessed day

xx

https://open.spotify.com/track/2oJbwxfX5pbKHX9SCXsVII?si=3f5134b526324e36

TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT

Listen in to understand:

• What it means to be a holistic practitioner

• How Thabata works with her intuition

• What methods she uses as a healer

• How she came to be a healer

• How this work became part of her journey to authenticity

• How healing herself helps with her families healing

• How combining different elements of spiritual practices is not a disadvantage

• What are Thabata's feelings on compassion and forgiveness

• Where emotions can lodge in the body

• How true freedom comes from forgiveness

• How Thabata truly is a great ambassador for forgiveness

https://www.instagram.com/thabataholistic/

This week we have the beautiful Rebecca Houlihan with us. Rebecca Houlihan- aka BEX is an Irish born singer songwriter . When living In Australia she Co-wrote and preformed in Wisemams circus first album and cowrote their 3rd album with Australia's Blues Virtuoso Ben Chakravorty . BEX then went onto collaborating with Greek producer Kevin Sunray. They created Two melodic house and techno tracks which ended up topping the Beatport charts with single Voices at no 1 in electronica charts & no 12 in the Beatport top 100 releases. Currently in Barcelona she’s working with Producer Da Fabi from Green Music Studio who are collaborating on a saucy summer rnb track that will be released in the coming months.  Rebecca has met likeminded musicians and formed a Band called BEXX formally knows as Bex&D’Soultrain. BEXX are currently working on their EP which will release in five singles this year . The Band is formed with guitar and Bass sensationalists Lorenzo Spinozzi and Hernan Fridman , they are creating a mix of all things Neo soul ,rock and RNB .  Their influences are mixed between RHCP - Red hot chillie peppers, Eryka Badu, The long awaited songs are set to be filled with colourful emotional tones,texturised melodic melodys  & some seriously catchy hooks. Keep an eye out for this magic in 2023 .  

Listen in to hear:

How she adapted to the music scene after moving to Barcelona

Different Therapies she finds support in

Her perspective on self talk and self-care

How her Journey to Australia impacted her emotional stamina as an artist

How going big in Australia informed her practice on her return to Ireland

Why she believes everything happens for a reason

How she felt called to leave Ireland

How the band came together

How her journey to authenticity and recording her music came about

What she thinks about having a supportive partner

Her thoughts on having positive supporter as a young woman curious about the arts

Why we need supportive friends in the industry

You can follow her journey on Instagram. 

https://instagram.com/houlihanrebecca?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0SBecK1sp6fjF92Puwl2LU?si=DIX4QruSTj2vH4WfnMj3iw

This week we have the joy of sitting with Dora Gola and hearing her story as she navigates the world in a constant flux of duality, be that with Irish and Polish heritage, or her career as a vocal coach/artist mentor and her career as a singer songwriter, producer and performing artist.

Dora Gola- singer-songwriter, dancer, performing artist and vocal coach and artists' mentor. Born in Poland, raised in Ireland. Her music is a haunting journey of dark Electro-Pop, interwoven with elements of Slavic Folk, brooding synths, and lavish Eastern-Asian sounds with cinematic sound production. Dora’s powerful and sensual vocal draws the listener in, telling of the Earth’s consciousness and human longing. She expresses her songs through the medium of voice and dance. In 2022 Dora was announced as one of the hottest acts to emerge right now by Hot Press Magazine. She was also awarded the ‘Emerging Artist of the Year 2022’ by the Polish Ambassador. She headlined one of the best music venues in Ireland - Dolans, Monroe's Live and The Attic. She graduated with first-class honours with BA in Voice & Dance at the IWAMD and MA in Performance from UCC. Dora is one of the most exciting female acts to emerge in Ireland right now.

Listen in to discover:

Why we must be aware of how we balance assimilation and self acceptance

Why we need to cultivate space to protect our energy

Why energy exchange matters so much in the music industry

What different elements combine to make the sound we know of as Dora Gola

How intention and presence can impact the audience

How the Polish communities acceptance has informed Dora's practice or perspective

What are the biggest drivers in Dora's spiritual development

Considerations we must consider about our relationship with the earth

How we can integrate our inner child in our adult journey

https://www.doragola.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2fIz43VwJaZ8LcQsjG0IQ6?si=jouaxyZoSKugMUpwZCNfWA

https://www.instagram.com/doragola/?hl=en

Santiago is a 37 year old Argentinian illustrator, he moved to Ireland following his passion for researching many aspects of Irish culture and heritage, focusing mostly on medieval mythology, history, sociology and language. Writing articles and creating illustrations, he aims at making the facts we can known about Irish Studies as accessible as possible, while at the same time engaging with community projects regarding the sustainable stewardship of and access to both land and knowledge.

Listen in to discover :

How name and place can be a choice

How the seasons are a necessary affect

How a leap of faith isn't so scary when we accept there are no certainties

Learn about Santiago's relationship with ancient sites in Ireland, especially Loughcrew

His thoughts on modern approaches to shamanism and connection with the land

How Santiago makes our history, culture and mythology accessible to us

How the messages of our ancestors live within us and guide us

Learn about Dionysius the 'Foreigner' God and his place in Santiago's journey and perspective living here in Ireland

The Gaelic Woodland Project and the call to action

Why there is not much being done to get rid of invasive woodland species, not surprisingly its related to profits...

His connection with his own ancestors and the cry for home

Irishism's he now has the joy of learning to live with :)

https://www.instagram.com/seamus.draoigall/

https://www.instagram.com/deercun/

https://www.instagram.com/gaelicwoodlandproject/

Jenn, also known on socials as Seannafair is a shamanic intuitive guide, integration and shadow work mentor who has come today to talk about her journey to the truth and how the land has called to her.  If one word describes Jenn's journey to me it is her fearless surrender to the land and the acceptance of it's call on her. She has a six week online offering beginning March 3rd called 'Hearth', which is a deeply guided elemental journey through the self, soul and natural world. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cng12CQsen8/

Listen in to discover : 

How fear can affect the body 

How experimentation can bring in new dreams into our lives 

The gifts we receive when we stop trying to fit in with others and instead adapt to the elements 

How Jenn worked through her depression 

Why Jenn's faith is so strong 

How the land can be a saving grace if we let it 

The importance of symbolism and surrender 

Why Jenn reminds me of King Arthur 

How stillness supports our connection to nature and the animal kingdom

https://www.instagram.com/seanna_fair_/

We landed on the theme of fandom, and how listening to music and being a super fan can really herald some beautiful realisations and protections for music lovers.

Leah Shannon is a native of Ennis and grew up in a musical home, and attended a very musical school, Gaelscoil Mhichíl Cíosóg.  Her dad a drummer and she herself singing in the school choir and winning awards with Slógadh through the years, Leah has well understood from a young age the value in music but it takes on deeper significance when facing life's challenges.  If you want to hear some wise words from this young mom and music lover this is the episode for you!

This weeks episode considers the following:

Do listen in to hear how a musical home is a happy home?

How bands and artists can heal their listeners?

How songwriting can really impact us?

How themes and concepts can really open doors for people into new worlds?

How development of the artist as well as the music can positively influence people?

How we can all find our own ways to be musical?