On Listening to the Dream in the Dark.
The sky is a dome of light, tinged peach, tinged purple. Dawn is always forthcoming if we can ride the night out long enough. I wake up early and light a candle. It is the quite hour, before the world has turned and sleep still settles on the hills like an innocent child, dreaming still of a better world.
We all need a place to dream, and to rest. We need a place to make sense, gather resources, build the life, harvest the life. But that is coming. First the space for sleeping, then dreaming. First the dark.
November finds its rhythms in the dark hours. Light hatched only in sketches. It is in the dark where dreams are born, twisting around a body seeking its internal bear. To hibernate in today’s world of always on, always bright, where even the dark has been overshadowed by the commercial bling of Black Friday. How about:
Less Friday
Sleep Friday
A Friday to use up the last throws of the autumnal harvest before the need for more.
Dream Friday
Soon it will be the season of giving, of festivities, but for now still, this is the season for turning inwards, turning to the dream buried in the places only the dark can touch.
On the Work of Grief and Love (and the great mystery in the middle)
Take a deep breath. We have entered The Dark Times. This is a time and place when the already weak systems which hold things together begin not just to crack, but to fall apart. The bridges that united us are visibly failing. Across the ocean, a man so vile and so dangerous will continue to call for the infrastructure of our humanity to be torn apart. He will be tearing down rights: of access to healthcare, to travel, to democratic privileges, to any semblance of balanced judicial process. He will be dismantling freedoms too, of speech, of movement, of choice. It’s called misogyny. Soon it may more widely be called others things like fascism, violence, collapse. On this side of the ocean, I am grateful for the ocean, and that my own vote did not have to be in direct defence against such darkness.
Yet. Yet. For there is always yet.
Samhain Salon Spellbook
Samhain Salon spell book by participants of Clare Mulvany’s poetry salon.
Burren Winter School: A Story in Layers
Over the few days of the Winter School, I see the participants getting to know each other better, and being in this layered learning together. I can’t help but play with the landscape as metaphor too. The Winter School has become a haven in the fissures of our global fracture. Here are 22 participants gathering to pause, learn, regenerate. They represent 15 nationalities. There are singers and scientists, social entrepreneurs and sociologists. There is a medic from South Africa, a young family from Afghanistan. They are from Palestine, Cambodia, Nigeria, Japan, Germany, India, Ireland. They are all people who want to be part of writing a new story: This is Ireland. This is us.
A Winter Blessing
Under candlelight and flicker, guided by the spirit of poetry, and the tradition of Celtic Blessings, a group of Poetry Salon participants created a collective blessing for the world. In an act of daring, gentle beauty, as each participant was reading their line aloud, I imagined the ripple effect of their compassion and care spreading out, illuminating pathways through these dark times.
Below the blessing, with an invitation. What line would you add?
Here was ours, written on Winter Solstice, December 21st 2023, with participants from Ireland, UK, Spain, Portugal, US, Belgium and Switzerland
Letters from Clare
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